DEATH

The consequence of Adam's act of sin is expressed in the second clause of Romans 5:12: "and death through sin." God had given Adam an explicit command, a prohibition, the transgression of which would result in death.

"¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
"From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;
¹⁷ but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."
(Gen. 2:16-17 NAS)

But spiritual death not only affects the relation of man to God, it also affects the relation of man with his fellowmen. This is apparent from the fact that Adam and Eve were ashamed before each other of their nakedness and sought to make themselves clothes for covering (Gen. 3:7). Men cannot bear the thought of letting other people see their true selves. They hide themselves behind masks and often pretend to be something other than they really are. This is because the fellowship with their fellow man is broken. They are separated and alienated from each other as well as from God (I John 3:14). Spiritual death is spiritual isolation from man and from God. But spiritual death also affects the relation of man to himself. Man's body is no longer under the complete control of man's will. Just as man has lost his dominion over the physical and biological world as a result of Adam's sin, he has also lost his dominion over his own body. He can no longer completely control his desires and impulses. It too lies under the curse (Gen. 3:17-19). We groan inwardly because of the effects of the curse on our physical bodies (Rom. 8:22-23; II Cor. 5:2-4). Our bodies are not only physically dying, subject to physical death, mortal, but they are spiritually dead also -- out of fellowship with our spirits. "Your bodies are dead because of sin" (Rom. 8:10), because of the sin of Adam (Rom. 5:12). As the result, physical and spiritual death are at work in us (II Cor. 4:12a). "For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you wish" (Gal. 5:17 ERS). This is not to say that the body is sinful or that we have a sinful nature. This only means that our bodies are spiritually dead, not under the complete control of our spirits (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38). Spiritual death has affected the relation of man to himself as well as to God and his fellow man. And this is the result of Adam's act of sin. Man has fallen from the image of God in which he was created. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost both the dominion over creation (Gen. 3:17-19) and fellowship with each other (Gen. 3:7, 11-12). However, the presupposition of these -- the freedom of choice -- was not lost; the possibility of restoration to the image of God is still there in man.

DEATH AND ALL MEN

Adam's sin did not just affect himself and his wife alone, but all his descendants. This is expressed in the third clause of Romans 5:12: "and so death passed unto all men." Adam's descendants are not born in the image of God but in the image of Adam. For when Adam became the father of a son, Seth, he begat him in his own likeness, after his own image (Gen. 5:3). Adam's descendants now bear the image of the man of dust (I Cor. 15:47-49), the old man (Col. 3:9; Eph. 4:22). They are each subject to death, physical and spiritual. According to Romans 5:14 and 17 death reigns as a king over the human race. Men today, Adam's descendants, are different from Adam himself. As Adam was originally created, he was physically and spiritually alive, walking in fellowship with God (Gen. 3:8). There was no barrier between him and God. But this is not true of Adam's descendants. They are born spiritually dead and in the process of dying physically. From birth they are in a state of alienation from God. This is not because of anything they have done but because of what Adam had done. Paul makes this important point by the digression in Romans 5:13-14:

"¹³ For until the law sin was in the world;
but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
¹⁴ Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over those who had not sinned
after the likeness of the transgression of Adam." (ERS)

Man is not responsible for this condition of spiritual and physical death inherited from Adam. The descendants of Adam are neither held accountable for the sin of Adam nor for the spiritual or physical death resulting from it (Rom. 5:13-14). They are only responsible for their own personal rejection of the true God and their ultimate commitment to and trust in a false god. Even though man is born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing God personally, he is not thereby exempt from responsibility for the choice of a false god. As Paul says in Romans 1:20,

"...since the creation of the world the invisible things of Him,
both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made,
so that they are without excuse." (ERS)

DEATH AND SIN

The relation between the death, spiritual and physical, that was passed unto all men, and the sin of all men is given in the last clause of Romans 5:12: eph ho pantes hamarton which is usually translated "because all sinned" (RSV, NAS, NIV).

