---
title: Romans 5:20
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-5-20/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/romans-5-20.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Romans 5:20
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Romans 5:20

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> The law came in so that the trespass would increase; but where sin increased, grace increased all the more,

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Now the Law came on the scene so that trespassing might increase. But where sin abounded, undeserved kindness abounded still more"

## JW Usage

Watchtower commentary takes Romans 5:20 as confirming the abundance of Jehovah's undeserved kindness. The Law highlighted sin's seriousness; Christ's ransom provides the superabundant remedy. On the JW reading, the abundance is available to those who avail themselves of the ransom through faith and faithful obedience to Jehovah's organisation.

## Protestant Usage

This is the verse that breaks the corresponding-ransom doctrine completely. Paul says — using the NWT's own rendering — "where sin abounded, undeserved kindness abounded still more." The Greek is hyperperisseuō: it super-abounded. If the ransom were a calibrated equivalent to Adam's trespass, kindness would match sin precisely. It does not match — it overflows. The ransom is not a balanced-ledger swap; it is a sacrifice of infinite worth paid by an infinite Person, producing abundance beyond what the debt required. This destroys the Watchtower's "exact-equivalent perfect-man" theology of the cross. Even in the NWT's own translation, Paul's language is surplus language, not equivalence language.

## NWT Issue

The NWT renders charis as "undeserved kindness" — consistent with Rom 1:5, 1:7. Mild expansion that captures the unmerited dimension but flattens grace's gift-and-status- creating power into "kindness you did not earn." Notable that even this rendering preserves Paul's superabundance language ("abounded still more"), which the Watchtower's ransom theology cannot accommodate.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Corresponding Ransom Chain](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/ransom-chain.md) — Romans 5 — Not Like the Trespass [Salvation]