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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Romans 5:20 - 5:20
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20. νόμος δὲ κ.τ.λ. The effect of law, whether the inner law or the law of Moses, was to multiply the fall, i.e. to occasion in each the fall which had taken place in Adam (cf. ch. 7), so that each became a sinner by his own act in rejecting knowledge; cf. ‘every man is the Adam of his own soul.’
παρεισῆλθεν. The force of the compound is that law came in as an additional element in man’s experience, not as it were on the direct line of natural development but as an extra imported element, both the inner light and the outer law being especial gifts of GOD.
ἵνα πλεονάσῃ. Cf. Rom 3:19, Rom 7:7 ff., esp. 13, 14. We cannot avoid taking ἵνα as final. The knowledge of GOD’s will was necessary for man’s moral development; it was necessary to make what was sin to be realised as sin (Rom 3:20).
οὗ δὲ κ.τ.λ. The resources of GOD’s favour were abundantly equal to this multiplied demand upon it.
ὑπερεπερίσσευσεν, ‘became still more abundant.’