For now the glorious Coming One, the Seed of the Woman, the blessed Lord of the Promise, rises on the view, in His likeness and in His contrast. Writing to Corinth from Macedonia, about a year before, St Paul had called him (1 Cor. xv. 45, 47) "the Second Adam," "the Second Man"; and had drawn in outline the parallel he here elaborates. "In Adam all die; even so in Christ all shall be made alive." It was a thought which he had learned in Judaism,[77] but which his Master had affirmed to him in Christianity; and noble indeed and far-reaching is its use of it in this exposition of the sinner's hope. [Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =But not as the transgression, so the gracious gift (χάρισμα). For if, by the transgression of the one, the many,= the many affected by it, =died, much rather did the grace of God.= His benignant action, =and the gift,= the grant of our acceptance, =in the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ,= ("_in_ His grace," because _involved in_ His benignant action, in His redeeming work) =abound unto the many= whom it, whom He, affected. We observe here some of the phrases in detail. "_The One_"; "_the One Man_":--"_the_ one," in each case, is related to "_the_ many" involved, in bane or in blessing respectively. "The One _Man_":--so the Second Adam is designated, not the First. As to the First, "it goes unsaid" that he is man. As to the Second, it is infinitely wonderful, and of eternal import, that He, as truly, as completely, is one with us, is Man of men. "_Much rather did_ the grace, and the gift, _abound_":--the thought given here is that while the dread sequel of the Fall was solemnly _permitted_, as good in law, the sequel of the divine counter-work was gladly _sped_ by the Lord's willing love, and was carried to a glorious overflow, to an altogether unmerited effect, in the present and eternal blessing of the justified. "_The many_," twice mentioned in this verse, are the whole company which, in each case, stands related to the respective Representative. It is the whole race in the case of the Fall; it is the "many brethren" of the Second Adam in the case of the Reconciliation. The question is not of numerical comparison between the two, but of the numerousness of each host in relation to the oneness of its covenant Head. What the numerousness of the "many brethren" will be we know--and we do not know; for it will be "a great multitude, which no one can number." But that is not in the question here. The emphasis, the "_much rather_," the "_abundance_," lies not on the compared numbers, but on the amplitude of the blessing which overflows upon "the many" from the justifying work of the One.