NOTES for Rom 5:10-16

How often we hear, or even say ourselves: “I am unworthy of God's grace, the worst of sinners, nothing works, there is no repentance, there is nothing good in me; I will go on weeping—God will not help me.” This position is unquestionably false and is suggested by the enemy of humankind. For grace is a gift. God does not need our merits in order to give us a present. All that is needed is our open hands: “Yes, I want to receive Your gift. Thank You.” But if we cry out about our unworthiness and hide our hands behind our backs, then of course He cannot force His gift upon us. Repentance, too, is grace, for which we must ask and which He grants in answer to our prayers.

It is not very easy to render Apostle Paul’s idea in modern representations language. Let us try like this: according to Paul's logic (corresponding with the logic of the biblical revelation), because of one man’s offence - Adam, sin entered into the world, and indwells in all of us, because we are better in nothing that Adam. Sin entails death. Sin manifests itself in each of us differently, by various offences, and the law appears for the denunciation of these offences. So the law is adequate to the offences and, by revealing them, it {the faith} becomes the judge and the executioner. But, having given the law by Moses, God goes farther and manifests His Grace through Jesus Christ. Grace is a life-giving “energy” sent by God, and one of the manifestations of the gifts of this grace is the remission of sins, the acquittal of offences. And this gift also comes from one man for "many" (the word "many" means here a "multitude" not in the sense of "all", but in the sense of "not only one "), as well as sin, quite as law. But unlike the law, this gift of grace is not adequate to the offences, but "abounds": whatever the offence is like and no matter their number - this gift is more than enough for acquittal, remission, salvation. Specially the believe that this gift is given to us through Christ, allows us to stand out of the first Adam, the sinner, and join the new humanity in the second Adam, the just, the Son of God.

Speaking about salvation and deliverance from sin, Paul also considers this process on a cosmic scale. The damaged state of human nature, which in particular made death inevitable, is an obvious fact for everyone. In every age this fact has been known not only to Yahwists, or Jews, or Christians.

All the religious and philosophical schools and teachings of antiquity say in one way or another that human nature is either seriously damaged or at least distorted by some unknown evil force. And this is connected with the sin committed by the first human beings. The consequences of the sin committed by the first human beings are transmitted to every person born into the world, like an incurable hereditary disease that weakens a person spiritually and physically and makes him inclined toward evil and sin.

This has always been so; the whole history of fallen humanity passes under the sign of this hereditary illness, spiritual and physical. And the Torah by itself cannot change anything here. More precisely, it can, but this does not make things easier: by itself it does not help a person be freed from sin and from the corruption that became characteristic of human nature after the fall. On the contrary, the Torah only emphasizes human sinfulness, setting it in sharper relief.

Sin becomes more noticeable when there is Torah, just as a deviation from a chosen direction becomes more noticeable when there is a compass. But just as a compass by itself cannot change the direction of movement, so the Torah by itself cannot free a person from sin. What is needed here is the action of God's power and God's love. This power and love enter the world through the Messiah, through Christ, who brought the Kingdom into the world. The Kingdom is the manifestation of God's power and God's love in all the fullness available to the world; it can change the situation radically.

With Christ's coming and the manifestation of the Kingdom, the process begins of freeing humanity and the world from the consequences of the fall. That is why the coming of Christ can be compared with the sin of the first human being: in both cases there are consequences on a universal scale, but their spiritual vectors are opposite. If the sin of the first human being destroys both humanity and creation, the coming of Christ and the manifestation of the Kingdom restore them, healing them from the illness that resulted from the fall. This is the only way to overcome the consequences of the fall both in the life of an individual person and in the history of humanity. There is no other.

Continuing his reflections on the Torah, righteousness, and grace, Paul considers what the sin of the first human being became for humanity. For the apostle, as we can see, sin is not simply a violation of moral norms. For him it is defilement in the sense in which the Torah and the Bible as a whole speak of it, that is, something that destroys a person's relationship with God and deprives him of the fullness of communion with God, and together with that of life, making fallen humanity mortal. That is precisely why Paul speaks of the sin of one person spreading to all humanity (v. 12): the consequences of sin, which affected the quality of spiritual life and the dynamic of humanity's relationship with God, touched everyone, as is usually the case with sin, whose consequences practically always affect not only the sinner himself but also his surroundings to one degree or another. The scale of the catastrophe was universal for humanity, but there is nothing unusual in the mechanism by which the consequences of sin spread: as always, it turned out to resemble purely natural processes, such as atmospheric pollution or the spread of pathogens during an epidemic. This is not surprising: having lost the fullness of spiritual life, humanity thereby gives itself over to some extent to the power of purely natural, elemental processes; therefore the consequences of the fall come crashing down on people like natural disasters. In this case the Torah is by no means a panacea, since it only allows one to distinguish sin from righteousness, but does not free a person from the power of sin and death.

