atonement of Christ could not have been called obedience; it is for this reason He is so often praised as, blameless. —
xaraffruOriffovrai, shall be constituted ) It is one thing for a man to be constituted righteous, even where imputation is spoken of \ it is another thing to be justified, since the former exists as the basis and foundation of justification , and necessarily precedes true jus- tification, under which it is laid as the substratum [on which it rests] ; for a man must of necessity stand forth as righteous , before he can be truly justified. But we have both the one and the other from Christ , for both the merit of Christ's satisfaction for sin , im- puted to a man in himself unrighteous , already constitutes that same person righteous , inasmuch as it procures for him the righteousness , by which he is righteous; and by virtue of this righteousness , which is obtained by that merit , he is necessarily justified wherein- soever that justification be needed ; that is , he is justly acquitted by merit , who in this way stands forth righteous , Thom. Gataker. Diss. de novi instr. stylo, cap. 8. This is quite right. Never- theless the apostle, as at the end of the period, seems to set forth such a constituting of men as righteous, as [which] may follow upon the act of justification, and which is included in the expression being found , Phil. iii. 9 ; comp, with Gal. ii. 17. — o/ croXXo/, the many) all men , ver. 18, 15.
20. N ofiog, law ) the omission of the article tends to increase the sublimity [elevation of tone]. — TrapsnrriXds) came in stealthily by Moses, ver. 14. The Antithetic word is, entered , ver. 12 ; Sin therefore is more ancient than the law. — Tr\i ovaar), might abound) ch. vii. 7, etc. Sin is not reckoned in the absence of the law ; but when the law came in stealthily, sin appeared as abounding ; but, before the law, the fall of Adam should be held as the cause of death. — r'o Trap dvr u/jou, the offence) supply %a / i] d/uapr/a and sin. All the sins of mankind, compared with the sin of Adam, are as it were offshoots ; it is the root. ' A fiupr/u, sin , in the singular number, is considered as a plague most widely spread ; and it also comprehends all actual TrapaTrr^uara, offences , ver. 16. — n d^aprla [the] si?i) or in other words, the offence and sin ; for there is a difference between them ;l see notes on ver. 14 ; the sin , in the singular number, John i. 29. — vvepeirepfo-
1 The latter being the result of the former. — Ed.