Grace Reigns!

Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:  That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.  (Romans 5:20-21)

At least for most Bible readers, the fifth chapter of Romans is not the easiest chapter in the Bible to read and to understand.  However, the two closing verses are delightfully clear and understandable.  While I find many passages in the Bible that challenge and far exceed my ability to understand, I am often gratified to discover a pattern in Scripture that appears in this chapter.  After a difficult passage, the inspired writers often punctuate the passage with a summary statement that is simply stated and thus easy to understand.  I believe that is the case with this lesson.  The two verses before us merely restate the content of the chapter in simple and comforting terms.

Often in contemporary pulpits people are told that God has many ways of saving people.  Often those in teaching leadership will defend this statement by alleging that God saved people before the cross by their keeping the Law of Moses.  According to Paul in Galatians (2:21 and 3:21 as just two concise statements that specifically refute such a claim), no one was ever saved by keeping the law.  In fact in the two referenced verses Paul affirms that salvation by keeping the Law was-and is-impossible!

What did the Law of Moses accomplish?  What was its divine purpose?  Based on Paul's writings as well as other Scripture, God never designed the Law to give spiritual or eternal life.  Here Paul affirms that a primary objective of the Law was to manifest sin in humanity.  I believe that Scripture teaches that even fallen humanity retains some sense of right and wrong.  However, without God's Law revealed and given to humanity, man would reveal his pride and deny his sinfulness altogether.  Thus Paul affirms, Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound.  He affirmed in Romans 3:20 that by the law is the knowledge of sin.

In other passages in the Galatian letter Paul affirmed that the Law of Moses served as a "school master," an instructor to teach young children and grow them to maturity.  I believe Paul in this analogy taught that Moses' Law pointed God's Old Testament people to a sinless Messiah.  In terms of the priestly tenets of Moses' Law it also pointed the Old Testament people of God to the coming eternal priest who would eliminate those multiple animal sacrifices by accomplishing in a single sacrifice what all of the sacrifices under the Law failed to accomplish.

Paul reminds us of the Law's presence and function, but our study passage directs us to God's true remedy for sin.  Bible respecting Christians have the information available to them, if they would use it, to know that God provided a remedy for sin in the Lord Jesus Christ, not in Moses' Law or in any other institution given to humanity.  But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound…."

Occasionally those who hold to universal salvation, the belief that eventually all of humanity shall be saved, will appeal to this passage as supposedly supporting their doctrine.  In the greater context of Romans fifth chapter they wrest the passage out of its setting and pour an errant meaning into it that cannot be supported by Scripture.

In these verses Paul specifically affirms that the reign of grace will only culminate in victory, in …eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.  We may then ask a logical question.  What kind of death does Paul have in mind in this chapter?  In Verse twenty one Paul sets "eternal life" that is caused by God's grace through Jesus Christ in contrast with death that inevitably follows the reign of sin.  Logically it follows that if he is dealing with spiritual and eternal life, he is also dealing with spiritual and eternal death.  Someone might ask, "But doesn't sin cause physical death?"  Of course it does, and Paul specifically deals with that aspect of sin in First Corinthians fifteenth chapter.  Here he seems to be dealing with the spiritual, eternal implications of sin, although in Romans 5:14 he does address physical death.  Clearly the two consequences of sin are linked; it produces both physical and spiritual death.

When Paul deals specifically with our salvation by God's grace alone in the second chapter of Ephesians, he uses the analogy of spiritual death as the beginning point, And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins…. (Ephesians 2:1)

To what extent does the grace of God in Jesus go?  Does His saving grace apply to all humanity?  Does it apply only provisionally, leaving the final salvation decision up to the individual person?  Or does it apply efficiently and effectually only to the elect?  Considering Paul's extensive discussion of federal headship in this chapter, I believe that Paul is affirming the following:

1. Grace reigns victoriously.  God's grace doesn't merely leave salvation open and possible to humanity.  Grace doesn't propose to reign with the permission of fallen humanity. Grace reigns!  And its reign is not defeated by human decisions or actions.  Its reign only ends in success, eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

2. Grace reigns decisively.  Its culmination shall surely end only with eternal life.

3. Grace reigns by God's power, not by man's.  Grace's reign is not by man's decision or will, but by Jesus Christ our Lord.

4. Grace reigns exclusively.  Paul does not place human decisions or good works on the throne with grace.  Grace sits on the throne alone.

5. Grace reigns apart from human agency.  Paul does not tell us that we must coronate grace.  Grace reigns apart from human assistance.

Below is a quote from the pen of the respected Puritan preacher/author John Owen, taken from his book entitled The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Book One. This quote appears at the end of the third chapter.).

“To which I may add this dilemma to our Universalists:--God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins of some men, or some sins of all men. If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved; for if God enter into judgment with us, though it were with all mankind for one sin, no flesh should be justified in his sight: "If the LORD should mark iniquities, who should stand?" Ps.130:3. We might all go to cast all that we have "to the moles and to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty," Isa. 2:20, 21. If the second, that is it which we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world. If the first, why, then, an not all freed from the punishment of all their sins? You will say, "Because of their unbelief, they will not believe." But this unbelief, is it a sin or not? If not, why should they be punished for it? If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not. If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death? If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins. Let them choose which part they will.”

Owen's logic is compelling, not to mention based on solid Biblical footing.

1. If Jesus died for all the sins of all humanity, we cannot logically deny universalism.  There is no sin remaining to justify the sentence of eternal separation against anyone.

2. If Jesus died for some of the sins of all humanity, we remain in our sins, despite all that Jesus did.  This view denies every passage in the Bible that affirms Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on behalf of the elect.

3. If Jesus died for all the sins of the elect, nothing can separate the elect from the love of God and the joys of heaven.

It has not been an easy task to follow through the maze of man's tangled web of sin, but Paul has held our hand and given us the clear message that sin cannot destroy one of God's chosen vessels of mercy.

While dealing with this comforting truth, Paul has also confronted the blasphemous error of those who accused him of teaching that we are to sin all the more so as to bring more grace.  He denies that heresy and affirms that God's grace does not shine in man's sin but in God's saving purpose.  We celebrate our salvation, not based on the degree of our sins, but on the amazing degree of God's merciful grace.  Having affirmed our secure position in Christ, Paul will now take us through the ethics of grace in succeeding chapters.