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The fact of the universal extent of sin leads to the following questions: What is the explanation of this universal extent of sin? Why do men sin? What is the origin of sin? The Biblical answer is twofold:
(a) sin had its historical origin in the act of Adam which is called the fall, and
(b) sin has its immediate, contemporary and personal origin in the spiritual death which along with physical death spread upon the whole race because of Adam’s act of sin.
The classical passage of Scripture that sets forth this twofold origin of sin is Romans 5:12.
“Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, because of which all sinned: –” (ERS)
The historical origin of sin is set forth in the phrase, “through one man sin entered into the world.” This is a direct reference to the first man, Adam, and his act of sin, the Fall. Let us go back to the early chapters of the book of Genesis and examine the creation and fall of man in order to understand the historical origin of sin.
The basic Biblical assertion about man is that he is created by God (Gen. 1:26-27). Man is a creature. He is not God. He is not divine. He does not have a “spark of the divine” in him. He is a created being, and as such is under the sovereignty and dominion of God by creation. But even though man is a creation of God, he is different from the rest of creation. Genesis 1:26-27 tells us that God created man in His own image. This makes man different from the other creations of God.
What is the image of God? The image of God is the Son of God (Col. 1:13-15; compare II Cor. 4:4); He is the plan and pattern according to which God created man. Note the Scriptures never say that the image of God is in man, but rather that man has been created in the image of God. What does it mean for man to be created in the image of God? The answer may be seen in Genesis 1:26-27.
“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 air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon 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.”
There are two aspects to man being created in the image of God. The first may be found in the words “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea…, over all the earth,….” God has given man dominion, sovereignty, and lordship over the creation (Psa. 8:4-8). As God has sovereignty and dominion over all He has created, so God has given man sovereignty and dominion over all the earth. Man in his limited sovereignty over creation is like God in His unlimited sovereignty. In this sense, man is like God. Man’s lordship over creation is the first aspect of man being created in the image of God. This passage in Genesis justifies the task and existence of all the sciences and especially biology. But it is not only the study and knowledge of creation that is involved here. Man has a God-given right to use this creation for the good of mankind and for the glory of God.
But there is a second aspect to man being created in the image of God. In these verses of Genesis one, we see this second aspect in the words: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:26). This does not mean that God is male and female but that He is more than one person existing in an unique personal relationship or fellowship. As God has created man, he cannot live alone. In Genesis 2:18, “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.'” Of all the creatures God had created “there was not found a helper fit for him” (Gen. 2:20). So God created, out of man, woman. Man, in the very way in which he was created had a social need — a need for fellowship. This need could only be satisfied through an equal fellow creature. None of the animals could satisfy this need for fellowship. So God made an equal being, a woman. Man as a social being is able to enjoy a reciprocal personal relationship or fellowship with an equal being. In this respect, man is also like God. In God there is an equality and fellowship between the three persons of the Godhead.
Man’s dominion over creation and his fellowship with an equal being — woman — are two aspects of man being created in the image of God. Both of these presuppose freedom — freedom of choice and freedom of action. This freedom is the presupposition and the possibility of being in the image of God. Since God created man with freedom, dominion over creation and fellowship with equal beings become possible. With freedom of choice and action man can exercise his dominion over creation. And since love is the essence of fellowship, with his freedom of choice and action, man can choose to love an equal being and thus enter into fellowship with her. This freedom of choice, and not his reason, neither self-consciousness, nor self-transcendence, is that which make possible man’s dominion over creation and fellowship with an equal being. This freedom of decision is what distinguishes man from the rest of creation; this is what gives to man his existence as a person or self and to his reason that human and personal character. Man is a personal being in a created physical world and as such is a union of spirit (person or self) and body (psycho-physical organism).
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7 KJV).
But man did not stay in this original state — in the way God created him in His image. He fell away from the image of God. How did this happen? The second and third chapters of Genesis tell us how this happened. After God created man and placed him in a garden (Gen. 2:8, 15), God gave to him a command:
“From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17 NAS).
And after the woman was created, she was tempted by the serpent (Gen. 3:1) who is also called Satan (the adversary) and the Devil (the slanderer, Rev. 12:9). The serpent’s temptation contained two lies:
(a) “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1 NAS) and
(b) “You surely shall not die!” (Gen. 3:4 NAS).
