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Many years ago on October 14, 1952 while I was sitting in a systematic theology class at Fuller Seminary taught by the late Dr. Edward John Carnell, the Lord showed me something in the verse quoted above that opened up for me a whole new understanding of the “so great salvation” that God has made possible for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord. That morning Dr. Carnell was lecturing on the doctrine of original sin. In discussing the Biblical support for the doctrine, he focused our attention on Romans 5:12-21 as the key scripture to understanding that doctrine.

^“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 — 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 until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.  ¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.  ¹⁶ And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; For on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting  in condemnation, but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgression resulting in justification.  ¹⁷ For if, by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.  ¹⁸ So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.  ¹⁹ For as by one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One many will be made righteous.  ²⁰ And the law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,  ²¹ that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”           (Rom. 5:12-21 NAS)

As he gave the classical Reformed interpretation of this doctrine, I opened my Greek New Testament and began to read again what the Apostle Paul had written in Greek. As I read, I saw something in Romans 5:12 that I had not noticed before. (I had studied the book of Romans in three different undergraduate courses: at Bob Jones University, a course in the Pauline Epistles and the first semester of the third year Greek course, in which we read Romans in Greek, and at Wheaton a course in Romans. I was also then taking my fifth year of Greek language.) In the Greek of the last clause of verse 12, which is usually translated “because all men sinned,” there is a relative pronoun which is not translated in our English Bible. If it were translated, the whole clause in English would read, “because of which all sinned.” And in the Greek it was clear that the antecedent of the relative pronoun “which” is the word “death” in the preceding clause. (The antecedent of a relative pronoun is the word to which the pronoun refers.) The last clause would then be equivalent to “because of death all sinned” and would mean that all men sinned because of death.

The usual English translation “because all men sinned” in RSV and other modern translations is incomplete, if not wrong and misleading. These translations makes Paul appear to contradict what he says in this verse and the next two verse; that is, it makes Paul appear to say death spread unto all men because of their sins instead of Adam’s sin. Paul clearly says in Rom. 5:12 that death spread unto all men because of Adam’s sin, not because of their sins. And the next two verses clearly says that all men had not sinned after likeness of Adam’s transgression and that between Adam and Moses there was no law that made death the consequence of their personal transgressions. But if the relative pronoun is translated, then the inconsistency is removed. In the Greek, the relative pronoun clearly refers back to the word “death” in the previous clause; that is, “because of death all sinned.” The death that spread unto all men as the result of Adam’s sin was the condition or the reason why all men sinned. That is, all men sinned because of death.

But I wondered to myself, How is this possible? How can men sin because of death? I recalled that I had been taught that death is separation and that there are three kinds of death: physical, spiritual, and eternal death.  Physical death is the separation of a man’s spirit from his body when he dies physically; Spiritual death is the separation of a man’s spirit from God; and Eternal death (“second death”, Rev. 21:8) is the eternal separation of man from God at the final judgment (Heb. 9:27).

When Adam and Eve sinned, they died spiritually as well as physically. God said, when he gave Adam the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that “in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die” [or literally, “dying you shall die”] (Gen. 2:17 NAS). Since they did not immediately die that day physically, they must have died spiritually on that day. And this is clearly seen in that they hid themselves from the presence of God (Gen. 3:8). Their fellowship and communion with God was broken and this is spiritual death. Later, after they were driven out of the garden away from the tree of life, lest they eat of it and live forever (Gen. 3:22-24), they eventually died physically (Gen. 5:5). And this death, both spiritual and physical, was passed on to the whole race of Adam’s descendants.

But how does this spiritual death lead to sin? What is sin? I had ask this very question to the Lord several weeks before. I got the answer in an article written by E. LaB. Cherbonnier that I had read just a few days earlier in Theology Today (October 1952, pp. 360-375). In his analysis of human freedom in this article (p. 367), Cherbonnier concluded that every man must have a god. By the very constitution of his freedom man must have an ultimate criterion of decision. That is, behind every decision as to which thing a man should do or think, there is a reason, a criterion of decision. And the ultimate reason for any decision, practical or theoretical, must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion of choice is that person’s god.

I saw that every man must then choose something as his god. If he doesn’t choose the true God as his ultimate criterion of decision, he will choose a false god. He will choose some part or aspect of reality as his god, deifying it.

