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Romans

About this book
Chapter 5

1 Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have also obtained access into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of God’s glory. 3 Not only this, but we also rejoice in sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance, character, and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.⁠ 6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 (For rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person perhaps someone might possibly dare to die.) 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, because we have now been declared righteous by his blood, we will be saved through him from God’s wrath. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more, since we have been reconciled, will we be saved by his life? 11 Not only this, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received this reconciliation. 12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned—⁠ 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed. 15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! 16 And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification.⁠ 17 For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ! 18 Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be constituted righteous.⁠ 20 Now the law came in so that the transgression may increase, but where sin increased, grace multiplied all the more, 21 so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Romans 5:12 and 2 Baruch 54:15

New Testament · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

Romans presents Adam as the source of sin and death. 2 Baruch shares this view and says Adam’s failure opened the way for death, yet it expands the theme by teaching that each person is responsible and becomes their own Adam.

Passages

Romans 5:12

New Testament
12 So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all people because all sinned— 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world, but there is no accounting for sin when there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam (who is a type of the coming one) transgressed. 15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if the many died through the transgression of the one man, how much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ multiply to the many! 16 And the gift is not like the one who sinned. For judgment, resulting from the one transgression, led to condemnation, but the gracious gift from the many failures led to justification. 17 For if, by the transgression of the one man, death reigned through the one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ! 18 Consequently, just as condemnation for all people came through one transgression, so too through the one righteous act came righteousness leading to life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of one man many will be constituted righteous.
55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

2 Baruch 54:15

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
12 For who does things like Your marvellous deeds, O God, Or who comprehends Your deep thought of life. 13 For with Your counsel You govern all the creatures which Your right hand has created, And You have established every fountain of light beside You, And the treasures of wisdom beneath Your throne You have prepared. 14 And justly do they perish who have not loved Your law, And the torment of judgement shall await those who have not submitted themselves to Your power. 15 For though Adam first sinned And brought untimely death upon all, Yet of those who were born from him Each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come, And again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come. 16 For surely he who believes will receive reward.
70–135 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Baruch

References

"... The Adam motifs to which Paul is here indebted have of course ultimately been derived from Genesis 3, but then as interpreted in a certain strain of Jewish apocalyptic eschatology, as witnessed to by the apocalypses of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. These books, though written some decades after Paul wrote Romans, clearly make use of earlier and commonly available traditions and do so independently of each other. In both works, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and the gift of the Law are placed against the cosmic backdrop of Adam’s transgression and its disastrous consequences for the world, for all humanity. In 2 Baruch, we read: “Adam sinned and death was decreed against those who were to be born” (23:4) and “when he [Adam] transgressed, untimely death came into being” (56:6; compare Gen 2:17; 3:19). It is also said, however: “Adam is . . . not the cause, except for himself, but each of us has become our own Adam” (54:19). Adam may have “sinned first” (54:15), but he was not the last! The death that Adam brought into the world is justifiably imposed on those who are descended from him. In 4 Ezra, there is a very similar tale. God “laid one commandment” upon Adam, we read in 3:7, “but he transgressed it, and immediately you [God] appointed death for him and his descendants.” ..."
Martinus C. de Boer in Apocalyptic Paul: Cosmos and Anthropos in Romans 5–8, ed. Beverly Roberts Gaventa (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013), 11–12.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Romans 5:12 and 2 Baruch 54:15

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