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Rom 5.18–19 and Universal Salvation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2002

RICHARD H. BELL
Affiliation:
Dept of Theology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK

Abstract

Rom 5.18–19 summarises Paul's view of condemnation in Adam and salvation in Christ. Since Paul believes that all human beings participate in Adam's sin and in Christ's ‘righteous act’, a universal salvation is affirmed. This view is clearly at variance with other parts of Romans (not to mention his other extant works). The difference in view could be explained by the fact that Paul in Rom 5.18–19 is using the mythical concept of participation and that he is focusing on the effects of Christ's reconciling act rather than on how the reconciling word is brought to human beings.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

This is a revised version of a paper given to the ‘Romans’ seminar of the SNTS 2000 conference in Tel Aviv. I thank the members of the seminar and my PhD student Matthew Howey for a number of helpful comments.