Romans 5:16
Romans 5:1616Again, the gift is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment that followed one sin brought condemnation, but the gift that followed many trespasses brought justification.
Watchtower commentary takes as describing the comprehensive scope of Christ's ransom — the gift addresses not only Adam's single trespass but the many trespasses that followed. The corresponding-ransom doctrine reads this as saying the ransom price is precisely calibrated to balance the cumulative debt; the verse confirms the mathematical adequacy of Christ's perfect-human sacrifice.
Read v15-17 as a unit. Paul's argument is that the gift is NOT like the trespass: "it is not the same with the free gift as with the way things worked through the one man who sinned" (v16, NWT). The gift exceeds the debt. One trespass brought condemnation; the gift addresses MANY trespasses and brings a declaration of righteousness. The mathematics is asymmetric: one offence produced ruin for all; one gift produces declaration of righteousness despite many offences. This destroys the Watchtower's "exact equivalent" ransom doctrine. If the ransom were a balanced-ledger swap, Paul would say the gift exactly matches the trespass. He says the opposite three times in this passage.
The NWT renders dikaiōma as "a declaration of righteousness" rather than "justification" (consensus ESV/NASB/NIV). The expansion is forensic and accurate as far as it goes, but it loses the result-noun nuance — dikaiōma is the verdict itself (the actual just-act-of-God), not merely its public declaration. The translation is interpretive but not dishonest; consensus translations preserve the technical Pauline term "justification."