Thomas Aquinas, on Rom 5:18

“Therefore, as by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation; so also by the justice of one, unto all men to justification of life.”

“Then when he says, therefore as by the offense, he draws the intended conclusion which states the same thing as stated earlier, namely, that as by the offense of one man, Adam, the divine judgment led all men born of him according to the flesh to the condemnation of death, so also by the justice of one, namely, Christ, divine grace passed unto all men, to justification of life, that is, the grace that leads to life. But this seems false, since not all men are justified by Christ, although all men die through Adam. To answer this it must be noted that just as all men born according to the flesh from Adam incur condemnation through his sin, so all men who are reborn spiritually through Christ obtain the justification of life, because, as stated in John: unless one is born of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (John 3:5). Although it can be said that Christ's justification passes on to justify all men in the sense that it is capable of doing so, de facto it passes only to believers. Hence, it is said: he is the savior of all men, especially of those who believe (1 Tim 4:10). From what is said here we should gather that as no one dies except through Adam's sin, so no one is justified except through Christ's justice; and this is brought about through faith in him: the justice of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all that believe in him (Rom 3:22). But the men who believe in him are not only those who lived after his Incarnation but even those who lived before. For as we believe in him as one who was born and suffered, so they believed in him as one who would be born and suffer. Hence, our faith and theirs is the same: having the same spirit of faith . . . we too believe and so we speak (2 Cor 4:13). Thus it is that the grace of Christ redounds to the justification of many by appeal to something later, namely to the reign of life.”

Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.