Bible Commentaries
Romans 5

Verses 1-21

XIII

THE GOSPEL PLAN OF SALVATION

Romans 5:1-21.

The first paragraph (Romans 5:1-11) is but an elaboration, or conclusion, of the line of argument in Romans 3-4. There are two leading thoughts in this paragraph: (1) God’s method of induction into the grace of salvation. (2) the happy estate of the justified.

METHOD OF INDUCTION

This method is expressed thus: "Being therefore justified by faith . . . through our Lord Jesus Christ; through whom also we have had our access by faith into this grace wherein we stand." A vital question is here answered – "How do we get into Christ, in whom are all the blessings of salvation, each in its order?" The corresponding doctrine to our getting into Christ is getting Christ into us to complete the union with him as expressed by himself: "I in you . . . and you in me" (John 15:4). The names of these two doctrines are –

1. Justification through faith, or we into Christ.

2. Regeneration through faith, or Christ into us.

Elsewhere the doctrine of "Christ into us" through regeneration is presented thus: "Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart" (2 Corinthians 3:3). "For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (Romans 4:6). "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

The proof that the method of this induction id also by faith is given by Christ. When Nicodemus asked as to the method of regeneration Christ answered, "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God: and whosoever loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him" (1 John 5:1). "But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh’, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12-13). "For ye are all the children of God, by faith in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 3:26).

But the Campbellites’ method of induction into Christ is by baptism, based on Galatians 3:27; the Romanist method of induction of Christ into us is through eating the Lord’s Supper, based by them on the words: "Take, eat, this is my body. . . . Drink, this is my blood," and on a misapplication of John 6:53: "Jesus therefore said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves." We may name this double heresy, salvation by ordinances, i.e., salvation by water and material bread. The truth of these misapplied scriptures is that there is a double method of induction, viz.: We into Christ by faith and Christ into us by faith, symbolized in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

THE HAPPY ESTATE OF THE JUSTIFICATION

The difference between the common and the revised versions of Romans 5:1 is a difference in the Greek of the length of one letter in one word only, i.e., between a short o (omikron) and a long o (omega), and if the text be Echomen, the rendering of the common version is right: "We have peace with God." If it be Echomen, the Revision is right: "Let us have peace with God." The best MSS. (Alexandrian, Vatican, and Siniatic) have the long o (Omega.)

The value of the distinction is this: The common version would express the truth, if limited to God’s sight. The justified truly have peace legally in God’s eyes as soon as justified. But the danger comes in extending the meaning to our realization; we subjectively realize the peace. There is a time difference between a fact and our cognition of that fact; as, when looking at a man half a mile off on a prairie firing a gun, the explosion precedes our perception by sight of the smoke, or of the sound by the ear. The chickens of a mover whose legs have been tied during the day, do not realize that they are free as soon as they are untied. The sensation of being tied lingers until the circulation is restored.

So one may be justified in fact sometime before he realizes the peace to which justification entitles, as the experience of many Christians shows. It is God’s purpose that we should realize it, and the sooner the better. To affirm that our subjective perception of an external act is necessarily simultaneous with the act is to limit the existence of things to our knowledge of things. So we may express the difference between the texts of the version by saying that one is an affirmation: "We have peace," while the other is an exhortation: "Let us have peace," i.e, justification now entitles to peace, but we need to lay hold of it. The fallacy of the affirmation consists of confounding justification, which is God’s act, with subjective peace, which is our experience. Objective peace, legal peace, necessarily accompanies justification, but it may not be subjective. The battle of New Orleans was fought after the treaty of peace was signed, because Sir Edward Packenham and General Jackson did not know it.

I will name in order all the elements of the happy estate of the justified:

1. Peace with God.

2. Joy in hope of the glory of God.

3. Joy in tribulation, because of the series of fruits which follows.

4. The gift of the Holy Spirit.

5. The love of God shed abroad in our hearts, by that given Spirit.

6. The assurance that the justified shall be saved from the wrath to come, because:

(1) If reconciled, when enemies, much more will he continue salvation to friends.

