The Law came in so that the transgression would
increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21
so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord.

An Arithmetic Problem

I start with an arithmetic question. If you have an infinite
number and subtract any finite number from it, what is the answer?
Or to be specific: what it the answer to the arithmetic
problem,

Infinity - 10,000 = ?

I believe the answer is: infinity. Only finite numbers become
smaller when you subtract something from them. The very meaning of
"infinite" is that when you take away from it there is no less than
when you began.

So it seems that the fifth verse of Amazing Grace (a
verse which John Newton did not write – but which is one of
the best) is accurate:

When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

In this life, every day that goes by means fewer days yet to
live. In the life to come, every passing day or century or
millennium will mean that the amount of future left for us is never
diminished.

Now why is this important?

The Infinite Reality of Eternal Life

It's important because Romans 5 begins and ends with two
infinite realities that are needed to explain each other and help
us sense the magnitude of God's way of salvation. The chapter ends
in verse 21 with the infinite reality of eternal life: "So that, as
sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord." God's aim in the work of redemption is the triumph of grace
over sin and death unto eternal life through Jesus Christ.
The "eternal" refers to life that never ends. It is infinite life.
Life of infinite duration.

But is this infinite duration of boring life? Ordinary life?
Most of the life we know – extended forever – would not
be an exciting prospect. In fact, none of the life we know now
would be worth extending forever. It would not be good news. The
most exquisite of our pleasures on earth would be almost torture
after the 10,000^th repetition.

The Infinite Reality of God's Glory

This is why the other infinite reality – the one at the
beginning of the chapter – is so crucial. Romans 5 begins,
"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained
our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we
exult in hope of the glory of God."

Here, instead of saying that our hope is eternal life, Paul says
that our hope is "the glory of God." "We exult in the hope of the
glory of God." This is crucial to see. Because this is the reason
that our future life must be eternal and why it cannot be boring.
Any amount of time short of eternity would be inadequate for a
finite creature to experience the glory of God. It will take
forever for us to see all there is to see and admire all there is
to admire and enjoy all there is to enjoy of the glory of God.
Therefore God ordains that there be eternal life for us.

We need to feel the force of this. The glory of God is all that
God is for us in his greatness and his excellence. And God is
infinite. So his glory is infinite. It has no boundaries, no
limits, no end. Sometimes Paul stresses this with the phrase
"riches of his glory." For example, in Romans 9:23 he says God's
purpose is "to make known the riches of His glory upon
vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." In
Ephesians 1:18 Paul prays that we would know "what are the
riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." In
Philippians 4:19 he says, "My God will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

The point of this phrase is that his glory is a God-sized
treasure. It is not small and exhaustible. It will not and cannot
run out. You can't spend it down. It is God-sized wealth. It is
infinite. Therefore it will take us finite creatures an eternity to
see it all and taste it all and admire it all and enjoy it all. A
finite creature cannot take in all at once infinite glory any more
than a thimble can take in the Pacific Ocean all at once. And even
if you enlarged the thimble to the size of the Pacific Ocean you
would need endless days to dip out the glory of God from the ocean
of God's glory, which has no bottom and no shores.

So this will not be an endless duration of boring life. It will
not be mere repetition of old ecstasies. It will be ever-new sights
and tastes and wonders and experiences and pleasures forever and
ever because the glory of God is where we will live and move and
have our being.

So the chapter begins with the hope of the glory of God and ends
with the triumph of eternal life – the content and duration
of our future with God.

Why not Skip Human History and Go Straight to the Glory?

Now what this does to me is make me ask, If God's purpose was
that we would have an eternal life spent in seeing and savoring his
glory, why didn't he just skip this terrible thing called human
history and go straight to the goal?

Why the creation of Adam and the fall of Adam into sin, and the
fall and corruption of the entire human race, and the decline of
the race to the point of the flood, and then the 2000-year history
of Israel with all its sin and misery, and then the incarnation of
the Son of God, and the horrific death of Jesus, and the
resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and then 2000
more years of sin and misery as the gospel spreads, O so slowly, in
the world through an imperfect church? Why ordain a universe like
this on the way to eternal life for the children of God?

To which someone might say, Maybe he didn't ordain it. Maybe he
just started it in hope of something better, but it turned out
different than he foreknew. Well, the problem with that idea is the
Bible's teaching that God planned things before the creation of the
world. For example, the "eternal life" promised in Romans 5:21,
Paul calls (in Titus 1:2) "The hope of eternal life, which God, who
cannot lie, promised long ages ago" [literally: before the times of
the ages]. God was preparing for the gift of eternal life before he
created the world.

