SEV Biblia, Chapter 5:12
Por tanto, de la manera que el pecado entr en el mundo por un hombre, y por el pecado la muerte, y la muerte así pas a todos los hombres en aquel en quien todos pecaron.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Romans 5:12
Verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world] From this verse, to the conclusion of the chapter, the apostle produces a strong argument to prove that, as all mankind stood in need of the grace of God in Christ to redeem them from their sins, so this grace has been afforded equally to all, both Jews and Gentiles. Dr. Taylor has given the following analysis of the apostle's mode of argumentation. The argument stands thus:-"The consequences of Christ's obedience extend as far as the consequences of Adam's disobedience. The consequences of Adam's disobedience extend to all mankind; and therefore, so do the consequences of Christ's obedience. Now, if the Jews will not allow the Gentiles any interest in Abraham, as not being naturally descended from him, yet they must own that the Gentiles are the descendants of Adam, as well as themselves; and being all equally involved in the consequences of his sin, from which" (as far as the death of the body is concerned) "they shall all equally be released at the resurrection, through the free gift of God, therefore they could not deny the Gentiles a share in all the other blessings included in the same gift." This argument, besides proving the main point, goes to show: 1. That the grace of God in the Gospel abounds beyond, or very far exceeds, the mere reversing of the sufferings brought upon mankind by Adam's one offense; as it bestows a vast surplusage of blessings which have no relation to that offense, but to the many offenses which mankind have committed, and to the exuberance of the Divine grace. 2. To show how justly the Divine grace is founded on the obedience of Christ, in correspondence to the dispensation Adam was under, and to the consequences of his disobedience: if this disobedience involved all mankind in death, it is proper that the obedience of Christ should be the cause not only of reversing that death to all mankind, but also of other blessings which God should see fit (through him) to bestow on the world. 3. It serves to explain, and set in a clear view, the difference between the law and grace. It was the law which, for Adam's one transgression, subjected him and his posterity, as included in him when he transgressed, to death, without hopes of a revival. It is grace which restores all men to life at the resurrection; and, over and above that, has provided a gracious dispensation for the pardon of their sins; for reducing them to obedience; for guarding them against temptations; supplying them with strength and comfort; and for advancing them to eternal life. This would give the attentive Jew a just notion of the law which himself was under, and under which he was desirous of bringing the Gentiles.
The order in which the apostle handles this argument is this:- He affirms that death passed upon all men by Adam's one transgression, ver. 12. 2. He proves this, ver. 13, 14: 3. He affirms there is a correspondence between Adam and Christ; or between the paraptwma, offense, and the carisma, free gift, ver. 14. 4. This correspondence, so far as the two opposite parts answer to each other, is justly expressed, ver. 18, 19; and there we have the main or fundamental position of the apostle's argument, in relation to the point which he has been arguing from the beginning of the epistle, namely, the extensiveness of the grace of the Gospel, that it actually reaches to ALL MEN, and is not confined to the Jews. 5. But, before he laid down this position, it was necessary that he should show that the correspondence between Adam and Christ, or between the offense and the gift, is not to be confined strictly to the bounds specified in the position, as if the gift reached no farther than the consequences of the offense; when in reality it extends vastly beyond them, ver. 15-17. 6. Having settled these points, as previously necessary to clear his fundamental position, and fit to his argument, he then lays down that position in a diversified manner of speech, ver. 18, 19, just as in 1 Corinthians xv. 20, 21, and leaves us to conclude, from the premises laid down, ver. 15-17, that the gift and the grace in its utmost extent, is as free to all mankind who are willing to accept of it, as this particular instance, the resurrection from the dead. They shall all be raised from the dead hereafter; they may all be quickened by the Spirit here. 7. Having thus shown the extensiveness of the Divine grace, in opposition to the dire effects of the law under which Adam was; that the Jews might not overlook what he intended they should particularly observe, he puts them in mind that the law given to Adam, transgress and die, was introduced into the Jewish constitution by the ministry of Moses; and for this end, that the offense, with the penalty of death annexed to it, might abound, ver. 20. But, to illustrate tho Divine grace by setting it in contrast to the law, he immediately adds: where sin, subjecting to death, hath abounded, grace hath much more abounded; that is, in blessings bestowed; it has stretched far beyond both Adam's transgression, and the transgressions under the law of Moses, ver. 20, 21, and see the note on the first of these verses.
Upon this argument the learned doctor makes the following general remarks:- "I. As to the order of time: the apostle carries his arguments backwards from the time when Christ came into the world (chap. i. 17; to Romans 4.) to the time when the covenant was made with Abraham, (Romans 4.,) to the time when the judgment to condemnation, pronounced upon Adam, came upon all men, ver. 12, to the end. And thus he gives us a view of the principal dispensations from the beginning of the world.