The first lie attacks God’s goodness indirectly by implying that God makes unreasonable demands. The serpent misstates God’s command. And the woman corrects the serpent’s misstatement but accepts his insinuation that God makes unreasonable demands. This is the reason she changes God’s command by adding “neither shall you touch it” (Gen. 3:3). This leads to the serpent’s second lie. For if it is unreasonable to forbid touching the fruit, then it is unreasonable to think that she would die if she touched it. This second lie attacks God’s goodness directly by implying that He is untruthful. And this second lie is supported by the implication of the statement in verse five that God is withholding something good from them: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
These lies are attacks on God’s goodness and love. This is the first element of this satanic temptation: Satan begins with an attack on God’s character. God’s goodness is attacked indirectly and then directly. The second element of this satanic temptation is the offering of a substitute for the true God — a false god, an idol (compare Matt. 4:8-10). Having undermined her faith and confidence in the goodness of God, the serpent offers Eve the knowledge of good and evil as a substitute for God. The third element in this temptation is the presenting of a method to obtain the substitute god. Satan implied that this knowledge of good and evil could be obtained through the process of eating. This was part of Satan’s strategy. He had to obscure the basic fact that knowledge, moral as well as scientific, is obtained by decision, a choice, an acceptance or rejection. Adam and Eve could have known good and evil by their acceptance of the good (obeying God’s command) and their rejection of the evil (Satan’s temptation to disobey God’s command). Evil may be equally known in its rejection as in its acceptance. Rejection is a far better way to know evil, for one does not have to receive the painful consequences of the choice of evil. The knowledge of good and evil was not something God was trying to keep from them, contrary to Satan’s lie. God was trying to give to them in the only way possible, by decision, a choice between good and evil. Of course it was necessary for Satan to obscure this fact that knowledge comes by decision. Otherwise there would be no necessity for eating of the fruit of the tree and thus disobeying God.
At the serpent’s suggestion, Eve ate of the tree and gave to her husband, Adam, who also ate (Gen. 3:6). Thus did man first sin. What was the nature of Adam’s sin? Was it disobedience, unbelief, rebellion, or a transgression? It was all of these, but also something more. It was not merely something negative but something positive. It was idolatry. This can be seen in Genesis 3:6 where the Biblical explanation of Adam’s sin is given:
“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband and he ate.”
The woman saw it was good for food — she had probably observed this many times before; we have no record that the serpent told her that. She saw that it was a delight to the eyes. She had surely noticed this before also. Neither of these appeals had previously made this fruit a temptation to her. It was the third element that made it a temptation: It was a tree to be desired to make one wise. As was seen above, the serpent added this element (Gen. 3:5). This was not a temptation to pride as some have affirmed; it was a temptation to put wisdom and knowledge in the place of God. Adam’s sin was basically misplaced ultimate allegiance. It was not just unbelief but wrong faith: trust in that which is not God. The technical Biblical term for it is idolatry.
The sin of the first man was the choice of wisdom and knowledge, that is, reason, as his god. As important and good as reason is in its proper place, it is not supreme or ultimate; it is not God. Adam’s sin is basically an idolatry of reason. And this is essentially what classical Greek philosophy involved, where reason is the universal and necessary. Even though Greek philosophy was a rejection of the popular Homeric polytheistic religion, this does not mean that Greek philosophy is non-religious.
“Greek thought did not cease to be religious when it became philosophical.” [1]
The interest of the pre-Socratic philosophers was not, or not primarily, scientific but theological. They abandoned the myths of the Homeric poets and rejected the then popular Homeric polytheistic religion, not because these were unscientific but because they presented an unworthy picture of the Divine.
“The Being or Nature which philosophy sought to reach was thought of as a worthier conception of the divine
than that presented by the anthropomorphic gods.” [2]
The religious language and concepts of the pre-Socratics are not just relics of the pre-scientific way of thought, not yet outgrown, but the expression of their fundamental religious orientation. As Werner Jaeger says in his Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers,
“Though philosophy means the death to the old gods, it is itself religion.” [3]
And this religion is a religion of reason. This became explicit in the teaching of Socrates. Socrates lived and taught the ultimacy of reason and was executed in 399 B.C. for nothing less than the crime of rationalism — an act of destroying the gods by reason. [4] But he was only substituting for faith in one set of gods faith in another god — reason. Plato was inspired by his teacher Socrates to the same faith. The divine, according to the Greek conception of reality, is that which is not subject to change, decay or death; the gods in Homer are “immortals.” The divine, therefore, cannot be known through the senses because that which is known through the senses is a world characterized by change, decay or death. But since the objects of reason are always and everywhere the same, the divine can only be known through reason. This eternal, unchanging realm of the ideas, the objects of reason, is the divine.
“Plato does not hesitate to use religious language of this knowing. He says that both reason in man and the objects of reason are divine, and speaks of the kinship of one with other.” [5]
With this conception of the divine, Aristotle is basically in agreement but without the use of the religious language. He says,
“For while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be situated in order to have that character involves difficulties.” [6]
After discussing these difficulties he concludes,
“Therefore it must be of itself that divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things) and its thinking is a thinking on thinking.” [7]
This self-thinking thought is the divine. Thus both Plato and Aristotle held reason to be divine. God is the divine or eternal realm of the ideas in Plato’s philosophy, or he is a self-thinking thought of Aristotle’s philosophy.
