Romans 5:12 - How Sin Rolls (Conciliation Series, Part V)

  Part IV: God’s Conciliation, Confirmed

The second half of this chapter, Romans 5:12-21, serves as a platform from the first half, but in my opinion, serves a strong contrast to the entire letter thus far. We’ve read a long exhortation on man’s failure, and now a long exhortation on God’s justification and love. This is the perfect place in the letter to pit Adam, the first of humanity, with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. What can God accomplish than man cannot? And in fact, there’s a solid “comparison/contrast” structure between the verses. We have a comparison, in verses 12-14, then a contrast, in 15-17, then another comparison in 18-19, a contrast in 20, and another comparison in 21. If you counted them, you would find that there are 4 comparisons, and 3 contrasts (4 being the number of the earth, 3 being the number of completion, and 7 being the number of perfection.) There’s so much to gather here, so let’s take a look.

Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and thus death passed through into all mankind, on which all sinned…

Let’s talk about death. It’s one of the most commonly misunderstood concepts. It’s crazy, considering we all are subject to it, right? Yet Paul makes it clear here that death has a set definition. It has a set meaning, and through this we are able to look at each use of death in Scripture, to gain a better understanding of the concept.

Now, am I saying that we are going to look at every use of death?

No.

That would take too long, and defeats the purpose of reading the Scripture itself. However, as Adam is one of the primary focuses of this verse (“through one man,”) it may be wise to consider the exact method in which all came to be subject to death.

We’ll start in Genesis 2:15. Observe:

“Then Yahweh Elohim took the human and settled him in the garden of Eden to serve it and to keep it. And Yahweh Elohim instructed the human, saying: From every tree of the garden you may eat, eat! But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you must not eat from it; for on the day you eat from it, to die you shall be dying.”

Simple “if, then” statement by God, here. He did not provide any other reasoning than, “to die you shall be dying.” This is not to say that death is the immediate cause of the ignorance, but that dying, the process of dying, is the immediate result of ignoring His word. As we know from Romans 1:18, ignorance and injustice is the immediate problem God has with man – and here, we see the simple, primary consequence of it, as laid out in Romans 1:32. This makes death the ultimate consequence, in standing in sin, which is ignorance, or doubt, to His word (Rom. 14:23.) Let’s look ahead at the consequence, in Genesis 3:17-20:

“…to Adam He said: Because you have hearkened to your wife’s voice and ate from the only tree that I instructed you, saying you must not eat from it, Cursed is the ground on your account; In grief shall you eat of it all the days of your life.

Thorns and weeds shall it sprout for you, And you will eat the herbage of the field. By the sweat of your brow shall you eat your bread, Until you return to the ground, for from it were you taken. For soil you are, and to soil shall you return.”

Oof. Clearly, God’s not kidding around. Man did not merely ‘commit sin’ in the garden – they offended Him (Rom. 5:10.) They became enemies to Him, relatively, and though Adam lived many years, the breath of life he had been given inevitably withered away, at 930 years of age.

What does this tell us? Naturally, it imparts that death is, by definition, the opposite of life. There’s no sentience, no consciousness. It’s eerie. Unsettling. Depressing, because we intuitively recognize the lack of warmth in such an action. Yet the inciting action, the one that caused it, was a direct defiance to God’s word. Adam ate the one fruit he was asked not to eat, which was, literally, doubting His truth. Evidence of this is found in the conversation between Eve and the serpent in Gen. 3:1-4, where Eve both doubts God (she adds “and you shall not touch the tree,” whereas God only said “don’t eat of it,) and doubts His penalty (she believes the penalty is much harsher than what God gives – “lest you should die” are her words, whereas “to die shall you be dying” was God’s.)

