Adam and the Reign of Death

Many people consider Romans 5:12-21, to be the most difficult passage in the epistle to understand.

At first reading it seems complex and enigmatic.

In one sense it is, however we are never ment to fully understand the ways of God.

We are ment to understand certain things and then other thing we have to lean on or faith and just except the fact that Gods ways are not our ways.

in fact we need to realize that it is the nature that we are talking about in this passage that puts that inability to understand the things of God in our way.

Verses 12-14 lay the foundation for the remainder of the chapter by pointing out the obvious truth that death is universal to the human race.

In these verses Paul focuses on Adam and the reign of death that his sin engendered.

In the remainder of the chapter he focuses on Christ and the reign of Life.

There is no truth that is more self evident than the fact that death is a real thing and no one will be able to escape it.

The painful reality of death touches mankind without interruption and without exception.

Thomas Gray wrote this in a poem called Elegy in a Country Churchyard:

The boast of heraldry; the pomp of power

and all that beauty; all that wealth e’er gave,

Awaits alike the inevitable hour,

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

In view of the universality of mortality the questions come to mind are:

Why does death reign in the world?

Why must everyone die?

Why are some lives short and then some are long?

How did death become the undisputed victor over mankind?

Paul answers these questions and even though the answers are rather basic in themselves his argument in defence of them is not.

The primary purpose of this passage, however is not to explain why all people die, but how each and everyone of us are effected by sin.

Death is the result and Sin is the problem.

Our responsibility is to accept in faith both what is clear and what is not.

what is comprehensible and what remains a mystery.

Sin Entered the World Through One Man (v5:12a)

Sin originated with Satan, who “Has sinned from the beginning” according to 1 John 3:8.

John does not specify when that beginning was but it obviously was before the creation of Adam and Eve, because they were tempted by Satan.

Adam was given just one simple prohibition by God, yet the consequence for disobedience of that prohibition was severe.

But although Eve disobeyed first, the primary responsibility for the sin was Adams.

First because it was to him that God had directly given the command.

Second because he had headship over Eve and should have insisted on their mutual obedience to God rather than allow her to lead him into disobedience.

That one command that God gave Adam was the only point of submission to God required of Adam.

Except for that single restriction, Adam had been given authority to subjugate and rule the entire earth. We see this in Gen 1:26-30

Genesis 1:26–30 ESV

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

But when Adam disobeyed God sin entered into his life and generated a constitutional change in his nature, from innocence to sinfulness, an innate sinfulness that would be transmitted to every one of his descendants.

Here in this passage Paul does not speak of Sins plural but of Sin singular.

It was not the many other sinful acts that Adam eventually committed, but the indwelling sin nature that he came to possess because of his first disobedience, that he passed on to his children.

Adam represents the entire human race that is descended from him, no matter how many subgroups there may be.

Therefore when Adam sinned, all mankind sinned.

And because his first sin transformed his inner nature, that now depraved nature was also transmitted to his children.

Because he became spiritually polluted, all his descendants would be polluted in the same way.

Instead of evolving as humanists insist that we do, due to sin man is devolving, degenerating, into greater and greater sinfulness.

Death Entered The World Through Sin (v5:12b)

The second element of Pauls argument is that, because sin entered the world through one man, so did death.

The consequence of sin is death.

God did not create Adam as a mortal being, that is, as subject to death.

But He explicitly warned Adam that disobedience by eating the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil would make him subject to death. Gen 2:17

Genesis 2:17 ESV

17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Death is the unfailing fruit of the poison that entered Adams soul and the soul of every one of his descendants.

A person does not become a sinner by committing sins but rather commits sins because he is by nature a sinner.

A person does not become a liar when he tells a lie, he tells a lie because his heart is already deceitful.

A person does not become a murderer when he kills someone, he kills because his heart is already murderous.

Matthew 15:19 ESV

19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Sin brings several kinds of Death to mankind:

Death is separation it is Spiritual separation from God.

This is what Adam experienced immediately after his Disobedience.

Death is Physical

This is a Physical separation from fellow human beings.

This is a different time span for each person.

Death is eternal

This is the second death. The first is of the body but the second is of the Soul.

Revelation 21:8 ESV

8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

The unbeliever has reason to fear all three deaths.

Spiritual death prevents his earthly happiness

physical death will bring an end to opportunity for salvation

eternal death will bring everlasting punishment

Death Spread to All Men Because All Sinned (v5:12c)

Pauls third argument is that death was transmitted to all men without exception.

No human has ever escaped death.

Even Jesus died not because of His own sin but because of the worlds sin that He vicariously took upon Himself.

When He took sin upon Himself, He also took upon Himself sins penalty.

Paul doe not attempt to make his explanation wholly understandable to his readers, and he himself did not claim to have full comprehension of the significance of what the Lord revealed to and through him.

He simply declared that Adams sin was transmitted to all his offspring because that truth was revealed to him by God.

Natural human depravity is not the result but the cause of mans sinful acts.

We see this in passages such as:

Psalm 51:5 ESV

5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psalm 58:3 ESV

3 The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies.

Adam had no excuse at all

Without being deceived, and fully aware of what he was doing, he deliberately disobeyed God.

If the principle were not true that all sinned in Adam it would be impossible to make the point that all can be made righteous in Christ.

That is the truth Paul makes explicit later in this chapter.

and in his first letter to Corinth:

1 Corinthians 15:22 ESV

22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

If God were only fair, Adam and Eve would have been destroyed immediately for their disobedience. and that would have been the end of the human race.

It is only because God is gracious and forgiving, and not merely just, that men can be saved.

The magnitude of Pauls analogy is mind-boggling.

Its significance cannot be fully comprehended but only accepted by faith.

Gods ways are not our ways:

Habakkuk 3:17–19 ESV

17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 19 God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.

Habakkuk learned that when we cannot understand the Lords ways, we must avoid the quicksand of human reason and stand in faith on the rock of Gods righteous character.

History Proves That Death Reigns Over All Men (v5:13-14)

The fourth and final argument Paul makes in this passage is that history verifies that death is universal.

It was not because of men’s sinful acts in breaking the Mosaic Law, which they did not yet have, but because of their sinful nature that all men from Adam until Moses were subject to death.

But in regard to the principle of Human solidarity, Adam was a type of Jesus Christ.

That truth becomes Pauls transition to the glorious gospel of Salvation from sin and death that God offers fallen, mankind through His beloved Son, Him who was to come.

The first Adam was Failure the second was fulfillment

The first Adam became death, the second became Life.