According to the Greek thinkers, reason is the divine or God. But since the concepts of God and man are correlatives, the Greek concept of man reflects the image of this god. Since reason is god, man viewed in the light of this god, is a rational animal. Reason is the divine part of man. Aristotle says,
“It would seem, too, this (reason) is the true self of every man, since it is the supreme and better part. It will be strange, then, if he should choose not his own life, but some other’s … What is naturally proper to every creature is the highest and pleasantest for him. And so, to man, this will be the life of Reason, since Reason is, in the highest sense, a man’s self.” [8]
This is not the Biblical view of man or God. God is not reason. God is a person (or more accurately, three persons) whose existence is not in His reason but in His unlimited sovereign free decision and will; man is also a person (or more accurately, a unity of spirit [person] and body — see Gen. 2:7) whose existence is also to be found not in his reason but in his limited free decision and will. And since decisions involve a reference to an ultimate criterion beyond the self, a god, the Biblical view of man is that he is a religious animal, a being who must have a god. Reason is not the divine part in man but is a function of the will of the person. To be is to choose, not to think or to know. Knowledge and reason depend upon a prior decision as to what is real.
“…whatever evidence one accepts, whether that of experience or that of logic, will depend upon neither logic or experience alone, but upon a decision by the individual concerned in favor of the one or the other.” [9]
It is upon decision that any knowledge finally depends. Reason is not the ultimate criterion but the sovereign will of the Creator who made all things and has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ. This basic incompatibility between the Greek and Biblical view of God and man explains the conflict between Greek philosophy and the Christian faith and the failure of the attempted synthesis of these divergent points of view by Augustine and Aquinas. All attempts to synthesize the classical Greek view of God and man with the Biblical view will fail. Worst of all, the Biblical view of God and man will be obscured and misunderstood.
END NOTES FOR “IDOLATRY OF REASON”
[1] Michael B. Foster, Mystery and Philosophy
(London: SCM Press Ltd., 1957) p.32.
[3] Werner Jaeger, Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers
(Oxford: The Claredon Press, 1947), p. 72.
[4] William Barrett, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy
(New York: Doubleday & Co., 1958), p. 72.
[5] Forster, Mystery and Philosophy, p. 32.
[6] Aristotle Metaphysics 12. 9. 1074b16, in vol. 8 of
Great Books of the Western World, ed. Robert Maynard Hutchins
(Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), p.605.
[8] Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 10. 7. 1178a2-7,
quoted in Barrett, Irrational Man, p. 78.
[9] Cherbonnier, “Biblical Metaphysics,” p. 372.
The consequence of Adam’s act of sin is expressed in the second clause of Romans 5:12: “and death through sin.” God had given Adam an explicit command, a prohibition, the transgression of which would result in death.
“16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.'” (Gen. 2:16-17 NAS)
Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command and died. But in what sense did they die? Obviously they did not immediately die physically. But since God promised that they would die in the day that they ate of the tree and since God cannot lie (Num. 23:19; I Sam. 15:29; Psa. 89:35; Heb. 6:18), they must have died that day in some other sense than physical death. The death that they experienced that day has been called spiritual death. Even though the distinction between spiritual and physical death is not made explicitly anywhere in the Scriptures, the distinction is implied by (Gen. 3:8) and assumed by the Scriptures (I Tim. 5:6). Jesus recognized this distinction between spiritual death and physical death when he said, “Let the dead bury their dead” (Matt. 8:22 KJV; Luke 9:60), that is, “Let the spiritually dead bury their physically dead”. [1] That Adam and Eve died spiritually is clearly seen in that they hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God (Gen. 3:8) and later were driven out of the garden, away from the tree of life (Gen. 3:23-24).
Just as physical death is separation of man’s spirit (the person or self) from the body and not extinction, annihilation or merely the dissolution of the living organism, so spiritual death is the separation, alienation of man from God — not the death or annihilation of the spirit (Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21; James 2:26). It is the opposite of spiritual life which is to know God personally and have fellowship and communion with Him (John 17:3; 5:24; Eph. 2:1; Gal. 4:8-9; I Cor. 1:9; I John 1:3, 5-8). Spiritual death is a negative or no personal relationship between man and God. It is like a barrier or “iron curtain” between them. It is separation from God or, more accurately, death separates man from God. Death is a power. It is personified in the Scriptures as a king who reigns over the whole human race. Paul says, “by the offense of one, death reigned through one” (Rom. 5:17; see also Rom. 5:14). Death as a kingly power separates man from God (spiritual death) and brings about eventually the separation of man’s spirit from his body (physical death). Physical death is the outward expression and necessary accompaniment of spiritual death (Psa. 88:3-5; Isa. 38:10-11, 18; Psa. 6:5; 30:9; 115:17; Eccl. 9:18). Even though we may distinguish between them, they are never separated from each other. From the Biblical point of view spiritual and physical death are inseparable, and in the Scriptures death always includes both.
