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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 as masculine with the words henos anthropou [one man] in the first clause as its antecedent. Augustine, following the Latine Vulgate translation of the whole clause, in quo omnes peccaverunt [in whom all sinned], took the relative pronoun as masculine and at the same time gave the prepositional phrase 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 antecedent, anthropou [man], being separated from it by so many intervening clauses. [4]  Most modern interpreters agree in rejecting this grammatical analysis of the phrase. [5]

2.  Others take the relative pronoun 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 as “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 make Paul contradict what he teaches clearly in the following verses and elsewhere that all men die because of Adam’s sin and not their own.

“^5:13 For until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law.  ^5:14 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)

“^15:21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come the resurrection of the dead.  ^15:22 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)! [6]

It is not Paul who is obscure here but his interpreters and their interpretation of this pharse has caused the obscurity. 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 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.

3.  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: “Becuase all sinned in Adam.” They do this by taking the aorist tense of the verb hamarton [sinned] as a constantive 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?

“If St. Paul had meant this, why did he not say so?  The insertion of en Adam [in Adam] would have removed all ambiguity.” [7]

This interpretation has all the appearances of being read into the passage (eisegesis) rather than out of it (exegesis). Further more, 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 harmarton [sinned] signifies nothingas tothe 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 successionof acts or events (II Cor. 11:25.” [8] 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.”    (ERS)

If all men sin when Adam sinned, then they all would have sinned after the likeness of Adam’s trangression. But those from Adam to Moses did not sin after the likeness of Adam’s transgresssion because there was no law from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5:13). Thus it appears that this interpretation of the clause must also be rejected.

4.  One other interpretation of the clause is possible if the relative pronoun ho is taken as masculine and the words ho thanatos [the death] in the preceding clause, which are singular and masculine, are taken as its antecedent. [9] Then the prepositional phrase eph ho would be equivalent to epi thanato [because of death]. 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.

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 know personally 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 death to sin 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 in bondage to them because he does not personally know the only true God, that is, because he is spiritually dead. Thus man sins (idolatry basically) 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 death all men sinned. Spiritual death is the case of Adam’s descendants leads to sin; not the other way around.

The relationship of death to sin not 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, spirituallly 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.

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:

“O Death, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?  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 subjective 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 the cup death is caused, not because the cup is caused by the death.” [13]

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 strength of sin is the law.” 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. The man under law is in spiritual death and spiritual death leads to sin; man sins because of spiritual death.

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 ablility 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 choosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God to that person but that reason for which he is choosen would be God. Only a living encounter with living and true God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be choosen. 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 will. 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. 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 or need of it. [14] They are all spiritually dead. Therefore, all have sinned.  The Greek word translated “have sinned” in Rom. 3:23 means “missing the mark.” The mark is not the law as the divine standard, but God Himself. Man misses the mark when he puts his trust and faith in a false god, a substitute for the true God. The falling short of the glory of God in the last part of Rom. 3:23 does not mean falling short of the standard of God’s perfection given in the law. The Greek word here translated “falling short” means “to be in want of” or “to be in need of”. [15] In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, this same word is used in Psa. 23:1.  “The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.”   (See also Mt. 19:20; Mark 10:21; Luke 15:14; 22:35; John 2:3; I Cor. 1:7; 8:8; 12:24; II Cor. 11:5,9; 12:11; Phil. 4:12; Heb. 4:1; 11:37; 12:15).   The glory of God in the Old Testament is the manifest presence of God.  Therefore, according to Rom. 3:23 man does not have this presence of God; he is in want or need of it.

“All have sinned and are in want or need of the glory or presence of God.”    (Rom. 3:23 ERS)

In other words, he is spiritually dead, separated from God’s presence. And all have sinned because they are spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12d “because of which [death] all sinned” ERS).  The legalistic concept of death is a misunderstanding of the Biblical concept of death. In the Scriptures death is not always the result of each man’s own personal sins. All men have received spiritual and physical death from Adam (Rom. 5:12), but not eternal death. Man is not responsible for being spiritually dead because he did not choose that state. He received spiritual death from Adam just as he received physical death from Adam (Rom. 5:13-14). But man is responsible for the god he chooses. The true God has not left man without a knowledge about Himself (Rom. 1:19-20). This knowledge about God leaves man without excuse for his idolatry. He knows that his false gods are phonies. But this knowledge does not save him because it is knowledge about the true God, and not a personal knowledge of the true God which is life eternal (John 17:3). But even though man is not responsible for being 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 wages of his decision, eternal death (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 results of his wrong decision or sin, eternal death, separation from God for eternity.

