Romans 5:12–17 Commentary – Adam, Christ, and the Two Headships
Adam, Christ, and the Two Headships
Key Passage: Romans 5:12–17
Romans VerseQuest Commentary Essay 34: Adam, Christ, and the Two Headships Text: Romans 5:12–17
Introduction
Romans 5:12–17 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)” Paul now reaches back beyond Abraham, beyond Moses, beyond Sinai, beyond Israel, beyond the flood, and beyond every human government to the first man standing in Eden. He traces the river of death to its polluted spring. Sin did not ooze into the world gradually through poor education, bad economics, defective politics, cultural misunderstanding, or an unfortunate shortage of social programs. Sin entered through one man, and death followed it through the door.
This passage introduces one of the greatest doctrinal contrasts in all Scripture: Adam and Christ. Adam is the head of the natural creation; Christ is the Head of the new creation. Adam brought sin, condemnation, death, and ruin. Christ brings grace, justification, righteousness, and life. Adam stood in a garden surrounded by provision and disobeyed. Christ stood in a wilderness surrounded by temptation and obeyed. Adam reached for a forbidden tree and brought death. Christ was nailed to a cursed tree and brought life. Adam listened to the woman and rejected God’s word. Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it according to God’s will. The first man dragged his descendants into a grave he had opened. The second Man entered the grave, broke its lock, and came out holding the keys.
The doctrine here is not merely that Adam set a bad example and Jesus set a better one. That is the thin broth served by religious modernism after it has boiled every supernatural truth out of the Bible. Paul is teaching headship, representation, imputation, condemnation, and justification. Humanity stands under one of two heads. A man is either in Adam by natural birth or in Christ by the new birth. He either inherits the ruin of the first man or receives the righteousness of the second Man. He is not floating spiritually between the two, waiting to see whether his morality earns him a transfer. The issue is not whether he admires Adam less and Jesus more. The issue is where God sees him standing. All men enter the world in Adam. Only those who receive the gift of righteousness stand in Christ.
Chapter One: By One Man Sin Entered Into the World
Paul begins, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world.” Sin had existed in the universe before Adam sinned, for Satan was already fallen when he appeared in Eden. But sin entered the human world through Adam. The serpent deceived Eve, but Romans 5 lays the responsibility upon “one man.” First Timothy 2:14 says, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Eve was deceived; Adam knowingly transgressed. He stood as the representative head of the human race and chose rebellion with his eyes open. The first human government collapsed before it had collected its first tax.
Adam’s act was not a harmless dietary mistake. God had said in Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.” One clear command stood between man and rebellion. There were not six hundred regulations, a complicated priesthood, annual ceremonies, ceremonial washings, or disputed interpretations. God said, “Do not eat.” Adam ate. Sin always begins by treating God’s word as negotiable. The serpent asked, “Yea, hath God said?” and every apostasy since Eden has worn the same cologne. Change what God said, question why He said it, improve what He said, spiritualize what He said, and finally disobey what He said.
Sin “entered” as an invader entering a kingdom. It brought guilt into conscience, corruption into nature, disorder into creation, shame into marriage, pain into childbirth, thorns into the ground, sweat into labour, violence into society, and death into the body. Adam opened one door and invited an army inside. Men still treat sin as though it were a pet that can be kept in the backyard, fed occasionally, and trained not to bite the children. Sin is not domesticated rebellion. It is a king-killing poison. Adam took one bite, and cemeteries began filling before history had finished its first family album.
Chapter Two: Death by Sin
Paul continues, “and death by sin.” Death is not presented as a natural stage in human evolution, a useful biological mechanism, or the harmless recycling program of nature. Death is the consequence of sin. God told Adam, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Adam died spiritually the moment he sinned, began dying physically, and came under the sentence of eternal separation from God. Death entered because sin entered. The corpse is the visible receipt sin leaves behind.
Modern man tries to normalize death because he cannot conquer it. He calls it natural, speaks softly around it, covers it with flowers, applies cosmetics to the body, lowers the lights, plays sentimental music, and says the deceased has passed into memory. But Scripture calls death “the last enemy” in 1 Corinthians 15:26. An undertaker can improve the appearance of death; he cannot change its identity. Philosophers can discuss it, poets can decorate it, scientists can delay it, and politicians can regulate what happens afterward, but none of them can command a dead man to come out of the grave. Humanity boasts of conquering space while every astronaut still travels with death in his bloodstream.