But spiritual death not only affects the relationship of man to God, it also affects the relationship of man with his fellow man. This is apparent from the fact that Adam and Eve were ashamed before each other of their nakedness and sought to make themselves clothes for covering (Gen. 3:7). Men cannot bear the thought of letting other people see their true selves. They hide themselves behind masks and often pretend to be something other than they really are. This is because the fellowship with their fellow man is broken. They are separated and alienated from each other as well as from God (I John 3:14). Spiritual death is spiritual isolation from man and from God.
But spiritual death also affects the relationship of man to himself. Man’s body is no longer under the complete control of man’s will. Just as man has lost his dominion over the physical and biological world as a result of Adam’s sin, he has also lost his dominion over his own body. He can no longer completely control his desires and impulses. It too lies under the curse (Gen. 3:17-19). We groan inwardly because of the effects of the curse on our physical bodies (Rom. 8:22-23; II Cor. 5:2-4). Our bodies are not only physically dying, subject to physical death, mortal, but they are spiritually dead also — out of fellowship with our spirits. “Your bodies are dead because of sin” (Rom. 8:10), because of the sin of Adam (Rom. 5:12). As the result, physical and spiritual death are at work in us (II Cor. 4:12a).
“For the flesh sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you wish” (Gal. 5:17 ERS).
This is not to say that the body is sinful or that we have a sinful nature. This only means that our bodies are spiritually dead, not under the complete control of our spirits (Matt. 26:41; Mark 14:38). Spiritual death has affected the relationship of man to himself as well as to God and his fellow man. And this is the result of Adam’s act of sin. Man has fallen from the image of God in which he was created. When Adam and Eve sinned, they lost both the dominion over creation (Gen. 3:17-19) and fellowship with each other (Gen. 3:7, 11-12). However, the presupposition of these — the freedom of choice — was not lost; the possibility of restoration to the image of God is still there in man.
Adam’s sin did not just affect himself and his wife alone, but all his descendants. This is expressed in the third clause of Romans 5:12: “and so death passed unto all men” (ERS). Adam’s descendants are not born in the image of God but in the image of Adam. For when Adam became the father of a son, Seth, he begat him in his own likeness, after his own image (Gen. 5:3). Adam’s descendants now bear the image of the man of dust (I Cor. 15:47-49), the old man (Col. 3:9; Eph. 4:22). They are each subject to death, physical and spiritual. According to Romans 5:14 and 17, death reigns as a king over the human race. Men today, Adam’s descendants, are different from Adam himself. As Adam was originally created, he was physically and spiritually alive, walking in fellowship with God (Gen. 3:8). There was no barrier between him and God. But this is not true of Adam’s descendants. They are born spiritually dead and in the process of dying physically. From birth, they are in a state of alienation from God. This is not because of anything they have done but because of what Adam had done. Paul makes this important point by the digression in Romans 5:13-14:
“13 For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam.” (ERS)
In the period between Adam and Moses, before the Mosaic law was given, there was no law. And since there was no law, there could be no transgression of it (Rom. 4:15b) and death was not the result of sin. Those between Adam and Moses did not have a divine commandment like Adam or a divine law like the children of Israel after Moses that makes death the result of sin. They did not sin like Adam; their sin was not a transgression of a commandment or law which made death the result of sin. But yet death reigned between Adam and Moses. They died not because of their own sins but because of the sin of Adam. And this is true not only of those descendants of Adam between Adam and Moses but of all Adam’s descendants: they are all born spiritually dead and in the process of dying physically, not because of their own sins but because of Adam’s sin.
Man is not responsible for this condition of spiritual and physical death inherited from Adam. The descendants of Adam are neither held accountable for the sin of Adam nor for the spiritual or physical death resulting from it (Rom. 5:13-14). They are only responsible for their own personal rejection of the true God and their ultimate commitment to and trust in a false god. Even though man is born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing God personally, man is not thereby exempt from responsibility for the choice of a false god. As Paul says in Romans 1:20,
“…since the creation of the world the invisible things of Him, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, so that they are without excuse.” (ERS)
This knowledge of the true God leaves man without an excuse for his idolatry. But this knowledge does not save him because it is a knowledge about God and not a personal knowledge of God. But even though it does not save him, it is sufficient to leave man without excuse for his idolatry. He knows that his impersonal and/or powerless god is a false god and is not the personal, all powerful true God (Isa. 46:5-11; Jer. 10:10-15). Man is thus responsible for his personal rejection of the true God and his trust in a false god. And man is also responsible for remaining in the state of spiritual death when deliverance from it is offered to him in the person of Jesus Christ. If he refuses the gift of eternal and spiritual life in Christ Jesus (I John 5:12), he must reap the harvest and receive the wages of his decision, eternal death.
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).
