NT Text: Romans 5:19
OT Source(s):
Source: Beale & Carson (eds.), Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (2007); Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Promise-Fulfillment
Anchor Text: Isa 52:13-53:12 — The Suffering Servant
Significance: Paul's Adam-Christ antithesis — "through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" — draws its decisive vocabulary from Isaiah 53:11, which alone in the OT joins "the righteous one," "the many," and the verb "make righteous / justify" (LXX dikaiōsai dikaion... tois pollois). Where Isaiah says "My righteous Servant will justify the many," Paul says the obedient one will make "the many" righteous; the recurring "the many" (hoi polloi) of 5:15-19 is the Servant Song's rabbîm. Paul also coordinates this with 53:12's "He bore the sin of many": the Servant's sin-bearing is the mechanism by which the many are justified. The connection is Promise-Fulfillment rather than mere analogy — Paul is not illustrating with Isaiah but identifying Christ as the foretold righteous Servant whose representative obedience reverses Adam's representative disobedience. The telos is the wonder of an alien righteousness: "the many" are constituted righteous not by their own deeds but by the obedience of Another, so that the Servant's justifying work is savored as sheer gift, the only ground on which guilty sinners stand acquitted before God.