Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life (Rom. 5:18).
COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:
This passage sometimes has been appealed to by Universalists—those who say that oneday all without exception will be saved and no one will perish. All will get to heaven eventually.
The passage is also appealed to in support of “the general well-meant offer”—that is, the notion that the infinitely holy and righteous God ‘loves’ the reprobate wicked, and earnestly desires them to be saved, and expresses this in a gracious invitation to all men.
The key-phrase is: “the free gift came upon all men …”
and many read this text as if it says “and the free gift is offered to all men.”
(I)
Herman Hoeksema (1886-1965)
[Source: The Protestant Reformed Churches in America (1947), pp. 345-346; emphasis added]
(4) Sometimes “all men” must be interpreted as meaning “all of one group” in distinction from “all of another group.” This is the case in Romans 5:18: “Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” You must note, that in the latter part of this text it does not say, that the free gift is offered to all men, but that it came upon all men unto justification of life. Now, they, who actually receive this free gift, are surely saved. Hence, they cannot be all men without exception. But they do include “all that belong to the group of which Christ is the Head” in distinction from “the group of which Adam is the head.”
** On pages 345-347, Rev. Hoeksema demonstrates that, in Scripture,
“all” or “all men” can mean (1) “all of us [i.e. of the church]” (I Pet.
3:9), (2) “all kinds of men” (Tit. 2:11;
I Tim. 2:4), (3) “all believers or all
the elect” (I Cor. 15:22; John 12:31) (4) “‘all of one group,’ in distinction
from ‘all of another group’” (Rom. 5:18).
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(II)
Louis Berkhof (1873-1957)
[Source: Systematic Theology (Banner of Truth, 2005), p. 396]
... the context clearly shows that the “all” or “all men” of Rom. 5:18,
and I Cor. 15:22 includes only those who are in Christ, as contrasted with all
who are in Adam. If the word “all” in these passages is not interpreted in a
limited sense, they would teach, not merely that Christ made salvation possible
for all men, but that He actually saves all without exception. Thus the
Arminian would again be forced into the camp of the absolute Universalist,
where he does not want to be. A similar limitation must be applied in the
interpretation of II Cor. 5:14, and Heb. 2:9, cf. verse 10. Otherwise they
would prove too much, and therefore prove nothing. In all these passages the
“all” are simply all those who are in Christ.
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(III)
John Owen (1616-1683)
[Source: The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2013), pp. 241-247]
6. Rom. v. 18 is the last place urged in this kind, and by some most insisted on: “As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” It might suffice us briefly to declare that by all men in the latter place can none be understood but those whom the free gift actually comes upon unto justification of life; who are said, verse 17, to “receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness,” and so to “reign in life by one, Jesus Christ;” and by his obedience to be “made righteousness,” verse 19; which certainly, if any thing be true and certain in the truth of God, all are not. Some believe not,—“all men have not faith;” on some “the wrath of God abideth,” John iii. 36; upon whom, surely, grace doth not reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ, as it doth upon all those on whom the free gift comes to justification, verse 17. We might, I say, thus answer only; but seeing some, contrary to the clear, manifest intention of the apostle, comparing Adam and Christ, in the efficacy of the sin of the one unto condemnation, and of the righteousness of the other unto justification and life, in respect of those who are the natural seed of the one by propagation, and the spiritual seed of the other by regeneration, have laboured to wrest this place to the maintenance of the error we oppose with more than ordinary endeavours and confidence of success, it may not be unnecessary to consider what is brought by them to this end and purpose:—
Verse 14. Adam is called τύπος [typos], the type and “figure of him that was to come;” not that he was an instituted type, ordained for that only end and purpose, but only that in what he was, and what he did, with what followed thereupon, there was a resemblance between him and Jesus Christ. Hence by him and what he did, by reason of the resemblance, many things, by way of opposition, concerning the obedience of Christ and the efficacy of his death, may be well represented. That which the apostle here prosecuteth this resemblance in (with the showing of many diversities, in all which he exalteth Christ above his type) is this, that an alike though not an equal efficacy (for there is more merit and efficacy required to save one than to lose ten thousand) of the demerit, sin, disobedience, guilt, transgression of the one, to condemn, or bring the guilt of condemnation upon all them in whose room he was a public person (being the head and natural foundation of them all, they all being wrapped up in the same condition with him by divine institution), and the righteousness, obedience, and death of the other, for the absolution, justification, and salvation of all them to whom he was a spiritual head by divine institution, and in whose room he was a public person, is by him in divers particulars asserted. That these last were all and every one of the first, there is not the least mention. The comparison is solely to be considered intensively, in respect of efficacy, not extensively, in respect of object; though the all of Adam be called his many, and the many of Christ be called his all, as indeed they are, even all the seed which is given unto him.