“They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”    (Rom. 1:25)

The choice of a false god and the consequent personal allegiance and devotion to it is what the Bible calls idolatry. An idol does not have to be an image of wood, stone, or metal. It may be money, wealth, power, pleasure, education, the family, mankind, the state, democracy, experience, reason, science, the moral law, etc. An idol is a false god, and a false god may be anything which may be good in its proper place that takes the place of the true God, anything a person chooses as his or her ultimate criterion of decision, exalting it as God. It is any substitute or replacement for the true God in a person’s life.

Since a false god usurps the place of the true God in a person’s life, idolatry is the basic sin. This sin is directly against the true God; it is a direct insult to Him and an affront to His divine majesty. No more serious sin could be imagined than this one. Since it is the most serious sin, it is therefore the most basic. This is the main reason that idolatry is the first sin prohibited by the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods besides me.” (Exodus 20:3) Idolatry is also the basic sin because this sin leads to other sins. It leads to other sins since a person’s god, being his ultimate criterion of decision, will determine the choices he or she will make. The choice of a wrong god will lead to other wrong choices. That is, the idol that a person sets up in his heart (Ezek. 14:3-5) will affect the character and quality of his whole life. Idolatry is therefore the basic sin.

Now I could understand how death leads to sin. If a man is spiritually dead, separated from the true God, and since he must choose a god, he will usually choose a false god. Thus all men sin because of death. As I was sitting there in the class thinking about this, another passage of Scripture occurred to me —

Gal. 4:8, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods.” Not to “know God” personally as a living reality is to be spiritually dead (Compare John 17:3, where Jesus said as He prayed; “And this is eternal life, that they know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” John 17:3 KJV).

And a person is “in bondage to beings that are no gods” when he chooses them as his gods. He chooses them because he does not know personally the true God, that is, because he does not have life, because he is spiritually dead. The true God is not a living reality to him. And lacking this personal knowledge of the true God as a living reality, a person does not have the reason for choosing the true God as his ultimate criterion of decision. 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 but rather that reason for which He is chosen would be god to that person. Only a living encounter with the true and living God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. God Himself is the only condition for the choice of Himself by a person. Thus apart from a personal revelation of God Himself, a person will usually choose as his god that which seems like God to him from among the creation around him or from the creations of his own hands or mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin, but he usually will. Spiritual death is not the necessary cause of sin but the basis or condition of the choice of a false god. (The Greek word translated “because” in the last clause of Rom. 5:12 means “on the basis of” or “on the condition of.”)

Man is not responsible for becoming spiritually dead because he did not choose this state. He inherited spiritual death from Adam just as he inherited physical death. But he is responsible for the god he has chosen. The true God has not left man without a knowledge about Himself (Rom. 1:19-20). This knowledge about God leaves man without an excuse for his idolatry, but it does not save him because it is a knowledge about the true God and not a personal knowledge of the true God, a personal relationship to God. Even though a person is not responsible for becoming spiritually dead, he is 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 life in Christ Jesus, he will receive the results of his decision, eternal death.

“For the wages of sin 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 Christ Jesus and continues to put his trust in a false god, remaining in spiritual death, then after he dies physically, at the last judgment he will receive the result of his decision, eternal death, eternal separation from God.

This relationship between death and sin opened for me a whole new understanding of salvation. Spiritual death is not the result of a man’s own personal sins. On the contrary, man sins because he is spiritually dead. That is why he needs to be saved. He is dead spiritually and dying physically. He needs life; he needs to be made alive — he needs to be raised from the dead. And if he receives spiritual life, if he is made alive to God, then death which leads to sin will be removed and man can be saved from sin. Thus salvation must be understood to be primarily from death and secondarily from sin.

Now God accomplished this salvation from death to life through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. God in His love for us sent His Son to enter into our death so that He might deliver us from death. On the cross, Jesus died not only physically but spiritually.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”    (Matt. 27:46)

He was forsaken for us; He died for us. He tasted death for every man (Heb. 2:9). But God raised Him from the dead. Jesus entered into our death in order that as He was raised from the dead, we might be made alive in Him (Eph. 2:5). Hence Christ’s death is our death, and His resurrection is our resurrection. We are made alive with Him and in Him (Eph. 2:4-5).