(2) If reconciled through his death much more will he alive deliver us from future wrath.

7. Joy in God the Father, through whose Son we receive the reconciliation.

THE SEMINAL IDEA OF SALVATION (Romans 5:12-21)

By a new line of argument the apostle conveys assurance of salvation to the justified, an argument based on our seminal relations to the two Adams. This great doctrine is expressed thus: "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned" (Romans 5:12). "So then as through one trespass the judgment came unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness the free gift came unto all men to justification of life. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall many be made righteous" (Romans 5:18-19). If we combine the several thoughts into one great text we have this: By one offense of one man condemnation came upon all men. So by one act of righteousness of one man, justification unto eternal life comes upon all men who by one exercise of faith lay hold on him who wrought the one act of righteousness.

This text startlingly offends and confounds the reasonings of the carnal mind which says, 1. One may not be justly condemned for the offense of somebody else, but only for his own offense, nor justified by the righteousness of somebody else, but by his own righteousness. 2. Condemnation must come for all offenses, not just one, and justification must be based on all acts of righteousness, not just one. 3. To base a man’s condemnation or justification on the act of another destroys personal responsibility. 4. The doctrine of imputing one man’s guilt to a substitute tends to demoralization, in that the real sinner will sin the more, not being personally amenable to penalty. 5. The doctrine of pardoning a guilty man because another is righteous turns loose a criminal on society. 6. The whole of it violates that ancient law of the Bible itself: "Thou shalt justify the innocent and condemn the guilty."

If the gospel plan of salvation, fairly interpreted, does destroy personal responsibility, does tend to demoralize society, does encourage to sin the more, does turn criminals loose on society, does not tend to make its subject personally better, it is then the doctrine of the devil and should be hated and resisted by all who respect justice and deprecate iniquity. But the seminal idea of condemnation and justification grows out of relations to two respective heads, and it results from varieties in creation, thus:

(1) God created a definite number of angels) just so many at the start, never any more or less, a company, not a family, incapable of propagation, being sexless, without ancestry or posterity, without brother or sister or other ties of consanguinity, each complete in himself, and hence no angel could be condemned or justified for another’s act. The act of every angel terminates in himself. Therefore there can be no salvation for a sinning angel. And hence our Saviour "took not on him the nature of angels."

(2) But God also created a different order of beings, at the start just one man, having potentially in himself an entire race – a countless multitude to be developed from him. And in propagating the race he transmitted his own nature, and through heredity his children inherited that nature. No act of any human being arises altogether from himself or can possibly terminate in himself. In considering heredity Oliver Wendell Holmes has said, "Man is an omnibus in which all his ancestors ride." Moreover, man was created to be a social being, from which fact arises the necessity of human government whether in legislative, judicial, or executive power. The mind can conceive of only one human being whose act would terminate in himself, and under the following conditions alone: He must be without ancestry, without capacity of posterity, without kindred in any degree, without relation to society, living alone on an island surrounded by an ocean whose waves touched no other shore from which society might come. How much more the head in whom potentially and legally was the race could not do an act that would terminate in himself.

(3) The creature cannot deny God’s sovereign right to create this variety of moral beings, angels, and man.

(4) Nature does not exempt children from the penalty of heredity.

(5) Human law neither exempts children from legal responsibility of parents nor acquits criminals because of hereditary predispositions.

The context bases the condemnation of all men on the ground that all sinned in Adam, the head, and so having sinned in him they all died in him. The context, "And so death passed unto all men" (even those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression) is the distinct proof of our proposition. Only one person ever sinned the sin of Adam and that was Adam himself, the head of the race. Now as proof that his posterity sinned in him, death passed upon all of his posterity who had not sinned after the similitude of his sin, that is, they sinned, not as the head of a race, but from depravity – an inherited depravity. Adam didn’t have that inherited depravity. God made him upright. Whenever I commit a sin I don’t commit that sin from the standpoint of Adam, but I commit it on account of an evil nature inherited from Adam, and that sin is not after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. Moreover, if I commit a sin, the race is not held responsible for my sin, because I am not the head of the race. The race does not stand or fall in me. Thus there are two particulars in which sins which we commit are not after the similitude of Adam’s sin, and yet, says the apostle, with his inexorable logic, "Though they don’t sin after the similitude of Adam, yet death, the penalty of sin, passed upon every one of them." The law was executed on every one of them; they died. Sin condemns on the ground of the solidarity of the law, the unity of the law. See James 2:10: "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all."