Thomas More, in his “Universality of Free Grace,” chap. viii. p. 41, lays down this comparison, instituted by the apostle, between Adam and Christ, as one of the main foundations of his universal redemption; and this (after some strange mixtures of truth and errors premised, which, to avoid tediousness, we let pass) he affirmeth to consist in four things:—
First, “That Adam, in his first sin and transgression, was a public person, in the room and place of all mankind, by virtue of the covenant between God and him; so that whatever he did therein, all were alike sharers with him. So also was Christ a public person in his obedience and death, in the room and place of all mankind, represented by him, even every one of the posterity of Adam.”
Ans. To that which concerneth Adam, we grant he was a public person in respect of all his that were to proceed from him by natural propagation; that Christ also was a public person in the room of his, and herein prefigured by Adam. But that Christ, in his obedience, death, and sacrifice, was a public person, and stood in the room and stead of all and every one in the world, of all ages and times (that is, not only of his elect and those who were given unto him of God, but also of reprobate persons, hated of God from eternity; of those whom he never knew, concerning whom, in the days of his flesh, he thanked his Father that he had hid from them the mysteries of salvation; whom he refused to pray for; who were, the greatest part of them, already damned in hell, and irrevocably gone beyond the limits of redemption, before he actually yielded any obedience), is to us such a monstrous assertion as cannot once be apprehended or thought on without horror or detestation. That any should perish in whose room or stead the Son of God appeared before his Father with his perfect obedience; that any of those for whom he is a mediator and advocate, to whom he is a king, priest, and prophet (for all these he is, as he was a public person, a sponsor, a surety, and undertaker for them), should be taken from him, plucked out of his arms, his satisfaction and advocation in their behalf being refused;—I suppose is a doctrine that will scarce be owned among those who strive to preserve the witness and testimony of the Lord Jesus.
But let us a little consider the reasons whereby Mr. More undertakes to maintain this strange assertion; which, as far as I can gather, are these, page 44:—First, He stood not in the room only of the elect, because Adam lost not election, being not intrusted with it. Secondly, If he stood not in the room of all, then he had come short of his figure. Thirdly, It is said he was to restore all men, lost by Adam, Heb. ii. 9. Fourthly, He took flesh, was subjected to mortality, became under the law, and bare the sins of mankind. Fifthly, He did it in the room of all mankind, once given unto him, Rom. xiv. 9; Phil. ii. 8-11. Sixthly, Because he is called the “last Adam;”—and, Seventhly, Is said to be a public person, in the room of all, ever since the “first Adam,” 1 Cor. xv. 45, 47; 1 Tim. ii. 5; Rom. v.
