| Kenneth Hamrick Part 1 12Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned-- "Sin came into the world through one man," Adam. It was not through one couple--one man and woman--but "through one man." The sin of the whole world had its "genesis" in the sin of the one man, Adam. Sin came into the world through one man because the world itself came through the one man.
Death came through sin. To define death, we need to look to the parallel of life that comes through Christ. As Adam brought sin and death into the world, Christ brings righteousness and life--life both spiritual and physical. Regeneration immediately brings spiritual life, while physical resurrection and immortality waits for the final day. Though resurrection is not immediate, it is just as much a part of the life that Christ brings to those who believe. Since the life that Christ brings is both physical and spiritual, then the parallel must also be true: both spiritual and physical death came through the sin of Adam.
Death was a punishment given to Adam for his sin, and to the race yet within his loins, but death was also a natural consequence of his sin. Since God had warned Adam that death would result from sin, then it can be reasonably inferred that Adam and Eve were immortal prior to sinning. The possession of immortality would make physical death a temporal punishment to Adam, because it was the taking away of the immortality that Adam already possessed. The moment of physical death was not in itself the penal sanction, but rather, the moment of death is the natural result of the true penal sanction, the changing of Adam's body from immortal to mortal. Adam was created with an incorruptible, immortal body, and because he sinned, God punished him by changing his body to a corruptible, mortal body that was destined to die and return to dust. God did not wait nine hundred years to punish Adam. He punished him for his sin immediately, on the day that he sinned in Eden, but the results of his punishment were manifested over the remainder of Adam's life as natural consequences and conditions, and culminated in the final natural result, physical death.
Just as in the case of Adam, the temporal punishment of God for the sin of Adam came upon all mankind while we were still in Adam, for it came upon us on the day of Adam's sin in Eden. We have never, in ourselves, possessed physical immortality, so being born with a mortal body cannot be a penal sanction, since it takes nothing away from us. The final result, the moment of physical death, will take away our physical life from us; however, that pysical life was a mortal one from beginning to end, and in many ways, physical death is the slow process that begins at conception and follows its certain course unto the end. Could the laborers in the vineyard (Mat. 20:1-16) who were paid only one denarius claim that they were punished by not being paid more than one? Can we rightly claim that God has punished us by not giving us a longer life? Who said we have any right to a longer life?--or any life at all? Does the Potter not have the right to make the lifespan of these clay vessels as He sees fit, even in the complete absence of any sin or condemnation? Once, while in the loins of Adam, all mankind did possess physical immortality... and while we were still in the man Adam, in the very day that he sinned, that immortality was taken away from us. Just as in the case of Adam, all the results that followed the loss of that immortality came upon us in the form of natural conditions. The physical mortality that we are all conceived with is merely the natural condition into which we are born, and is not a penal sanction or condemnation in itself to us as individuals.
If these results of Adam's loss of physical immortality were in themselves a penal sanction, then such penalty would be immediately removed when the man was redeemed. Whether in Adam's case, when God sacrificed an animal to cover the nakedness of their sin, or in our case, when we come to faith in Christ, the unassailable principle remains true: God does not punish what He has forgiven. All forgiveness comes through the atoning sacrifice of Christ, of course, and the Old Testament animal sacrifices were only pictures of the Messiah who would come. If God had put away Adam's sin, then Christ died in Adam's place, just as He died in our place. Therefore, the conclusion cannot be escaped that neither Adam's physical death nor ours is a penal sanction or condemnation. Since physical death remains even when no condemnation or punishment remains, then physical death is nothing more than the natural result of our mortality, which itself is merely a natural condition we are born with. The taking away of Adam's immortality was a punisment to him, but we as individuals had no immortality to take away.
The spiritual death of Adam was both a punishment and a natural consequence. "In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die... " (Gen. 2:17). This specifically speaks of the spiritual death, since the physical death happened over nine hundred years later. This threatened death happened immediately when Adam sinned, and did not wait for the pronouncement of the curses. This is evident in Adam's blaming his wife for his sin. The principle of sinful self-centeredness was already there. Selfless love for God and his wife was already banished from his being. Spiritual death is spiritual separation from God. In the case of Adam, it was more than a punishment. It was a necessary, natural consequence to his sin. God is holy, and cannot remain in union with sin or corruption. "...What communion has light with darkness?" (2 Cor. 6:14). It is not as if God could have chosen a punishment different from spiritual death, and permitted the sinner, Adam, to remain spiritually alive. This would not have been possible. In Adam's case, the penal sanction and the natural consequence were one and the same. It is analogous to making it a capital offense to drink from a vial of deadly poison that sits in front of a judge in a certain courtroom. As a criminal rebelliously and illegally drinks the poison, the judge sentences him to death. The gavel slams down, and the criminal falls dead. The death involved was both a punishment and a natural consequence.
