---
title: Romans 5:15
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-5-15/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-5-15.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Romans 5:15
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Romans 5:15

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many!

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by one man's trespass many died, how much more did the undeserved kindness of God and his free gift by the undeserved kindness of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to many!"

## JW Usage

Jehovah's Witnesses cite Romans 5:15 within the Watchtower's "corresponding ransom" framework. The organisation teaches that Jesus' death was an exact equivalent for Adam's life — a perfect human life exchanged for a perfect human life, no more and no less. Under this reading, the verse's reference to the "free gift" is subordinated to the concept of strict mathematical equivalence: the gift corresponds to the trespass in a balanced-ledger transaction. The Watchtower uses this theology to argue that Jesus could not be God, because a divine sacrifice would exceed what justice required and therefore violate God's standard of fairness. The verse is thus recruited to support the doctrine that Jesus was merely a perfect man — the exact equal of Adam — and nothing more. Psalm 49:7-9 says no man can redeem his brother, yet the Watchtower maintains Jesus accomplished precisely that as a mere man, without addressing how a finite human life could cover billions of sinners rather than only the one life it supposedly corresponds to.

## Protestant Usage

The Protestant reading centres on what Paul actually says: "it is not with the gift as it was with the trespass." The gift is explicitly NOT like the trespass — it exceeds the debt. Paul uses the language of surplus and overflow throughout Romans 5:15-20, employing Greek words like perisseuo (overflow) and hyperperisseuo (superabundance) to show that Christ's work is not a balanced-ledger transaction. Even in the NWT, the verse says the undeserved kindness "abounded much more." This "much more" language demolishes the exact-equivalence reading. The Protestant position holds that the ransom works because of WHO Christ is — Hebrews 9:14 says he offered himself "through the eternal Spirit," and Hebrews 10:1-4 shows that exact-equivalence sacrifices (animal offerings repeated year after year) failed precisely because the offerer was finite. Christ's one-for-all-time sacrifice succeeds because it carries infinite worth (Hebrews 10:11-14). The Watchtower needs mathematical equivalence to keep Christ merely human, but Paul's own language — even in the NWT — refutes it.

## NWT Issue

NWT renders *hē charis tou theou* and *hē dōrea en chariti* as "the undeserved kindness of God" and "the undeserved kindness of the one man, Jesus Christ" — the systemic NWT *charis* → "undeserved kindness" pattern (compare Ephesians 2:8, Galatians 5:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14). Particularly awkward here because Paul is building his "much more" (*pollō mallon*) argument around *charis* as a superabundant sovereign gift that exceeds the debt — the theological force is in the surplus/overflow language. "Undeserved kindness abounded much more" preserves the mathematics but loses the category weight of *charis* as covenantal gift. Helpfully, the NWT's own "abounded much more" still supports the anti-exact-equivalence point the Protestant reading makes from this verse.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Corresponding Ransom Chain](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/ransom-chain.md) — Romans 5 — Not Like the Trespass [Salvation]
- [No Man Can Redeem — But Jesus Did](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/ransom-who-can-redeem.md) — Psalm 49:7-9, 15 / Hebrews 9:12-14 / Acts 20:28 [Salvation]