Ans. Never, surely, was a rotten conclusion bottomed upon more loose and tottering principles, nor the word of God more boldly corrupted for the maintenance of any error, since the name of Christian was known. A man would think it quite lost, but that it is so very easy a labour to remove such hay and stubble. I answer, then, to the first, that though Adam lost not election, and the eternal decrees of the Almighty are not committed to the keeping of the sons of men, yet in him all the elect were lost, whom Christ came to seek, whom he found,—in whose room he was a public person. To the second, Christ is nowhere compared to Adam in respect of the extent of the object of his death, but only of the efficacy of his obedience. The third is a false assertion;—see our foregoing consideration of Heb. ii. 9. Fourthly, For his taking of flesh, etc., it was necessary he should do all this for the saving of his elect. He took flesh and blood because the children were partakers of the same. Fifthly, No such thing is once affirmed in the whole book of God, that all the sons of men were given unto Christ to redeem, so that he should be a public person in their room. Nay, himself plainly affirm the contrary, John xvii. 6, 9. Some only are given him out of the world, and those he saved; not one of them perisheth. The places urged hold out no such thing like it. They will also afterward come under farther consideration. Sixthly, He is called the “last Adam” in respect of the efficacy of his death unto the justification of the seed promised and given unto him, as the sin of the “first Adam” was effectual to bring the guilt of condemnation on the seed propagated from him; which proves not at all that he stood in the room of all those to whom his death was never known, nor any ways profitable. Seventhly, That he was a public person is confessed: that he was so in the room of all is not proved, neither by what hath been already said, nor by the texts, that there follow, alleged, all which have been considered. This being all that is produced by Mr. More to justify his assertion, it may be an instance what weighty inferences he usually asserts from such weak, invalid premises. We cannot also but take notice, by the way, of one or two strange passages which he inserts into this discourse; whereof the first is, that Christ by his death brought all men out of that death whereinto they were fallen by Adam. Now, the death whereinto all fell in Adam being a death in sin, Eph. ii. 1-3, and the guilt of condemnation thereupon, if Christ freed all from this death, then must all and every one be made alive with life spiritual, which only is to be had and obtained by Jesus Christ; which, whether that be so or not, whether to live by Christ be not the peculiar privilege of believers, the gospel hath already declared, and God will one day determine. Another strange assertion is, his affirming the end of the death of Christ to be his presenting himself alive and just before his Father; as though it were the ultimate thing by him intended, the Holy Ghost expressly affirming that “he loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might present it to himself a glorious church,” Eph. v. 25-27.
The following parallels, which he instituted between Adam and Christ, have nothing of proof in them to the business in hand,—namely, that Christ was a public person, standing, in his obedience, in the room of all and every one that were concerned in the disobedience of Adam. There is, I say, nothing at all of proof in them, being a confused medley of some truths and divers unsavoury heresies. I shall only give the reader a taste of some of them, whereby he may judge of the rest, not troubling myself or others with the transcribing and reading of such empty vanities as no way relate to the business in hand.
First, then, In the second part of his parallel he affirms, “That when Christ finished his obedience, in dying and rising, and offering himself a sacrifice, and making satisfaction, it was, by virtue of the account of God in Christ, and for Christ with God (that is, accepted with God for Christ’s sake), the death, resurrection, the sacrifice and satisfaction, and the redemption of all,—that is, all and every one;” and therein he compares Christ to Adam in the performance of the business by him undertaken. Now, but that I cannot but with trembling consider what the apostle affirms, 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12, I should be exceedingly amazed that any man in the world should be so far forsaken of sense, reason, faith, and all reverence of God and man, as to publish, maintain, and seek to propagate, such abominable, blasphemous, senseless, contradictious errors. That the death of Christ should be accepted of and accounted before God as the death of all, and yet the greatest part of these all be adjudged to eternal death in their own persons by the same righteous God; that all and every one should arise in and with Jesus Christ, and yet most of them continue dead in their sins, and die for sin eternally; that satisfaction should be made and accepted for them who are never spared, nor shall be, one farthing of their debt; that atonement should be made by sacrifice for such as ever lie undelivered under wrath; that all the reprobates, Cain, Pharaoh, Ahab, and the rest, who were actually damned in hell, and under death and torments, then when Christ died, suffered, made satisfaction, and rose again, should be esteemed with God to have died, suffered, made satisfaction, and risen again with Christ;—that, I say, such senseless contradictions, horrid errors, and abominable assertions, should be thus nakedly thrust upon Christians, without the least colour, pretence, or show of proof, but the naked authority of him who hath already embraced such things as these, were enough to make any man admire and be amazed, but that we know the judgments of God are oft-times hid, and far above out of our sights.
