# Romans 5:12-14



## steven-nemes (Feb 2, 2009)

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 
13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 
14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Now my main confusion is about the meaning of the word "counted" here. I have understood this passage as teaching the following:

1. Death comes into the world through sin
2. All men die because they all sin
3. Sin implies a law
5. Men died before the _L_aw (of Moses) was given
6. (3) implies there was a law prior to the _L_aw (I understand "counted" as meaning _considered sin_), namely the law written on their hearts
7. Their law that they sin against is the law in their hearts because it is "not like the transgression of Adam", meaning it was not a transgression against explicitly stated laws from the mouth of God (I take the conscience to not be explicit, though I could be wrong)


Am I wrong in my understanding here? What is a proper understanding of "counted" in this context? Keep in mind I only have the ESV to reference here.


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## Skyler (Feb 2, 2009)

steven-nemes said:


> 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
> 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
> 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
> 
> ...



First of all, you have more than a dozen translations if you use BibleGateway. 

That said, I don't know as to your question. Interesting though.


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## steven-nemes (Feb 3, 2009)

No one can help me? On _Puritan Board_??


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## PresbyDane (Feb 3, 2009)

Amazing is it not


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## moral necessity (Feb 3, 2009)

Well, the word "counted" is the word "imputed". And so, the passage reads, "sin is not imputed where there is no law." Now, in my understanding, there always existed "natural law" before God established his covenant with Moses, and gave him the Law from Mount Sinai to govern Israel. And, it is true that, sin did exist after Adam sinned. And so, it appears to me that Paul is here using an argument to show that law did indeed exist before Moses, because, if it did not exist, then sin would not have been imputed back then, and death and other consequences for sin would not have occurred. But, since death and other consequences for sin did occur back then, then obviously sin was imputed back then, and so, Paul establishes his case that there was indeed law back then as well. The law was, as you say, written in their hearts, as well as put forth by God to a degree, and so, all men were accountable back then as well, which seems to be what Paul intended to show.

I take the statement of "even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression", as meaning, that death even reigned in those who did not actually sin like Adam, but rather sinned in Adam. For, death even reigned in infants. And so, all who were in Adam as under his headship, were under the sentence of death, because what belonged to Adam was passed on to them. And so, the next clause is fitting, because Adam is therefore seen as a figure or representative of Christ, because Christ is the head of all who are righteous in him. So, just as we did not sin like Adam did, but had what belonged to him communicated to us, similarly, we did not perform any righteousness like Christ did, and what belonged to Christ was communicated to us. And so, a parallel can be seen between the two. That tends to be how I view it for now.

Blessings!


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## Prufrock (Feb 3, 2009)

Hey Steven, 

That's a good question. Since there haven't been any takers yet, I'll chime in with the inexpert answer. (I know I'm not supposed to be posting, but I was literally just today reading this section in Vermigli's commentary [*a most unjustly ignored work, I might add*], and can't resist sharing his teaching.) For now I'll focus on vv. 13-14 and an interpretive difference found therein.

With respect to these, I think you'll find that there are _two main types_ of interpretation of this passage among Reformed commentators, all of whom seem to fall into either one or the other, or a certain combination of the two.

For the first (and, in general, the interpretation Calvin follows), Vermigli sums it up very nicely in his comments on verses 13 and 14:



> This imputation or reputation is to be referred unto men, which were so miserable and blind, that they of themselves could not so much as know sins, so far were they off that they could be aware of sins, so utterly obscure at that time was the light of nature: but God imputed those sins unto them, and that not unworthily; for that blindness happened through their own default.



In other words, Vermigli argues (with Calvin) that it is _men themselves_ who do not impute sin _to themselves_ when there is no law. However, simply because they do not recognize their actions as sin, this does not mean that God does not reckon their actual sins against them. 