Death came “by sin,” which means every graveyard preaches a sermon on the holiness of God and the seriousness of rebellion. The old do not die merely because their machinery wore out. Infants do not die because they personally repeated Adam’s exact offence. Death reigns because humanity stands beneath the consequences of the first man’s fall. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death.” Wages are earned. Every funeral reminds the world that sin pays on time. The devil advertises sin’s pleasures in bright colours and prints its wages in letters small enough to require eternity to read.
Chapter Three: Death Passed Upon All Men
Paul says, “and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Adam’s sin did not remain a private matter confined to one garden. Death passed through the whole race. Every descendant of Adam is born with a mortal body, a fallen nature, and an inward bent toward sin. No parent has to teach a child selfishness, dishonesty, anger, rebellion, or possessiveness. Those lessons arrive preinstalled. A child must be taught to share, tell the truth, obey, apologise, and restrain himself. Human nature does not need corruption lessons. It comes from the factory with Adam’s fingerprints on it.
“For that all have sinned” includes both humanity’s participation in Adam’s headship and every individual’s personal confirmation of that fallen condition. Men sin because they are sinners, and they prove they are sinners by sinning. The apple tree bears apples because it is an apple tree. It does not become an apple tree after producing its first apple. Likewise, a man’s sinful acts reveal the nature inherited through Adam. Psalm 51:5 says, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David was not accusing his mother of immorality. He was confessing that corruption reaches back to conception.
This does not make God unjust. Adam did not represent a race that would have done better if each member had received a private garden and an individual tree. Every man eventually repeats Adam’s principle of rebellion in his own form. One worships money, another appetite, another intellect, another religion, another reputation, another body, and another rebellion itself. Men complain that Adam represented them while electing politicians to represent them after hearing campaign promises for six months. Adam had one command, a perfect environment, an unfallen mind, direct fellowship with God, and no inherited depravity—and still fell. The rest of us arrive with his nature and then spend our lives proving the family resemblance.
Chapter Four: Death Reigned From Adam to Moses
Paul inserts an explanation: “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Sin existed before Sinai. Cain murdered Abel centuries before Moses received, “Thou shalt not kill.” The flood came because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” Sodom burned before the law was written on stone. Men were guilty under conscience and under the revelation God had given them, even though they were not transgressing the Mosaic code. The law did not create sin. It identified, exposed, and officially charged it.
“Sin is not imputed when there is no law” does not mean no one before Moses was guilty or judged. It means sin is not charged as a violation of a specific command where that specific command has not been given. Romans 4:15 says, “for where no law is, there is no transgression.” A transgression is the crossing of a clearly marked boundary. Sin existed, but the Mosaic law had not yet defined and itemised Israel’s offences in covenant form. Men still violated conscience, rejected revelation, practised violence, and rebelled against God. The flood proves God was not applauding the pre-Mosaic world for operating outside Sinai’s jurisdiction.
Paul then says, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses.” That “nevertheless” closes the escape hatch. Even without the Mosaic law, death continued ruling. Adam died. Seth died. Enos died. Cainan died. Mahalaleel died. Jared died. Methuselah died. Lamech died. Genesis 5 tolls like a funeral bell: “and he died… and he died… and he died.” Men living before Moses did not escape death merely because the Ten Commandments had not yet been engraved. Death’s reign proved that Adam’s offence had affected the race before Sinai ever smoked.
Chapter Five: Adam, the Figure of Him That Was to Come
Paul says death reigned “even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” Not every person sinned exactly as Adam sinned. Adam violated a direct, personally spoken prohibition while standing in innocence as the head of humanity. Infants die though they have not consciously repeated that offence. People before Moses died though they had not broken the command given in Eden. Death’s universal reign shows that more is involved than the sum of individual actions. Humanity is connected to Adam’s representative act.
Adam is then called “the figure of him that was to come.” The one to come is Jesus Christ. Adam is a type of Christ, not because his character resembled Christ’s after the fall, but because each man stands as a representative head whose action affects those identified with him. First Corinthians 15:45 says, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Verse 47 adds, “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” Adam and Christ are two heads, two men, two sources, and two destinies.