The interpretation of this clause hangs on the meaning of the Greek prepositional phrase at its beginning, eph ho. This phrase is made up of a preposition epi and a relative pronoun ho. The preposition epi has several different meanings depending upon the immediate context and the case of the noun or pronoun with which it occurs. Its primary meaning is superposition, on, upon. Since the relative pronoun ho is in the dative case, the metaphorical meaning of ground, or reason, seems best here for the preposition epi. Thus it should be translated on the ground of, by reason of, on the condition of, because. [1] The meaning of the relative pronoun depends upon its antecedent. In the Greek language the relative pronoun agrees with the antecedent in number and gender. [2] Here the relative pronoun is singular in number but it may be either masculine or neuter in gender.

1. Some interpreters take the relative pronoun as masculine with the words henos anthropou [one man] in the first clause as its antecedent. Augustine, following the Latin Vulgate translation of the whole clause, in quo omnes peccaverunt [in whom all sinned], took the relative pronoun as masculine and at the same time gave the prepositional phrase the meaning in lumbis Adami [in the loins of Adam]. [3] However this interpretation must be rejected. For
   (a) the Greek preposition epi does not have the meaning of "in" and
   (b) while the Greek relative pronoun ho may be taken as masculine, it is too far remove from its supposed antecedent, anthropou [man], being separated from it by so many intervening clauses. [4] Most modern interpreters agree in rejecting Augustine's grammatical analysis of the phrase. [5]
2. Others interpreters take the relative pronoun as neuter with the words that follow pantes hamarton [all sinned] as the antecedent. Thus the prepositional phrase eph ho would be equivalent to epi touto hoti [because of this, that] = dioti [because]. Accordingly, the translators of our English versions have rendered it either as "for that" (KJV) or "because" (RSV, NAS, NIV). And the clause would be interpreted to mean that death passed unto all men because all men sinned, that is, men die because of their own sins. But if this meaning is given to this last clause, Paul would appear to be retracting what he had just been affirming in the first three clauses of this verse, that all men die because of Adam's sin. Paul would seem to be teaching that all men die not only because of Adam's sin but also because of their own personal sins. This obscures the meaning of the verse and appears to make Paul contradict what he teaches clearly in the following verses (13-14) and elsewhere that all men die because of Adam's sin and not for their own personal sins.

   "¹³ for until the law sin was in the world;
   but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
   ¹⁴ Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
   even over those who had not sinned
   after the likeness of the transgression of Adam,
   who is a type of him who was to come." (Rom. 5:13-14 ERS)

   "...For if by the offense of one the many died,
   much more did the grace of God
   and the gift by grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,
   abound unto the many." (Rom. 5:15 ERS)

   "For if by the offense of the one,
   death reigned through the one,
   much more shall those who receive the abundance of grace
   and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one,
   Jesus Christ." (Rom. 5:17 ERS)

   "²¹ For as by a man came death,
   by a man has come the resurrection of the dead.
   ²² For as in Adam all die,
   so also in Christ shall all be made alive."
   (I Cor. 15:21-22)

   Thus by giving the prepositional phrase eph ho the meaning "because," the meaning of the verse is obscured and Paul is made to appear to contradict himself. This interpretation of the clause has lead one famous German New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultmann, to conclude that Paul is obscure in this passage. He says,

   "For the context, it would have been sufficient to mention only Adam's sin;
   there was no need to speak of the sin of the rest of man,
   for whether they were sinners or not,
   through Adam they had simply been doomed to death --
   an idea that was expressed not only in Judaism
   but also by Paul himself (v. 14).
   However, Paul gets into obscurity here
   because he also wants to have the death of men after Adam
   regarded as the punishment or consequence of their own sin:
   'and so death spread to all men -- because all men sinned' (v.12)!" [6]

   It is not Paul who is obscure here but his interpreters and their interpretation of this phrase has caused the obscurity.

