Theme: The "excessiveness" of God's grace

Exegetical note
This linguistically difficult passage has been interpreted through the eyes of Augustine so long that it is hard to extricate its original meaning from the layers of "Original Sin" theory that enshroud it. Taken on its own merits, however, Paul's statement seems to be affirming both the universality of sin and everyone's active participation in it and (therefore) responsibility for it. Likewise, as vv. 15-17 show, Paul's Adam-Christ parallel is unbalanced: the grace of God in Jesus is "excessive," for it does mor…