Romans 5

Notes

Ver. 1. Therefore, being thus justified by faith, we are received into peace, favour, and friendship with God, and enjoy a pleasant serenity of soul towards him, through the sacrifice, resurrection, and intercession of Christ. 2. By whom, as our Mediator, Peace-maker, and spiritual Husband, we, under the direction and influence of the Holy Ghost, have a free and open access into this excellent state of favour and acceptance with God, and into the actual enjoyment of all saving graces implanted in our heart; in which we, with great honour, stand on the sure foundation of God's perfections and promises, and of Christ's person, offices, and work, remaining firmly thereon, and rejoice in the assured hope that God will quickly and exceedingly manifest the glory of his own perfections, counsels, and operations, in making us partakers of the glorious and immediate enjoyment of himself: 3. In the exercise of which hope we triumph over and glory in all the distressing afflictions and persecutions which befall us in life, being persuaded, by the Word and Spirit of God, and our own observation and experience, that they are all wisely ordered, overruled, and blessed by God, to beget in us a calm submission to his will, and patient bearing of whatever hardships he thinks fit to lay upon us. 4. And this patience produces much useful experience and proof of the truth of our graces under trials, and of the emptiness of worldly things, and the excellency of things spiritual and heavenly; and of God's wise, powerful, and gracious care over us, and of his seasonably helping and supporting us, and sanctifying his providential dispensations to us.—And this experience contributes to wean our affections from the things of this world, and raise them to things above, and to encourage our hopes of their eternal enjoyment. 5. And this well grounded hope, we certainly know, will never shamefully disappoint us, as it rests on the compassion of God, abundantly manifested to our souls; and has an earnest of its fulfilment in that ardent love to God nurtured in them by the Holy Ghost, whom he has given to abide constantly in us, as our counsellor, comforter, and sanctifier, and as a witness and pledge of his full and constant love to us. 6. For when we were in the most sinful and miserable condition, utterly incapable of appeasing the wrath of God, or recovering ourselves from ruin and danger, nay, profanely unmindful of and contemning God, Jesus Christ, in the most proper season, when our guilt, wickedness, and need were increased to the highest, died for us impotent, wretched, and ungodly creatures. 7. Among men scarcely could any be found who would willingly sacrifice their life for the redemption of a harmless or upright man; and but few that would have enough of courage, gratitude, or friendship to do it for the sake of a public-spirited, bountiful man, who had been, and might continue to be, an uncommon blessing to his family, friends, and country. 8. But God has, in the most transcendent and astonishing manner, manifested his love towards us, in that while we were, by nature and practice, highly injurious to him and to one another, and justly condemned by his law to utter destruction, Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, according to his appointment, died a most accursed, tormenting, and shameful death, to secure our forgiveness and eternal life. 9. Now, if God so loved us when we were under the power and guilt of sin, much more may we hope that, having all our sins pardoned and our persons accepted, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we shall certainly be delivered from all punishment through faith in him. 10. For if, when we were not only weak, sinful, and ungodly, but even malicious enemies, rebels, and traitors against God, he had, in his Word and providence, and our own consciences, declared his just indignation against us, Jesus' obedience and suffering as our sacrifice for sin triumphantly opened a way for communicating his grace and favour to us, much more coming into a state of favour and friendship with God, shall we be actually delivered from all sin and misery, and advanced to perfect blessedness in the immediate and eternal enjoyment of God. 11. Having, then, these views, we not only rejoice in hope of receiving spiritual and eternal blessings from God, through a living faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who loved us and gave himself for us, who thus made it possible for us to be justified before God; by faith in whom, we, Jews or Gentiles, have now, under gospel discoveries, approved of, accepted, rested upon, and taken comfort in his sacrifice, as the only atoning sacrifice that can really redeem us from sin, and recommend us to the favour of God.—12. The fall of all mankind in the first Adam further proves the universal necessity and illustrates the nature of a free justification, through the great sacrifice of Christ, for both Jews and Gentiles; for sin by him, as our common parent and federal head, broke in upon all men, from his eating the forbidden fruit; his first sin opened the way, and this wilful, awful disobedience, and the corruption of nature attending it, being spread among them, and a sentence of death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, being passed upon them, because of sin, death, in all its hideous forms, in and through him as their public head, spread over all mankind, as persons descended from him. 13, 14. And it is manifest that, by virtue of some law, sin was charged, and its penalty inflicted, in the world before God gave the law to the Jewish nation by Moses. Nay, for 2500 years before, all along from Adam's fall, death, the inseparable attendant of sin, had reigned over mankind, cutting off one generation after another, leading men to the most outrageous acts of violence and bloodshed. Instead of pity and love, men were controlled by self-interest and hate. 15. But though Adam, as the federal head of his natural posterity, was a remarkable type of Jesus Christ, the gracious benefit which comes through the righteousness of the one is more than answerable to the mischievous effects of the first sin of the other; for if, through the sinful fall of a mere man, sentence of death was brought upon all his natural posterity as the just wages of his sin, much more must that God, who delighteth in mercy, cause his rich and undeserved favours and blessings to abound, through the glorious sacrifice of Christ, to all mankind, in bestowing upon them greater happiness than they lost by the fall. 16. And not only does the gracious favour of God, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, remove the guilt and curse of that one offence of Adam's eating the forbidden fruit, which brought the sentence of condemnation upon all mankind, but procures a complete forgiveness of that and innumerable other personal transgressions, and a full acceptance unto eternal life. 17. And therefore if, by the destructive fall of one mere man as their representative, death, in all its forms, has invaded, subdued, and exercised dominion over all men, through their natural connection with him, much more they who become partakers of the rich abundance of God's love and favour through Christ, and have his infinitely valuable sacrifice imparted to them, and are interested in all the superabundant blessings secured by it, shall enjoy a glorious freedom from sin and death, and reign honourably in grace and glory, in union to and in fellowship with Jesus Christ. 18. But notwithstanding such circumstantial differences, the manner of conveying Adam's guilt and Jesus' righteousness is the very same in substance; for as by one offence of Adam, sin, and through it condemnation to death, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, came upon all his natural posterity, so, by the righteousness of our one Mediator and Surety Jesus Christ, and by that alone, pardon of all sins, past, present, and to come, and an acceptance unto life, temporal, spiritual, and eternal, came to all who accepted Christ. 19. For as by the influences of Adam's sin of eating the forbidden fruit, all his natural posterity are legally charged with it, and so judicially constituted sinners, and being condemned as such, are brought under the punishment of an unholy and sinful nature, prone to all evil, so, by the impartation of Christ's holiness of nature, obedience of life, and sacrificial sufferings, all the world is put into such relations with God that it becomes possible for him to save all who believe in Christ. 20. For God never gave the law, moral or ceremonial, to mankind in expectation of their obtaining justification and life by it; but the covenant of work was made with Adam, and the entrance of sin was occasioned by it, as an intended mean of glorifying the exceeding riches of his grace; and the moral law was afterwards solemnly published, and the ceremonial established, in order to manifest the dreadful nature and effects of man's fall; but in his infinite, free, universal, and unparalleled love, favour, and mercy, God took occasion, from the extensive spread, outrageous prevalence, and high aggravations of sin, to exert and manifest the most illustrious, extensive, and superabounding power of his grace, in pardoning not only the first, but all transgressions, if only those who committed them would repent of their sins and trust in Christ. 21. That as sin, through the offence of Adam, had prevailed and cruelly tyrannized over mankind, triumphantly rendering them obnoxious to temporal, spiritual, and eternal death, so the free favour and mercy of God might prevail and triumph over sin, however powerful or aggravated, in pardoning and subduing it, and spreading abroad the blessings of salvation among sinful men, saving them through a life of faith to God here, and immediate and eternal enjoyment of him hereafter, through the sacrifice and by the mediation of Jesus Christ.