   Furthermore, this interpretation of the clause destroys the parallel which Paul draws between Adam and Christ in this passage, Romans 5:12, and in I Cor. 15. If Paul had meant that all men became subject to death because of the personal sins that they themselves committed, then it would have to follow, if there is a parallelism between Adam and Christ, that all men enter into life because of the personal righteousness that they themselves have achieved. This is certainly the opposite of what Paul says. Life is a gift which each man may receive by faith (Rom. 5:17, 15; etc.) and not something they earn by their righteousness. There are differences between Adam and Christ (Rom. 5:15-17) but this is certainly not one of them. This interpretation of the clause, then, destroys the parallelism between Adam and Christ and thus must also be rejected.

3. Some others have attempted to escape these objections, while retaining the meaning of "because" for the prepositional phrase, by interpreting the whole clause to have the following meaning: "Because all sinned in Adam." They do this by taking the aorist tense of the verb hamarton [sinned] as a constantive aorist; that is, the action is regarded as a whole, in its entirety. Bengel has given this interpretation classic expression: omnes peccaverunt, Adamo peccante [all sinned when Adam sinned]. All sinned implicitly in the sin of Adam; that is, his sin was their sin. But if this what Paul intended to say, why did he leave the all important words "in Adam" to be understood? "If St. Paul had meant this, why did he not say so? The insertion of en Adamin Adam] would have removed all ambiguity." [7] This interpretation has all the appearances of being read into the passage (eisegesis) rather than out of it (exegesis). Furthermore, the phrase pantes hamarton [all sinned] normally refers to the personal sins of all men as it does in Romans 3:23. The aorist tense of the verb hamarton [sinned] signifies nothing as to the completeness of the action. A constative aorist may refer "to a momentary action (Acts 5:5), a fact or action extended over a period of time (Eph. 2:4), or a succession of acts or events (II Cor. 11:25)" [8] Again it appears to contradict what Paul says in verse 14:

   "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
   even over those who had not sinned
   after the likeness of the transgression of Adam." (ERS)

   It appears that this interpretation of the clause must also be rejected.

4. One other interpretation of the clause is possible if the relative pronoun ho is taken as masculine and the words ho thanatos [the death] in the preceding clause, which are singular and masculine, are taken as its antecedent. [9] Then the prepositional phrase eph ho would be equivalent to epi thanato [because of death]. [10] In that case the phrase should be translated "because of which" or "upon which condition." With this meaning given to the prepositional phrase, the whole clause may be translated "because of which all sinned" and interpreted to mean that all men sinned because of death that has been transmitted to them from Adam. In other words, the transmitted death from Adam provides the grounds or condition upon which all men sin.

   Note: This is the view of Theodor Zahn (1838-1933). Lenski says concerning his interpretation of this phrase:

   "Another turn is given the phrase so as to have it mean:
   'under which condition,' letting Paul say that in Adam's case
   it was first sin then death but in the case of all men
   it was death first and then their life of sinning (Zahn's view)." [11]

   Also Berkouwer says concerning Zahn's view:

   "Along with the two explanations referred to here
   there is still a third, namely that of Zahn.
   This holds that the issue at stake is not an 'inclusiveness' in Adam,
   since this thought is untenable ('unvollziehbar') for anyone
   who does not believe in the pre-existence of souls in Adam
   (Zahn, Komm., p. 265); moreover, the concept of
   'all men in Adam' imperils the image of 'through one man.'
   Therefore Zahn translates: 'and on the basis of this
   (or, under these circumstances) all have sinned' (267).
   Through the sin of the one man death come upon all,
   and in such circumstances, all have now sinned.
   Death was the foundation 'on which the sinning
   of all the children of Adam has sprung forth.'" [12]

   The only reasons that are given for rejecting this interpretation are not grammatical but theological. Godet's objections to this interpretation are clearly theological as are those of Sanday and Headlam. This interpretation clearly does not fit into the legalistic theological framework of Roman Catholic and Protestant scholasticism which sees death only as the penalty of sin.