And here is the crucial point in this way of understanding salvation. It is by saving us from spiritual death that Christ saves us from sin. It is by taking away the spiritual death which produces our sin that God took away our sin. Jesus died for our sins — literally, to take them away (John 1:29). What the Old Testament sacrifices could not do (Heb. 10:1-4), the death of Christ has done. We are saved not just from the consequences of our sins; we are saved from sin itself. We were saved from our trust in false gods when we put our trust in Jesus Christ and the true God who sent him. Did we not “turn from idols to serve the living and true God” (I Thess. 1:9)? When we were spiritually dead, we trusted in and served those things that are not God — money, power, sex, education, success, pleasure, etc. But when we turned to the risen Christ, we entered into life, leaving behind those false gods. Now we trust in the true God. The risen Jesus Christ is our Lord and our God (John 20:28).

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the means by which God could remove death — the barrier to knowing the true God and His love. Now God could reveal Himself to us in the preaching of the gospel, the good news, making us spiritually alive to Himself (Rom. 1:16-17). To be spiritually alive is to know God (John 17:3), and to know God is to trust Him. For God is love (I John 4:8, 16), and love begets trust. The trust in God that God’s love invokes in us is righteousness (Rom. 4:5, 9); it relates us rightly to God. Thus by taking away death, God takes away our sin. By making us alive to Himself, God sets us right with Himself through faith, the righteousness of faith. Life produces this righteousness just as death produces sin.  Now I could see why man cannot be saved by keeping the law. Then I remembered what Paul said in Gal. 3:21, “…for if there had been a law given which could make alive, verily righteousness would have been by the law.”

And since the law cannot make alive, the law cannot produce righteousness. The righteousness of the law, that is, the merits earned by keeping the law, is a false righteousness, dirty filthy rags (Isa. 64:6; Phil. 3:7-9; Rom. 10:3-4). Just as trust in a false god is sin, so trust in the true God is righteousness, the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:3-5). And just as sin flows from death, so righteousness flows from life. And because the law cannot remove death, it also cannot remove sin. And since it cannot make alive, it cannot produce real righteousness. Therefore since the law cannot make alive, salvation cannot be by the law. God never gave the law for salvation, but for the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20).

What the law could not do, God has done through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, His Son. God has made us alive to Himself in the resurrection of Jesus and set us free from the slavery of sin. Since the basic sin is idolatry (trust in a false god) and sin is a slavery to a slavemaster (John 8:34), the false god is the slavemaster. We were all slaves of sin once, serving our false gods when we were spiritually dead, alienated and separated from the true God, not knowing him personally. But we have been set free from this slavery of sin through the death of Christ. Jesus entered into our spiritual death and died our death. His death is our death to sin. Now when a slave dies, he is no longer in slavery; death frees him from slavery. So we likewise have been set free from the slavery of sin having died with Christ. We have died to sin with Christ (Rom. 6:1-7). We have been redeemed from the slavery of sin through the death of Christ. But we have been made alive to God together with Him in His resurrection. His resurrection is our resurrection. We are no longer slaves of sin but have become slaves of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Now that we are alive to God in Him, we have become slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:17-18). For just as death produces sin, so life produces righteousness. Since we have passed from death to life, we have been saved from sin to righteousness (I Pet. 2:24).

In this book, we shall examine in greater detail the implications of this discovery for the understanding of the Biblical doctrine of salvation.

1.  First, we will examine in Chapter 1 the Biblical doctrine of sin and death to show the need for salvation. There it will be shown that man needs to be saved from death, sin and wrath; that the basic sin is idolatry and that man sins because he is spiritually dead.

2.  In Chapter 2 we will examine the Biblical doctrine of salvation by the grace of God. There it will be shown that salvation is basically from death to life and then from sin to righteousness and from wrath to peace with God. This will lead to a discussion of the Biblical doctrine of justification by faith.

3.  Then in Chapter 3 we will examine the Biblical doctrine of covenants of God in order to correctly understand the law of God and the distortion and misunderstanding of the law of God called legalism.

4.  In Chapter 4 we will show how legalism has caused in Christian theology a misunderstanding and distortion of the Biblical doctrine of the need for salvation.

5.  In Chapter 5 we will show how in Christian theology this Biblical doctrine of salvation has also been misunderstood because of legalism.

6.  This will lead to an examination in Chapter 6 of the central problem of Christian theology — the problem of the atonement: why did Christ have to die?

7.  Finally, in Chapter 7, we will examine the Biblical doctrine of the Christian life as the present tense of salvation and the problems that the legalistic misunderstanding of salvation has caused in the Christian life.