If a man refuses the gift of spiritual and eternal life in Jesus Christ and continues to put his trust in a false god and to remain in spiritual death, then after he dies physically, at the judgment (Heb. 9:27) he will receive the wages of his decision, eternal death. Eternal death is the continuation of spiritual death, after physical death and the last judgment, into eternity without the possibility of change. This is hell, eternal separation from God, the second death (Rev. 20:14; 21:6-8; Matt. 7:21-23). No one sends a man to hell; man chooses it himself and the last judgment confirms that decision for eternity. Thus there are three kinds of death: physical, spiritual and eternal death. Man is not responsible for the physical or spiritual death but only for the eternal death.
END NOTES FOR “DEATH” SECTION
[1] This distinction between spiritual and physical death seems to have originated very early in Christian theology. In the fourth century A.D., Gregory of Nyssa (A.D. c.334-c.395) writes, “Now there is a certain bond and fellowship in the sinful passions between soul and body, and a certain analogy between bodily and spiritual death. Just as we call the body’s separation from sentient life ‘death,’ so we give the same name to the soul’s separation from genuine life.”
Gregory of Nyssa, “Address on Religious Instruction,” 8, in The Library of Christian Classics, ed. Edward Rochie Hardy and Cyril C. Richardson, vol. 3.
(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1954), p. 284.
Earlier Irenaeus (A.D. c.125-202) defined spiritual life and death. “And to as many as continue in their love toward God, does He grant communion with Him. But communion with God is life and light, and the enjoyment of all the benefits which He has in store. But on as many as, according to their own choice, depart from God He inflicts that separation from Himself which they have chosen of their own accord. But separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness; and separation for God consists in the loss of all the benefits which He has in store.”
Irenaeus Against Heresies, bk. 5. ch. 27.2. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1885 – no reprint date), p. 556. See discussion of this passage in Gustaf Wingren, Man and the Incarnation (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1959), pp. 57-58.
The relationship between the death, spiritual and physical, that was passed unto all men, and the sin of all men is given in the last clause of Romans 5:12: eph ho pantes hamarton which is usually translated “because all [men] sinned” (RSV, NAS, NIV).
The interpretation of this clause hangs on the meaning of the Greek prepositional phrase at its beginning, eph ho. This phrase is made up of a preposition epi and a relative pronoun ho. The preposition epi has several different meanings depending upon the immediate context and the case of the noun or pronoun with which it occurs. Its primary meaning is superposition, on, upon. Since the relative pronoun ho is in the dative case, the metaphorical meaning of ground, or reason, seems best here for the preposition epi. Thus it should be translated on the ground of, by reason of, on the condition of, because of. [1] The meaning of the relative pronoun depends upon its antecedent. In the Greek language, the relative pronoun agrees with the antecedent in number and gender. [2] Here the relative pronoun is singular in number but it may be either masculine or neuter in gender. Accordingly, the following interpretations have been given to this phrase.
1. Some interpreters take the relative pronoun ho as masculine with the words henos anthropou [one man] in the first clause as its antecedent. Augustine, following the Latin Vulgate translation of the whole clause, in quo omnes peccaverunt [in whom all sinned], took the relative pronoun ho as masculine and at the same time gave the preposition the meaning of “in.” Thus he gave the prepositional phrase eph ho the meaning in lumbis Adami [in the loins of Adam]. [3] However this interpretation must be rejected. For:
(a) the Greek preposition epi does not have the meaning of “in” and
(b) while the Greek relative pronoun ho may be taken as masculine, it is too far remove from its supposed antecedent, anthropou [man], being separated from it by so many intervening clauses. [4] Most modern interpreters agree in rejecting Augustine’s grammatical analysis of the phrase. [5]
2. Some other interpreters [6] take the relative pronoun ho as neuter with the words that follow pantes hamarton [all sinned] as the antecedent. Thus the prepositional phrase eph ho would be equivalent to epi touto oti [because of this, that]. Accordingly, the translators of our English versions have rendered it either “for that” (KJV) or “because” (RSV, NAS, NIV). And the clause would be interpreted to mean that death passed unto all men because all men sinned, that is, men die because of their own sins. But if this meaning is given to this last clause, Paul would appear to be retracting what he had just been affirming in the first three clauses of this verse, that all men die because of Adam’s sin. Paul would seem to be teaching that all men die not only because of Adam’s sin but also because of their own personal sins. This obscures the meaning of the verse and appears to contradict what Paul teaches clearly in the following verses and elsewhere that all men die because of Adam’s sin and not their own.