There is another view, for which Hodge can serve as a representative. For Hodge, the imputation in question is God’s imputation of sin, contra Calvin/Vermigli/others who held (as above) that the imputation to which Paul herein referred was man’s own imputing of sin to himself, or “laying it to heart.” I quote at large”



> The proof is this: the infliction of penal evils implies the violation of law; the violation of the law of Moses will not account for the universality of death, because men died before that law was given. Neither is the law of nature sufficient to explain the fact that all men are subject to death, because even those die who have never broken that law. As, therefore, death supposes transgression, _and neither the law of Moses nor the law of nature embraces all the victims of death_, it follows that men are subject to penal evils on account of the sin of Adam
> ....
> Sin is correlative of law. If there is no law, there can be no sin, as Paul had alread taught, iv. 15. But if there is no sin without law, there can be no imputation of sin. As, however, sin was imputed, as sin was in the world, as men were sinners, and were so regarded and treated before the law of Moses, it follows that there must be some more comprehensive law in relation to which men were sinner, and in virtue of which they were so regarded and treated....If men were sinners, and were treated as such before the law of Moses, it is certain that there is some other law, for the violation of which sin was imputed to them.



It is also important to note that there is no _dogmatic_ difference necessitated by the two readings.

One other important difference to realize among commentators on these verses is the following: many see v.14 (even after the similitude of Adam's transgression) referring to actual sins, as opposed to original sin (in other words, people who actually sinned, even as Adam did, as opposed to those who "sin" purely by the inherited original sin). Others, such as Calvin, see the distinction instead between those who have sinned against a specific stated law over and above the law of nature (thus, Adam violated the commandment by eating the fruit), and those whose sin was against the law of their conscience only.

I have to cut the post short for now; and I do apologize if this was disjointed and lacking sense: I was in and out a lot while writing it. There are some incredibly interesting and important issues raised in this passage, and I want very much to summarize Vermigli’s treatment of this section of scripture over the next few days. Reading it has been a great blessing, and I would love to share it. I hope something in here was useful. Although, again, ignore the name at the top of this post, since I said I was taking a break from posting.


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## steven-nemes (Feb 3, 2009)

Thank you very much, the both of you! I await any other posts who want to take a shot at it....


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## JohnOwen007 (Feb 4, 2009)

Dear Steven,

I suspect you're on the right track. This text is, of course, notoriously difficult to understand simply because Paul is elliptical in his statements (esp. v. 12).

However, I personally am convinced of Henri Blocher's reading of the passage (see his 3rd chapter in his book _Original Sin_). He argues that to be "in Adam" is to be created accountable to God, which means to have the "work of the law" written on our hearts (Rom. 2:14-15).

Hence, people died before Moses, precisely because they were accountable via the "work of the law" written on their hearts.

In other words, sin can be imputed to people who do not have the Law (Torah) because we (in Adam) are responsible.

On this reading the passage says nothing about how original sin is communicated to others.

Blessings,

Marty.


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## Mathetes (Feb 4, 2009)

If it's any help, Doug Moo puts it thusly:

*13*. Paul has already within v.12 begun to disrupt his comparison between Adam and Christ with a series of "run-on" clauses; now, he abandons his sentence altogether. (English versions signal this abandonment of the sentence with a dash at the end of v.12) Paul apparently thinks that something he has said in v.12 requires immediate elaboration in a kind of "aside." But what is the purpose of this "aside," which takes up vv.13-14? There are two main possibilities.

(1) The first, ably defended by Cranfield, views vv.12-14 as a reinforcement of v.12a-c. Paul's assertion of the universality of sin and death in this part of v.12 is open to the objection, on the basis of Jewish beliefs, that there can be no sin, and hence no death, apart from the law. To meet this objection, Paul makes clear that even without the law to define sin sharply (v.13b), both sin (v. 13a) and death (v.14) were present and powerful. This interpretation places all the emphasis on the assertions of vv.13a and 14 and relegates v.13b to the status of a rather negligible aside. But it is just in doing this that the interpretation is open to criticism. For the "but" at the beginning of v.14 presumes a sharp contrast with something that precedes, and this can only be with what Paul has said in v.13b: "sin is not 
reckoned' where there is no law; _nevertheless_ death reigned..." Rather than being an aside, then, v.13b is integral to Paul's argument.

