Salvation-The Entire Human Race is Under the Headship of Adam
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday December 1, 2015
Salvation: The Entire Human Race is Under the Headship of Adam
Lesson # 5
Romans 5:12 also teaches us that the result of God imputing Adam’s original sin to the entire human race was that the entire human race was under the headship of Adam.
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. (NASB95)
“Because” is composed of the preposition epi and the dative neuter singular form of the relative pronoun relative pronoun hos.
The expression eph’ ho has been said by some as being the most mistranslated expression in the Greek New Testament.
It has been translated “in whom” by Augustine and others.
For this to be the correct rendering of the expression, its antecedent would have to be the expression henos anthropou, “one man” a reference to Adam, which appeared earlier in the verse.
If this is the case, then this would mean that “in Adam all sinned” but grammatically and syntactically this does not make sense since the distance between the expression henos anthropou, “one man” and the prepositional phrase eph’ ho is too great for this to be correct.
Also, the relative pronoun hos is neuter in gender and not masculine, which it would need to be if it were referring to Adam.
Furthermore, Paul would have used a simpler or more obvious construction, which would be en ho.
The fact that eph’ ho does not mean “in whom” is further substantiated in that this expression is usually used as a conjunction and in fact, it is used as a conjunction in Philippians 3:12 and 2 Corinthians 5:4 and in the papyri.
As a conjunction, this expression has been rendered “from which it follows, with the result that, inasmuch as,” or “because” and the last rendering is the most popular among modern Bible scholars.
Many modern exegetes contend that the prepositional phrase eph’ ho is not looking back at any antecedent but rather is functioning as a causal conjunction meaning that it is introducing a statement that gives the reason why spiritual death spread to each and every member of the human race.
This would mean that spiritual death resulting in physical death is universal for the precise reason that committing acts of personal sin is universal and this would emphasize that personal sin is the result of this sin nature.
We are not responsible for what Adam had done but for what we have done.
Wallace says that this interpretation finds support in the papyri and in the rest of the Pauline corpus (cf. 2 Cor. 5:4; Phlp. 3:12).
However, this interpretation emphasizes the human race committing sin.
The context does not support this interpretation since Paul is comparing the results of Adam’s disobedience with that of Christ’s act of obedience.
He is emphasizing Adam’s actions and not his posterity!
Mounce offers another interpretation saying that the prepositional phrase ep’ ho functions not as a causal conjunction but rather has a consecutive sense, he writes,
”the primary cause of our sinful nature would be the sin of Adam; the result of that sin would be the history of sinning on the part of all who enter the human race and in fact, sin of their own accord.”
Moo commenting on this view, writes, “Death, then, is due immediately to the sinning of each individual but ultimately to the sin of Adam; for it was Adam's sin that corrupted human nature and made individual sinning an inevitability.”
Though this is true theologically, it is not the correct interpretation.
The aorist tense of the verb hamartano is speaking of a particular point of time in the past, which the context indicates is Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden.
Interpreting eph’ ho as introducing a result clause emphasizes the personal acts of sin by each member of the human race.
However, the context clearly indicates that Paul’s is comparing the results of Adam’s disobedience with the results of Christ’s obedience and thus emphasizing Adam’s actions and not his posterity.
Therefore, not only does it make more sense grammatically and syntactically that eph’ ho should be taken as a causal conjunction but also the context supports this interpretation.
This interpretation emphasizes that God considered the entire human race as sinning the moment Adam committed his act of sin in the Garden of Eden.
Some like Calvin contend that the verb hamartano is referring to the personal sins of each person in the human race but the verb hamartano, “sinned” is in the aorist tense and not the present tense.
The present tense could emphasize a habitual or continuous or repetitive action and the aorist tense emphasizes that this action of sinning took place at a particular point in time in the past.
The context clearly indicates that the aorist tense of the verb is referring to Adam’s act of disobedience in the Garden of Eden.
Some maintain that all sinned in the sense that the human race follows the example of Adam in sinning but our sin is our own.
Again, the aorist tense of hamartano refutes this interpretation since the verb would be in the present or imperfect tense if Paul was writing about the continued, habitual or repeated acts of sin committed by members of the human race.
The aorist tense does not say we were imitating Adam.
Also, again, the statements 5:15b, 16a, 17a, 18a and 19a do not mean that the human race is following Adam’s example.
Paul’s emphasis in Romans 5:12-21 is to compare the results of Adam’s disobedience with Christ’s act of obedience.
This means that in the same way that we are declared justified by God and reconciled to God through one man’s act of obedience, the God-Man, Jesus Christ so also we were condemned by God through man’s act of disobedience, Adam’s.
This does not imply that Paul is teaching that each person is not responsible for his own actions since this is not his emphasis.
He is concerned with what Adam did and the consequences of his actions in the Garden of Eden.
Therefore, the aorist tense of the verb hamartano along with the distributive use of the adjective pas and Paul’s statements in Romans 5:15b, 16a, 17a, 18a and 19a indicate clearly that the entire human race was condemned by God the moment Adam sinned.
This interpretation emphasizes that Adam’s sin brought condemnation upon Adam’s posterity and the only way to be delivered from this condemnation is through One Man, Jesus Christ.
So when Paul says that “all sinned” he is referring to the fact that the moment Adam sinned, he not only died spiritually and then eventually physically but also his posterity did the same.
Therefore, in Romans 5:12, Paul is saying that because of Adam’s act of disobedience each and every member of the human race possesses a sin nature, which through the function of human volition produces mental, verbal and overt acts of sin resulting in spiritual death and eventually, physical death and the second death for those who reject Jesus Christ as Savior.
Paul is teaching in Romans 5:12 that each and every member of the human race-past, present and future, are sinners by nature since they are under both the “federal” and “seminal” headships of Adam.
So in Romans 5:12-21, Paul presents Adam and Christ as “federal heads” of two groups of people.
Both the “federal” and “natural” or “seminal” headship views are present in Romans 5:12-21.
In Romans 5:12, the expression “because all sinned” emphasizes that Adam is the “federal” head of the human race in that he is the representative of the human race that generated from him so that God considered his act of sin to be the act of all people and his penalty of death was judicially made the penalty of everybody.
The expression “because all sinned” also emphasizes that Adam is also the “seminal” or “natural” head of the human race in that the entire human race was seminally and physically in Adam so that God considered the entire human race as participating in the sin Adam committed and receiving the penalty he received.
Paul’s statement in Romans 5:12 that “through one man the sin nature entered the human race so that spiritual death entered through the sin nature” supports this view as well since the sin nature has been passed down through the male in copulation.