The parallels are real, but the contrasts are greater. Adam was made in God’s image; Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” Adam received life; Christ gives life. Adam was placed in a garden; Christ was buried in a garden. Adam brought condemnation through disobedience; Christ brought justification through obedience. Adam hid among trees after sinning; Christ hung openly upon a tree while bearing sin. Adam blamed his bride; Christ bore the blame of His Bride. Adam’s act spread ruin to those born into him; Christ’s act brings righteousness to those born again into Him. The first man turned paradise into a graveyard. The second Man turned a graveyard into the doorway of paradise.
Chapter Six: Not as the Offence, So Also Is the Free Gift
Paul writes, “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.” Adam and Christ stand in comparison, but grace is not merely equal to the offence. The free gift does not crawl behind Adam’s ruin trying to repair enough damage to make history tolerable. Grace exceeds the offence. Paul says, “For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God.” Those words “much more” appear again because Christ does not merely restore what Adam lost. He brings believers into a standing, relationship, and destiny far beyond unfallen life in Eden.
Adam possessed innocence, but the believer receives imputed righteousness. Adam stood in an earthly garden, but the believer is blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Adam could fall, but the believer is sealed “unto the day of redemption.” Adam was a creature made in God’s image; the believer is joined to Christ, made a member of His Body, and destined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. Grace does not simply drag the wrecked automobile back to the factory and restore its original paint. It gives the believer a position Adam never possessed before his fall.
Paul calls it “the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ.” Salvation is a gift because sinners cannot earn it, purchase it, merit it, repay it, or maintain it by personal worthiness. Romans 6:23 contrasts wages and gift: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Wages are owed. Gifts are received. Religion spends centuries turning God’s gift into a payment plan, adding initiation fees, maintenance charges, sacramental instalments, and a final bill due at death. Paul keeps writing “gift” while religion keeps printing invoices.
Chapter Seven: From Condemnation to Reigning in Life
Paul says, “And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.” Adam’s one offence brought judgment to condemnation. Christ’s free gift answers not merely one offence but “many offences.” Every believer arrives with Adam’s condemnation and an enormous personal record of sin. Christ’s righteousness does not merely address the inherited ruin while leaving personal guilt unpaid. The free gift reaches across a lifetime of offences and brings justification.
Notice the strength of the contrast. One offence brought condemnation; the free gift handles many offences and produces justification. One man’s act opened the courtroom against humanity; one Man’s finished work provides a righteous verdict for every believer. Christ did not die for an abstract concept called sin while leaving individual sins waiting for payment. Colossians 2:13 says God has “forgiven you all trespasses.” The blood does not cover only the respectable sins a believer remembers to confess before bedtime. The sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for the entire judicial record of the one who trusts Him.
Paul concludes, “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” Under Adam, death reigns. In Christ, believers reign in life. The verse does not say everyone automatically receives the gift. It identifies “they which receive.” Grace is abundant, righteousness is offered as a gift, and Christ’s work is sufficient, but the sinner must receive it by faith. John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” Men do not escape Adam by admiring Christ. They escape Adam by receiving Christ.
Conclusion
Romans 5:12–17 explains the human race through two representative men. By Adam, sin entered the world and death came by sin. Death passed upon all men because all stand connected with Adam’s fall and personally demonstrate the corruption inherited from him. Before Moses, sin existed and death reigned. Sinai did not create the disease; it placed a divine label on it. Adam’s disobedience brought judgment, condemnation, and death to his descendants. The first headship explains why every cradle eventually points toward a grave unless Christ intervenes.
But Adam is only “the figure of him that was to come.” Jesus Christ is the last Adam, the second Man, and the Head of a new creation. Where Adam’s offence brought death, Christ’s grace abounds much more. Where Adam brought condemnation, Christ brings justification. Where Adam passed down corruption, Christ gives righteousness. Where death reigned through the first man, believers shall reign in life by the second Man. Grace does not merely match the damage. It overwhelms it. Adam opened the wound; Christ supplied the blood that closes it forever.
Every person therefore stands under one of two headships. Natural birth places a man in Adam. The new birth places the believer in Christ. In Adam, there is sin, condemnation, corruption, and death. In Christ, there is righteousness, justification, grace, and life. No church membership, moral improvement, religious ceremony, family tradition, or theological education can transfer a sinner from one head to the other. That transfer occurs when the sinner receives the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Adam’s family tree ends in a cemetery. Christ’s family tree ends in glory.