And he knew that this would come not by Adam's works of
righteousness, but by the blood-bought grace of Jesus, because 2
Timothy 1:9 says that we are saved by the "grace which was granted
us in Christ Jesus from all eternity" [literally: before the times
of the ages]. Grace was planned, and the death of Jesus was planned
before the creation of the world.

Why the Law?

So the question remains, why didn't God just skip this terrible
thing called human history and go straight to the goal of eternal
life?

So let's answer that question – at least in part –
by using Romans 5:20-21 as one window on the mind of God. Paul
gives us a glimpse into the answer of this big question by
answering: Why then the law? Why was the law given to Moses? Why
did God do this particular thing in the way he was working out his
saving plan to bring people to eternal life in the presence of his
glory? If we can see an answer to this little piece of history,
maybe the answer will apply to other pieces as well.

So let's read the text again. Paul is closing this great section
of Romans on justification and summarizing his aim by answering the
question, Why did God give the Law of Moses? Why did God pursue his
goal of eternal life for his people this way? Here's what
he says in Romans 5:20-21: The Law came in so that the
transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace
abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so
grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Paul's first answer was that the Law of Moses was given to
increase the transgression. Verse 20: "The Law came in so that the
transgression would increase." The "transgression" – the
singular is a reference to the singular transgression of Adam that
he has been talking about all along in this paragraph. Verse 15:
"By the transgression of the one the many died." Verse 17,
"By the transgression of the one, death reigned through
the one." Verse 18: "Through one transgression there
resulted condemnation to all men."

Now he says in verse 20: "The Law came in so that the
transgression would increase." So I take it to mean that one
crucial function of the law is to turn our original sin into actual
transgressions of specific commandments. First, we are guilty in
Adam and sinful by nature, and then the Law confronts us with the
specific will of God: "Don't steal. Don't lie. Don't covet." And
the effect is that it turns sinful nature into specific sinful acts
of transgression. One writer said it well: the Law makes little
Adams out of us all.¹

So what was once "one transgression" in which we all shared by
virtue of the union with Adam that God ordained for all humanity,
has now, because of the law, become millions upon millions of
specific transgressions, as verse
16b said, "The free gift arose
from many transgressions." So the Law of Moses was given to
increase the transgression of Adam into millions of specific acts
of transgression in all of us who resist submitting to the Law of
God because of our rebellious nature.

Super-Abounding Grace

But now why would God make that his purpose for the Law of
Moses? What is the point? Where is all this multiplied sin and
misery going? The second half of verse 20 takes a step closer: "But
where sin increased, grace abounded all the more." The point of
increased sin was "super-abounding" grace. So the increase of sins
– the multiplication of specific transgressions – was
not the ultimate point of the Law. It was not an end in itself. It
was the occasion for something God wanted to do that was more
important and far greater, namely, to show his grace
"super-abounding." "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the
more."

But that's not where Paul ends the explanation of why the Law
came in. He goes on in verse 21 with the words "so that." So you
can see with the words "so that" that something more is being
pursued. God has a purpose for this super-abounding grace, and he
tips us off with the words "so that." It's not enough to say that
the purpose of God in giving the Law was that grace might
"super-abound" – that's not specific enough. So he adds
another purpose statement.

Verse 21: [Sin increases and grace super-abounds] "so that, as
sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Here, as Paul comes to the climax of Romans 5 and of the first
great section of Romans on justification, the cymbals are crashing
and the timpani are rolling and the trumpets are blaring and the
strings are soaring as Paul heaps together the aspects of God's
ultimate purpose in the history of redemption.

It's not just that grace super-abounds, but that this
super-abounding grace be seen and known as reigning triumphantly
over death and sin and hell. Verse 21: "So that, as sin reigned in
death, even so grace would reign." God's purpose for the Law, and
of all history, is the triumphant reign of grace.

But that is not specific enough either: his purpose is the
triumphant reign of grace "unto eternal life." "As sin reigned in
death, even so grace would reign . . . to eternal life." And this
"eternal life," remember, is the endless duration that it will take
for us to see and know and taste and admire and enjoy the glory of
God – which we learn now is mainly the "glory of his grace"
(see Ephesians 1:6).

"Through Jesus Christ Our Lord"

But that too is not specific enough. Paul will not stop until he
has based the entire goal and experience of history and eternity on
Jesus Christ. "So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would
reign . . . to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." All of
history aims at purposes that magnify Jesus Christ (compare the way
Paul ended the first paragraph of chapter five – verses
1-11). That is why God created the universe. That's why he spent
thousands of years preparing for Christ. That's why there was an
incarnation and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. "All things
are through him and for him" (Colossians 1:16). The triumphant
reign of grace unto eternal life is "through Jesus Christ our
Lord."