Human law in this respect conforms to divine law. If a man be law-abiding fifty years and then commits one capital offense, his previous righteousness avails him nothing. Nor does it avail that he was innocent of all other offenses. If a man were before a court charged with murder he would derive no benefit by proving that he had not committed adultery. If he were guilty on the one point, his life is forfeited. That is on account of the solidarity of the law. Nor does it avail a man anything in a human court that he was tempted from without. So Adam vainly pleaded, "The woman tempted me and I did eat."

QUESTIONS

1. What part of Romans 2 is but an elaboration, or conclusion, of the line of argument in Romans 3-4?

2. What are the two leading thoughts in this paragraph?

3. How is God’s method of induction expressed?

4. What vital question is here answered?

5. What is the corresponding doctrine to our getting into Christ?

6. What are the names of these two doctrines?

7. How elsewhere is the doctrine of "Christ into us" through regeneration presented?

8. What is the proof that the method of this induction is also by faith?

9. What is the Campbellites’ method of induction into Christ, and on what scripture based?

10. What the is Romanist method of induction of Christ into us, and on what scripture based?

11. How may we name this double heresy?

12. What is the truth of these misapplied scriptures?

13. What (he difference between the common and the revised versions of Romans 5:1, and what the translation in each case?

14. What is the value of the distinction? Illustrate.

15. What is the fallacy of affirming that subjective peace is simultaneous with justification? Illustrate.

16. What, in order, are the elements of the happy estate of the justified?

17. By what new line of argument in Romans 5:12-21 does the apostle convey assurance of salvation to the justified?

18. In what words is this great doctrine expressed?

19. Combine the several thoughts into one great text.

20. How does this text startlingly offend and confound the reasonings of the carnal mind?

21. If the gospel plan of salvation, fairly interpreted, does destroy personal responsibility, does tend to demoralize society, does not tend to make its subjects personally better, then what?

22. What the explanation of the seminal idea of condemnation and justification growing out of the relations to the two respective heads?

23. On what ground does the context base the condemnation of all men?

24. What is the meaning of the context, "and so death passed unto all men," etc.?

25. On what ground does sin condemn, and what the proof?

26. How does human law in this respect conform to divine law?

Verses 12-21

XIV

THE SEMINAL IDEA OF SALVATION

Romans 5:12-21.

The one offense committed by the first Adam was his violation of that test, or prohibition, "Thou shalt not eat of the tree of death; thou shalt not experimentally know the difference between good and evil." In other words, he was an anti-prohibitionist. The law commenced with an absolute prohibition, and it didn’t avail Adam a thing to plead personal liberty. Race responsibility rested on Adam alone. It could not possibly have rested on Eve, because she was a descendant of Adam, just as much as we are. God created just one man, and in that man was the whole human race, including Eve. Later he took a part of the man and made a woman, and the meaning of the word "woman" is derived from "man." When Adam saw her he said "Isshah," woman, which literally means "derived from man’". As she got both her soul and body from the man, being his descendant, it was impossible that the race responsibility should rest on her.

If only Eve had sinned the race would not have perished. She would have perished, but not the race. The race was in Adam. God could have derived another woman from him like that one. He had the potentiality in him of all women as well as all men. Some error has arisen from holding Eve responsible, such as the error of pointing the finger at the woman and saying, "You did it!" If we have ever committed this error, let us never do it any more. The text says, "By one offense of one man" and not by one offense of one woman. That Eve sinned there is no doubt; she was in the transgression. To the contrary, history shows that God connects salvation with the woman, and not damnation. He said, "The Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head." There we have the promise of grace. And he could not have said the seed of the man, for, if one be the seed of a man, he inherits the man’s fallen nature.