Romans 6:23 does not mean that sin must be punished and that death is the penalty of sin. The meaning of this verse must be determined by considering its context, the previous verses from 15 to 23. The context of this verse is not the law-court but slavery. Sin is personified as a slavemaster. Verse 14 says sin will no longer have dominion or lordship (kurieusei) over the Christian, because he is now under grace. Verse 16 speaks of yielding oneself as a slave – either to sin or to obedience [to God]. Verse 17 speaks of having been slaves to sin but now (verse 18) being slaves of righteousness. Verses 20-21 asks what return did they get from the things that they did as slaves of sin. Paul says that the end of the slavery to sin is death. Verse 22 says that the end result of being a slave of God is eternal life. Then in verse 23 Paul summarizes his argument by saying that the wages of sin, that is, the wages paid by sin as a slavemaster, is death. But God does not pay wages, but gives a free gift, eternal life in Christ Jesus.

It is very plain from verses 17 and 18 that the slavery of sin was a past experience for the Christian. He has now changed masters. If he had remained under his old master, sin, that master would have eventually paid off in only one kind of coin, death. But since they have changed masters, they are not now in a position to collect wages from the old master, sin. And it does not say the they get wages from their new master, God. But they get a free gift, something that could not be earned, eternal life. What kind of death did they receive from their old master? Eternal death, eternal separation from God. That eternal death is meant here is clear from the second half this verse: “…but the gift of God is eternal life…” Paul is not talking about spiritual or physical death here but only eternal death, the end result of the slavery of sin.

Romans 6:23 says nothing about the penalty of sin, that is, that sin must be punished. True, the result of sin is eternal death. But that does not mean that sin must be punished before the sin can be forgiven. If the sinner repents and turns from his idolatry and to the true God in faith, he will be freely forgiven. If he does repent and believe, he will not still be liable to be punished for his sins.

“^18:21 But if a wicked man turns away from all his sins which he has committed and keeps all my statues and does what is lawful and right, he shall live; he shall not die.  ^18:22 None of the transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness which he has done he shall live.  ^18:23 Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, says the Lord God, and not rather he should turn from his way and live? … ^18:32 For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God; so turn, and live.”    (Ezek. 18:21-23, 32; see also Ezek. 33:11)

Here is the error of legalistic understanding of death. It says that sin must always be punished even if the sinner repents and believes (trusts) God. This contradicts the plain and clear teaching of God’s Word (Ezek. 18:21-23; 33:10-20; Lam. 3:31-33; Isa. 55:6-7; II Chron. 7:14; II Pet. 3:9). Do not misunderstand what I am saying here. I am not saying that God does not punish sin. He does. This is not the error. The error is to say that God cannot forgive sin before or until he has punished sin. The error is that God must always punish sin before sin can be forgiven. That is, that before God can in love forgive the sinner, He must of necessity punish the sin. This is false. Man needs to be forgiven but paying the penalty of sin is not forgiveness. When sin is punished, it is not freely forgiven. The punishment of sin is the execution of the consequences of sin; forgiveness is free dismissal of the effects of sin. If sin is forgiven, it is not punished. Forgiveness through punishment is a contradiction.

According to this legalistic theology, this necessity is grounded in the justice of God. This justice requires, it is said, that the penalty must be paid before guilt can be removed. The guilt of sin cannot be freely forgiven, but only can be taken away by paying the penalty, which alone can satisfy God’s justice. His justice demands that sin must be always punished. According to this legalistic theology, God is not free to forgive the repentant sinner until the sin is punished. God’s freedom is thus limited and his love is conditioned by his justice. As we will already seen, this legalistic concept of justice is a misunderstanding of the righteousness of God.

The legalistic preoccupation in Christian theology with death as the necessary penalty of sin has distorted the Biblical concept of spiritual death as separation from God and of eternal death as eternal separation from God. Separation from God is far more serious than the penal consequences of sin as God is more important than the law. But not only is death misunderstood but life is also misunderstood as the reward for meritorious works. Life as fellowship and communion with God, a personal relationship to God, is lost sight of in the legalistic preoccupation with the law and its meritorious observance

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