Bible Passage: Romans 5:12-21

Introductory information

I. Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, even so death spread to all people with the result that all sinned (verse 12)

1. “Just as” and “even so” introduces a simple comparison
2. Paul personifies “Sin”

a. Personified vicious/sinister force
b. That which that does not come from God or, in anyway, does not reflect God or worthy of God
c. That which is hostile to God and is in constant attempt to deviate people from God, and attempts to use people to disobey God and to His purposes
d. That which controls human will and desire, and distorts human conscience
 
II. “Sin entered the world through one man” (verse 12, “one man” refers to Adam cf. Gen 3)

1. Until the first man disobeyed God, Sin was not in the world (cf. Gen 3:1-7)
2. The first man’s disobedience is the entry of Sin to enter the world
3. “and death through Sin” (verse 12b)

a. “Death” is alienation from God—the only source of life (“Death” is the opposite of life)
b. “Death” implies “separation from God while one is still alive”
c. So, “Death is not simply physical death but something a lot more!
d. Just in the case of “Sin,” Paul personifies “Death” in this verse

i. “Death” is the tyrant villain
ii. Through “Death,” “Sin” reign human being first without the law and then with the law
iii. The “last enemy” to be defeated (cf. 1 Cor 15:54ff)

e. Sin became the driving force (operating system) of Adam and Adamic generations
f. Humans are characterized by four basic relationships: God, fellow humans, the world, and oneself
g. When one is connected properly with all these four relationships, he is said to be “whole” or in “wholeness”
h. When sin entered Adam and Eve, four areas of relationship was disrupted

i. They hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God (3:8)—The man said to the LORD that he was afraid, was ashamed, and so withdrew (Gen 3:10) and they were separated from the tree of life (3:22-24)
ii. They saw themselves naked (3:10-11) and they tried to shift the blame with others (3:11-13)—The relation with the self was distorted
iii. Because of their sin the woman was promised pain in childbearing (Gen 3:16)
iv. A curse was put upon the ground so that it did not yield its fruit easily to the man (3:17-19)
v. Further, there was physical death
vi. This is a short summary of “Death”
vii. As a result of Adam’s sin, death entered the world and engulfed everyone (Talbert, 148)
 
i. As a result of the entry of “Sin” and “Death” everyone enters this world alienated from God—Sin and Death work in tandem (sin is the cause of death and death is the cause of sin)
j. This is called the “original sin”
k. All were born with the “sin” disease! The disease has affected everyone without exception, except the “Seed of the Woman”
l. This is what Paul says, the wages of sin is death Rom 6:23

i. All who are born in this world are born as sinners—dead and alienated from God
ii. They are predisposed to not to do what God instructs but to disobey
iii. They are used by Sin to do as the first person did
iv. The fate of humanity ultimately rests on what its head, Adam, has done to it (Fitzmyer, 416)

III. Adam is the type  of h[H]im to come (verse 14c)

1. Type/typology is a technique used by early Jewish Christian writers who used figures, incidents, and verses in the OT to bring out similar, greater, or contrastive facts in Christian teaching. The contrast of type is called “antitype”

a. Adam and Jesus have similarities and dissimilarities, i.e., both type and antitype (verses 15-21)

i. Through Jesus’ faithfulness to God, grace of God abounds and is passed on to those who invited Him into their lives, whereas Adam passed on Sin and Death to generations (verse 15)
ii. Through Jesus’ faithfulness to God, justification is passed on to those who invited Jesus into their lives whereas Adam passed on condemnation to generations (verse 16)
iii. Through Jesus’ faithfulness to God, righteousness of God is passed on to those who invited Jesus into their lives; righteousness of God leads them to life and the source of life which they lost in Adam (verse 16)
iv. Through Jesus’ faithfulness to God, grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life (verse 20-21)
 
IV. Lessons

1. Jesus becomes the head of the new race (by replacing Adam’s race)
2. Jesus’ faithfulness to God brought deliverance to those who invited Him in their lives from the reign of Sin and Death
3. To those who invited Jesus into their lives, righteousness and life is passed to them
4. Righteousness, life, and grace are divine enablement to believers to live unto God (cf. 2 Cor 5:14: “He died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised”)
 
Takeaway:

Live unto God and give your life voluntarily for the purpose of bringing pleasure to God (cf. 12:1)