“13 For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.” (Rom. 5:13-14 ERS)”
… For if by the offense of one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many.” (Rom. 5:15 ERS)
“For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more shall those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:17 ERS)
“21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (I Cor. 15:21-22)
Thus by giving the prepositional phrase eph ho the meaning “because,” the meaning of the verse is obscured and Paul is made to appear to contradict himself. This interpretation of the clause has lead one famous German New Testament scholar, Rudolf Bultman, to conclude that Paul is obscure in this passage. He says,
“For the context, it would have been sufficient to mention only Adam’s sin; there was no need to speak of the sin of the rest of man, for whether they were sinners or not, through Adam they had simply been doomed to death — an idea that was expressed not only in Judaism but also by Paul himself (v. 14). However, Paul gets into obscurity here because he also wants to have the death of men after Adam regarded as the punishment or consequence of their own sin: ‘and so death spread to all men — because all men sinned’ (v.12)!” [7]
It is not Paul who is obscure here but his interpreters and their interpretation of this phrase has caused the obscurity and makes Paul appear to contradict himself. Thus this interpretation must be rejected.
Furthermore, this interpretation of the clause destroys the parallel which Paul draws between Adam and Christ in this passage, Romans 5:12, and in I Cor. 15. If Paul had meant that all men became subject to death because of the sins that they themselves committed, then it would have to follow, if there is a parallelism between Adam and Christ, that all men enter into life because of the righteousness that they themselves have achieved. This is certainly the opposite of what Paul says. Life is a gift which each man may receive by faith (Rom. 5:17, 15; etc.) and it is not something they earn by their righteousness. There are differences between Adam and Christ (Rom. 5:15-17) but this is certainly not one of them. This interpretation of the clause, then, destroys the parallelism between Adam and Christ and thus must also be rejected.
1. Some interpreters have attempted to escape these objections, while retaining the meaning of “because” for the prepositional phrase, by interpreting the whole clause to have the following meaning: “Because all sinned in Adam.” They do this by taking the aorist tense of the verb hamarton [sinned] as a constative aorist; that is, the action is regarded as a whole, in its entirety. Bengel has given this interpretation classic expression: omnes peccaverunt, Adamo peccante [all sinned when Adam sinned]. All sinned implicitly in the sin of Adam; that is, his sin was their sin. But if this what Paul intended to say, why did he leave the all important words “in Adam” to be understood? Sanday and Headlam ask,
“If St. Paul had meant this, why did he not say so? The insertion of en Adam [in Adam] would have removed all ambiguity.” [8]
This interpretation has all the appearances of being read into the passage (eisegesis) rather than out of it (exegesis). Furthermore, the phrase pantes hamarton [all sinned] normally refers to the personal sins of all men as it does in Romans 3:23. The aorist tense of the verb hamarton [sinned] signifies nothing as to the completeness of the action. A constative aorist may refer “to a momentary action (Acts 5:5), a fact or action extended over a period of time (Eph. 2:4), or a succession of acts or events (II Cor. 11:25).” [9] Nowhere in the Scriptures does it teach that all men sinned in Adam. On the contrary, this interpretation appears to contradict what Paul says in verse 14:
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam.”
If all men sin when Adam sinned, then they all would have sinned after the likeness of Adam’s transgression. But those from Adam to Moses did not sin after the likeness of Adam’s transgression because there was no law from Adam to Moses. Thus it appears that this interpretation of the clause must also be rejected.
2. One other interpretation of the clause is possible if the relative pronoun ho is taken as masculine and the word ho thanatos [the death] in the preceding clause, which is singular and masculine, is taken as its antecedent. [10] Then the prepositional phrase eph ho would be equivalent to epi thanato [because of death]. [11] In that case, the phrase should be translated “because of which” or “upon which condition.” With this meaning given to the prepositional phrase, the whole clause may be translated “because of which all sinned” and interpreted to mean that all men sinned because of death that has been transmitted to them from Adam. In other words, the transmitted death from Adam provides the grounds or condition upon which all men sin.
Note: This is the view of Theodor Zahn (1838-1933). Lenski says concerning Zahn’s interpretation of this phrase:
“Another turn is given the phrase so as to have it mean: ‘under which condition.’ letting Paul say that in Adam’s case it was first sin then death but in the case of all men it was death first and then life of sinning (Zahn’s view).” [12]
Also Berkouwer says concerning Zahn’s view:
“Along with the two explanations referred to here there is still a third, namely that of Zahn. This holds that the issue at stake is not an ‘inclusiveness’ in Adam, since this thought is untenable (‘unvollziehbar‘) for anyone who does not believe in the pre-existence of souls in Adam (Zahn, Komm., p. 265); moreover, the concept of ‘all men in Adam’ imperils the image of ‘through one man.’ Therefore Zahn translates: ‘and on the basis of this (or, under these circumstances) all have sinned’ (267). Through the sin of the one man death come upon all, and in such circumstances, all have now sinned. Death was the foundation ‘on which the sinning of all the children of Adam has sprung forth.'” [13]
The only reasons that are given for rejecting this interpretation are not grammatical but theological. Godet’s objections to this interpretation are clearly theological as are those of Sanday and Headlam. [14] This interpretation clearly does not fit into the legalistic theological framework of Roman Catholic and Protestant scholasticism which sees death only as the penalty of sin. Death is usually taken to mean physical death or the penalty of sin, and thus it is impossible to sin because of death.
