Chapter 5
The
happy effects of justification through faith in the righteousness of Christ
|
1–5
|
That
we are reconciled by his blood
|
6–11
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The
fall of Adam brought all mankind into sin and death
|
12–14
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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
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as
grace did superabound
|
20,
21
|
Verses 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.
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. 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.
Verses 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.
Verses 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 nowise cast out any who are willing to come to
him.
Verses 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.
Excerpt from:
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary on the Bible
Matthew Henry (1662 - 1714)
Rick Meyers.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary. e-Sword ®: www.e-sword.net