Romans 5:12–17 Commentary – Adam, Christ, and the Two Headships
Adam, Christ, and the Two Headships
Key Passage: Romans 5:12–17
Romans VerseQuest Commentary
Essay 34: Adam, Christ, and the Two Headships
Text: Romans 5:12–17
Introduction
Romans 5:12–17 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)” Paul now reaches back beyond Abraham, beyond Moses, beyond Sinai, beyond Israel, beyond the flood, and beyond every human government to the first man standing in Eden. He traces the river of death to its polluted spring. Sin did not ooze into the world gradually through poor education, bad economics, defective politics, cultural misunderstanding, or an unfortunate shortage of social programs. Sin entered through one man, and death followed it through the door.
This passage introduces one of the greatest doctrinal contrasts in all Scripture: Adam and Christ. Adam is the head of the natural creation; Christ is the Head of the new creation. Adam brought sin, condemnation, death, and ruin. Christ brings grace, justification, righteousness, and life. Adam stood in a garden surrounded by provision and disobeyed. Christ stood in a wilderness surrounded by temptation and obeyed. Adam reached for a forbidden tree and brought death. Christ was nailed to a cursed tree and brought life. Adam listened to the woman and rejected God’s word. Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it according to God’s will. The first man dragged his descendants into a grave he had opened. The second Man entered the grave, broke its lock, and came out holding the keys.
The doctrine here is not merely that Adam set a bad example and Jesus set a better one. That is the thin broth served by religious modernism after it has boiled every supernatural truth out of the Bible. Paul is teaching headship, representation, imputation, condemnation, and justification. Humanity stands under one of two heads. A man is either in Adam by natural birth or in Christ by the new birth. He either inherits the ruin of the first man or receives the righteousness of the second Man. He is not floating spiritually between the two, waiting to see whether his morality earns him a transfer. The issue is not whether he admires Adam less and Jesus more. The issue is where God sees him standing. All men enter the world in Adam. Only those who receive the gift of righteousness stand in Christ.
Chapter One: By One Man Sin Entered Into the World
Paul begins, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world.” Sin had existed in the universe before Adam sinned, for Satan was already fallen when he appeared in Eden. But sin entered the human world through Adam. The serpent deceived Eve, but Romans 5 lays the responsibility upon “one man.” First Timothy 2:14 says, “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” Eve was deceived; Adam knowingly transgressed. He stood as the representative head of the human race and chose rebellion with his eyes open. The first human government collapsed before it had collected its first tax.
Adam’s act was not a harmless dietary mistake. God had said in Genesis 2:17, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it.” One clear command stood between man and rebellion. There were not six hundred regulations, a complicated priesthood, annual ceremonies, ceremonial washings, or disputed interpretations. God said, “Do not eat.” Adam ate. Sin always begins by treating God’s word as negotiable. The serpent asked, “Yea, hath God said?” and every apostasy since Eden has worn the same cologne. Change what God said, question why He said it, improve what He said, spiritualize what He said, and finally disobey what He said.
Sin “entered” as an invader entering a kingdom. It brought guilt into conscience, corruption into nature, disorder into creation, shame into marriage, pain into childbirth, thorns into the ground, sweat into labour, violence into society, and death into the body. Adam opened one door and invited an army inside. Men still treat sin as though it were a pet that can be kept in the backyard, fed occasionally, and trained not to bite the children. Sin is not domesticated rebellion. It is a king-killing poison. Adam took one bite, and cemeteries began filling before history had finished its first family album.
Chapter Two: Death by Sin
Paul continues, “and death by sin.” Death is not presented as a natural stage in human evolution, a useful biological mechanism, or the harmless recycling program of nature. Death is the consequence of sin. God told Adam, “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Adam died spiritually the moment he sinned, began dying physically, and came under the sentence of eternal separation from God. Death entered because sin entered. The corpse is the visible receipt sin leaves behind.
Modern man tries to normalize death because he cannot conquer it. He calls it natural, speaks softly around it, covers it with flowers, applies cosmetics to the body, lowers the lights, plays sentimental music, and says the deceased has passed into memory. But Scripture calls death “the last enemy” in 1 Corinthians 15:26. An undertaker can improve the appearance of death; he cannot change its identity. Philosophers can discuss it, poets can decorate it, scientists can delay it, and politicians can regulate what happens afterward, but none of them can command a dead man to come out of the grave. Humanity boasts of conquering space while every astronaut still travels with death in his bloodstream.