"II. In this last case, as well as in the two former, he uses law or forensic terms; judgment to condemnation, justification, justify, made sinners, made righteous. And therefore, as he considers both Jews and Gentiles at the coming of Christ, and Abraham when the covenant was made with him, so he considers Adam, and all men, as standing in the court before the tribunal of God. And this was the clearest and concisest way of representing his arguments." Notes, p. 283.
Sin entered into the world] There was neither sin nor death before the offense of Adam; after that there were both. Adam's transgression was therefore the cause of both.
And death by sin] Natural evil is evidently the effect of moral evil; if man had never sinned, he had never suffered. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, was never spoken till after Adam had eaten the forbidden fruit.
Death passed upon all men] Hence we see that all human beings partook in the consequences of Adam's sin. He propagated his like; and, with the rudiments of his own nature, propagated those of his moral likeness.
For that all have sinned] All are born with a sinful nature; and the seeds of this evil soon vegetate, and bring forth corresponding fruits. There has never been one instance of an immaculate human soul since the fall of Adam. Every man sins, and sins too after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Adam endeavoured to be independent of God; all his offspring act in the same way: hence prayer is little used, because prayer is the language of dependence; and this is inconsistent with every emotion of original sin. When these degenerate children of degenerate parents are detected in their sins, they act just as their parents did; each excuses himself, and lays the blame on another. What hast thou done?- The woman whom THOU gavest me, to be with me; SHE gave me, and I did eat. What hast THOU done? -The SERPENT beguiled me, and I did eat. Thus, it is extremely difficult to find a person who ingenuously acknowledges his own transgressions. See the notes on Gen. iii. 6, &c., where the doctrine of original sin is particularly considered.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 12. Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world , etc..] The design of these words, and of the following, is to show how men came to be in the condition before described, as ungodly, ( Romans 5:6), sinners, ( Romans 5:8), and enemies, ( Romans 5:10); and to express the love of Christ in the redemption of them; and the largeness of God's grace to all sorts of men: the connection of them is with ( Romans 5:11), by which it appears that the saints have not only an expiation of sin by the blood of Christ, but a perfect righteousness, by which they are justified in the sight of God; and the manner how they came at it, or this becomes theirs, together with the necessity of their having such an one, are here declared: by the one man is meant Adam the first man, and parent of mankind, who is mentioned by name in ( Romans 5:14); sin which came by him designs a single sin, and not many, even the first sin of Adam, which goes by different names, as sin here, transgression, ( Romans 5:14), the offence or fall, ( Romans 5:15,17,18), disobedience, ( Romans 5:19), and whatever was the first step or motive to it, which led to it, whether pride, unbelief, or concupiscence, it was finished by eating the forbidden fruit; and is called sin emphatically, because it contained all sin in it, was attended with aggravating circumstances, and followed with dismal consequences. Hence may be learnt the origin of moral evil among men, which comes not from God, but man; of this it is said, that it entered into the world; not the world above, there sin entered by the devil; but the world below, and it first entered into paradise, and then passed through the whole world; it entered into men by the snares of Satan, and by him it enters into all the inhabitants of the world; into all men that descend from him by ordinary generation, and that so powerfully that there is no stopping of it. It has entered by him, not by imitation, for it has entered into such as never sinned after the similitude of his transgression, infants, or otherwise death could not have entered into them, and into such who never heard of it, as the Heathens; besides, sin entered as death did, which was not by imitation but imputation, for all men are reckoned dead in Adam, being accounted sinners in him; add to this, that in the same way Christ's righteousness comes upon us, which is by imputation, Adam's sin enters into us, or becomes ours; upon which death follows, and death by sin ; that is, death has entered into the world of men by sin, by the first sin of the first man; not only corporeal death, but a spiritual or moral one, man, in consequence of this, becoming dead in sin, deprived of righteousness, and averse, and impotent to all that is good; and also an eternal death, to which he is liable; for the wages of sin is death, ( Romans 6:23); even eternal death: all mankind are in a legal sense dead, the sentence of condemnation and death immediately passed on Adam as soon as he had sinned, and upon all his posterity; and so death passed upon all men ; the reason of which was, for that , or because in him all have sinned : all men were naturally and seminally in him; as he was the common parent of mankind, he had all human nature in him, and was also the covenant head, and representative of all his posterity; so that they were in him both naturally and federally, and so sinned in him; and fell with him by his first transgression into condemnation and death. The ancient Jews, and some of the modern ones, have said many things agreeably to the apostle's doctrine of original sin; they own the imputation of the guilt of Adam's sin to his posterity to condemnation and death; through the sin of the first man (say they f78 ) tm hta , thou art dead; for he brought death into the world: nothing is more frequently said by them than that Adam and Eve, through the evil counsel of the serpent, aml[ lklw wl atwm wmyrg , were the cause of death to themselves and to all the world f79 ; and that through the eating of the fruit of the tree, a[ra yryyd lk atwm wbyyjta , all the inhabitants of the earth became guilty of death f80 : and that this was not merely a corporeal death, they gather from the doubling of the word in the threatening, in dying thou shalt die, ( Genesis 2:17) (margin); this doubled death, say they f81 , without doubt is the punishment of their body by itself, hmx[ ynpb pnlw , and also of the soul by itself.