Secondly, In the third of his parallels he goeth one step higher, comparing Christ with Adam in respect of the efficacy, effect, and fruit of his obedience. He affirms, “That as by the sin of Adam all his posterity were deprived of life, and fell under sin and death, whence judgment and condemnation passed upon all, though this be done secretly and invisible, and in some sort inexpressibly” (what he means by secretly and invisibly, well I know not,—surely he doth not suppose that these things might possibly be made the objects of our senses; and for inexpressibly, how that is, let Rom. v. 12, with other places where all this and more is clearly, plainly, and fully expressed, be judge whether it be so or no); “so,” saith he, “by the efficacy of the obedience of Christ, all men without exception are redeemed, restored, made righteous, justified freely by the grace of Christ, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ, the ‘righteousness that is by the faith of Jesus Christ’ being ‘unto all,’ Rom. iii. 22,” (where the impostor wickedly corrupteth the word of God, like the devil, Matt. iv., by cutting off the following words, “and upon all that believe,” both alls answering to believers). “What remains now but that all also should be saved? the Holy Ghost expressly affirming that those ‘whom God justifieth, he also glorifieth,’” Rom. viii. 30. “Solvite mortals animas, curisque levate.” Such assertions as these without any colour of proof, doth this author labour to obtrude upon us. Now, that men should be restored, and yet continue lost; that they should be made righteous, and yet remain detestably wicked, and wholly abominable; that they should be justified freely by the grace of God, and yet always lie under the condemning sentence of the law of God; that the righteousness of God by the faith of Jesus Christ should be upon all unbelievers,—are not only things exceedingly opposite to the gospel of Jesus Christ, but so absolutely at variance and distance one with another, that the poor salve of Mr. More’s following cautions will not serve to heel their mutual wounds. I cannot but fear that it would be tedious and offensive to rake any longer in such a dunghill. Let them that have a mind to be captivated to error and falsehood by corruption of Scripture and denial of common sense and reason, because they cannot receive the truth in the love thereof, delight themselves with such husks as these. What weaker arguments we have had, to maintain that Christ, in his obedience to the death, was a public person in the room of all and every one, hath been already demonstrated. I shall now, by the reader’s leave, a little transgress the rule of disputation, and, taking up the opposite part of the arguments, produce some few reasons and testimonies to demonstrate that our Saviour wrought, and satisfaction which he made, and sacrifice which he offered, was not a public person in the room of all and every man in the world, elect and reprobate, believers and infidels, or unbelievers; which are briefly these:—
First, The seed of the woman was not to be a public person in the place, stead, and room of the seed of the serpent. Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman κατ' ἐξοχήν [kat’ exokhḗn—par excellence]; all the reprobates, as was before proved, are the seed of the serpent: therefore, Jesus Christ was not, in his oblation and suffering, when he brake the head of the father of the seed, a public person in their room.
Secondly, Christ as a public person, representeth only them for whose sake he set himself apart to that office and employment wherein he was such a representative; but upon his own testimony, which we have, John xvii. 19, he set himself apart to the service and employment wherein he was a public person for the sake only of some that were given him out of the world, and not of all and every one: therefore, he was not a public person in the room of all.
Thirdly, Christ was a “surety,” as he was a public person, Heb. vii. 22; but he was not a surety for all,—for, first, All are not taken into that covenant whereof he was a surety, whose conditions are effected in all the covenantees, as before; secondly, None can perish for whom Christ is a surety, unless he be not able to pay the debt:— therefore, he was not a public person in the room of all.
Fourthly, For whom he was a public person, in their rooms he suffered not in the stead of all, nor made satisfaction for all,—for, first, Some must suffer themselves, which makes it evident that Christ did not suffer for them, Rom. viii. 33, 34; and, secondly, The justice of God requireth satisfaction from themselves, to the payment of the utmost farthing.
Fifthly, Jesus Christ, as a public person, did nothing in vain in respect of any for whom he was a public person; but many things which Christ, as a public person, did perform were altogether in vain and fruitless, in respect of the greatest part of the sons of men being under an incapability of receiving any good by any thing he did,—to wit, all that then were actually damned, in respect of whom, redemption, reconciliation, satisfaction, and the like, could possibly be no other than empty names.
Sixthly, If God were well pleased with his Son in what he did, as a public person, in his representation of others (as he was, Eph. v. 2), then must he also be well pleased with them whom he did represent, either absolutely or conditionally; but with many of the sons of men God, in the representation of his Son, was not well pleased, neither absolutely nor conditionally,—to wit, with Cain, Pharaoh, Saul, Ahab, and others, dead and damned before: therefore, Christ did not, as a public person, represent all.
Seventhly, For
testimonies, see John xvii. 9; Matt. xx. 28, xxvi. 26-28; Mark x. 45; Heb. vi.
20; Isa. liii. 12; John x. 15; Heb. xiii. 20; Matt. i. 21; Heb. ii. 17; John
xi. 51, 52; Acts xx. 28; Eph. v. 2, 23-25; Rom. viii. 33, 34.
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(IV)
More to come! (DV)
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