Still, with the appearance of the Torah in the world, the situation changes radically. Before its appearance, death, which had become the consequence of the fall, reigned without division in the world; the apostle defines this time as the period "from Adam to Moses" (v. 14). But to speak of sin in the sense in which the Torah speaks of it, that is, as the violation of a commandment given by God, was of course not possible then (v. 13). A person lived in a world defiled by sin, but did not understand what sin was or how the path of righteousness differed from the path of wickedness. Obviously, with the appearance of the Torah the situation changes; death is no longer all-powerful, for the Torah points out the path of righteousness to everyone who wants to walk it. But the Torah enters a world already stricken by sin, and it reveals, as the apostle has said more than once, not human righteousness but human sin and transgression (v. 20). The Torah points the way into the Kingdom, but it does not replace the Kingdom. The One had to come into the world who could radically change the state of things by bringing the Kingdom where no one was ready to receive it (v. 15).

This appearing of the Kingdom in the world changed the situation in principle and objectively, just as in its own time the fall had changed it no less fundamentally and no less objectively (vv. 17-19). The point was not to punish someone or, conversely, to reward someone, but to solve a task of extraordinary importance to God, changing at once the balance of forces in the world in favor of the Kingdom (v. 17). The Torah pointed out the path to the righteous; the Messiah-Christ sent by God became the One who first walked this path to the end, revealing to the world not only the fullness of righteousness available to a human being, but also the fullness of the Kingdom available only to God.

While explaining in detail how all are saved through Christ's death, the apostle Paul also touches on the question of how our world is ordered. Death entered the world because, regardless of how we imagine the universe, we are all connected with one another invisibly yet unmistakably. Every deed and every free choice inevitably affects not only my own life and those close to me, but also people far away and the life of the entire world. Awareness of our responsibility for our lives is important not only because we are answerable to God, but also because everything in the world is interconnected. This was the reason for the Old Testament legislation which at first sight seems excessive and cumbersome.

This does not mean that, for fear of upsetting the existing balance, we may allow ourselves to sit idle. Christ's coming into the world completely changed our situation. Now that, through His righteousness and His sacrifice, grace has come to reign in the world, we have been given the opportunity to receive “the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness” and thus to obtain the Kingdom.

The apostle Paul's words are addressed to all who, having believed in Christ and begun a new life, have discovered in themselves their former inclination to sin and fall into despondency. Paul assures us that salvation is brought to us not by our sinlessness, but by God's love. God does everything necessary for our reconciliation with Him: He does not "pay for" our righteousness, but frees us from slavery to sin.

Having received faith, if we do sin, it is no longer because of hostility toward God, but because our "peaceful" relationship with Him is incomplete. But the essence of Christian life consists precisely in developing these relationships through Christ, in the "acquisition of the Holy Spirit"; therefore "there is no way for us to give in to despondency."

It is genuinely difficult to accept justification by faith, of which Paul writes. The reasons differ depending on whose justification is at issue—my own or someone else's. But the Apostle makes no distinction and offers an impeccable chain of reasoning to explain this truth, which seems strange to a person aware of his own sinfulness. God truly proved His love for us in that Christ died for us before we realized that without this death it would be impossible to cross the chasm separating us from God. Because He loved us, He could not leave us where we had driven ourselves. He could not wait until we wanted to return, until we renounced sin. He came to save everyone, and now that by His blood He has restored to us the possibility of living with Him, nothing can separate us any longer—unless we ourselves reject it and devise some reason not to be with Him, unless we imagine that something can be found weightier than Christ's death on the cross.