They speak of some righteous persons who died, not for any sin of their own, but purely on the account of Adam's sin; as Benjamin the son of Jacob, Amram the father of Moses, and Jesse the father of David, and Chileab the son of David f82 , to these may be added Joshua the son of Nun, and Zelophehad and Levi: the corruption and pollution of human nature through the sin of Adam is clearly expressed by them; when Adam sinned, (say they f83 ,) he drew upon him a defiled power, aml[ ynb lklw hyl byasw , and defiled himself and all the people of the world.
Again f84 , this vitiosity which comes from the sin and infection of our first parents, has invaded both faculties of the rational soul, the understanding by which we apprehend, and the will by which we desire.
This corruption of nature they call [rh rxy , the evil imagination, which, they say f85 , is planted in a man's heart at the time of his birth; and others say that it is in him before he is born: hence Philo the Jew says f87 , that sumfuev to amartanon esti , to sin is connatural, to every man that is born, even though a good man; and talks of suggeghnhnon koukon , evil that is born with us, and of suggeneiv khrev , spots that are of necessity born with every mortal man. And so his countrymen often speak of it as natural and inseparable to men; yea, they represent Adam as the root and head of mankind, in whom the whole world and all human nature sinned: descanting on those words, as one that lieth upon the top of a mast, ( Proverbs 23:34); this (say they f91 ) is the first man who was da ynb lkl ar , an head to all the children of men: for by means of wine death was inflicted on him, and he was the cause of bringing the sorrows of death into the world.
And in another place, speaking of Adam, they say f92 , that he was lw[ l hayrb rqy[ , the root of the creation, or of the men of the world; and death was inflicted upon him and on his seed, because he sinned one sin in eating of the tree.
And it is observed, that h[ydyh ah , the He demonstrative is not prefixed in Scripture to proper names, which yet is to the word Adam; the reason is, (say they f93 ,) because in Adam all his posterity are pointed at, and the whole human species designed.
Again, they observe f94 , that the end of man is to die, of which this is the reason, because dah ym , mankind has sinned; that is, the nature of which he is composed, or in other words, Adam and Eve have sinned.
Once more f95 when he (Adam) sinned, ajj wlk lw[h lk , all the whole world sinned, and his sin we bear; and that the whole congregation of Israel have need of atonement for the sin of the first Adam, for he was hd[h lkk bwj , reckoned as the whole congregation; which exactly tallies with the apostle's assertion in this text. (When this commentary was written, it was generally accepted that all the fossils in the rocks were laid down by Noah's world wide flood and that the universe was about 6000 years old. Since that time, science has postualated that life evolved over billions of years and that the fossils are a result of this evolutionary process. If you accept the Bible as your authority you cannot accept the theory of evolution in any form. Firstly, the biblical chronology restricts the age of the universe to about 6000 years. Secondly, in order to get fossils, animals must die. This verse tells us that sin, not evolution, is the cause of death. Death and suffering did not exist until after Adam sinned. Hence before Adam sinned, no animal died and it would be impossible for any fossils to form. Before the fall, all animals ate plants, not other animals ( Genesis 1:30). Paul tells us in ( Romans 8:20,21) that Adam's sin subjected all of creation to the curse, not just mankind. (See Gill on Romans 6:23). See Gill (Editor's note) on Exodus 20:11 . Editor) Ver. 13. For until the law, sin was in the world , etc..] This is a proof of sin's having entered into the world, by one man's transgression of the positive law of God, which forbid him the eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; since it was in the world before the law of Moses was given: the sin of Adam and the guilt of that were in the world before, and came upon all men to condemnation; the general corruption of nature appeared before; and actual sins, and transgressions of all sorts were committed before; as by the immediate posterity of Adam, by the men of the old world, by the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, by the patriarchs and their posterity, by the Egyptians, Canaanites, and others.
