Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMatthew Poole Commentary - Romans 5:20 - 5:20
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Here he shows the reason why the law was given; although (as it is in Rom_5:13) before that time sin was in the world, it was
that the offence might abound; either strictly, the offence of that one man, or rather largely, the offence of every man. The particle ina (rendered that), is to be taken either causally, and so it is interpreted by Gal_3:19, where it is said, the law was added because of transgressions, that thereby the guilt and punishment of sin being more fully discovered, the riches of God’s free grace and mercy might be the more admired; or else eventually, it so falls out by accident, or by reason of man’s corruption, that sin is thereby increased or augmented.
The law is holy, just, and good, ,{ as Rom_7:12} how then doth that increase sin? Either as it irritates the sinner, Rom_3:20; and Rom_7:8,11, or makes manifest the sin, Rom_7:7,13; thereby sin is known to be, as indeed it is, out of measure sinful.
But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: this is added by way of correction, to mitigate the former assertion, and it lays down a second end of giving the law; the former was the increase and manifestation of sin, the latter is the abounding or superabounding of God’s grace. There is this difference to be observed; that the first end is universal, for in all men, both good and bad, the law worketh the increase and knowledge of sin; but tho other is particular, and peculiar to the elect: to them only the grace of God is superabundant after that they have abounded in sin, and by how much the greater is their guilt, by so much the greater is the grace of God in the free forgiveness thereof.