death found the way by which it could claim all men. That is what happens when as a result of his sin man is condemned. Death is not so much God’s direct reaction against man’s sin; it is rather God’s abandoning of the men who have abandoned Him. Think of the Book of Judges; as soon as Israel turns to strange gods, it is immediately abandoned to the hostile power of alien peoples. With God’s rule there goes also God’s protection, and when Israel cast off that protection, its danger and helplessness are immediately made clear. That is what it means in practice for man’s sin to be condemned. Through the one who sinned there has come upon us the unnatural oppression and constraint of death, which becomes inevitable where man has cast off his obedience to God. As we saw in v. 16b, the logical connection between sin and condemnation is easy to understand, but the practical outcome of death ruling over human life is so unnatural that it is impossible to understand it at all. Its complete contrast to that is the practical significance of the dikaiōma (righteous decision, justifying act). Here grace overflows on all men (v. 15b) and they receive the dōrea tēs dikaiosunēs, God’s free gift of righteousness, and the result is that instead of death ruling over them, they themselves are going to rule in life with God—en zōē basileusousin.
Men who are already under the alien lordship of death and are already dead in their sins, are rescued from that situation and transferred into a completely different situation, in which instead of dying an alien death, they will live their own true life and so will not be slaves but lords. This is the situation which has already been described as our future salvation in vv. 9–10, and as our hope of sharing in God’s glory in v. 2. We have already seen that where the dikaiōma (righteous act) intervenes on the krima (judgment), there is no more katakrima (condemnation). But now we can go farther than this: the dikaiōma is the dikaiōma of God. And so there goes with it hope, the greatest hope of all, the hope of the glory of God, the hope of the basileuein en zōē (ruling in life)—of living the true kingly life of man. This hope, though it is indeed marvelous that men condemned to death should ever come to enjoy it, is the natural result of God’s pardon, and to live in this hope is the natural condition of man, that is, of the man who is righteous in the eyes of God. What could be more obvious than that a righteous man should be able to live in this hope of sharing the glory of God?
This, then, is the difference between the result of sin and the result of grace, namely, the free gift, the dōrēma. As we saw in v. 16b, the logical connection between sin and pardon is impossible to understand, but the practical result that man receives life and lives it is so natural that it can be understood without any difficulty at all. We can now see the disparity between the result of grace and the result of sin, and so once more, in a new way, the disparity between man in Adam and man in Christ. It should be clearly noted that here also there is no question of denying or annulling the truth in Adam. Paul both looks back to the place where death ruled, ebasileusen, as well as looking forward to the place where men will rule, basileusousin, in life (v. 17). He has accurately recognized and explained both results in their inner nature and at the same time has given each its due place. For the two results are quite different. On the one side the logical connection between sin and death is unmistakably obvious, but the practical outcome of the rule of death is impossibly strange: while on the other side the logical connection between sin and pardon is completely miraculous and the material outcome of men living their true life is natural and true to the fundamental nature of man. These glaring contrasts make the difference between the two results quite plain. The result of sin is to destroy human nature, the result of grace is to restore it, so that it is obvious that sin is subordinate to grace, and that it is grace that has the last word about the true nature of man.
We may sum up Paul’s two arguments for the disparity between Christ and Adam as follows: The first is in v. 15, the second in vv. 16–17; the nerve of the first and shorter argument is that on the one side it is man who acts, and on the other God in all His finality; the nerve of the second and more detailed argument is that although our relationship with Christ is formally the same as our relationship with Adam, yet in external context, internal content, in logical structure and in practical outcome, the two are completely different and diametrically opposed.
But we have not yet noticed an important element in this central section of the passage. At first sight it appears to be of no importance, but to consider it will bring to light yet another essential factor in this situation. This is the pollō mallon, the “how much more,” which first appears in vv. 9–10 and is taken up again in the important vv. 15–17. This formula is the key to the relationship of the two sides and to the meaning of the contrast between them. The remarkable thing about it is that it both connects its two terms and subordinates the one to the other. So in this case it both presupposes and affirms the identity of the two sides, and at the same time uses this presupposition to make their disparity clear.
Whenever it is possible to use the phrase “much more” in comparing one thing with another, we are dealing with two things that fall under the same ordering principle, which is valid and recognizable in lesser degree on the one side, and in greater degree on the other. If it was not first valid on one side, it could not be “so much more” valid on the other. If it was not first clearly recognized on one side, it could not be “so much more” clearly recognized on the other. In our context, the first term in the comparison is the entire realm of the truth in Adam, in which, according to vv. 15–17, the many die in the trangression of the one, because through the transgression of the one death has gained lordship over all men. About this truth in Adam the pollō mallon makes one thing clear. It tells us that it stands under the same ordering principle as the truth in Christ, and that even though the truth in Adam is subordinate to the truth in Christ, yet in it that principle is valid and can be recognized.
To understand why this can and must be so, we have to refer back to the use of the same formula in vv. 9–10. There the first term of the comparison, which is put, so to speak, on the left-hand side, is our reconciliation through the death of Christ when we were still weak, sinners, godless, and enemies. Since, we are told in vv. 9–10, this first term on the left-hand side is valid, “how much more” valid is the second term on the right-hand side, which is our hope of salvation through the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And so both reconciliation and salvation are grounded on the same ordering principle, and both find a common validity in the one work of Christ, in the humiliation and exaltation of this one man. And within that work of Christ both can be recognized, the distinction between them stands, for it is because we are sure that Christ achieved our reconciliation that we can be “so much more” sure that He has achieved our salvation as well. In vv. 15–17 the first term on the left-hand side, the sin of Adam and its result, seems to have nothing in common with the second term on the right, the grace of Jesus Christ and the gift it brings. In fact the one seems as different from the other as darkness is from light. But here, as before, the pollō mallon forms a bond and a link and points to an ordering principle that can connect even such opposites as these. And it is because pollō mallon first connects the two terms in vv. 9–10, that it can also connect the opposites of vv. 15–17.
The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our reconciliation through His blood on the one hand, and our hope in the power of His life on the other, are two aspects—two very different aspects, it is true—of one single action. For that reason, in vv. 15–17 also, it is not enough merely to distinguish the truth in Adam from the truth in Christ. Because there is a valid and recognizable connection between Christ’s death for sinners and His rising to bring life to men, there must also be a valid and recognizable connection between Adam in whom men sin and die and Christ in whom they are pardoned and made alive. The only connection between Christ and Adam is that for Adam Christ died and rose again. From the sin of Adam, as such, no way leads to the grace of Christ, no way from krima (judgment) to dikaiōma (righteousness), no way from katakrima (condemnation) to sōtēria (salvation), no way from death to life. If we looked from left to right, we would find every attempt to move in that direction frustrated, every door closed. If we could regard Adam and our participation in his sin and condemnation as an isolated and self-centered whole, then it would
