12Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so
death passed unto all men, for that all sinned: 13for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is
not imputed when there is no law. 14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even
over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression, who is a figure of him
that was to come. 15But not as the trespass, so also is the free gift. For if by the trespass of the
one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man,
Jesus Christ, abound unto the many.

Paul said that through one man, Adam, sin entered the world of mankind, and through sin
death, the penalty, the judgment on sin. Then he broadens out this statement and says that this
death, this judgment, was not confined to one man but spread to all humans.

We are a fallen race because sin was introduced in one act of disobedience, just one act, but it
was such a revolutionary act, an act that made the whole race become rebellious in principle,
me-centered at its core, with a fallen nature that begins all of life’s experience by making God
other, by making ourselves god by preference. That one act controls so much of what follows.

Paul means we all sinned in Adam, that his sin is imputed to us, and that universal human death
and condemnation is God’s judgment and penalty on all of us because we were in some deep
and mysterious way we were united to Adam in his sinning.

Basically, these things have resolved into two options, both of which are believed by many
devout Christians.

One group says there is a sense in which all human beings who are quite literally in Adam …

That is, if we all come originally from one pair, there is a sense in which when Adam sinned we
were part of him. We were in Adam, Not as full-fledged individuals, but we’re human beings.                                                    We descended from Adam.

It seems strange to us in the West, partly because we tend to think in such individualistic terms.
My identity is who I am as an individual. My identity is not primarily who I am as part of a family
or a clan.

But, how often the traits and characteristics, the potential for good and for evil that we find in
our own lives, have been found already in our parents or grandparents.

There’s another way of taking it. It’s sometimes called the representative way.

That is to say, there is a sense in which Adam stands for all of us. He represents all of us. He’s almost in a contract with God in which he becomes the figure that represents all of us, so when he did it, God saw all of us in him.

We see how this initial sin sets the stage for how we think of what Christ has done, because, in fact, the author is about to say Adam is the first part of the contrast and Christ is the other part. As sin was introduced by Adam, so also righteousness was introduced by Christ.

What that means is that we are not properly going to understand what Christ did until we see what Adam did.

We need someone who will bring us back to God. We need a mediator. We need someone who will deal with our rebellion. So this verse turns out to be critical for understanding everything that follows.

Why Does It Matter how I am a sinner?

Sin has this controlling power all through history until you get to Moses, when God puts in place a whole lot of law, so now when you act selfishly, not only are you acting selfishly, de-Godding God sinfully in that sense, but now also, in addition, you are transgressing something. You’re breaking a specific law. You’re going over a line. It was still wrong before. It was still wicked before because you were thinking of yourself as at the center of the universe.

This Adam who was a pattern, a type literally, of the one to come. A type in Scripture is a person or an institution or an event in the Old Testament that somehow functions in God’s wise counsel to point forward to someone or something else.

So Adam is a pattern, a type, that in God’s wise counsel looks forward to something else.

Paul would clarify what he means by “because all sinned.” What’s at stake here is the whole comparison between Christ and Adam. If we don’t understand “because all sinned” as “because all sinned in Adam,” the entire comparison between Christ and Adam will be distorted and we won’t see the greatness of justification by grace through faith for what it really is.

If you say, “Through one man sin and death entered the world and death spread to everybody because all sinned individually,” then the comparison with the work of Jesus could be, “So also through one man, Jesus Christ, righteousness and life entered the world and life spread to all because all individually did acts of righteousness.

In other words, justification would not be God’s imputing Christ’s righteousness to us, but our performing individual acts of righteousness with Christ’s help and then being counted righteous on that basis.

That is the glory of justification by grace through faith. The basis of our vindication and acceptance before God is not our righteous deeds, but Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. But this would be all distorted if the words “because all sinned” at the end of verse 12 meant “because all sinned individually,” and not because all sinned in Adam and his sin was imputed to us.

Everybody Died, Death was Present Even Before the Law

Verses 13–14: “For until the Law [of Moses] sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses … Sin was in the world before Mosaic Law (verse 13a); sin was prevalent in the world before Moses, not just Adam’s sin.

But sin is not imputed (not counted, not punished) where there is no law (verse 13b). 3) “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses” (verse 14a). That is, everybody died. Everybody was punished.

Paul wants us to see that universal human death was not owing to individual sins against the Mosaic Law but to their sinning in Adam. That is what he is trying to clarify. Verse 12 says that “death spread to all because all sinned.”

So Paul argues and clarifies: But people died even though their own individual sins against the Mosaic law were not the reason for dying; they weren’t counted. Instead, the reason all died is because all sinned in Adam. Adam’s sin was imputed to them.

Paul himself said back in Romans 1:32 that all people, even Gentiles outside Israel, in their consciences “know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death.”

Because death reigned “even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam.”

For example, such as infants, Infants died. They could not understand personal revelation. They could not read the law on their hearts and choose to obey or disobey it. Yet they died. Why? Paul says it is because of the sin of Adam and the imputation of that sin to the human race.

Death reigned over all humans, even over those who did not sin against a known and understood law. Therefore, the conclusion is, verse 18: “through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men.”