   How is it possible for all men to sin because of death? This may be explained in the following way. Since man is born into this world spiritually dead, not knowing the true God personally, and since man by the structure of his freedom must choose a god, then he will obviously choose a false god because he does not know personally the true God. Since the true God is not a living reality to him, and since he must have a god, man will choose some part or aspect of reality as his god, deifying it. "...they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator..." (Rom. 1:25). Paul, writing to the Galatians, described this relation of death to sin when he reminded them of their condition before they became Christians. "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods" (Gal. 4:8). Not to "know God" personally as a living reality is to be spiritually dead. And a man is in "in bondage to beings that are no gods" when he chooses them as his gods. He is in bondage to them because he does not personally know the only true God, that is, because he is spiritually dead. Thus man sins (idolatry basically) because he is spiritually dead. This relationship between death and sin is what Paul is describing in the last clause of Romans 5:12. Because of death all men sinned. Spiritual death in the case of Adam's descendants leads to sin; not the other way around.

The relation of death to sin now after the fall is different from the relation between them at the fall. At the fall death was the result of sin ("through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin." Rom. 5:12 ERS). This was established by the divine decree implicit in the command God gave to Adam ("for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Gen. 2:17 NAS). Adam's sin was unique since it was the act of the head of the race; Adam's position in the human race is unique, as Paul teaches clearly in Romans 5:12-21 and I Cor. 15:21-22, 44-49. His sin affected the human race in a way that the sin of no other man after him has; it involved the whole race in death, spiritual and physical. Adam's descendants do not have to sin to die, spiritually and physically. They are born into the world over which death reigns and are involved from birth in spiritual and physical death ("Let the dead bury their dead" Matt. 8:22 KJV; Luke 9:60). Now since the fall, sin is the result of death. Since the fall, man does not have to sin to die but sins because he is already dead. Since the fall, this is the basic relationship between death and sin. Later, "the law came in besides" (Rom. 5:20 ERS) and superimposed upon this basic relationship of sin because of death (spiritual) the relationship of death because of sin. "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:28: see also Deut. 24:16; Isa. 59:2). The law clarifies not only the nature of sin (Rom. 3:20) as basically idolatry (Ex. 20:3) but also man's responsibility for his sins (see the whole of chapter 18 of Ezekiel). But the coming of the law did not change the basic relationship: man sins because he is spiritually dead.

Paul expresses this basic relationship between death and sin in other words elsewhere in his letters. For example, in Romans 5:21, he expresses it in the following way: "...sin reigned in death." Sin reigns as a king in the sphere of death. That is, death is the sphere in which sin reigns as a king over all men. Death reigns as king over his kingdom of death; "...by the offense of one, death reigned through one..." (Rom. 5:17; see also Rom. 5:14). Death reigns over all men and sin reigns as a king within the sphere and kingdom of death. Sin reigns in the sphere of death because death is the ground or condition upon which all men sin. Another example is I Cor. 15:55-56:

"⁵⁵ O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?
⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law."

"For all die in the sin; they do not sin in the death;
for when sin precedes, death follows --
not when death precedes, sin follows.
Because sin is the sting of death --
that is, the sting by whose stroke death occurs,
not the sting with which death strikes.
Just as poison, if it is drunk,
is called the cup of death,
because by that cup death is caused,
not because the cup is caused by the death." [13]

Even though man is born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing God personally, he has not lost his freedom of choice. He does not have a sinful nature which causes him to sin. Spiritual death has not done anything to man's ability to choose. He neither lacks the alternatives to choose between nor the ability to choose. Then why does man sin, that is, why does he choose a false god? He chooses a false god because the true God is not a living reality to him. He knows about the true God (Rom. 1:19-20) but he does not know him personally as a living reality. And lacking this personal knowledge, man does not have an adequate reason for choosing the true God. The true God Himself is the only adequate reason for choosing Him. He cannot be chosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God to that person but that reason for which he is chosen would be God. Only a living encounter with living and true God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. God Himself is the only adequate condition for the choice of Himself. Thus apart from the personal revelation of God Himself man will usually choose as his god that which seems like god to him from the creation around him or from among the creations of his own hands and mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin, but he usually will. And spiritual death (in the absence of this personal revelation of the true God) is not the necessary cause but the ground or condition of his choice of a false god. Therefore, since all men are under the reign of death, all have sinned. "For all have sinned and are in want of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23 ERS). The glory of God is the manifest presence of God, and all men do not have this; they are all in want or need (husterountai) of it. [14] They are all spiritually dead. Therefore, all have sinned.