Reflecting on the path of righteousness, Paul returns again and again to what forms its foundation: the love that God reveals to a person, without which there is no Kingdom. He understands perfectly well that to give one's life for another is a deed beyond the strength of human nature, even when the person in question is righteous (v. 7). As for a sinner who does not deserve such a sacrifice, there is nothing even to say. And if Jesus chose to die for those who did not deserve it at all, it was only because He lived by that love of the Kingdom which He carried in Himself from the beginning (vv. 6, 8). And to a person ready to trust Jesus and receive this Kingdom, it was opened in all its fullness, freeing that person from the power of evil and sin. Then came that reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ of which the apostle speaks (vv. 1-2).

And faith, or more precisely trust in Jesus, of course stands first here for a reason: without such trust one cannot enter the Kingdom, and without that there can be no talk of any reconciliation. In a world stricken by evil and sin, reconciliation is impossible in principle; the Kingdom can be received only through the Messiah-Christ sent by God, and therefore reconciliation with God is possible only by trusting Christ.

In the Kingdom one can already hope to share in that presence of God which is called glory, for the Kingdom is entirely permeated by this presence. The apostle connects the possibility of righteousness as reconciliation with God only with the Kingdom. And if God sends Jesus into the world not to punish sinners, but so that by the price of His life ("blood") He might open for them the road into the Kingdom, then all the more will He receive those who, having turned and trusted the Sent One, are ready to share with Him the fullness of the life of this Kingdom (vv. 10-11).

And the evidence of participation in the life of the Kingdom, which is being revealed in our world that has not yet been fully transformed, is found in those troubles and persecutions ("tribulations") that are inevitable for anyone walking the path of righteousness and therefore the path of the Kingdom (vv. 3-5). Thus, in Paul's letter, righteousness and the Kingdom, the path of the righteous person and the earthly path of the Savior, are bound together.

Speaking about a person's relationship with God and with Christ, and starting from the fact that these relationships are primary and determine everything else, Paul also points out that they are primary for God as well. God Himself initiated the process in which a person takes part insofar as he trusts Christ. But when Christ Himself came into this world, He could count on no one. He did not find righteous people ready to follow Him, nor did He count on finding them.

Moreover, when He was dying on the cross, even then He had no guarantees: His disciples were completely unprepared for His death, just as they were for His resurrection. He died not for His disciples and followers, but for those who could still become His disciples and followers. Not for actual righteous people, but for potential righteous people, who at the hour of His death were still sinners. Such relationships, aimed at later spiritual growth, are always a kind of advance. And God is ready to give us this advance. He expects us to prove worthy of it. But we can do that only under two conditions: first, the advance must be accepted, and second, it must be used for its intended purpose, not wasted.

With the first condition in mind, Paul says that God accepts us in Christ and together with Him at least because He sends Christ specifically for us, to save us from destruction as we are. And God, of course, knows perfectly well what we are. And if the Messiah, fulfilling God's will, is ready even to die for us as we are, then now that we have received Him and entrusted ourselves to Him, He will certainly not abandon us; otherwise His own earthly path and His death would lose all meaning. But this is only one side of the matter.

The other side is that following the Messiah means changing. He called us to follow Him as we are and gave us the possibility of new life. But if we remain as we are, our new life will very soon stop being new and become the same as the old one. To keep that from happening, we must change inwardly. We must use the advance God has given. The life of a Christian is not passive waiting for salvation and not religious activity, but a spiritual path.

It is the path of inward formation, the cultivation within ourselves of the spiritual core that is called the inner Torah. Schematically, the apostle describes it as a path from trials to steadfastness, from steadfastness to proven character, and from proven character to hope. Indeed, if the inner Torah is connected above all with perceiving God's will, God's intentions, as a spiritual and moral imperative, then concrete life situations, especially difficult ones, teach us how to follow this imperative in practice.

The result of this training is a formed habit of following God's will, a kind of skill in righteous living, which traditional texts of the sages call wisdom, though Paul prefers to call it proven character or skill. This very skill gives hope that the path will be walked to the end; otherwise one would have to forget about full spiritual life. A person who loses sight of God's will at every upheaval of life cannot live a full spiritual life. As we can see, salvation is a divine-human process, and the apostle understands this perfectly.

Thus, by His sacrifice on the Cross, Christ reconciled us to the Father, and we can enter God's peace, a relationship with God that depends on neither time nor place. This is the God who takes all our cares upon Himself and expects from us only purity of intention, faithfulness, trust, hope, and the seeking of His Kingdom. But where are we to find all this? In Him, for Christ has all of it in abundance.