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fredtgreco · #7 (**permalink**) 02-01-2008, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davidius

Quote:

Originally Posted by fredtgreco

Quote:

Originally Posted by solifide

"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come." - Romans 5:12-14 (ESV)

I need help understanding the passage in bold and the passage in italics. In bold, it is quite obvious that sin was present before the law was given to Moses, but Paul says that the sin was not imputed on the sinner if there is no law. What is Paul saying here? Also, in italics, what does it mean to sin "like the transgression of Adam?"

Paul is making the point that the law pronounced at Sinai was not the beginning of Law. How do we know that? Men died before Sinai; and men die because of sin (Rom 5:12); therefore there must have been sin before Sinai (5:13). But because there is no sin imputed unless there is a law broken, there must have been Law before Sinai (5:14).

It is one way of showing that Adam's sin was a violation of God's Law. That is why "impute" is a perfectly acceptable translation (viz. NASB, KJV, Young's).

So the clause "where there is no law" is meant to refer to a non-existent place and not all time from Adam to Moses, right? Sin is not counted where there is no law, but there was sin and death from Adam to Moses, so there must have been a law?

Exactly. Hence Calvin:

Quote:

13. For until the law, etc. This parenthesis anticipates an objection: for as there seems to be no transgression with out the law, it might have been doubted whether there were before the law any sin: that there was after the law admitted of no doubt. The question only refers to the time preceding the law. To this then he gives this answer, — that though God had not as yet denounced judgment by a written law, yet mankind were under a curse, and that from the womb; and hence that they who led a wicked and vicious life before the promulgation of the law, were by no means exempt from the condemnation of sin; for there had always been some notion of a God, to whom honor was due, and there had ever been some rule of righteousness. This view is so plain and so clear, that of itself it disproves every opposite notion.