In conclusion, the Biblical teaching concerning the origin of sin is twofold:
(a) Sin had its historical origin in the act of Adam which is called the Fall and
(b) the sin of Adam's descendants has its immediate, contemporary and personal origin in the spiritual death which along with physical death was spread upon the whole race because of Adam's act of sin. All men sin, choosing a false god, because of this spiritual death.

This view of death and sin affects our understanding of the need for salvation. As we have seen spiritual death like physical death is not the result of a man's own personal sins. On the contrary, a man sins as a result of spiritual death. This is why a man needs to be saved. He is dead spiritually and dying physically. Man needs life -- he needs to be made alive -- to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin is removed. And if death which leads to sin is removed, then man will be saved from sin. Thus man needs to be saved primarily from death and secondarily from sin. Accordingly salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and secondarily from sin to righteousness.

ENDNOTES

[1] F. Godet, Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1881), p. 350. See also
G. Abbott-Smith Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, pp. 166-167 and
William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich,
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1957), pp. 286-287.

[2] J. Gresham Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p. 47.
H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey,
A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948), p. 125.
A. T. Robertson and W. Hersey Davis,
A New Short Grammar of the Greek Testament
(New York: Harper & Bros. Publishers, 1933), p. 269.

[3] Augustine, "Against Two Letters of the Pelagians," bk. 4, chap. 7.
in Philip Schaff
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol.5
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419.

[4] William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam,
A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
in The International Critical Commentary
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1915), p. 133.

[5] John Murray, The Imputation of Adam's Sin
(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), p. 9.

[6] Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament
(New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1951), p. 252.

[7] Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 134.

[8] Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 196.

[9] Godet, Epistle to the Romans, pp. 352-353.
Sanday andHeadlam say,
"Some Greeks quoted by Photius also took the rel. as masc. with antecedent thanatos: 'in which,' i.e. 'in death,' which is even more impossible." p. 133.
I have not been able to ascertain who are these Greeks that were quoted by Photius since Sanday and Headlam do not give any references. I have found that Theodore of Mopsuestia in his treatise "Against the Defenders of Original Sin" held to such an interpretation. Another contemporary of Augustine, Mark the Hermit, also held to a similar view. See the chapter in Part II titled, "The Misunderstanding of the Origin of Sin."

[10] "epi with its relative pronoun refers back to the preceding thanatos [eph ho] = [epi thanato])..."
Ethelbert Stauffer, New Testament Theology, trans. John Marsh
(New York: The Macmillan Co., 1955), p. 270, note 176.
However, he goes on to give a different meaning to the preposition. "[epi] does not mean as translations mostly suppose 'on the basis of' but 'in the direction of' (cf. Phil. 4:10; II Tim. 2:14)...Here epi is the reciprocal preposition to the dia of the first phrase. So we must accordingly paraphrase: 'death to which they fell man by man through their sin.'", p. 270. This turn out to be the same interpretation as "because all sinned."

[11] R. C. H. Lenski,
The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans
(Columbus, Ohio: Wartburg Press, 1960), p.361.

[12] Berkouwer, Sin, p.494, footnote 37.

[13] Augustine, "Against Two Letters of the Pelagians" in Philip Schaff
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 5
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419.
See also Augustine, "On the Merits and Remission of Sins and On the Baptism of Infants",
bk.3, chap.20. Schaff, pp. 76-77.

[14] G. Abbot-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon, p.464.
C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans
(New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1957), p. 74.