Rom5:12

From Sin to Death to Death to Sin to Jesus' Salvation!

Unprecedented Thorough Explanation and translation of "Rom5:12"

DRAFT

Abstract

After Adam bequeathed his descendants death, how does the sin-death cycle roll? Which is the cause and which is the effect? Does sin bring death? Or, the other way round, that death does sin?

This is the apostolic head verse of the puzzling question:

"Because of this, even as through one man the sin did enter into the world, and through the sin the death; and thus to all men the death did pass through, for that all did sin." (Rom5:12)

(All biblical quotations herein are taken from YLT unless otherwise is mentioned)

This verse could be interpreted in four steps as simple and as accurate as that:

1) Adam sinned -}

2) He died as a direct result of his sin -}

3) His descendants inherited death as being, according to God's wisdom, closed upon under disobedience -}

4) Now being under death their fall in sin became almost inevitable.

So, from Adam's sin to the sin of his offspring, there are two deaths in between, without paying attention to which the concept of the inheritance of the original sin is entirely distorted.

The close context of the chapter, in full accordance with what the whole bible teaches only agree with that simple description of the sin-death-death-sin sorrowful path which Jesus Christ saved his elected people from.

In this article I am gonna show a thorough exegetical investigation of the core of the key chapter of this interesting element of dogma, but not before showing the technical problems around the most puzzling verse, i.e. Rom5:12.

3 or 4 Degrees of Complex Ambiguity in 3 Letters!!!

Yes three degrees of confusion and in three letters that make almost only two tiny words!!!

Here you are the letters of confusion:

ἐφ ᾧ

However tiny this couple of words is it much puzzled lots of expositors.

ᾧ is here a form of a masculine relative pronoun. The main question is: To which part of the paragraph is it related? Is to the previous sentence (death) or to the sentence coming after which (sin)?

ἐφ is a preposition that relates a cause to an effect or a reason to a result. One part comes after the preposition and the other afterwards. Yet it is not strict which is which!!

In our case the theoretical question arises, 'Does the verse mean that (all sinned because death dominated over them, or death itself dominated because they all sinned in the first place?' In a simplified technical expression: which is the relative pronoun's referent? sin or death?

It is due to this second ambiguity that all adversaries who want to support their dogmatic bias find their way into the discourse, glossing over the concrete context by putting it forth to altercate.

Having two tiny relative prepositions each works in two directions makes a ridiculous attempt of any attempt to solve the question literally, for if one of both letters got agreed upon its exact meaning the other may reverse it back!!

To top it all, a third degree of ambiguity arises. Uncertainty this time is neither syntactic nor lexical but rather logical. It is not uncustomary that a 'result' is considered a 'reason' as it is the logical reason of initiating its own reason. Also in other cases it is the proof of its existence and as such it is the reason why one believes in its occurrence. Thus let linguists be done with their arduous job and come out with the meaning of the puzzling expression to determine which is the reason and which is the result only for a logician to say the apostle logically speaking meant it the other way round!!!

The complexity of bewildering is not over yet. For as a technically independent approach some think of inducing the usage of the whole expression, i.e. the relative pronoun altogether with the preposition; this is no doubt a good thinking in principle, however it leads to the middle of nowhere as all other locations, in which this grammatical construction is found, either do not make a grammatical equivalent or the meaning itself in the passages works both ways. Besides the number of occurrences is not too big to suggest a characteristic usage of the composite expression (e. g. Rom. 9:33; 10:19; 15:12; II Cor. 5:4; Rom. 6:21; Phil. 4:10)!!!!

Exegeting the Verse from investigating the Chapter!

Only investigating the meaning through putting the whole chapter into scrutiny gives the certain meaning of the passage.

The close context leads to not only accepting the aforementioned interpretation in the abstract of this paper, but also does not fit with any opposite understanding.

Where does the apostle come from and what is its bound? We shall see step by step:

a) Let us start with considering the directly next couple of verses:

"for till law sin was in the world: and sin is not reckoned when there is not law; but

the death did reign from Adam till Moses, even upon those not having sinned in

the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a type of him who is coming"

(Rom5:13-14).

The apostle then knows of many descendants of Adam who did not inherit the very act of the sin that Adam fell in. He let this fact known after the verse under question. So he could not have meant otherwise in this verse just aforementioned one line above.

He speaks of their inheritance only to the death that Adam's sin brought about himself first, but not of the sin itself.

b) Thus far all of the assumption is my own. I followed that line of thought as it is the only concept that made sense even before I made my way to Rom5. Fortunately enough, the apostle will make it now explicitly clear:

"for if by the offence of the one the death did reign through the one…" (Rom 5:17).

Here is the core of the chain of sin inheritance. From Adam's death to the whole humans' death. This link resides just between Adam's sin and all other sinners in the human kind.

Thus the apostle himself ends up from his own verse to the conclusion that sin has reigned because of humans are under death, and not vice versa!!

c) Again with the same verse:

"… death did reign …" (Rom 5:17).

Death here reigns alone. In a subsequent verse (rom5:21) the apostle will write that sin reigned by death! So death reigns alone as it later enabled sin to reign alongside itself. The cycle is clearer now that death so overtook thanks to Adam's sin that it dominated over the whole human kind and thanks to its domination sin made their way to the whole world.

d) Thus sin is the actual result of inherited death. The chapter's context still flows in this stream:

"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ" (Rom 5:17).

e) Now the apostle makes a panorama of the whole death-sin chain from its beginning, i.e.

