Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible
back to:
Romans
Book: Romans
Chapter: 5
Overview:
The happy effects of
Justification through
Faith in the
Righteousness of
Christ.
(1-5) That we are reconciled
By his
Blood.
(6-11) The fall of
Adam brought all mankind into
Sin and
Death.
(12-14) The
Grace of
God, through the
Righteousness of
Christ, has more power to bring
Salvation, than
Adam's
Sin had
to bring misery,
(15-19) as
Grace did superabound.
(20,21)
1-5 A blessed change takes place in the sinner's state, when he
becomes a true believer, whatever he has been. Being justified
By Faith he has peace with
God. The holy, righteous
God, cannot
be at peace with a sinner, while under the guilt of
Sin.
Justification takes away the guilt, and
So makes way for peace.
This is through our
Lord Jesus Christ; through him as the great
Peace-maker, the
Mediator between
God and
Man. The saints' happy
state is a state of
Grace. Into this
Grace we are brought, which
teaches that we were not born in this state. We could not have
got into it of ourselves, but we are led into it, as pardoned
offenders. Therein we stand, a posture that denotes
perseverance; we stand firm and safe, upheld
By the power of the
enemy. And those who have
Hope for the
Glory of
God hereafter,
have enough to rejoice in now.
Tribulation worketh patience, not
in and of itself, but the powerful
Grace of
God working in and
with the
Tribulation. Patient sufferers have most of the Divine
consolations, which abound as
Afflictions abound. It
Works
needful experience of ourselves. This
Hope will not disappoint,
because it is sealed with the Holy
Spirit as a
Spirit of
Love.
It is the gracious work of the blessed
Spirit to shed abroad the
Love of
God in the hearts of all the saints. A right sense of
God's
Love to us, will make us not ashamed, either of our
Hope,
or of our sufferings for him.
6-11 Christ died for sinners; not only such as were useless,
but such as were guilty and hateful; such that their
Everlasting
Destruction would be to the
Glory of
God's
Justice.
Christ died
to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins; and we were yet
sinners when he died for us. Nay, the
Carnal mind is not only an
enemy to
God, but
Enmity itself, chap. 8:7; Col 1:21. But
God
designed to deliver from
Sin, and to work a great change. While
the sinful state continues,
God loathes the sinner, and the
sinner loathes
God, Zec 11:8. And that for such as these
Christ should die, is a
Mystery;
No other such an instance of
Love is known,
So that it may
Well be the employment of eternity
to
Adore and wonder at it. Again; what idea had the
Apostle when
he supposed the case of some one dying for a righteous
Man? And
yet he only
Put it as a thing that might be. Was it not the
undergoing this suffering, that the person intended to be
benefitted might be released therefrom? But from what are
believers in
Christ released
By his
Death? Not from bodily
Death; for that they all do and must endure. The evil, from
which the deliverance could be effected only in this astonishing
manner, must be more dreadful than natural
Death. There is
No
evil, to which the argument can be applied, except that which
the
Apostle actually affirms,
Sin, and wrath, the
Punishment of
Sin, determined
By the unerring
Justice of God. And if,
By
Divine
Grace, they were thus brought to repent, and to believe
in
Christ, and thus were justified
By the price of his
bloodshedding, and
By Faith in that
Atonement, much more through
Him who died for them and
Rose again, would they be kept from
falling under the power of
Sin and
Satan, or departing finally
from him. The living
Lord of all, will complete the purpose of
his dying
Love,
By saving all true believers to the uttermost.
Having such a
Pledge of
Salvation in the
Love of
God through
Christ, the
Apostle declared that believers not only rejoiced in
the
Hope of
Heaven, and even in their tribulations for
Christ's
sake, but they gloried in
God also, as their unchangeable Friend
and all-sufficient Portion, through
Christ only.
12-14 The design of what follows is
Plain. It is to exalt our
views respecting the blessings
Christ has procured for us,
By
comparing them with the evil which followed upon the fall of our
first
Father; and
By showing that these blessings not only
extend to the removal of these evils, but far
Beyond.
Adam
sinning, his nature became guilty and corrupted, and
So came to
his children. Thus in him all have sinned. And
Death is
By Sin;
for
Death is the
Wages of
Sin. Then entered all that misery
which is the due
Desert of
Sin; temporal, spiritual, eternal
Death. If
Adam had not sinned, he had not died; but a sentence
of
Death was passed, as upon a criminal; it passed through all
men, as an infectious disease that none escape. In proof of our
union with
Adam, and our part in his first transgression,
observe, that
Sin prevailed in the world, for many ages before
the giving of the
Law By Moses. And
Death reigned in that long
time, not only over adults who wilfully sinned, but also over
multitudes of infants, which shows that they had fallen in
Adam
under condemnation, and that the
Sin of
Adam extended to all his
posterity. He was a figure or
Type of Him that was to come as
Surety of a new
Covenant, for all who are related to Him.
15-19 Through one
Man's
Offence, all mankind are exposed to
eternal condemnation. But the
Grace and
Mercy of
God, and the
free
Gift of
Righteousness and
Salvation, are through
Jesus
Christ, as
Man: yet the
Lord from
Heaven has brought the
multitude of believers into a more safe and exalted state than
that from which they fell in
Adam. This free
Gift did not place
them anew in a state of trial, but fixed them in a state of
Justification, as
Adam would have been placed, had he stood.
Notwithstanding the differences, there is a striking similarity.
As
By the
Offence of one,
Sin and
Death prevailed to the
condemnation of all men,
So By the
Righteousness of one,
Grace
prevailed to the
Justification of all related to
Christ By
Faith. Through the
Grace of
God, the
Gift By Grace has abounded
to many through
Christ; yet multitudes choose to remain under
the dominion of
Sin and
Death, rather than to apply for the
blessings of the reign of
Grace. But
Christ will in
No Wise cast
out any who are willing to come to him.
20,21 By Christ and his
Righteousness, we have more and greater
privileges than we lost
By the
Offence of
Adam. The moral
Law
showed that many thoughts, tempers, words, and actions, were
sinful, thus transgressions were multiplied. Not making
Sin to
abound the more, but discovering the sinfulness of it, even as
the letting in a clearer
Light into a room, discovers the
Dust
and filth which were there before, but were not seen. The
Sin of
Adam, and the effect of corruption in us, are the abounding of
that
Offence which appeared
On the entrance of the
Law. And the
terrors of the
Law make
Gospel comforts the more sweet. Thus
God
the Holy
Spirit has,
By the blessed
Apostle, delivered to us a
most important
Truth, full of consolation, suited to our need as
sinners. Whatever one may have above another, every
Man is a
sinner against
God, stands condemned
By the
Law, and needs
Pardon. A
Righteousness that is to justify cannot be made up of
a mixture of
Sin and
Holiness. There can be
No title to an
eternal reward without a pure and spotless
Righteousness: let us
look for it, even to the
Righteousness of
Christ.