Death came “by sin,” which means every graveyard preaches a sermon on the holiness of God and the seriousness of rebellion. The old do not die merely because their machinery wore out. Infants do not die because they personally repeated Adam’s exact offence. Death reigns because humanity stands beneath the consequences of the first man’s fall. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death.” Wages are earned. Every funeral reminds the world that sin pays on time. The devil advertises sin’s pleasures in bright colours and prints its wages in letters small enough to require eternity to read.
Chapter Three: Death Passed Upon All Men
Paul says, “and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” Adam’s sin did not remain a private matter confined to one garden. Death passed through the whole race. Every descendant of Adam is born with a mortal body, a fallen nature, and an inward bent toward sin. No parent has to teach a child selfishness, dishonesty, anger, rebellion, or possessiveness. Those lessons arrive preinstalled. A child must be taught to share, tell the truth, obey, apologise, and restrain himself. Human nature does not need corruption lessons. It comes from the factory with Adam’s fingerprints on it.
“For that all have sinned” includes both humanity’s participation in Adam’s headship and every individual’s personal confirmation of that fallen condition. Men sin because they are sinners, and they prove they are sinners by sinning. The apple tree bears apples because it is an apple tree. It does not become an apple tree after producing its first apple. Likewise, a man’s sinful acts reveal the nature inherited through Adam. Psalm 51:5 says, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.” David was not accusing his mother of immorality. He was confessing that corruption reaches back to conception.
This does not make God unjust. Adam did not represent a race that would have done better if each member had received a private garden and an individual tree. Every man eventually repeats Adam’s principle of rebellion in his own form. One worships money, another appetite, another intellect, another religion, another reputation, another body, and another rebellion itself. Men complain that Adam represented them while electing politicians to represent them after hearing campaign promises for six months. Adam had one command, a perfect environment, an unfallen mind, direct fellowship with God, and no inherited depravity—and still fell. The rest of us arrive with his nature and then spend our lives proving the family resemblance.
Chapter Four: Death Reigned From Adam to Moses
Paul inserts an explanation: “For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.” Sin existed before Sinai. Cain murdered Abel centuries before Moses received, “Thou shalt not kill.” The flood came because “the wickedness of man was great in the earth.” Sodom burned before the law was written on stone. Men were guilty under conscience and under the revelation God had given them, even though they were not transgressing the Mosaic code. The law did not create sin. It identified, exposed, and officially charged it.
“Sin is not imputed when there is no law” does not mean no one before Moses was guilty or judged. It means sin is not charged as a violation of a specific command where that specific command has not been given. Romans 4:15 says, “for where no law is, there is no transgression.” A transgression is the crossing of a clearly marked boundary. Sin existed, but the Mosaic law had not yet defined and itemised Israel’s offences in covenant form. Men still violated conscience, rejected revelation, practised violence, and rebelled against God. The flood proves God was not applauding the pre-Mosaic world for operating outside Sinai’s jurisdiction.
Paul then says, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses.” That “nevertheless” closes the escape hatch. Even without the Mosaic law, death continued ruling. Adam died. Seth died. Enos died. Cainan died. Mahalaleel died. Jared died. Methuselah died. Lamech died. Genesis 5 tolls like a funeral bell: “and he died… and he died… and he died.” Men living before Moses did not escape death merely because the Ten Commandments had not yet been engraved. Death’s reign proved that Adam’s offence had affected the race before Sinai ever smoked.
Chapter Five: Adam, the Figure of Him That Was to Come
Paul says death reigned “even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” Not every person sinned exactly as Adam sinned. Adam violated a direct, personally spoken prohibition while standing in innocence as the head of humanity. Infants die though they have not consciously repeated that offence. People before Moses died though they had not broken the command given in Eden. Death’s universal reign shows that more is involved than the sum of individual actions. Humanity is connected to Adam’s representative act.
Adam is then called “the figure of him that was to come.” The one to come is Jesus Christ. Adam is a type of Christ, not because his character resembled Christ’s after the fall, but because each man stands as a representative head whose action affects those identified with him. First Corinthians 15:45 says, “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.” Verse 47 adds, “The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” Adam and Christ are two heads, two men, two sources, and two destinies.