They were all guilty of sin, corrupted by it, and under the dominion of it, except such as were released from it by the grace of God: now when sin is said to be until this time, the meaning is not that it existed and continued until the law of Moses took place, and then ceased; for that law did not, and could not take away sin, it rather increased it, at least it became more known by it; but that it was in being before it, and had influence and power over the sons of men, so as to subject them to death: but sin is not imputed when there is no law . This looks like an objection, that if there was no law before Moses's time, then there was no sin, nor could any action of man be known or accounted by them as sinful, or be imputed to them to condemnation; or rather it is a concession, allowing that where there is no law, sin is not imputed; but there was a law before that law of Moses, which law was transgressed, and the sin or transgression of it was imputed to men to condemnation and death, as appears from what follows.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 12-14 - The design of what follows is plain. It is to exalt our view respecting the blessings Christ has procured for us, by comparing the with the evil which followed upon the fall of our first father; and by showing that these blessings not only extend to the removal of thes evils, but far beyond. Adam sinning, his nature became guilty an corrupted, and so came to his children. Thus in him all have sinned And death is by sin; for death is the wages of sin. Then entered all that misery which is the due desert of sin; temporal, spiritual eternal death. If Adam had not sinned, he had not died; but a sentenc of death was passed, as upon a criminal; it passed through all men, a an infectious disease that none escape. In proof of our union with Adam, and our part in his first transgression, observe, that sin prevailed in the world, for many ages before the giving of the law by Moses. And death reigned in that long time, not only over adults wh wilfully sinned, but also over multitudes of infants, which shows tha they had fallen in Adam under condemnation, and that the sin of Ada extended to all his posterity. He was a figure or type of Him that wa to come as Surety of a new covenant, for all who are related to Him.
Greek Textus Receptus
δια 1223 PREP τουτο 5124 D-ASN ωσπερ 5618 ADV δι 1223 PREP ενος 1520 A-GSM ανθρωπου 444 N-GSM η 3588 T-NSF αμαρτια 266 N-NSF εις 1519 PREP τον 3588 T-ASM κοσμον 2889 N-ASM εισηλθεν 1525 5627 V-2AAI-3S και 2532 CONJ δια 1223 PREP της 3588 T-GSF αμαρτιας 266 N-GSF ο 3588 T-NSM θανατος 2288 N-NSM και 2532 CONJ ουτως 3779 ADV εις 1519 PREP παντας 3956 A-APM ανθρωπους 444 N-APM ο 3588 T-NSM θανατος 2288 N-NSM διηλθεν 1330 5627 V-2AAI-3S εφ 1909 PREP ω 3739 R-DSN παντες 3956 A-NPM ημαρτον 264 5627 V-2AAI-3P
Vincent's NT Word Studies
12. Wherefore as. As (wsper) begins the first member of a comparison. The second member is not expressed, but is checked by the illustration introduced in vers. 13, 14, and the apostle, in his flow of thought, drops the construction with which he started, and brings in the main tenor of what is wanting by "Adam who is the type," etc. (ver. 14).Entered into. As a principle till then external to the world.
Passed upon (dihlqen ef). Lit., came throughout upon. The preposition dia denotes spreading, propagation, as eijv into denoted entrance.
For that (ef w) On the ground of the fact that.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
5:12 {Therefore} (dia touto). "For this reason." What reason? Probably the argument made in verses #1-11, assuming our justification and urging exultant joy in Christ because of the present reconciliation by Christ's death and the certainty of future final salvation by his life. {As through one man} (hwsper di' henos anqrwpou). Paul begins a comparison between the effects of Adam's Sin and the effects of the redemptive work of Christ, but he does not give the second member of the comparison. Instead of that he discusses some problems about Sin and death and starts over again in verse #15. The general point is plain that the effects of Adam's Sin are transmitted to his descendants, though he does not say how it was done whether by the natural or the federal headship of Adam. It is important to note that Paul does not say that the whole race receives the full benefit of Christ's atoning death, but only those who do. Christ is the head of all believers as Adam is the head of the race. In this sense Adam "is a figure of him that was to come." {Sin entered into the world} (h hamartia eis ton kosmon eiselqen). Personification of Sin and represented as coming from the outside into the world of humanity. Paul does not discuss the origin of evil beyond this fact. There are some today who deny the fact of Sin at all and who call it merely "an error of mortal mind" (a notion) while others regard it as merely an animal inheritance void of ethical quality. {And so death passed unto all men} (kai houtws eis pantas anthr"pous dilthen). Note use of diercomai rather than eisercomai, just before, second aorist active indicative in both instances. By "death" in #Ge 2:17; 3:19 physical death is meant, but in verses #17,21 eternal death is Paul's idea and that lurks constantly behind physical death with Paul. {For that all sinned} (eph' h"i pantes hmarton). Constative (summary) aorist active indicative of hamartanw, gathering up in this one tense the history of the race (committed Sin). The transmission from Adam became facts of experience. In the old Greek eph' h"i usually meant "on condition that," but "because" in N.T. (Robertson, _Grammar_, p. 963).
