Romans 5:12-14

Death in Adam, Life in Christ

[John Donne wrote the following, which seems appropriate to what Paul describes of us being in Adam and also in Christ: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”]

In this last half of chapter 5, Paul shows two different kinds of solidarity. A new creation has come to birth in Christ with the old solidarity of the old Adam replaced by the new solidarity in Christ of grace and truth and life. Yet the break is not as sharp as we might wish it were, but instead in the present there is an overlap. To Paul, Adam was more than a historical figure. He was the first man whose name in Hebrew means “humanity.” The whole of humanity is viewed as having existed at first in Adam. Adam, after the fall, becomes humanity in alienation from and in rebellion against God. The whole human race is viewed as having originally sinned in Adam. Our solidarity with our fellow human beings is a reality which we tend to overlook in the assertion of our individual rights and independence.]

 

¹² Therefore [Paul will now describe three deteriorating stages in human history], just as sin came into the world through one man [the first stage regarding Adam in Genesis 3], and death through sin [the second stage recorded in Genesis 2:17 and 5:1-5], and so death spread to all men [the third stage; Wisdom 2:23-24: God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it] because all sinned [we are all in the line of Adam and in solidarity with him; he is the head of our family tree of universal sinners; we are sons of Adam, sons of man, sons who sin. It is not simply because Adam is the ancestor of mankind that all are said to have sinned in his sin; it is because Adam is mankind. All sinned when Adam sinned] — ¹³ for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. [Sin was not technically reckoned as sin before the law was given. Yet we know sin was in the world because people died.] ¹⁴ Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses [because all sinned in Adam our head, all died as he died], even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

[Paul understands universal death to be attributed to a single, solitary sin. The many died by Adam’s single trespass. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones writes, “God has always dealt with mankind through a head and representative. The whole story of the human race can be summed up in terms of what has happened because of Adam, and what has happened and will yet happen because of Christ.” John Stott writes, “Not only did Herod and Pilate, Gentiles and Jews conspire against Jesus, but the sins which led to his death are our sins too.” The Negro spiritual asks, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” The only possible answer is yes. Or as Horatius Bonar, the 19^th century Scottish hymn-writer expresses it: “’Twas I that shed the sacred blood; I nailed him to the tree; I crucified the Christ of God; I joined the mockery.” On Palm Sunday we all chime in on the Passion Narrative when we shout: “Crucify him, crucify him!” While all of this is foreign to the western mindset of individualism, it is still true. Did we, however, forget Moses and the law? No. The law has no permanent significance in the history of redemption. It was introduced as a temporary measure for a practical purpose as both a guide for protection and a mirror for people to see their sin. Sin was present in the world ever since Adam’s fall, but the law served the purpose of bringing sin out into the day light, so that it might be seen and recognized for what it is: disobedience to God. The presence of the law can, actually, stimulate sin. An express prohibition may tempt people to do what is prohibited: “don’t eat from that tree.” Adam and Eve might never have thought of doing it if the prohibition had not brought it to their attention.]