Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

11. “And not only so, but rejoicing in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have
received reconciliation.” Salvation is double. Since Satan captured the whole world in view of
adding it to hell, our normal place under the law is condemnation and hell. Christ does a double
work. He negatively saves us from hell by paying our penalty, and thus blockading hell with His
crucified body. This is glorious, but not enough. We also need a positive salvation to prepare us for
heaven. Hence, we preach the crucified, i.e., the dead Christ, to the sinner, his atoning substitute who
pays his debt, blockades hell, and keeps him out. Hence, the sinner is justified by the dead Christ,
who takes his place under the law. “Then if we are reconciled by his death” — there is justification
by the crucified Christ — “how much more shall we be saved by his life?” Here comes in the
glorious, positive side of the redemptive scheme, including regeneration and sanctification, the
mighty works of the living Christ through the Holy Ghost. The a fortiori argument occurs here (9-
21), evolved in a series of climaxes, set forth in the repetitions of the adverb “much more,”
contrasting Adam the First with Adam the Second, the former being the ruin and the latter the
redemption.
12. “Therefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death came upon
all men, in that all sinned.” Not “have sinned” as E.V., which would involve personal
responsibility, condemning the infants; but “sinned,” the imperfect tense, does not involve
personality, but simply implies that all sinned seminally in Adam when he fell, as all were in him,
the only one created, including all humanity in all ages.
13, 14. “For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed, there being no law; but
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the similitude of Adam’s
transgression, who is the type of him who is to come.” Here is an allusion to the infants, idiots and
heathens who did not sin after the manner of Adam, i.e., break a known law; yet they all died
physically, thus paying the penalty and showing to all the world their guilt in a sense, i.e.,
corroborating the above conclusion that all sinned seminally in Adam. How was Adam the type of
Christ? Only representatively. Both Adam and Christ represent the entire human race. This is so
fortunate for us. We all failed in Adam; but we all have a second chance in Christ; otherwise we
must have gone like the fallen angels (Jude 6) to abide in adamantine chains and penal fires forever.
15. “Not as the offense so is also the free gift; for if by the offense of one many died, much more
the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abounded unto the many.”
We have here the Greek phrase “the many,” in both cases used in a superlative sense. The simple
meaning is, all died in Adam and all live in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:22), i.e., all died seminally in
Adam and all live personally in Christ. When?
“Except every one be born from above (not again) he can not see the kingdom of God”
(John 3:5).
Here we see the absolute necessity of the new life on the part of every human being who shall
enter God’s kingdom. “He tasted death for every one” (Hebrews 2:9), not “every man” as E.V. Christ
not only certifies that all infants are in the kingdom, but holds them up as paragon members
(Matthew 18). The prodigal son was born in his Father’s house, i.e., in the kingdom of God. Hence
all are born there, as humanity is uniform. Then when do we pass out of Adam into Christ? The