5:1 we have peace: In many manuscripts, the underlying Greek verb is indicative, as translated here. A number of other manuscripts use the subjunctive instead (let us have peace). • Peace with God does not refer to a mere feeling of peacefulness but to a real situation of peace. It is the end of hostilities between God and sinful human beings when they believe in Jesus Christ and the state of blessing and salvation that God promised his people in the end (see Isa 9:6-7; 52:7; Ezek 34:25; Nah 1:15).

5:12 Adam is both the name of the original man, Adam, and a Hebrew word that means “human.” Paul emphasizes the solidarity of Adam with the human race. • sin entered the world: The significance that Paul ascribes to this act, and the parallel that he draws between Adam’s sin and Christ’s act of obedience on the cross, makes clear that Paul views Adam and his sin in the Garden of Eden as historical fact. • everyone sinned: Death is universal because sin is universal. It is not clear when or how everyone sinned, but Paul later attributes the condemnation of all people to the sin of Adam, their representative (5:18). • Jewish tradition is divided on the relationship between Adam’s sin and the sin and death of human beings generally. Some texts emphasize a solidarity between Adam and all other people, as in “when Adam sinned a death was decreed against those who were to be born” (2 Baruch 23:4). Other texts insist that people die because of their own sin: “Adam is, therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us had become our own Adam” (2 Baruch 54:19).