But that too is not specific enough. There is one more part to
his summary statement in verse 21. Paul won't leave it out because
this has been the whole focus since verse 12, namely, the
righteousness of Jesus Christ as the foundation of our eternal life
– not our righteousness, but Christ's righteousness. God's
purpose for the law and the increase of sin and the super-abounding
of grace is "so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would
reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord."

I take this "righteousness" to be the same as in verse 18, "So
through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of
life." Grace reigns "through righteousness to eternal life" means
grace justifies the ungodly on the basis of the righteousness of
Jesus, the obedience of Jesus (verse 19).² In this way,
grace triumphs over sin and guilt and condemnation.

So here's the summary of Romans 1-5:

There is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10). All are
guilty before God because of union with Adam in his first sin
(5:12-14). And we all become our "own little Adams" when our
depravity meets the Law of God and overflows in specific acts of
transgression (5:16, 20). Therefore, there is no getting right with
God – no justification – on the basis of deeds done by
us in righteousness (3:20). Instead there is one and only one hope
for sinners: a second Adam, Jesus Christ, has come into the world
and provided both blood (5:9) and righteousness (5:18). Blood to
cover all our sins, and righteousness so that our account is not
empty but filled with perfect obedience – the obedience of
Jesus (5:19). Therefore, it is by faith and by faith alone that we
receive this grace of justification (3:28; 5:17) and obtain eternal
life – the hope of glory.

The Glory of God! The Glory of Jesus Christ!

The aim of all creation, all history, all redemption, is the
glory of the triumphant grace of God, through the righteousness of
Christ, freeing us from sin and guilt and condemnation, and giving
us a never-ending life, where, after ten thousand years of seeing
and admiring and enjoying the glory of Christ, we will have only
just begun.

Praise him with me:

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace.
When we've been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun
We've no less days to sing God's praise,
Than when we first begun.

Notes

1 "The law has the function of turning those it
addresses into 'their own Adam.'" Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the
Romans (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), p.
348.

2 In this sermon (9-3-00), my interpretation of
the reign of grace in Romans 5:21 is a change from what I assumed
when I referred to this text in the message on Romans 5:1-2
(10-24-99). There I assumed that grace, in Romans 5:21, is a power
to transform and preserve our lives. I said, "Notice that grace
reigns. It is an exercise of power, not just a disposition. Grace
is a sphere and reign of God's infinite power working for us and
not against us." I still believe grace is indeed a power that
transforms and preserves us, but I don't think that is the note
struck in Romans 5:21. I think the grace here is God's will and act
to justify the ungodly on the basis of the "righteousness" referred
to here (and in 5:18, 19, 16, 17) through faith. In other words, I
think Paul is relentlessly dealing with justification by faith in
legal, not transformative, terms in Chapter Five and does not take
up the issue of our transformation until the next chapter.

My reasons for this exegetical decision are:

Reason 1) It does not follow that, since grace
is said to "reign," it is therefore necessarily thought of as a
transforming power. For example, if grace is the will and act to
justify the ungodly by legal acquittal and by the imputation of
another's righteousness, and if that person goes free triumphantly
reigning in life (5:17) over guilt and condemnation, then surely it
would be natural to say that grace has triumphed there, and is
"reigning" in righteousness unto eternal life.

Reason 2) The term "righteousness" in Romans
5:21 would most naturally pick up the meaning it has carried in
verses 17, 18, 19 (see "gift" in 15, 16). I have tried to show in
the other messages that this is not our practical obedience but
Christ's righteousness and obedience imputed to us (especially
verses 18, 19 and 16, "free gift resulting in justification").

Reason 3) Verse 17 is so close to verse 21 that
virtually every part of verse 21 has its counterpart in verse 17,
which, I believe is a statement of grace giving the gift of imputed
righteousness. Hence that is the natural way to take this closely
parallel verse here.

Reason 4) The issue that Paul raises in Romans
6:1 follows more naturally from Romans 5:21 if grace is God's will
to forgive and declare righteous, not his act of transformation.
"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace
may increase?" No one would even ask this question if the grace of
5:21 were the power that keeps us from sinning, since it would not
make sense to say, "Shall we continue in sin so that the power to
keep us from sinning may increase?" But it makes very good sense to
say, "Shall we continue in sin so that the will and act of God to
justify the ungodly may increase." I think that is what Paul means
in 5:21, and that is what creates the problem dealt with in chapter
six.