Romans 5:21, “…just as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Short Thoughts:
Sin reigned over humanity in the sphere of spiritual death; Grace reigns over the new humanity through the agency of Christ’s self-outpouring righteousness…a reign that leads to eternal life in Christ for all who are under its rule.
Long Thoughts (from the journal):
All I wanted to note here is that, though Paul is obviously creating a parallel, it is not the one we’d expect.
Sin reigned in death
Grace reigns through righteousness [leading to eternal life through Christ]
I would expect sin to be paralleled to righteousness (the evil human action contrasted with the good human action), and death to be paralleled with life. However, that’s not what we find. Rather, the parallel seems to be “shifted” one step up due to the inclusion of Grace.
Sin is contrasted with grace not righteousness…..and in that simple shift, we see one of the primary distinguishing doctrines of the Christian faith. Human sin is not undone by human righteousness (well, the righteousness of Christ is “human righteousness,” but what I say here still holds true because the motive behind His incarnation and perfect life is divine grace rooted in sovereign love) human sin is not undone by human righteousness, rather it is undone by God’s grace. GOD’s GRACE is the contrast to OUR SIN….a beautiful and salvific asymmetry!
And then death is not paralleled with life, but with righteousness. This supports the contention that I made back on 3/18/17 [earlier in the journal] that the “death” in view here is spiritual death which culminates in physical death. Sin reigns in the sphere of spiritual death (ie, every moment of unregenerate life), but grace reigns by the agency of righteousness (ie, right relationship to God, ie spiritual life). Now, I don’t think that this is mainly our righteousness, but Christ’s righteousness. In a sense, of course, Christ’s righteousness IS our righteousness (just as a husband’s name and inheritance belongs to his wife as well) since He is our representative head and we are united to and hidden in Him by faith, however I think Paul’s emphasis here falls on the reign of divine grace over a new humanity through the righteousness wrought by their Head, the Final Adam, Jesus Christ, and subsequently imputed to them.
And what is this righteousness? This righteousness of Christ, this righteousness by which grace reigns….what is it? As I said yesterday, I’d argue that it is Christ’s entire life—really, His entire person—culminating in that definitive act of righteousness: His whole-souled submission to the Father through death on the cross. This is the righteousness of our representative, the righteousness of our Bridegroom, the righteousness counted to us in Him by which grace now reigns.
So, to sum things up….Sin reigns in the sphere of death, spiritual death, yes, but spiritual death leads to physical death and ultimately final death. There is no way out of sin’s dominion except by death. And that is exactly what the righteousness of Christ, the obedience of Christ accomplishes. He entered sin’s dominion willingly and in love-born obedience. And then He died under sin’s dominion (though it had no hold on Him), and then He rose again from death in victory. He died to sin, but was made alive to God. And so, HE has become the only way out of sin’s kingdom….His death has tunneled under the mile-high and mile-thick walls and His resurrection has brought Him up on the other side, in the far green country of righteous fellowship with God. And now all those who are in Him, all those united to Him by faith, may traverse the same path. Spiritually, we have already followed Him, spiritually, we are already standing with Him, dead to sin and alive to God (6:11) by virtue of our union with Him……but our bodies must still follow after Him…..we must follow the tunnel that His cross and resurrection have bored through the earth………and to enter that tunnel looks the same as dying……but we know that this tunnel, unlike any other, has a light at the end called resurrection. Glory to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Sin reigned over humanity in the sphere of spiritual death; Grace reigns over the new humanity through the agency of Christ’s dying-and-rising righteousness a reign that leads to eternal life in Christ for all who are under its rule.
