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and its recognition here saves fruitless speculation: "They, like Adam, have transgressed
the covenant." Those who sinned thus are Israel. Those who did not sin thus are the
Gentiles who "have not the law". Yet it mattered not, for both Israelite and Gentile alike
were seen to be under the dominion of death. Nor is this all. Untold millions have died
in infancy; many more have never known a moment's sanity, yet these also died. It is
therefore evident that death has come in not because of Israel's law-breaking or the
individual sins of Gentiles, but because of SIN, and that it goes back to Adam alone. "By
one man SIN entered into the world and DEATH by sin." Except to show the
superabounding grace of God (verse 16), Rom. 5: 12-21 does not treat of sins, but SIN:
what I am, not what I have done, a difference that must be observed both when dealing
with ourselves and when considering the work of Christ.
Rom. 3: 12 says "there is none that DOETH good". Rom. 5: 12-21 says "there is
none good", quite apart from deeds. Likewise the battle in Rom. 6: and 7: is not
against external actions merely, but against a "law" in the members that leads to slavery,
contradicting the very desires and intentions, and which is altogether too much for human
nature to withstand.
Closely associated with the fact that death is here, quite irrespective of our personal
evil actions, is the statement: "Adam, who is the figure of Him that was to come." This
is seen in a very full sense in II Cor. 5: 14: "For the love of Christ constraineth us,
judging this, that if ONE died on behalf of all, THEN ALL DIED."
While there are many characteristics of Adam which are typical of Christ, it would be
an intrusion, rather than a help, to bring them forward here. The one thing that matters
here is expressed in II Cor. 5: 14. Just as Adam, the head of the race, involves all
"in Him" in death by reason of his one sin, so Christ, the last Adam and the second man,
the new head of the race, involves all "in Him" in life by reason of His ONE act of
righteousness.
The following paraphrase by Henry Linton may clinch the teaching so far as we have
gone:--
"But first, in proof that death passed upon all men by reason of one's transgression, let
it be noted that sin and death were in the world before and until the giving of the law,
which they would not have been, had no command been broken. And yet death reigned
from the time of Adam to that of Moses, over all, even over those (infants, for instance)
who had never sinned as Adam did, nor in their own persons broken any law, a plain
proof that they died in Him, and were regarded and treated as sinners by reason of his
transgression; so that in this respect he was a type of the promised Messiah, all believers
being made alive in the one, as all mankind died in the other."
The reader will be sensible of the weakness of the last sentence. There is no need to
add the word "believers", for we have already seen that the term "all in Adam" refers
to a promised seed for whom, without exception, Christ became Surety and
Kinsman-Redeemer. Apart from that it is helpful. "Believing" does not belong to this
section of Romans, but to the earlier section which deals with individual sin, justification
and forgiveness.