The Reason That Death Reigned

This is Paul’s clarification: At the end of verse 12 the words, “death spread to all men, because all sinned” meant that “death spread to all because all sinned in Adam.”

Why, did Paul say that Adam is a type of Christ?

The parallel here is: The judicial consequences of Adam’s sin are experienced by all his people not on the basis of their individually doing sins like he did, but on the basis of their being in him and his sin being imputed to them. The judicial consequences of Christ’s righteousness are experienced by all his people not on the basis of their doing righteous deeds like he did, but on the basis of their being in him and his righteousness being imputed to them.

This is the foundation of the great Biblical truth of justification by grace alone through faith alone. Christ became obedient even unto death so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (see 2 Corinthians 5:21).

For five chapters Paul has been laboring to make clear for us the truth that sinners are put right with God not on the basis of any inherent righteousness in us but on the basis of the righteousness of Christ received by faith alone.

the reason God was willing to reveal this hard doctrine of original sin to us is that we are so prone to think that we can and must get right with God by performing deeds of righteousness, instead of casting ourselves as helpless sinners on his mercy and depending on the righteousness of Christ alone as the basis of getting right with God.

Paul teaches two things here about our condition in relation to Adam:

the power of sin enters into human life and corrupts or depraves our human nature,

nevertheless our condemnation is owing first to Adam’s sin, not our individual acts of sinning.

We sinned in Adam’s sinning.

God ordains that there be a union of some kind that makes Adam’s sin to be our sin so that our condemnation is just.
The judgment that results in condemnation is our fallen nature and our individual sins.

What is this judgment that “results in condemnation”?

God established a just and fitting union between Adam and his posterity, and on that basis, when Adam sinned, the judgment that leads to condemnation was the reckoning of Adam’s sin as our sin and guilt.
So our condemnation does have a basis in our sin.

All Humanity Becomes Corrupt and Sinful Because of Adam’s sin

through Adam’s sin all humanity really does become corrupt in their hearts and sinful in their behavior.

Romans 5:13, “Until the Law [that is, in the time from Adam to Moses] sin was in the world.” So it is clear that Paul views ongoing sin in the hearts of men as part of what entered the world through Adam—“sin was in the world.” All people become sinful in their nature and in their behavior.

it is clear elsewhere in Paul and in the rest of the Bible (Psalm 51:6; 58:3; Job 15:14; Jeremiah 13:23; Ezekiel 11:19). Ephesians 2:3, “Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” The key phrase is “by nature” we are children of wrath. In other words, something happened to us in the sin of Adam that altered our human nature.

We do not just do sins; we are by nature sinners, corrupt, depraved, bent, rebellious. Here in Romans, Paul said it like this: “Both Jews and Greeks are all under sin” (3:9). The point of verses 9–18 is that there is “none righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). We don’t just do sins; we are under the power of sin.

We Have Two Things That Need a Remedy

One is our sinful nature that enslaves us to sin, and the other is our original guilt and condemnation that is rooted not first in our individual sinning but in our connection with Adam in his sin.

The book of Romans—indeed the whole Bible is the story of how God has worked in history to remedy these two problems. The problem of our condemnation in Adam God remedies through justification in Christ. The problem of our corruption and depravity he remedies through sanctification by the Spirit.

The problem of our legal guilt and condemnation before God is solved by his reckoning to us the righteousness Christ; and the problem of our moral defilement and habitual sinning is solved by his purifying us by the work of Spirit. The first remedy, justification, comes by imputed righteousness. The other, sanctification, comes by imparted righteousness. Justification is instantaneous; sanctification is progressive—

Justification and sanctification are inseparable because both are by faith.

The faith that unites us to Christ for justification also breaks the power of sin in our lives. Woe to us if we try to get right with God by faith alone, and then try to become good people by some other means. Trusting Christ for all that God is for us in him is the link to God’s justifying grace, and trusting Christ for all that God is for us in him is the link to God’s sanctifying grace. We are pardoned and we are purified—by the same kind of faith.

There are Benefits if we Will Ponder Our Depravity

First, it humbles us morally and intellectually. Morally, because we must admit we not only do bad things, but we are bad. I not only need natural training, I need supernatural rebirth. Something about me needs to die and something new needs to be created. I am deeply in need for something beyond what I can produce.

It deepens our gratitude for salvation. The more we know about our fallen condition, the more grateful we should feel that we are saved.

It helps us explain the world we live in. The ironic thing about the doctrine of original sin is that, while being one of the hardest doctrines to accept, it helps explain most of what we see in the world: namely, the universality of evil.

It therefore gives insight into how governments should best be established.

G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis said that the doctrine of original sin is the basis of a democratic form of government—where power is spread out over the people—because it is the only reason we can give for not absolutely trusting a ruling elite.

The best argument of democracy is not that men are good enough to govern themselves, but that men are so bad none can be trusted with absolute power.

It should produce compassion for others.

This doctrine teaches us to think no worse of others, than of ourselves: it teaches us that we are all, as we are by nature, companions in a miserable helpless condition: which under a revelation of the divine mercy, tends to promote mutual compassion.

This doctrine will help motivate us in evangelism. It teaches us that there are no exceptions to human sinfulness.