Romans 5:12–21
The controversy over the doctrine of original sin is found in the Apostle Paul’s statement in
Romans 5:12:
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.
12
In
Romans 5:1–11, Paul describes the reconciling work of God’s love in Jesus on behalf of sinners. This leads Paul to contrast (διὰ τοῦτο,
dia touto, “
therefore”) the work of Adam and Jesus. Paul opens up his discussion in
verse 12 by stating that “
through one man sin entered the world,” which of course is an allusion to Adam’s disobedience in
Genesis 3. However, Paul does not stop there, as he adds that the entrance of sin brought death into the world. The punishment that God promised in
Genesis 2:17 was fulfilled, and death came into the world.
13 This leads to Paul’s focus in
Romans 5:12–21: the reign of death. The power of death came through Adam’s sin, and that power affects all people: “
thus death spread to all men.” This, as Paul states, is “
because all sinned.” It must be recognized that these words “
because all sinned” (ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον,
eph’ ho pantes hemarton) are “fiercely contested and difficult to understand.”
14 This does not mean, however, they are impossible to understand. If we will allow Paul’s theology to stand as a whole, we will see how they function in his argument in this passage.
Like Giberson,
15 theistic evolutionist Dr. Denis Alexander believes
Romans 5:12 does not speak of sin as being inherited from Adam but rather coming through our own individual acts of sin. He argues:
The error arose from a mistranslation of the Greek construction eph’ ho (i) (ἐφ᾽ ᾧ) as ‘in whom’ rather than its correct meaning in this context of ‘because.’ So Augustine read the last phrase to mean that sin was transmitted from Adam to ‘all men,’ whereas Paul’s meaning is quite different, as NIV has it. . . . So Paul is saying here that spiritual death spread to all people on account of their own sinning. Once Romans 5:12 is correctly translated it does then bring its teaching into line with the rest of Scripture, which is insistent that each person is responsible for his or her own sin. It is not guilt that is inherited from Adam but a propensity to sin, so that as a matter of fact everyone does in a sense repeat the sin of Adam.