Adam, Sin and Universal Death
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— Romans 5:12
‘Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—’ (5:12). Paul begins with a sentence he never completes. This is a ‘just as … so also’ structure but the ‘so also’ doesn’t come. Paul’s thinking was probably “Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death came to all because all shared his sin, so also through one man righteousness entered the world, and life through righteousness, and so life came to all because all shared his righteousness.” This is the structure behind what Paul does write in verses 18 and 19. But in verses 13 and 14 he breaks off his argument to make a point about sin and the law and about the difference between Adam and Christ (5:15-17).
Paul’s opening sentence describes the steps or deteriorating stages in human history, from one man sinning to all men dying.
A Sin came into the world through Adam
B with sin came death
B1 death spread to all men
A1 because all sinned
First, ‘sin entered the world through one man’ (5:12). Adam’s fall introduced sin into the world. Second, ‘death’ entered the world ‘through sin’ (5:12). Adam was the door through which sin entered and sin was the door through which death entered. This is an allusion to Genesis 2:17 and 3:19 where death (both physical and spiritual) is the penalty for disobedience (Romans 1:32; 6:23). Third, ‘death came to all men, fourthly, because all sinned’ (5:12). As death came to one man because he sinned, so death came to all men because they sinned.
What is the ‘death’ 5:12 describes? Paul seems to think of death as both physical and spiritual separation: separation from the body and estrangement from God. Both are the result of sin. In the verses that follow (5:13,14) the emphasis is clearly on physical death but in 5:18,19 Paul replaces the death of 5:12 with ‘condemnation’ and being ‘made sinners.’ Here spiritual death is clearly his focus.
In what way have ‘all sinned’? Death, Paul affirms, affects all people because all people have sinned. This point has already been made earlier in 1:18,19 and 3:9,23. He might be saying here no more than: every person is estranged from God because every person has, at some time or another, sinned. But in 5:18,19, where Paul repeats and completes the comparison we have in this verse, he suggests a close relationship between Adam’s sin and the condemnation that all people stand under. ‘The result of one trespass was condemnation for all men’ (5:18a)
So we have to ask again: In what way have ‘all sinned’? There are two common answers. Either ‘all sinned’ by copying and so repeating Adam’s sin (the position associated with the 5th century monk, Pelagius), or, ‘all sinned’ when Adam sinned and were included in his sinning. The first would be imitation (all sinned like Adam) and the second a case of participation (all sinned in and with Adam because he was the federal head of the human race). The first understanding takes the phrase ‘because all sinned’ to mean ‘because every human being personally sinned as a result of inheriting a sinful nature from Adam’ while the second would say: ‘As the representative of the human race, Adam’s sin is at the same time the sin of every other human being who ever lives. We all sinned when Adam sinned.’
Whatever our thinking on these points we are left with a clear conclusion: sin and the spiritual death that results from sin are universal.