Go to Related Reading
About this book

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 Wisdom of Solomon 2:23 and Romans 5:12

Deuterocanon · New Testament

Share:

Summary

The Wisdom of Solomon and Romans explore the origin of death, linking it to human disobedience. Wisdom attributes death to the devil’s envy and humanity’s loss of divine likeness, and Paul traces it to Adam’s disobedience, which brought death to all.

Passages

Wisdom of Solomon 2:23

Deuterocanon
21 Thus they reasoned, and they were led astray; for their wickedness blinded them, 22 and they didn’t know the mysteries of God, neither did they hope for wages of holiness, nor did they discern that there is a prize for blameless souls. 23 Because God created man for incorruption, and made him an image of his own everlastingness; 24 but death entered into the world by the envy of the devil, and those who belong to him experience it.
50 BCE – 50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Wisdom of Solomon

Romans 5:12

New Testament
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.
55–58 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Romans

References

"... In Romans 5:12 Paul traces human sin and the death that accompanies it back to Adam: ‘therefore, just as sin came into the world through the one man (δι᾽ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου), and death through sin, so death spread to all because all sinned’. In Pauline theology, the adamic trespass means death (5:15), condemnation (5:16, 18) and the status of ‘sinner’ (5:19) for the many who, through Adam’s sin, are subjected to the reign of death (5:17, 21). But this universalism also has a particularity. While ‘all sinned’ (5:12), not all sinned ‘in the likeness of Adam’s trespass’ (ἐπὶ τῷ ὁμοιώματι τῆς παραβάσεως Ἀδάμ, 5:14). (While Wisdom explains the entrance of death in relation to the devil’s agency in Eden (2:23–24), Adam’s particular theological significance is not as the archetypal sinner, but rather as the first figure in a long history of Wisdom saving those who are ‘worthy of her’). That dubious honour had to await the coming of the Mosaic law ..."
Jonathan A. Linebaugh, God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 112.

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

Your feedback

Wisdom of Solomon 2:23 and Romans 5:12

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library