A Study of Romans (18)

Legacy

People talk about leaving a legacy;

But what does that mean and what does it look like;

Concise Oxford English Dictionary Legacy

noun (plural legacies)

1 an amount of money or property left to someone in a will.

2 something handed down by a predecessor.

■ adjective Computing denoting hardware or software that has been superseded but is difficult to replace because of its wide use.

—ORIGIN Middle English (also denoting the function or office of a legate): from Old French legacie, from medieval Latin legatia ‘legateship’, from legatus (see LEGATE).

People want to leave something for the next generation be it family, organizations or the world in general;

Now the author I have reading for this study thinks all Christians should memorize v. 12 because it reveals what Jesus saved us from;

Sin and death are universal - no one person or people group has cornered the market, and because sin entered the world, through Adam, the consequence of death followed.

Original Sin

When people talk about the original sin they are referring to Adam’s disobedience noted in Genesis 3;

Adam made a choice that cause a separation between him and God;

Now it’s not like Adam did this without knowledge because God warned him as we see in Genesis 2:17;

Adam died that day - not an immediate physical death but he did suffer an immediate spiritual death;

The Book of Romans The Inclusive Legacy: A Fact (Verse 12)

He did not “know” God any longer as friend and as in fellowship (such a relationship to God is life!); he only knew dread and fear. He had died.

Participation

Our society at some point turn to an “everybody gets a trophy” for just showing up;

No effort needed other than walking in to the room or on to the field - their presence is worthy of reward;

Well there is something else we, as the descendants of Adam get just for being born - the participation of the original sin;

Now theologians have two thoughts about this concept;

The Book of Romans The Inclusive Legacy: A Fact (Verse 12)

Some see here a mere repetition of Romans 3:23 and thus a reference to each person’s actual sin when he is alive. If this is correct, Paul means that each individual shows his identification with Adam’s sin by his own sinful deeds.

The Book of Romans The Inclusive Legacy: A Fact (Verse 12)

In Greek the verb is a simple past tense. If Paul is, as many feel, still looking back to the “original” sin, he is saying that all really participated in that sin with Adam. This is what the theologians mean when they affirm that all men are guilty of “original sin.”

The Book of Romans The Inclusive Legacy: A Fact (Verse 12)

We shall leave the more complicated aspects of the discussion to the theologians. But two conclusions are simple and clear enough for us and seem well justified. First, at least in some sense we sinned in Adam and are regarded as equally guilty of his sin. We need a sense of guilt about this “mystical” reality. Second, we all demonstrate our participation in the sin of the race when we in our own consciously responsible lifetimes sin.

Now because of “participation” through our lineage to Adam, we all carry the weight of sin and death - the question what do you do with your’s.

Ineffective

Paul is once again reiterating the fact that sin was present before the Law of Moses and continues to be present after the law of Moses;

The law is not the of sin and death nor is it the cure for sin and death;

Let’s look at Romans 2:15;

The Book of Romans The Ineffective Law: A Failure (Verses 13, 14)

Thus sin was as factual and real before the Mosaic Law as afterward, even though the Mosaic Law most certainly clarified and intensified man’s knowledge of his sin (Romans 3:20; 7:7).

There is something inside each person that makes them aware of right and wrong, now it may not stop them for sinning however the feeling is present;

The Book of Romans The Ineffective Law: A Failure (Verses 13, 14)

The point is that there was something unique about Adam’s “original” sin, and no subsequent sin is quite like it in that respect. That difference lay in the fact that Adam was the only one faced with the choice between life possessed and death, as an issue of a specific sin.

Adam made a choice of moving from spiritual life to spiritual death - however generations immediately following were born into death because of Adam;

The Book of Romans The Ineffective Law: A Failure (Verses 13, 14)

And that is exactly Paul’s point: All men, even though not having been given the same choice Adam had, still died, thus proving that death had already been passed universally on a race universally guilty. The Mosaic Law neither caused nor cured this universal sin-death heritage gained from the first Adam.