02-02-2008, 12:26 PM
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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). | We can point back to Genesis 3 and 4 to see sin before the codified law of Moses and the resulting penalty because of sin. Adam sinned after being told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This was a direct command from God. Because of Adam, sin was imputed and death entered the world. Cain killed Abel before "Thou shall not kill" was written on tablets of stone. God judged Cain by making the ground resistant to yielding its fruit and by causing him to be a vagrant. Adam sinned by disobeying a direct command from God, but what was Cain's sin? Cain broke God's moral law. an intuitive law written on his conscience (see Romans 1:18-20; James 4:10).  |