As was the case in the physical punishment of Adam's sin, so also is it true in the spiritual punishment of Adam's sin. The punishment occurred on the day that he sinned, but the results of that punishment were manifested from that time forward in the form of natural consequences and conditions. God punished Adam with spiritual death--spiritual separation from God--on the day that he sinned. But God did not, moment-by-moment for the remainder of Adam's life, continually punish him with spiritual death. Adam's spiritual life--his spiritual connection to God--was taken away as a punishment; however, once taken away, his ever-continuing state and condition of separation from God was the natural condition that resulted from his sin.
So it is with us, Adam's descendants. Our spiritual life--our connection with God--was taken away as a punishment while we were still in the loins of Adam. As each descendant of Adam is begotten, they come into the world already separated spiritually from God--already spiritually dead and self-centered, with a natural bent toward sin. But this condition is not a punishment in itself to us as individuals, but is only the natural condition into which we are born.
"...So death spread to all men because all sinned--" Notice that it does not say, "because all sin," but, "because all sinned." The thought here is not that death spreads because all men sin as individuals, but that all men sinned in Adam, while in the loins of Adam. The fact that it is the one sin of Adam that is in view, and not the sins of individuals, is confirmed in the following verses: "through one man's trespass," (v. 15); "the result of that one man's sin," (v. 16); "one trespass" (v. 16); "because of one man's trespass," (v. 17); "one trespass" (v. 18); "the one man's disobedience" (v. 19).
Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), p. 637: ...The verb ἁμαρτάν[hamartanō] is a simple aorist. This tense most commonly refers to a single past action. Had Paul intended to refer to a continued process of sin, the present and imperfect tenses were available to him. But he chose the aorist, and it should be taken at face value. Indeed, if we regard the sin of all men and the sin of Adam as the same, the problems we have pointed to become considerably less complex. There is then no conflict between verse 12 and verses 15 and 17. Further, the potential problem presented by verse 14, where we read that "death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam," is resolved, for it is not imitation or repetition of Adam's sin, but participation in it, that counts.
The last clause in verse 12 tells us that we were involved in some way in Adam's sin; it was in some sense also our sin. But what is meant by this? On the one hand, it may be understood in terms of federal headship--Adam acted on behalf of all persons. There was a sort of contract between God and Adam as our representative, so that what Adam did binds us. Our involvement in Adam's sin might be better understood in terms of natural headship, however. We argued in chapter 22 for a special creation of man in the entirety of his nature. We further argued in chapter 24 for a very close connection (a "conditional unity") between the material and immaterial aspects of human nature. In chapter 25 we examined several biblical intimations that even the fetus is regarded by God as a person. These and other considerations support the position that the entirety of our human nature, both physical and spiritual, material and immaterial, has been received from our parents and more distant ancestors by way of descent from the first pair of humans. On that basis, we were actually present within Adam, so that we all sinned in his act... Notice also that death is said to "spread," rather than being a punishment given as a judgment upon each individual man. To speak of death as spreading is to speak of it in the terms of natural conditions, like a congenital disease. Penal sanctions do not spread--they are decreed. Natural conditions spread. Literally, this speaks of death "passing through" to all men. What began with Adam passed through all generations to all of his descendants.
Death spread to all men because all sinned [in Adam]. Genesis 5
3When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
Hebrews 7
9One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, 10for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.
The spirit of the child comes from his physical father. Just as Levi could be said to have paid tithes while yet in the loins of his father, Abraham, so all mankind has sinned while still in the loins of Adam. Because all sinned in Adam, all spiritually died while still within the loins of Adam. Thus, we are all conceived in a state of spiritual death. God cannot specially create a morally corrupted, dead spirit for the purpose of conceiving a new son of Adam. "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mark 12:27). The spirit of all men has been propagated from the spirit of Adam, through the fathers of every generation, thereby transmitting the sin nature of Adam to all of us. This is why "sin came into the world through one man." Sin did not come into the world through Eve, but through Adam alone. Continued in the next post... |
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