Romans 5King James Version
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. As by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
Having been justified by faith, believers have peace with God and access to grace. Paul lists present realities: peace, access, hope, and even a transformed relationship to suffering. The foundation is love: God demonstrated his love by having Christ die for the ungodly while they were still enemies. Then Paul introduces Adam as the figure whose one act brought death to all, contrasted with Christ whose one act brings life to all who receive it.
Justification does not just resolve past guilt; it changes your entire standing before God, your relationship to suffering, and your trajectory toward glory.
8: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." The timing is everything: not when we improved, not when we returned, but while we were still enemies.
Paul is writing to a city that understood political patronage. A benefactor who gave to those who could repay him was transactional; a patron who gave lavishly to those who could offer nothing in return was extraordinary. The love Paul describes operates on a different scale entirely: the gift goes to those who are hostile, expecting nothing.
Believers who stand in grace through Christ. Adam, the first man, through whom death spread to all. Christ, the last Adam, through whom life and justification flow to all who receive them.
Romans 5 introduces the Adam-Christ typology that Paul develops more fully in 1 Corinthians 15. The comparison is asymmetric: the damage of the one trespass is undone not merely equally but overwhelmingly by the grace of the one act of obedience. The chapter moves justification from a legal transaction into a relational and cosmic framework.
For when shame tells you that you have been too far gone for too long. The text says Christ died for you at your worst, before you turned, as an enemy, and that kind of love cannot be earned into.
1Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
2By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
4And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
6For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
11And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
13(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
15But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
16And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.
17For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)
18Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
19For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
20Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:
21That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.