It’s the reward of sin, if you will. It’s the implementation of death into creation. We have to explore a few critical details, here. First – really experience the difference between what Eve believed, and what Satan capitalized off of. She doubts that the thing she was told not to do was so wrong, while also, in contradiction to her own self, believed the penalty to be worse. In this, she reflects a lack of “the knowledge of good and evil,” as she had yet to consume the fruit of the tree. She had a “gut feeling” and, in being deceived by a new lord, or master, perceived God as dictatorial, a Being with command and no love. Now, she was fooled – deluded. She did not knowingly commit ignorance (2 Cor. 11:3, 1 Tim. 2:14.) It was Adam who was charged with sin. Eve did not know any better – but Adam was the one explicitly given the charge (Gen. 2:16.) It was he who challenged God’s authority instead of trusting it. It is true that, like Eve, he had not previously eaten of the tree; yet it is also true that he, like Eve, did not respect the authority of the punishment that came with ignorance.

It must be made apparent that prior to this, Adam was not dying. He didn’t realize just how good he had it in Eden – plenty of food and no death? Goodness, what a paradise! Yet the serpent, recognizing that his actions in Genesis 1:2 would be consummated, seeks delusion all the time. He wanted to corrupt the humanity that he intuitively recognized would expound God’s Wisdom upon them. He was, if you will, projecting his doubt onto humanity, that it may dwell within us.

It follows that the comparison Paul wants to draw, then, should concern us with the only two humans, up to now, that were once “not dying.” Death is, as we are exploring in this passage, Adam’s legacy. In contrast, life is Christ’s legacy (Rom. 5:10.)

So, so many believe that death is eternal, as Eve did. They believe it’s a “forever” deal, in which you don’t even “really” die, but go through a “state change” from heaven to hell. Where is this written? Where have we read of this idea so far? “Eternal death” is not at all clarified as the consequence in Scripture. Hell, even after listing this charge against Adam, God then clothes Adam and Eve on their way out of the garden. Why would He do this if not, on an incredibly simple level, to show that He’s not finished with humanity??

The term “eternal death” simply isn’t here, nor does it make sense. “Eternity” doesn’t even mean “forever,” but “no beginning and no end.” Last I checked, death has a sure beginning, in a literal sense. When you die, it is the beginning of your death. Thankfully, Scripture isn’t so crazy as to give you such a convoluted phrase to boggle your mind – that’s man’s place. When one proclaims that “death is eternal,” they are saying one of two things – either that “death is forever” (in which case, Christ’s sacrifice is not believed, and nothing was truly accomplished at the cross,) or that “there is no death” (which, don’t laugh – when one proclaims that death “sends you to heaven or hell,” they are literally proclaiming that you are still living to some capacity after you die, which denies death. In effect, this denies sin, which is called “pride,” and still ignores the notion that Christ needed to be a sacrifice at all.)

Sin entered through Adam. It was one man through whom sin entered. Many proclaim that it is their sin that put them at odds with God. Not so; it is through one man, here, and it is his first sin, as head of the flesh, that put us all in this situation. The Greek is very clear on this, and if we are to understand anything in the next ten verses, this must be dwelt on and understood. The above curse is not “ignored for some, and given to others.” It applies to all offspring of Adam. What else would God do? Individually curse us all as we exit our mother’s womb? The one curse in Adam suffices.

Many also believe that Adam and Eve created sin in their transgression. Not so (Is. 45:7.) Notice that Scripture is only pointing out that sin entered into the world through Adam, not that Adam created it. There’s a critical difference here that many ignore in favor of their own reasoning. Adam didn’t even have a knowledge of good and evil, let alone create sin. Did he know what he was doing? Sure – he directly disobeyed. But he did not create it, only participated in its entering into the world.

One more thing, before we move on. What is it, again, that sin enters, by being instilled in Adam? The answer is “the world.” The word “world” is kosmos, or, literally, “SYSTEM.” It is an “order” that God sets up at the beginning of each eon. This word encompasses both the “heavens” and the “earth,” or the “celestial” and the “terrestrial.” If we study Genesis, we will find that the first eon is laid out in Gen. 1:1:

“In a beginning Elohim created the heavens and earth.”

This is the first eon. What happened to the heavens and earth of the first eon? Let us read on. Gen. 1:2:

“As for the earth, it came to be chaos and vacant, and darkness was over the surface of the abyss.”