(2) Advocates what the second main interpretation of these verses focus just on this contrast between vv. 13b and 14a in order to stimulate his audience to draw an inference. The conflict arises because Paul asserts that sin is not "reckoned" - interpreted to mean "deemed worthy of death" - except on the basis of transgression of the law. Yet he has also shown in v.12 that all people - even those who are not, it appears, "under the law" - have died. What, then, did Paul want his readers to conclude from this apparent contradiction? Again, there are two main possibilities.

(a) Paul may want his readers to see that "law" is universal. All people die, and die because their sins are imputed to them; therefore, in light of v.13b, all people must be faced with God's law in some form (cf. 2:14-15). However, as Godet puts it, the assumption that Paul is referring to the "unwritten law" here is "at once too essential and too unfamiliar to the minds of his readers to be passed over in silence as self-evident." Moreover, this view fails to do justice to the phrase, "even over those who did not sin in the likeness of the transgression of Adam." Paul's use of "transgression," a term that he always associates with disobedience of an express commandment, shows that he refers to people who were not subject to the "law" that he speaks about in these verses. They were people who, unlike Adam, sinned without violating an express command of God to them.

(b) Paul may want his readers to understand that only the corporate sinning of all people "in and with" Adam can explain the universality of death. Paul's reference to the time from Adam until Moses (v.14a) implies that the "law" he refers to in these verses is the law of Moses. Now obviously people who lived before Moses did not have God's law in this specific, concrete form. How then would they "transgress" and so be judged worthy of death? Only because they had sinned when Adam sinned and because, therefore, Adam's transgression was considered their transgression also.

This last interpretation explains Paul's language best, but it suffer from a serious theological obection: Can we suppose, in light of 1:18-3:20 (note especially 1:32) - not to mention Genesis 6 - that Paul would have regarded the sins of people before Moses as not meriting condemnation? Certainly Paul argues that the coming of the law made sin a more serious thing, more "worthy" of death (cf. 3:20, 4:15, 5:20, 7:7-12); but he does not think it changed innocence into guilt. This objection has given rise to the widespread assumption that "Those who did not sin in likeness of the transgression of Adam" must be a reference to infants and perhaps other mentally handicapped people - it is the death of those who could not be considered to have sinned in their own persons that can be explained only by recourse to their sinning in Adam. But this limitation is unlikely in view of the express mention of the period of time between Adam and Moses as well as the addition of "in the likeness of the transgression of Adam" to the phrase "those who did not sin." This points to people who _did_ consciously, personally sin, but did not sin "in the same way" that Adam did - by violating an express commandment, carrying with it the sanction of death. In another attempt to overcome this theological difficulty, some argue that Paul, while not wanting to deny that all sins merit death, highlights Adam's sin as the key. If this is acknowledged, , however. it is difficult to see how the argument holds together. For "sin is not reckoned" would not, then, mean "sin is not worth of death" and this destoys the contrast with v.14

Each of the two usual views of the text suffers, then, from a serious objection, making a choice between the two is difficult. But it is easier to overcome the syntactical objections to the first - that Paul is focusing on the _fact_ of universal death - than the theological objection to the second - that he is focusing on a (corporate) _explanation_ of universal death. And perhaps the syntactical objection to the first can at least be softened by treating v.13b not as an "aside" summarizing the standard Jewish teaching, but as a reminder of Paul's own teaching about the negative affects of the law on the sinful condition of humanity. Since this teaching could suggest that people can be penalized for sins only if they are "under the law," Paul insists that, on the contrary, death reigned even over those who did not sin by violating a specific law of God. In vv.13-14, then, Paul is reasserting the universality of death in the face of an ojection to the effect that his own emphasis on the law as bringing wrath (4:15) would imply the absence of death in the absence of torah.

With this overall perspective in mind, we can now turn to the details of the text. "Before the law" refers to the time before the giving of the Mosaic law to Israel; "sin was in the world" repeats v.12a. "And sin is not reckoned where there is no law" expresses Paul's view that sin can be charged explicitly and in detail to each person's account only when that person has consciously and knowingly disobeyed a direct command that prohibits that sin.

("The Epistle To The Romans", Douglas Moo)


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