Romans 5:12-17 Commentary

The Adam story—which need not be interpreted literally—is about the human condition. We might imagine that we are a rational species capable of self-governance and mutual peace. But that is not what we see. Senseless violence. Unchecked greed. Cruel oppression. Out-of-control lusts and appetites. Depression. Substance abuse. Hatred and tribalism. Death. How did we get this way? The Adam story tells us it goes back to our original relationship with God which we severed. Paul brilliantly understands that God the Son became an Adamic human just like us—the Incarnation. Therefore, he is the New Adam (the Last Adam), a type (symbol) and a corrector of the prior damage done by the earliest humans. And the New Adam is not only an Adamic human, but also the Son of God, so his restoration of the human image of God is far more powerful than the First Adam's fall from that image.

Here is our outline for this subsection: Sin Arrived Through the First Adam (vs. 12), Objection: There Was No Law (vss. 13-14), Contrast: The First and Last Adam (vss. 15-17).

SIN ARRIVED THROUGH THE FIRST ADAM (Vs. 12). Just as through one man sin entered. In the Genesis story, God set a boundary and Adam (and Eve) transgressed it. And death through sin. God said this transgression would end immortality for humankind and lead to death. Douglas Campbell says it this way, "Sin must die" (Beyond Justification). If broken humans lived forever, we can only imagine the damage! So death spread to all mankind. Human mortality has been the subject of religious and philosophical writings since the earliest recorded stories (e.g., Epic of Gilgamesh). Because all sinned. Does Paul mean that we inherited the corrupt nature of "Adam" and therefore we all sin? Or does he mean that "Adam" represents all of us and his sin is counted against us? Either way, we are all infected with Adam's disease.

OBJECTION: THERE WAS NO LAW (Vss. 13-14). For until the Law sin was in the world. Paul is countering an obvious objection. Someone will say that in the time between Adam and Moses, there was no Law. So how could there be sin? Sin is not counted against anyone when there is no law. Paul agrees in part with the objection. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses. Paul observes that despite the objection, death did in fact become the universal human condition before the giving of the Law. Even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the violation of Adam. It was not as if death only came to people who ate forbidden fruit, Paul observes. Who is a type. Adam is a paradigm or a prefiguring symbol for the Greater Adam who was to come, Jesus. The overall meaning of vss. 13-14 is perhaps that Sin and Death infected us all through Adam without moral judgment. In other words, Sin and Death are not a punishment meted out by a Judge but a condition to which we are subjected for God's own reasons (and they are good reasons, we can be sure).

CONTRAST: THE FIRST AND LAST ADAM (Vss. 15-17). The gracious gift is not like the offense. Can we compare the power of Adam to ruin humanity with the far greater power of Christ to redeem it? By the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God . . . overflow to the many. Weak though he was compared to Christ, Adam's action had universal consequences. How much more should we expect Christ's redeeming work and life to have universal consequences! The gracious gift arose from many offenses, resulting in justification. Adam's singular offense infected the world. All the evil of the world—an uncountable number of offenses—was put on the back of Christ. The result is liberation (a better translation than "justification"). Death reigned . . . those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign. Through Adam, death reigned over humanity. Paul makes a clever contrast, stating that people who receive Christ's grace gift will reign much more abundantly than death ever did.

PRACTICAL LESSONS: The Adam story and Jesus' repair of the damage to humanity teach us why we struggle as we do. Sin is likened by Paul to a force, an elemental part of the cosmos, which persuades us to give in to anxiety, appetite, comfort-seeking, vengeance, and a thousand other self-harming attitudes and behaviors. It is so powerful, no society has come to overcoming human weaknesses and failings. More importantly for Paul's argument, we learn here that we should expect Christ's cure to be far more powerful than Adam's infection. The rivals who plagued Paul's work used fear to gain converts. But Paul repeatedly tells the Roman Christians there is no fear for those who are in Christ, who is the Last and Greater Adam. Paul also shows that "breaking the Law" of Moses is not the definition of "sin." "Sin" is a universal human condition that does not depend on there being a revealed law. Paul is moving people away from seeing God as a Retributive Judge to seeing him as a Benevolent Father.

PRAYER: O Last Adam, giver of Grace and True Life, how great is your redemption and how we praise you for it! O Loving Father, you did not leave us in Adam's condition and we bless you for your unfailing love.