This fact has a mighty bearing on the Second Adam. When the Second Adam came, the first and virtually essential proof was that a woman was his mother, but no man was his father – God was his father. If a man had been his father he would himself have been under condemnation through a depraved nature. Mary could not understand the announcement that she should become the mother of a Saviour who would be the "Son of God," since she had not yet married, until the angel exclaimed: "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). Hence whoever denies our Lord’s birth of a virgin and that he was sired by the most High denies the whole plan of salvation and is both the boss liar of the world and antichrist. The essential deity of our Lord and his incarnation constitute the bedrock of salvation. It is the first, most vital, most fundamental truth. No man who rejects it can be a Christian or should be received as a Christian for one moment. See John 1:1; John 1:14; 1 John 4:1-3; Philippians 2:6-8; 1 Timothy 3:16.

But this question comes up, "Did not Jesus derive his human nature, through heredity, from his mother, or since she was a descendant of fallen Adam, how could her Son escape a depraved nature?" This is a pertinent question and a very old one. It so baffled Romanist theologians that they invented and issued under papal infallibility the decree of "The Immaculate Conception," meaning not only that Jesus was born sinless, but that Mary herself was born sinless, which of course only pushes back the difficulty one degree. Their invention was purely gratuitous. There is nothing in the case to call for a sinless mother. Depravity resides in the soul. The soul comes, not from the one who conceives, but from the one who begets. This is the very essence of the teaching in the passage cited from Luke.. The sinlessness of the nature of Jesus is expressly ascribed to the Sire: "The Holy One who is begotten." And it is the very heart of Paul’s entire biological, or seminal, idea of salvation, i.e., life from a seed. The seed is in the sire. The first Adam’s seed is unholy; the Second Adam’s seed is holy. Hence the necessity of the Spirit birth. So is our Lord’s teaching in John 3:3-6; John 8:44; 1 John 3:9; the parable of the tares with its explanation in Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43; and especially 1 Peter 1:23: "Having been begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible." The propriety of salvation by the Second Adam lies in the fact that we were lost through the first Adam. All the criticism against substitutionary, or vicarious, salvation comes from a disregard of this truth.

Christ met all the law requirements as follows:

1. By holiness of nature – starting holy

2. By obeying all its precepts

3. By fulfilling its types

4. By paying its penalty

The value of the first three items is that they qualified him to do the fourth. If he had been either unholy in nature or defective in obedience he would have been amenable to the penalty for himself. But holiness in his own nature and his perfect obedience exempting him from penalty on his own account, he could be the sinner’s substitute in death and judgment: "Him who knew no sin, God made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). "Ye were redeemed . . . with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:18-19). If he answered not to the types, he could not be the Messiah.

Christ’s one act of righteousness, which is the sole ground of our justification, is his vicarious death on the cross. No one ought to preach at all – having no gospel message – if be does not comprehend this with absolute definiteness. If we attribute our justification to Christ’s holiness, or to his perceptive obedience, or to his Sermon on the Mount, or to his miracles, or to his kingly or priestly reign in heaven where he is now, or if we locate that one act of righteousness anywhere in the world except in one place and in one particular deed we ought not to preach.

The one act of righteousness – the sole meritorious ground of justification – is our Lord’s vicarious death on the cross, suffering the death penalty of divine law against sin. This death was a real sacrifice and propitiation Godward, so satisfying the law’s penal sanctions in our behalf as to make it just for God to justify the ungodly. Our Lord’s incarnation, with all his work antecedent to the cross, was but preparatory to it, and all his succeeding work consequential. His exaltation to the throne in heaven, his priestly intercession, and his coming judgment flowing from his "obedience unto the death of the cross" (Philippians 2:8-9).

