NOTES for Rom 5:10-16
Perhaps many of us, since youth, have been given, say through literature classes, a "romantic" understanding of the relation of good and evil in the world: evil is numerous, ugly, and clearly in the majority, while good is lonely, understood by no one, and suffers. And so progressive "romantic heroes" must swim against the current and challenge the opinion of a conservative, hardened, and unreasonable society. "The individual and society," "the poet and the crowd" - whatever one calls this problem, it really does look like the truth. Besides the fact that this picture may be familiar to us from personal experience, we see a similar situation in the Gospel: Christ Himself was persecuted and even crucified, and He sends His disciples "as lambs among wolves" (Luke 10:3).
Yes, this is so. But is this all the Gospel says? Of course not. We confess Christ not only crucified, but also risen. This is precisely the final step that the general cultural "concept" lacks, and it cannot take it because such possibilities are simply not built into it. But only the Lord is able to bring everything to the victory of good through inevitable death and resurrection. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it," the apostle John testifies (John 1:5), and this is the pure truth.
The "mathematics" of good is different, not like that of sin: it wins not by quantity, but by quality. And this quality is enough for everyone (see Rom 5:15), just as God promised us.