Romans 5:12–21 (ESV)✞: Death in Adam, Life in Christ
Passage
The main point of this passage is that, just as death entered the world through one man’s sinful act (Adam), justification and life come through one man’s righteous act (Christ’s death and resurrection).
However, Paul can’t even finish articulating that thought before sidetracking himself to focus on the first part:
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
This point is so important that Paul needs to make sure he’s covered it properly before he can move on. In fact, there are a few points covered just in verse 12 alone:
| Point | Thought |
|---|---|
| Sin came into the world through one man | Paul is obviously talking about Adam, and the sin in the Garden of Eden. |
| Death came through sin | If there was no sin, there would be no death; death would not be part of a perfect world |
| All sinned | You may have heard of this doctrine referred to as “original sin.” After sin was introduced to the world, all of mankind was “infected” with it; since the time of Adam (and Eve) nobody has ever not been sinful, it’s not part of our nature. Except “infected” is not a very good word, because that makes it sound like maybe someone could be inoculated against it or immune to it; it’s more like sin is part of our core DNA: we’re all born sinful |
| Death spread to all people | Since everyone is sinful, everyone also dies |
Let’s look at verses 13&14 again:
13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Sin existed before the Law did. If sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden it means there were thousands of years in which sinful people lived and died before the Law was handed down to God’s people through Moses1.
When Paul says that “sin is not counted where there is no law,” he doesn’t mean people weren’t sinful. I think the most important word in that phrase is “counted.” People were sinful, even if there wasn’t a specific, God-given law that could be pointed to as a specific breaking of a specific rule; but, as Paul points out, people were dying all the way from Adam through to Moses (and beyond).
In Adam’s case, there was a specific rule that was violated, so his was a bit different than everyone else’s sin (until the Law had been established and God’s people had specific violations of specific rules again), but people were still sinful and still died.
So… what does it mean that Adam was a “type” of the one who was to come? It is, unfortunately, a technical term. If we want to make it even more confusing we’d say that Adam is a “type” and Christ is an “anti-type,” which would mean I have to look up a good, clear definition of the term “anti-type.” Luckily, I found a sermon on the Desiring God website that explained the term “type” clearly, without having to resort to talking about “anti-types” and getting lost in jargon:
What does “type” mean? The NIV says “pattern.” Adam was a pattern of Christ who was to come. He was an example, or a foreshadowing, or a prefiguring of Christ. Let me see if I can say it so that the children can understand it. Sometimes when we want to understand something better we compare it with something like it, but not totally like it. For example, if you come to my house and I say, “Look at my dog, Sable, and tell me what you see,” you might say, “She’s black with white paws and brown eyes and a tail with a white tip.” And that may be about it. But then I go get Pastor Livingston’s dog, Lady, and put her beside my dog and say, “Now how is my dog different? What do you notice that you didn’t notice before?” Then you might say, “Well, Sable is bigger, and Lady seems to be friskier and Sable is sort of laid back, and Lady’s tail kind of hangs down and Sable’s curls up. And Lady has long hair and Sable has short hair. And Lady’s nose is thinner.” So do you see what happens: you notice new things about Sable when you compare her with another dog that is different - the size, the temperament, the curl of the tail, the length of hair, the thickness of the nose. So one way to see something better is to see it alongside something like it but different.
That is what Paul is doing in this paragraph. In verse 14 he says he is going to view Christ in comparison and contrast with Adam. That makes Adam a type or a pattern. And the aim is to see more clearly and more fully and more deeply the work of Christ and how he became the foundation of our justification.
Desiring God sermon: Adam, Christ, and Justification, Part 1
Adam was like Christ, and Christ was like Adam, but they were also unlike in a number of ways, and Paul finds it easiest to describe how they’re different by first looking at how they’re the same. They both did things that had far-reaching consequences for all people everywhere; one brought death and one brought life. But by comparing them side-by-side, Paul can show that the life brought by Jesus abounds far more than the condemnation brought by Adam; it’s not apples-to-apples in the sense of Adam bringing a certain amount of sin into the world and then Christ bringing about the same amount of righteousness. (Though I’m getting ahead of myself; Paul hasn’t made that point yet.)