How is it possible for all men to sin because of death? This may be explained in the following way. Since man is born into this world spiritually dead, not knowing the true God personally, and since man by the structure of his freedom must choose a god, then he will obviously choose a false god because he does not personally know the true God. Since the true God is not a living reality to him, and since he must have a god, man will choose some part or aspect of reality as his god, deifying it.
“… they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator…” (Rom. 1:25).
Paul, writing to the Galatians, described this relationship of sin-because-death when he reminded them of their condition before they became Christians.
“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods” (Gal. 4:8).
Not to “know God” personally as a living reality is to be spiritually dead. And a man is in “in bondage to beings that are no gods” when he chooses them as his gods. He is then in bondage to them because he does not know personally the only true God, that is, because he is spiritually dead. Thus man sins (chooses a false god) because he is spiritually dead. This relationship between death and sin is what Paul is describing in the last clause of Romans 5:12: “because of which [death] all men sinned” (ERS). Spiritual death in the case of Adam’s descendants leads to sin; not the other way around.
The relationship of death to sin now after the fall is different from the relationship between them at the fall. At the fall, death was the result of sin (“through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin.” Rom. 5:12 ERS). This was established by the divine decree implicit in the command God gave to Adam (“for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Gen. 2:17 NAS). Adam’s sin was unique since it was the act of the head of the race; Adam’s position in the human race is unique, as Paul teaches clearly in Romans 5:12-21 and I Cor. 15:21-22, 44-49. His sin affected the human race in a way that the sin of no other man after him has; it involved the whole race in death, spiritual and physical. Adam’s descendants do not have to sin to die, spiritually and physically. They are born into the world over which death reigns and are involved from birth in spiritual and physical death (“Let the dead bury their dead” Matt. 8:22 KJV; Luke 9:60). Now since the fall, sin is the result of death. Since the fall, man does not have to sin to die but sins because he is already dead. Since the fall, this is the basic relationship between death and sin. Later, “the law came in besides” (Rom. 5:20 ERS) and superimposed upon this basic relationship of sin-because-of-death (spiritual) the relationship of death-because-of-sin. “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:4, 20: see also Deut. 24:16; Isa. 59:2). The law clarifies not only the nature of sin (Rom. 3:20) as basically idolatry (Ex. 20:3) but also man’s responsibility for his sins (see the whole of chapter 18 of Ezekiel). But the coming of the law did not change the basic relationship: man sins because he is spiritually dead.
“13 For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.” (Rom. 5:13-14 ERS)
Paul expresses this basic relationship between death and sin in other words elsewhere in his letters. For example, in Romans 5:21, he expresses it in the following way: “…sin reigned in death.” Sin reigns as a king in the sphere of death. That is, death is the sphere in which sin reigns as a king over all men. Death reigns as king over his kingdom of death; “…by the offense of one, death reigned through one…” (Rom. 5:17; see also Rom. 5:14). Death reigns over all men and sin reigns as a king within the sphere and kingdom of death. Sin reigns in the sphere of death because death is the ground or condition upon which all men sin. Another example is I Cor. 15:55-56:
“55 O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting? 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.”
Paul expresses the relationship of death to sin by calling sin the sting of death and not death the sting of sin. Augustine tries to overturn this relationship by trying to make the genitive “of death” into an objective genitive rather than a possessive genitive. He says:
“For all die in the sin; they do not sin in the death; for when sin precedes, death follows — not when death precedes, sin follows. Because sin is the sting of death — that is, the sting by whose stroke death occurs, not the sting with which death strikes. Just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death, because by that cup death is caused, not because the cup is caused by the death.” [15]
Augustine’s argument is beside the point. The distinction between objective and subjective genitive is irrelevant; the genitive is a possessive genitive. The cup of death is not a parallel case. Whose sting is it? Is it the sting of sin or the sting of death? “O Death, where is thy sting?” It is death’s sting by which death hurts all men. And since death causes sin, death can hurt man. For if death could not cause sin, then there would be no fear of death; death would have lost its sting. Sin gives death its sting. Some have argued that the death Paul is talking about in I Cor. 15 is physical death since he is discussing there the resurrection of the dead. It is true that physical death is in the foreground in this passage of Scripture, but, as was pointed out earlier, from the Biblical point of view physical and spiritual death are inseparable and the Biblical concept of death always includes both. Thus spiritual death is not totally absent from Paul’s thoughts as are not other concepts which seem to be irrelevant in the context — “the power of sin is the law” (I Cor. 15:56). And as a careful study of Romans 7 will show, the concepts of spiritual death, sin and the law form an interlocking complex in Paul’s thinking.