The particular proof of this one act of righteousness from both Testaments is as follows:

1. Proof from the Old Testament:

(1) The establishment of the throne of grace, immediately after man’s expulsion from paradise, where God dwelt between the cherubim, east of the garden of Eden, as a Schechinah, or Sword flame, to keep open the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24) and was there acceptably approached only through the blood of an innocent and substitutionary sacrifice (Genesis 4:3-5; cf Revelation 7:14; Revelation 22:14), which mercy seat between the cherubim was to be approached through sacrificial blood, just as described in that part of the Mosaic law prescribing the way of the sinner’s approach to God (Exodus 25:17-22).

(2) In the four most marvelous types:

(a) The Passover lamb whose blood availed when Jehovah saw it (Exodus 12:13; Exodus 12:23) showing that the blood propitiated Godward. See 1 Corinthians 5:7.

(b) In the kid on the great day of atonement (Lev. 16) which shows that the expiatory blood must be sprinkled on the mercy seat between the cherubim as the basis of atonement.

(c) In the red heifer, burned without the camp, and whose ashes, liquefied with water, became a portable means of purification, Numbers 19:2-6; Numbers 19:9; Numbers 19:17-18, with Hebrews 9:13, representing that first and cleansing element of regeneration in which the Holy Spirit applies Christ’s blood. See Psalms 51:2; Psalms 51:7; Ezekiel 36:25; John 3:5 (born of water and Spirit); Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5.

(d) The brazen serpent, fused in fire and then elevated to be seen, which shows that the expiatory passion, a fiery suffering, must be lifted up in preaching, as the object of faith and means of healing, Numbers 21:9, explained in John 3:14-16; John 12:32-33; Galatians 3:1.

(3) In such striking passages as Isaiah 53:4-11. Compare the messianic prayer: "Deliver my soul from the sword," Psalms 22:20, with the divine response, "Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith Jehovah," Zechariah 13:7, and hear the sufferer’s outcry: "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Psalms 22:1 and Matthew 27:45-46. When these passages are compared with Isaiah 53:5-10, Romans 3:25, 2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 2:24, it cannot be reasonably questioned that he died under the sentence of God’s law against sin, and that this death was propitiatory toward God and vicarious toward man, and is the one act of righteousness through which our justification comes.

2. Some of the New Testament passages, including several already given, are our Lord’s own words in instituting the Memorial Supper: "This is my body given for you. . . . This cup is the New Covenant in my blood . . . even that which is poured out for you . . . which is shed for many unto remission of sins." We need to add only Romans 3:25; 1 Corinthians 1:30; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 Peter 2:24; and Hebrews 10:4-14.

The combined text, "One exercise of faith," means that unlike sanctification, justification is not progressive, but one instantaneous act; God justifies, and our laying hold of it is a simple definite transaction. One moment we are not justified; in the next moment we are justified. One look at the brazen serpent brought healing. Zacchaeus went up the tree lost, and came down saved. The dying thief at one moment was lost, and the next heard the words: "Today shall thou be with me in paradise." At midnight the lost jailer was trembling; just after that he was rejoicing believing in God with all his house. There is no appreciable time element in the transition from condemnation to justification.

Considering Christ as a gift, how long does it take to receive him? Considering him as a promise, how long to trust? Considering Christ as the custodian of an imperiled soul, how long to commit it to him? Considering the union between Christ and the sinner as an espousal (2 Corinthians 11:2) how long to say: "I take him"?

As a marriage between man and woman is a definite transaction, consummated when he says, "I take her to be my lawful wife," and when she says, "I take him to be my lawful husband," so by one exercise of faith we take Christ as our Lord. But as sanctification is progressive, we go on in that from faith to faith. But justification through faith in a sub statute does not tuna loose a criminal on society. If it be meant a criminal in deed, it is not true, because to the last farthing the law claim has been met in the payment of the surety. In other words, the law has been fully satisfied. If it be meant in spirit, it is not true, for every justified man is regenerated. A new heart to love God and man has been given, a holy disposition imparted, loving righteousness and hating iniquity. A spirit of obedience, new and mighty motives of gratitude and love are at work, and motive determines very largely the moral quality of action. In other words, the justified man is also a new creature.