The parallels are real, but the contrasts are greater. Adam was made in God’s image; Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” Adam received life; Christ gives life. Adam was placed in a garden; Christ was buried in a garden. Adam brought condemnation through disobedience; Christ brought justification through obedience. Adam hid among trees after sinning; Christ hung openly upon a tree while bearing sin. Adam blamed his bride; Christ bore the blame of His Bride. Adam’s act spread ruin to those born into him; Christ’s act brings righteousness to those born again into Him. The first man turned paradise into a graveyard. The second Man turned a graveyard into the doorway of paradise.
Chapter Six: Not as the Offence, So Also Is the Free Gift
Paul writes, “But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.” Adam and Christ stand in comparison, but grace is not merely equal to the offence. The free gift does not crawl behind Adam’s ruin trying to repair enough damage to make history tolerable. Grace exceeds the offence. Paul says, “For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God.” Those words “much more” appear again because Christ does not merely restore what Adam lost. He brings believers into a standing, relationship, and destiny far beyond unfallen life in Eden.
Adam possessed innocence, but the believer receives imputed righteousness. Adam stood in an earthly garden, but the believer is blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Adam could fall, but the believer is sealed “unto the day of redemption.” Adam was a creature made in God’s image; the believer is joined to Christ, made a member of His Body, and destined to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. Grace does not simply drag the wrecked automobile back to the factory and restore its original paint. It gives the believer a position Adam never possessed before his fall.
Paul calls it “the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ.” Salvation is a gift because sinners cannot earn it, purchase it, merit it, repay it, or maintain it by personal worthiness. Romans 6:23 contrasts wages and gift: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Wages are owed. Gifts are received. Religion spends centuries turning God’s gift into a payment plan, adding initiation fees, maintenance charges, sacramental instalments, and a final bill due at death. Paul keeps writing “gift” while religion keeps printing invoices.
Chapter Seven: From Condemnation to Reigning in Life
Paul says, “And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.” Adam’s one offence brought judgment to condemnation. Christ’s free gift answers not merely one offence but “many offences.” Every believer arrives with Adam’s condemnation and an enormous personal record of sin. Christ’s righteousness does not merely address the inherited ruin while leaving personal guilt unpaid. The free gift reaches across a lifetime of offences and brings justification.
Notice the strength of the contrast. One offence brought condemnation; the free gift handles many offences and produces justification. One man’s act opened the courtroom against humanity; one Man’s finished work provides a righteous verdict for every believer. Christ did not die for an abstract concept called sin while leaving individual sins waiting for payment. Colossians 2:13 says God has “forgiven you all trespasses.” The blood does not cover only the respectable sins a believer remembers to confess before bedtime. The sacrifice of Christ is sufficient for the entire judicial record of the one who trusts Him.
Paul concludes, “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” Under Adam, death reigns. In Christ, believers reign in life. The verse does not say everyone automatically receives the gift. It identifies “they which receive.” Grace is abundant, righteousness is offered as a gift, and Christ’s work is sufficient, but the sinner must receive it by faith. John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” Men do not escape Adam by admiring Christ. They escape Adam by receiving Christ.
Conclusion
Romans 5:12–17 explains the human race through two representative men. By Adam, sin entered the world and death came by sin. Death passed upon all men because all stand connected with Adam’s fall and personally demonstrate the corruption inherited from him. Before Moses, sin existed and death reigned. Sinai did not create the disease; it placed a divine label on it. Adam’s disobedience brought judgment, condemnation, and death to his descendants. The first headship explains why every cradle eventually points toward a grave unless Christ intervenes.
But Adam is only “the figure of him that was to come.” Jesus Christ is the last Adam, the second Man, and the Head of a new creation. Where Adam’s offence brought death, Christ’s grace abounds much more. Where Adam brought condemnation, Christ brings justification. Where Adam passed down corruption, Christ gives righteousness. Where death reigned through the first man, believers shall reign in life by the second Man. Grace does not merely match the damage. It overwhelms it. Adam opened the wound; Christ supplied the blood that closes it forever.
Every person therefore stands under one of two headships. Natural birth places a man in Adam. The new birth places the believer in Christ. In Adam, there is sin, condemnation, corruption, and death. In Christ, there is righteousness, justification, grace, and life. No church membership, moral improvement, religious ceremony, family tradition, or theological education can transfer a sinner from one head to the other. That transfer occurs when the sinner receives the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ. Adam’s family tree ends in a cemetery. Christ’s family tree ends in glory.
Romans Verse-by-Verse Commentary
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