Even More
Romans 5:20-21 ESV says, “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Overcoming sin and death is one of the primary tasks of the believer. What a gracious and glorious gift we have been given in the forgiveness of Jesus! No power of sin or death can outweigh the increasing influence of God’s grace.
At the end of Romans 5, Paul lays out a compelling viewpoint on what Christ’s work on the cross means for the believer, practically. We have a few ingredients in this discussion: the law, sin, death, grace, righteousness, and eternal life.
On one side, we have the team of sin. Sin is the corruption and perversion of what God designed as good and holy on an ever-spiraling path to death. The law was the written manual for the ways of God. It outlined provisions for atonement, the principles for the culture, and the guidelines for day-to-day life. While it was a rich representation of God’s nature, it had one purpose. The law existed to draw the line between what was right and what was wrong. In this way, the law increased the power of sin and trespass. In other words, it wasn’t until the “NO TRESPASSING” sign was posted that criminality became even possible.
On the other side, we have grace, righteousness, and eternal life. Grace, then, becomes the path to pass through the condemnation of the law into a life of freedom. This comes through the establishment of righteousness in the lives of all who follow God. In the same way that the presence of the law increased and clarified what was sinful for humanity, grace enters the scene to increase the measure of freedom and life available even more.
Grace is more than a dollar-for-dollar match to destruction. That was the pattern of sin. When Adam sinned in the garden, brokenness and separation from God began. Even in the goodness of the law given to the nation of Israel, there was a sin to match every rule and instruction. This pattern continued for generations until Jesus came and broke this curse forever. In Romans 5:15 ESV, Paul writes, “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”
The Passion Translation puts the same verse this way, “It’s true that many died because of one man’s transgression, but how much greater will God’s grace and his gracious gift of acceptance overflow to many because of what one man, Jesus, the Messiah, did for us!”
What exactly did Christ do? He came as a man, lived a perfect life, and then offered himself as an atoning sacrifice for the world's sins in a shocking display of sacrificial love. His passion and purity opened the way for forgiveness. His gift of grace was his very self, broken and poured out for the world's sins. The cost was unmistakably higher than any of us could imagine. I shudder to contemplate the depth of wickedness and evil Jesus faced on the cross.
It is, therefore, a demonstration of God’s power and holiness that his sacrifice and gift of grace abounded even more than the compounding nature of sin and lawlessness. It is hard to imagine this kind of extreme power and goodness, so much so that we might be tempted to ignore the task.
Consider this today as you meditate on God’s grace. Though you have seen the increasingly destructive nature of sin at work in the world, your community, and your life, God’s grace is increasingly abounding wherever there is sin. Just as the law became the marker for trespassing, God’s grace became the marker for freedom. I urge you to diligently and earnestly seek God’s grace today. There is more abounding goodness and mercy than we could ever know. Why settle for mediocre faith when Christ Jesus has opened the door to extraordinary and abounding life?
