February 12 Click on verses for Full Scripture	previous - - - - - - - - - - next
Today's Pathway: Romans 5:20-21 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday we saw the parallels between Adam and Christ, and also the contrasts between the two of them. All of mankind was condemned because of Adam's sin, and all of mankind has been offered the free gift of justification through the blood of Jesus that was shed on Calvary. But in the minds of many, particularly the Jews, the law surely played some part in salvation. Paul deals with that in verse 20. He states that the law "entered". It was added, which means that it did not have a primary place in God's divine plan. Men were already sinners long before the time of Moses. The Law did not make men sinners, because they already were sinners. The Law also was unable to solve mankind's sin problem because it was "weak through the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). So, what purpose did it serve?

The Law revealed just how sinful and wicked mankind was. It turned our sin nature into the actual violations of specific commandments. It revealed us all to be "little Adams" who were transgressing God's written commandments just as Adam had transgressed God's verbal commandment. It caused our sin to "abound". Charles Spurgeon wrote this:

"It was the practical result of the giving of the law that men became greater sinners than they were before, and it was the design of the law that they should see themselves to be greater sinners than before. The law is the looking-glass in which we see our spots, but it is not the basin in which we wash them away. The law has a provoking power, for such is the perversity of our nature that, no sooner do we hear the command, “You shall not do so-and-so,” than at once we want to do it. So, the more God says to a man, 'Thou shalt,' the more the man says, 'I will not;' and the more God says to him, 'Thou shalt not,' the more doth the man resolve that he will. 'The law entered, that the offense might abound.' It reveals the depravity and disobedience of human nature, and lays us low before God as convicted criminals."

This would be a sad state of affairs if Paul had ended the discussion there. But he adds,

"But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound".

"In the Greek, these are two different words. 'Where sin overflowed, grace flooded in.' Where sin measurably increased, grace immeasurably increased. Where sin abounded—pleonazo—grace did much more abound—huper-perisseuo. The prefix huper is like the Latin super. The ads have taught us what super does to a word. Instead of being colossal, something is supercolossal. So, where sin could be measured by multiplying the number of commands of the law by the number of human beings in the world, grace could never be measured because it would require the multiplication of the number of acts of God’s grace by the infinity of His being. Our text might well read: 'Where sin was finite, grace was infinite.'”

Since grace "super-abounds" over sin, we know that it is impossible to "out-sin" the grace of God. Thus Paul concludes this section of Romans by stating that, even though sin reigned and brought about death, now the grace of God reigns through the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is imparted to those who believe. How thankful we should be that God's grace is greater than any sin that we can commit! Julia Johnston captured this truth beautifully in her hymn "Grace Greater Than Our Sin":

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled.
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin!