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. 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. Then entered all that misery which is the due desert of sin temporal, spiritual, eternal death. And death is by sin for death is the wages of sin. Adam sinning, his nature became guilty and corrupted, and so came to his children.
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. Verses 12-14 The design of what follows is plain. 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. The living Lord of all, will complete the purpose of his dying love, by saving all true believers to the uttermost. 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. 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. The evil, from which the deliverance could be effected only in this astonishing manner, must be more dreadful than natural death. 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. 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. 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. While the sinful state continues, God loathes the sinner, and the sinner loathes God, ( Zechariah 11:8 ). But God designed to deliver from sin, and to work a great change. Nay, the carnal mind is not only an enemy to God, but enmity itself, chap.
Christ died to save us, not in our sins, but from our sins and we were yet sinners when he died for us. Verses 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. A right sense of God's love to us, will make us not ashamed, either of our hope, or of our sufferings for him. It is the gracious work of the blessed Spirit to shed abroad the love of God in the hearts of all the saints. This hope will not disappoint, because it is sealed with the Holy Spirit as a Spirit of love. It works needful experience of ourselves. Patient sufferers have most of the Divine consolations, which abound as afflictions abound. Tribulation worketh patience, not in and of itself, but the powerful grace of God working in and with the tribulation. And those who have hope for the glory of God hereafter, have enough to rejoice in now. Therein we stand, a posture that denotes perseverance we stand firm and safe, upheld by the power of God.
We could not have got into it of ourselves, but we are led into it, as pardoned offenders. Into this grace we are brought, which teaches that we were not born in this state. The saints' happy state is a state of grace. This is through our Lord Jesus Christ through him as the great Peace-maker, the Mediator between God and man. Justification takes away the guilt, and so makes way for peace. The holy, righteous God, cannot be at peace with a sinner, while under the guilt of sin. Being justified by faith he has peace with God. Verses 1-5 A blessed change takes place in the sinner's state, when he becomes a true believer, whatever he has been.
(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. (6-11) The fall of Adam brought all mankind into sin and death. (1-5) That we are reconciled by his blood. The happy effects of justification through faith in the righteousness of Christ.
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