From justification Paul names present consequences: peace, access, hope that does not shame. Then two heads: death reigned through one man’s trespass; those who receive abundance of grace reign in life through Jesus Christ.
1Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;
2through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance;
4and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope:
5and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
7For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die.
8But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him.
10For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.
11Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
12Therefore as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.
13For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law.
14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come.
15But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
16The gift is not as through one who sinned: for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses to justification.
17For if by the trespass of the one, death reigned through the one; so much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.
18So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life.
19For as through the one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, many will be made righteous.
20The law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly;
21that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If justification is real, peace is real. If the Last Adam has acted, life reigns. The old humanity headed by Adam is the condemned world Romans is dismantling. The new humanity headed by Christ is the New Creation people who receive the gift.
The Law’s entrance made trespass increase — and grace did not stay in that increase. The transition out of Adam’s condemned world is the story of the last days of the old covenant order.
Life reigns. The New Creation is a different head and a different administration.
Am I living as if death still has the last administration — or as if grace is already the larger reign?