Adam's sin, to its sad end, i.e. Humans' sins, to round off his message by comparing it all to

the vindication Second Adam Lord Jesus Christ made:

"for if by the offence of the one the death did reign through the one, much more those,

who the abundance of the grace and of the free gift of the righteousness are receiving, in life

shall reign through the one--Jesus Christ. So, then, as through one offence to all men it is to

condemnation, so also through one declaration of `Righteous' it is to all men to justification

of life" (Rom 5:17-18).

f) Now shows up a precisely distinctive sentence between inheriting both sin and death individually:

"for as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were constituted sinners: so also through the obedience of the one, shall the many be constituted righteous" (Rom 5:19).

Sinners are MANY, and not ALL!

While the judgment of death on EVERYONE!!

It grows clearer on and on that the apostle does not regard the inheritance of sin as he does the inheritance of death. Inheriting death is global as it includes every and each person (death here does not mean necessarily the carnal one, because even there are people who did not and many not experience that kind of death. However, death threatens and works within all human beings thanks to the fall of Adam), while inheriting sin belongs to many and not "all" and follows but does not precede inheriting death.

g) Further the apostle introduces the entrance of sin flood by giving the law:

"And law came in, that the offence might abound, and where the sin did abound, the grace did overabound" (Rom 5:20).

Law then highlighted sin but not death. Why? It is because death was already there in all meanings of the word and could not be highlighted more.

h) However, before he is done with the chapter, the apostle focuses on death as the end of sin's job. Some might counter argue by claiming that the chain explained herein ends with humans' sin but not death unlike how the apostle describes it in his last verse of the chapter. This is a mere ostensible discrepancy. The explanation introduced in this paper shows clearly that sin reigns through death but does not stop it. So death overlaps sin all the way long, for without death sin would have found no way. Then death is the end of sin's work but this does not change the fact that death preceded sin in Adam's descendants.

i) Finally, the apostle ends it all goes by a statement that supports the paper's claim that humans' sins are the direct result of inheriting Adam's death but not the very act of his sin:

"that even as the sin did reign in the death, so also the grace may reign, through righteousness, to life age-during, through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 5:21).

Sin reigns in death! This necessitates that to pave sin's way to reign over the whole human kind death came first, obviously not in time order but in the sense of cause-effect sequence.

Note that KJV made an interpretive translation to evade facing the result of the actual text. It made it 'sin reigned UNTO death'! The original Greek word is ἐν!

However some may argue about the accuracy of KJV translation, changing the simple straightforward meaning of two letters cannot change the steadfast context.

Looking into Other related Pauline Location

In other location the same apostle, Paul, addresses this topic with an interesting statement:

"where, O Death, thy sting? where, O Hades, thy victory? and the sting of the death is the sin, and the power of the sin the law" (1 Cor 15:55-56).

The simile cannot fit with the concept of inheriting sin first and then death as a judgement of the sin now inherited already. In such a scenario sin pierces with death not the other way round. However the apostle portrays death pushing forward sin as it hides behind it. To combine both similes (this one and that of Rom5:14, 21), it goes like death reigned over humans and to worsen it it raised sin into its crown so that it takes protection through threatening, torturing and claiming humans by it.

Conclusion

So, is original sin being inherited? Certainly it is.

How is it being so? Certainly not through genes or chromosomes. Certainly not as natural carnal effect of the sexual intercourse. Certainly not as a mystical germ or that kind of novels. It is rather as simple as being inherited as the consequent result of Adam's sin, from his own sin to his death to his descendants' death to their sins being born under the judgment of death and in that miserable weakness they were and thus people are more vulnerable to sin. The good news comes here from the second Adam who created a new spiritual creation with a new life cycle from Jesus righteousness to his life-giving death to our life in Him to our righteousness that befits the new life of Him in us. By this righteousness-resurrection-life-righteousness cycle the sin-death-death-sin cycle got destroyed. Now what has our last quoted scripture been? Yeah it has been the victorious shout over the hellish cycle celebrating the life-giving one:
where, O Death, thy sting? where, O Hades, thy victory. Hallelujah!!!

Supplement:

Rom 5:12 in its original text with several translations:

Alongside the original Greek text, various translations are selected in such a manner that covers all the schools:

GOC:

(The Greek Church version - and the witness with no literal difference in all Greek versions)

'..... καὶ οὕτω εἰ άάνταἀ ἀνρρποουὁ ὁ άάνατο ῆιῆλεεν, ἐ' 'ᾧ άάντεἥ ἥμαρτον ·'

SVD:

(Translation from Beirut)

"So death passed on to all men, for all sinned."

KJV:

(Translated King James months not far from the correct meaning)

'...... for that all have sinned.'

ALT:

(The most accurate translation took into account all the possibilities of meaning literally)

'..... for that [or, because] all sinned.'

EMTV

(Translation of compatibility of the popular meaning under review)

'... because all sinned.'

Geneva

(A doctrinal translation as it appears from its name to the acquaintance of the history of the Protestant movement)

'..... and so death went ouer all men: in who all men haue sinned.'

Refers to the person of Adam (who) and not to the pre- or post-expression examination and variation,

It is the formula that was awarded to Bishop Gregorius, the bishop of scientific scholarship, who cited it in one of his articles as follows: "In whom they all sinned."

YLT:

(The most committed translation of each letter)

'..... and thus to all men the death did pass through, for that all did sin.'

Romanides provides the correct interpretation with a linguistic approach that I do not adopt:

John S. Romanides, "Original Sin According to Saint Paul", St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, Vol. IV, Nos. 1 and 2, 1955-6.