It secures in the new creature the only basis of true morality. Morality is conformity with moral law. Immorality is nonconformity with moral law. The first and great commandment of moral law is supreme love toward God, and the second is love to thy neighbor as thyself. “No unregenerate man can make a step in either direction any more than a bad tree can produce good fruit, for "the carnal mind is enmity against God and not subject to his law, neither indeed can be." The unregenerate is self-centered; the regenerate, Christ centered. The justified man, being regenerate, will be necessarily a better man personally and practically than he was before in every relation of life – better in the family, better in society and better in the state. A claim to justification without improvement in these directions is necessarily a false claim.

The writer in Romans 2:17 has already introduced the word, "law," in a special sense when discussing the case of the Jew as contradistinguished from other nations. And this is the sense of his word, "law," when he says, "For until the law sin was in the world." Law, to a Jew, meant the Sinaitic law. But the apostle is proving that law did not originate at Sinai, in any sense except for one nation, as was evident from sin and death anterior to it. First, there was primal law inhering in God’s intent in creating moral beings, and in the very constitution of their being, and in all their relations. And this law, even to Adam in innocence, found statutory expression in the law of labor, the law of marriage, and in the law of the sabbath, as well as in the particular prohibition concerning the tree of death. Immediately after Adam’s fall and expulsion from paradise came the intervention of the grace covenant, with its law of sacrifices, symbolically showing the way of a sinner’s approach to God through vicarious expiation. There were preachers and prophets of grace before the flood, as well as the convicting and regenerating spirit. All these expressions of law passed over the flood with Noah, with several express additions to the statutory law both civil and criminal. Death proved sin, and sin proved law, before we come to Sinai. Adam was under law. Adam sinned and death reigned over him. Adam’s descendants down to Moses died. Therefore they had sinned, and therefore were under the law. But their sin was not like Adam’s in several parties ulars: (1) They did not sin as the head of a race. (2) They did not sin from a standpoint of innocence and holiness, but from an inherited depravity. (3) They sinned under a grace covenant which Adam had not in paradise. This last particular is here emphasized, where grace in justification is contrasted with the condemnation through Adam’s one offense.

If then the Sinaitic code did not originate law, what was its purpose? "The law came in besides, that the trespass might abound." This purpose of the law will be considered more elaborately later. Just here it is sufficient to say that the Sinaitic code under three great departments, or heads, is the most marvelous and elaborate expression of law known to history. Its three heads or constituent elements, as we learn in the Old Testament, are –

1. The decalogue, or moral law, or God and the normal man.

2. The law of the altar, or God and the sinner, or the sinner’s symbolic way of approach to God, including a place to find him, a means of propitiating him) times to approach him, and an elaborate ritual of service.

3. The judgments, or God and the State, in every variety of municipal, civil, and criminal law.

So broad, so deep, so high, so minute, so comprehensive is this code, so bright is its light, that every trespass in thought, word, and deed is not only made manifest, but is made to abound, in order that where sin abounded grace would abound exceedingly.

QUESTIONS

1. What was the one offense committed by the first Adam?

2. On whom did race responsibility rest, Adam or Eve, or both; why?

3. If only Eve had sinned, what would have been the result?

4. What error has since arisen from holding Eve responsible?

5. What to the contrary does history show?

6. What bearing has this fact on the Second Adam?

7. How could Jesus, being born of a depraved woman, escape a depraved nature?

8. What the propriety of salvation by the Second Adam?

9. How did Christ meet all the law requirements?

10. What is the value of the first three items?

11. What is Christ’s one act of righteousness, which is the sole ground of our justification?

12. What particular proof of this one act of righteousness from both Testaments?

13. What does the combined text mean by "one exercise of faith"?

14. How is it that justification through faith in a substitute does not turn loose a criminal on society?

15. How then is it that it does not demoralize?

16. Explain the parenthetic statement in Romans 5:13-17 and also Romans 5:20-21.

17. If the Sinaitic code did not originate the law, what was its purpose?

18. What are the three constituent elements of the Sinaitic law?