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
We’ve seen that death came through Adam’s “trespass,” and it’s maybe even an understatement for Paul to say that “many” have died – everyone dies! Everyone who has ever lived has died, and those who haven’t died yet will do so at some point; the only thing that can prevent that is if Jesus comes back first. Failing that, I will die, just like everyone else, just like everyone in all of history. (Except for Enoch and Elijah.)
Keep in mind, however, that when Paul says “much more” have God’s Grace and free gift abounded, he doesn’t mean “more” in the sense of “more people.” He’s not saying that a lot of people died through Adam’s trespass but even more people were granted the free gift of God’s Grace; just purely mathematically we know that isn’t true. And besides which, it’s not a matter of who has died and who hasn’t because, as just stated, everyone dies, including Christians.
What I believe Paul is saying, however, is that the impact and effect of Grace is much larger than the impact and effect of death – and that’s a point that I’m really going to have to clarify! A main point I see Paul bringing out in verses 15–21 is along this theme, though, so it’s not just a side point that can be ignored.
What Paul is trying to get us to see, and what I hinted at above, is that the full impact of Adam’s sin compared to the full impact of the Grace bought for us by Christ is not equal. It’s not like God added up all of the sin that was committed in all of history (past and present) and then on the cross Christ paid that exact amount. What Christ did was far greater.
Imagine I have a bill coming due and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be about $100, so God comes along and gives me $5,000,000,000; that’s sort of like what we’re talking about here. If the bill ends up being higher than I expected, twice as much, ten times as much as I expected, I’m not going to be fretting that it might end up being more than what God has given me to pay it. Similarly, God’s not up in heaven watching the sin counter and thinking, “I hope people don’t commit too much more sin, because we’re getting close to the limit!” Adam’s sin brought death into the world, but how much more did Christ’s work pay for it!
But it’s not just different in amount, it’s different in kind:
16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
At first glance, it seems I’m wrong; Paul is talking about amounts. One trespass brought condemnation, but many trespasses have been forgiven. So it’s similar to what I said above; what Christ did was so much more than what Adam did. But that’s not all Paul is saying here; we can be in danger of seeing parallel ideas but Paul is saying they’re not parallel.
On the one hand we have condemnation, which is a result of judgement; when we sin, condemnation is what we deserve. It would be fair for God to look at the evidence, weigh the sin I’ve committed, and condemn me; that would be a fair judgement from a fair judge. The flip side of condemnation would be forgiveness, but God gives us more than that, he gives us justification. It’s not just that my sins are no longer counted against me—which is amazing enough on its own—it’s that I can now freely worship God; justification means that He views me as being righteous, just like Jesus. Just like Jesus. Just like Jesus!
So the two are not flip sides of each other they’re different things, but it’s even more than that: justification is given as a free gift, not as wages. (As I’ve said in a previous post, it’s free to me, it wasn’t free to Christ.) Condemnation is earned, but justification is freely given.
It’s a core Christian concept, but it’s also one that’s so easy for us to forget. I get saved, the Holy Spirit works in me, I become more Christlike, and if I’m not careful I end up with a blind spot whereby I think I’m actually pretty good, I deserve God’s Grace, people who aren’t good like me are terrible sinners whereas I’m not so bad. It’s pretty much the opposite of the Gospel; it’s just religion. Christ came to save us because religion doesn’t work.
It’s not even like it was in the Old Testament! God saved His people from Egypt and then He made a covenant with them: “Here are my rules and regulations, and if you obey those rules and regulations I’ll continue to be your God and your nation will prosper – but if you don’t then I’ll let you be conquered.” And they didn’t obey, so He let them be conquered. (As I mentioned in a previous post, it wasn’t just about blind obedience to rules it was about following Him wholeheartedly, but they did neither.) Then Jesus came and offered a new covenant: “Believe in me and I’ll save you – period. I want you to obey me—in fact, if you love me you will obey me—but I know you’re not going to do it perfectly, and I’m not making it a condition of your salvation. I did the work; you’re saved.” My justification is a free gift. Do I want to obey Him, now? Yes! Will He help me to do so, through the Holy Spirit? Yes! Will I do it perfectly? Not even close. But when I fail it doesn’t destroy my salvation or nullify the work He has done on my behalf; He has already paid the price for all of it. If my “bill” ends up being $350 instead of $100, his $5,000,000,000 is still going to cover it. When my heart is right, that doesn’t make me more willing to sin, it makes me want to obey Him all the more, but it’s out of love, not out of fear.