Even though man is born into the world spiritually dead, alienated from God, not knowing God personally, he has not lost his freedom of choice. He does not have a sinful nature which causes him to sin. Spiritual death has not done anything to man’s ability to choose. He neither lacks the alternatives to choose between nor the ability to choose. Then why does man sin, that is, why does he choose a false god? He chooses a false god because the true God is not a living reality to him. He knows about the true God (Rom. 1:19-20) but he does not know him personally as a living reality. And lacking this personal knowledge, man does not have an adequate reason for choosing the true God. The true God Himself is the only adequate reason for choosing Him. He cannot be chosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God to that person but that reason for which he is chosen would be god. Only a living encounter with living and true God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. God Himself is the only adequate condition for the choice of Himself. Thus apart from the personal revelation of God Himself man will usually choose as his god that which seems like god to him from the creation around him or from among the creations of his own hands and mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin, but he usually does. And spiritual death (in the absence of this personal revelation of the true God) is not the necessary cause but the ground or condition of his choice of a false god. The Greek preposition epi translated “because” in the last clause of Rom. 5:12 means “on the basis of” or “on the condition of.” It does not imply any necessary causal connection between death and sin. Man sins by choice, not by necessity. Therefore, since all men are under the reign of death, all have sinned. “For all have sinned and are in want of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23 ERS). The glory of God is the manifest presence of God, and all men do not have this; they are all in want of or in need of it (husterountai). [16] In other words, they are all spiritually dead, separated from God’s presence. Therefore, all have sinned.
This view of death and sin affects our understanding of the need for salvation. As we have seen spiritual death like physical death is not the result of a man’s own personal sins. On the contrary, a man sins as a result of spiritual death. This is why a man needs to be saved. He is dead spiritually and dying physically. Man needs life — he needs to be made alive — to be raised from the dead. And if he receives life, if he is made alive to God, death which leads to sin is removed. And if death which leads to sin is removed, then man can be saved from sin. Thus man needs to be saved primarily from death and then secondarily from sin. If he is saved from death, then he can be saved from sin. Accordingly, salvation must be understood to be primarily from death to life and then secondarily from sin to righteousness.
END NOTES FOR “DEATH AND SIN”
[1] Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburg: T. & T. Clark, 1948), pp. 166-167 and William F. Arnt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1957), pp. 286-287.
[2] J. Gresham Machen, New Testament Greek for Beginners (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), p. 47. H. E. Dana and Julius R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1948), p. 125. A. T. Robertson and W. Hersey Davis, A New Short Grammar of the Greek Testament (New York: Harper & Bros. Publishers, 1933), p. 269.
[3] Augustine, “Against Two Letters of the Pelagians,” bk. 4, chap. 7, in Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419.
[4] William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans in The International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), p. 133.
[5] John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), p. 9. F. L. Godet, Commentary On Romans (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregal Publications, 1997. This commentary was originally published in 1883 under the title Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and is a reprint of the 1956 edition published by Zondervan Pub. House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the series: Classic Commentary Library.), 209.
[6] F. L. Godet, Commentary On Romans, p. 207 and Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 133.
[7] Rudolf Bultman, Theology of the New Testament (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951), p. 252.
[8] Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 134.
[9] Dana and Mantey, Manual Grammar, p. 196.
[10] Godet, Commentary on Romans, p. 208. Sanday and Headlam say, “Some Greeks quoted by Photius also took the rel. as masc. with antecedent thanatos: ‘in which,’ i.e. ‘in death,’ which is even more impossible.” p. 133. I have not been able to ascertain who are these Greeks that were quoted by Photius since Sanday and Headlam do not give any references. I have found that Theodore of Mopsuestia in his treatise “Against the Defenders of Original Sin” held to such an interpretation. Another contemporary of Augustine, Mark the Hermit, also held to a similar view. See the discussion in the section in chapter three of this book titled, ” The Misunderstanding of the Origin of Sin.”
[11] Ethelbert Stauffer writes, “epi with its relative pronoun refers back to the preceding thanatos (eph ho = epi thanatos) …. ” Ethelbert Stauffer, New Testament Theology, trans. John Marsh (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1955), p. 270, note 176. However, he goes on to give a different meaning to the preposition. “[epi] does not mean as translations mostly suppose ‘on the basis of’ but ‘in the direction of’ (cf. Phil. 4:10; II Tim. 2:14) … Here epi is the reciprocal preposition to the dia of the first phrase. So we must accordingly paraphrase:
‘death to which they fell man by man through their sin.'”, p. 270. This turns out to be the same interpretation as “because all sinned.”
[12] R. C. H. Lenski,
The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (Columbus, Ohio: Wartburg Press, 1960), p. 361.
[13] Berkouwer, Sin, p. 494, footnote 37.
[14] F. L. Godet, Commentary On Romans, p. 208 and Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 133.
[15] Augustine, “Against Two Letters of the Pelagians” in Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1971), p. 419. See also Augustine, “On the Merits and Remission of Sins and On the Baptism of Infants”, bk. 3. chap. 20. Schaff, pp. 76-77.
[16] Abbot-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon, p. 464. C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1957), p. 74.