Ver. 4. Experience. Rather, 'proof,' such as metals undergo by chemical or mechanical tests, and by which their genuineness and purity are demonstrated.—Note, The real power of faith and the privileges of grace can never be thoroughly known till the hour of sickness, danger, losses, disappointments, bereavements, and sorrows. It is the night that reveals the real glories of the heavens. C.

Ver. 7. A righteous man. A man accused of some crime of which he is innocent is, as touching that point, 'a righteous man,' but in no other sense is any righteous (ch. 3. 10) unless by 'the righteousness of faith,' ch. 4. 13. C.

Ver. 11. Not only so. That is, not only shall we be saved from wrath to come, but we now joy in God himself, because we have a present salvation through his Son. C.

Ver. 12. For that, or, 'inasmuch as all have sinned'—that is, in Adam, 1 Co. 15. 22—'for Adam's sin was in a legal sense credited to his posterity as to himself' (R. Haldane). And if any sceptical objector ask, How could these things be so? it is replied, Was not Adam's life as truly the life of every one of his posterity as it was his own? Were not his posterity as truly in him when he received and violated the commandment of God, as Levi was in Abraham when he paid tithes to Melchisedec? These two facts must silence, even though they fail to convince, the sceptical philosopher or the erring Christian. C.

Ver. 14. Even over them, &c. That is, over infants, the only class who 'have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression;' that is, against a declared, known, and positive law, either revealed in words or written in the conscience. See Haldane.

Reflections.—Thrice happy is the state into which believers are brought by the gospel! A delightfully free justification, peace with God, spiritual establishment, comfort, and well-grounded hopes of eternal felicity, come to us through Jesus' person and blood. And all things amazingly work together for our spiritual and everlasting welfare. Transcendent and unbounded is the love of God manifested in Jesus' obedience and death for us, who were so unholy, wicked, and wretched. And certain and full is our everlasting salvation through him. Since all mankind are descended from Adam, who partook of the forbidden fruit and thereby brought his posterity under the condemnation of the law, God in his mercy gave his Son, who kept the law and thereby made it possible to save all who believe in Christ. And much greater and more effectual are the blessings brought in by Jesus, our new federal head, to all who believe, than all the loss and want entailed by Adam on his natural posterity. O my soul, contemplate, believe, admire, and share these glories, these blessings of redeeming grace!