Paul summarises this section like this:
20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Verse 20 is jarring. It looks like Paul is saying that God provided the Law in order that trespasses might increase. And I was about to say that’s not what Paul meant to say, when you look at other translations it comes out differently, it’s not about intention it’s about effect. Then I read other translations and it looks like, actually, that’s exactly what Paul did mean to say! (The NIV, for example, is even more blunt about it: “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase” (5:20 (NIV)✞, emphasis added).
Troubling, no? I’ll quote a longer article from a post I found at BibleRef.com, which I thought did a good job of explaining this:
In describing the impact of Adam’s disobedience in the previous verse, Paul wrote that “many were made sinners.” By that, he means that all who were born after Adam were born into sin. By nature, they sinned. However, Paul has also revealed that those living between Adam and Moses were not under the law. In that way, their sin was not counted against them. They still sinned, and they still died as a result of sin, but their sin was, in a sense, not measured (Romans 5:13–14).
So what happened when God gave the law to Moses? How did that change this relationship between human sin and God? It made everything much, much worse, exactly as God intended. Once God gave actual commands about what to do and what not to do in this life, human beings moved from simply being sinners by nature to becoming actual lawbreakers. The existence of God’s commands criminalized their sin—our sin—at a new level. Now we were all living in blatant, open rebellion.
In that sense, sin increased. It’s not necessarily that people started sinning in greater volume, it’s that our sin began to be counted against us as individual acts of rebellion against the will of God. It became an even more overt disobedience to Him. In fact, as Paul reveals in a startling statement, that’s one reason God gave the law to the Israelites. He wanted to increase the trespass, the lawbreaking! He wanted it to be deadly clear just how sinful human beings were.
Paul follows that with another extraordinary statement, however. As human sin increased, grace “super-increased.” God’s grace abounded even more. This makes logical sense and yet it is still astounding to us. God’s grace—giving good to us when we have earned bad—cannot be overwhelmed by our own sinfulness. The more we sin, the more grace God gives. In the following chapter, Paul will deal with a common abuse of that idea: the claim that sin is actually good, since it provides God more opportunity to show grace.
As easy as it is to get caught up in a difficult phrase, Paul’s main point is obvious: however much sin is committed, however we categorise it, God’s Grace has abounded all the more.
Thoughts
One other thought, in addition to what I wrote above: Do we need to believe that Adam was an actual, historical figure to make sense of this passage? Above I quoted a sermon from John Piper on the Desiring God website, and he is definitely of the opinion that yes, you have to believe that Adam was a historical person for all of this to be true, just as Jesus was. Adam is the literal father of all of humanity; if he’s not, then that would mean that there are people who didn’t “inherit” the sinful nature from him.
With respect to Piper—and I mean that non-facetiously, he’s obviously more learned than I—I’m not so sure that Adam had to have been a real, historical figure for Romans 5 to make theological sense. If I read through this passage and make the underlying assumption that “Adam” is a metaphor or an analogy, not a real person, Paul’s point still comes through. Again, Piper would disagree (perhaps vehemently).
My point is not to say that Adam wasn’t a historical person. My point is not to pick a side at all. But if someone is reading this and believes Adam wasn’t a historical person, the point is this: Paul says all humans are sinful, and rightly under the judgement of God. Paul also says that Christ offers us a free gift of Grace; that even though a right judgement would find you guilty, as a free gift you can be justified instead. Paul says that this gift is more than able to take care of all of your sins, you don’t have to worry about whether there’s enough Grace, or whether your sins are too bad.
If Adam was a real person it was his sin that caused sin to enter the world; if Adam was a myth then he’s a myth about how sin entered the world. Either way, Paul’s point is that we—all of us—are born sinful, and have that huge problem with God, and Christ offers us a way to get out from under it – for free!
Footnotes
- To really blow the mind of the modern Christian, there were formalised religions in existence before Judaism was even created. In fact, Hinduism and (to a lesser extent) Zoroastrianism are two religions that still exist today which predate Judaism. Yes, there is only one God, but He didn’t start his people into worship of Him in a formalised way until the time of Moses. ↩
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