So we know, now, that the kosmos, or “SYSTEM” that God sets up in Genesis 1:1 is completely destroyed. How was it destroyed? Let’s read on:

“And the spirit of Elohim was vibrating over the surface of the waters.”

Over the surface of the waters. Huh. Is there anywhere in Scripture that could clarify this for us?

Hmmm… looking, looking…

Oh, look! Here’s a nice one from 2 Pet. 3:5-6:

“For they want to be oblivious of this, that there were heavens of old, and an earth cohering out of water and through water, by the word of God; through which the then world, being deluged by water, perished.”

To be “deluged by water” is, literally, to be flooded. Genesis 1:2 makes a little more sense, now, doesn’t it? The ‘heavens of old’ and ‘earth cohering out of water’ are the makeup of the ‘then world,’ or the first world and its respective first eon. The second eon begins with the formation of this earth out of the old one. These are the six days of creation. One of these days, as we know, revolves around the creation of Adam. The creation of this earth was, literally, the forming of a new kosmos, or system (2 Pet. 2:5, called the “ancient world,”) and sin entered into it through Adam.

The sin leads to the penalty – death. Through sin, death. The transgression of Adam led to his dying state. He surely recognized that he’d screwed up when his body’s functions were crippled.

This is the scare. Humanity should not be in the dying state it’s in. Death itself is a necessary teacher, sure, and a part of the current “world” (Gal. 1:4,) but by no means is it natural. It’s unorthodox, weird, untimely, ugly, disturbing. It’s the result of Adam’s transgression – directly defying He Who gave life led to this sad state of affairs. Did God know this was going to happen? Yes. Without it, we would be unable to understand any of the glory of Christ, in comparing and contrasting the two. Relatively, he appoints the flesh and its earthly desires (being made of soil) to Adam, man’s head, and appoints the spirit and its celestial rewards (being inherently in the form of God) to Christ, the One righteously subject to God (1 Cor. 15:20-28, Phil. 2:5-8.)

Now, this makes most people question: oh, well, if it was Adam’s sin, and not my own, that has resulted in this sad state we’re in, then why are we being held accountable for it?

Good question – one I asked myself for a few years. Here’s the answer: the curse is death reigning in our physical bodies generationally. God has not held us accountable for the death, but is using the death to humble us (Ecc. 1:13.) No; God’s holding us accountable for irreverence and injustice (Rom. 1:18.)

But wait, if God’s got a problem with our sin, then why isn’t our sin the root of our death?

You’ve got it backwards, my friend. Here, let’s look at Romans 5:12 one more time:

Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and thus death passed through into all mankind, on which all sinned…

Through one man, sin enters the world. Through sin, death enters. Thus it is death that passes through into all mankind. The sin doesn’t transfer over, see? The sin becomes a reflection of the curse of death that Adam was charged with. We must see the effects of our sin, of ignoring God, in order to apprehend the severity of Adam’s decision.

I don’t know what translations like to say anything other than what’s explicitly written above. Here’s the Greek on the matter:

There. “On which.” It’s right there, in the original Greek. I don’t want to hear some “it says something else based on my translation” nonsense. The Greek speaks for itself. Death holds sin’s reigns, and all die, thus all sin (Rom. 3:10, 23.)

Understand, then – sin cannot be erased in the flesh. Literally. To focus on combating sin is a futile mission because the root cause of sin, being death, is something we both have no control over and are, at this point in time, destined to deal with in the flesh. If you try fighting it in the flesh, it’s the equivalent to cutting the end of a weed and saying, “It’s gone!” No, no, no; the weed looks like it’s gone, but the root is still intact, which will only cause the weed to grow again. So long as the root exists in you, sin will continue to occur.

Only God can abolish death, and He promised (in 1 Cor. 15:26) that it would be the last enemy He abolishes. How silly it is, then, that people spend so much time asking forgiveness of their sins! The only justification and conciliation is in Christ. Thankfully, He died for your sake. He took care of the root, that you may be free in Him.

- GerudoKing