Why, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed on all men, for that all have sinned:
as by.
Romans 5:19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
and death.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Genesis 3:19,22-24 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return…
for that.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
James 3:2 For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.
1 John 1:8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us…
and death through sin
Death is presented as the direct consequence of sin, aligning with Genesis 2:17, where God warns Adam that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would result in death. This death is both physical and spiritual, indicating a separation from God. The connection between sin and death is a recurring theme in Scripture, emphasizing the gravity of sin and its ultimate penalty (Romans 6:23).
so also death was passed on to all men
This phrase underscores the universality of death as a result of sin. It reflects the belief that Adam's sin affected all of humanity, making death an inevitable part of the human experience. This concept is echoed in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22, which contrasts the death brought by Adam with the resurrection life brought by Christ. The idea of death being passed to all men highlights the need for a savior to overcome this inherited condition.
because all sinned
Here, the focus shifts to personal responsibility and the reality that all individuals have sinned, as stated in Romans 3:23. This phrase suggests that while sin entered the world through Adam, each person contributes to the perpetuation of sin through their own actions. It emphasizes the need for personal repentance and the acceptance of Christ's redemptive work. The universality of sin underscores the comprehensive nature of Christ's atonement, which is available to all who believe (1 John 1:8-9).
Paul begins with a hinge word that links everything he is about to say with what he has just declared. In Romans 5:1–11 he celebrated the peace, hope, and reconciliation believers enjoy “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Now, with “Therefore,” he turns to explain why Christ’s work is indispensable. The flow is:
• Peace with God (Romans 5:1)
• Joy in suffering (Romans 5:3–5)
• God’s love proven at the cross (Romans 5:8)
• Reconciliation accomplished (Romans 5:10–11)
“Therefore” sets up a contrast: the ruin Adam caused versus the rescue Christ provides (see 1 Corinthians 15:21–22).
The Spirit, speaking through Paul, treats Adam as a real historical person whose single act of disobedience (Genesis 3:6) opened the floodgates of evil. Key truths:
• Sin was not created by God; it “entered.”
• The entry point was “one man,” Adam, emphasizing individual responsibility (Hosea 6:7).
• Adam represents the entire human race; this is the basis for Paul’s later comparison with the “one Man” Christ (Romans 5:15).
Death is not a natural evolution; it is the direct wage of sin (Romans 6:23). God had warned, “In the day that you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Scripture consistently pairs sin and death:
• Physical death: the body returns to dust (Genesis 3:19; Hebrews 9:27).
• Spiritual death: separation from God (Ephesians 2:1–3).
• Eternal death: the “second death” for those outside Christ (Revelation 20:14).
The consequence did not remain confined to Adam and Eve; it spread universally. Evidence surrounds us:
• Universal mortality (Psalm 90:10).
• A creation “subjected to futility” (Romans 8:20–22).
• Even infants, though sinless in personal acts, still die, confirming the reach of Adam’s fall (see 1 Kings 14:13 for God’s compassion yet realism about inherited ruin).
Humanity is not merely the victim of Adam; each person ratifies Adam’s rebellion.
• We inherit a corrupted nature (Psalm 51:5).
• We commit personal sins (Romans 3:23).
• Our shared guilt is proven by universal judgment (Ezekiel 18:4).
This phrase balances the previous clause: inherited death and personal culpability stand together.
Romans 5:12 traces a straight line: Adam’s single sin opened the door, sin brought death, death spread to everyone, and every person confirms the verdict by personal sin. The verse explains the universal human need that only Christ, the “last Adam,” satisfies (1 Corinthians 15:45). Sin and death came through one man; righteousness and life come through One greater, our Lord Jesus Christ.
(12-21) Contrast between the reign of death introduced by the sin of Adam, and the reign of life introduced by the atonement of Christ.The sequence is, first sin, then death. Now, the death which passed over mankind had its origin in Adam's sin. Strictly speaking, there could be no individual sin till there was a law to be broken. But in the interval between Adam and Moses, i.e., before the institution of law, death prevailed, over the world. which was a proof that there was sin somewhere. The solution is, that the sin in question was not the individual guilt of individual transgressors, but the single transgression of Adam. Here, then, is the contrast. The single sin of the one man, Adam, brought death upon all mankind; the single act of the one Redeemer cleared away many offences--also for all men. Under the old dispensation law entered in to intensify the evil; but, in like manner, under the new, grace has come in to enhance and multiply the benefit. Thus the remedial system and the condemnatory system are co-extensive, the one over against the other, and the first entirely cancels the second.
(12) Wherefore.--The train of thought which follows is suggested by the mention which had just been made of atonement, reconciliation. We see here another instance of the Apostle's fondness for transcendental theology, and for the development of the deeper mysteries of God's dealings with man. The rapidity with which ideas of this kind throng into his brain is such as to break the even flow and structure of his sentence.
As by one man.--This clause, "As by one man sin and death entered," ought to have been answered by "So by one Man grace and life entered." But a difficulty occurs at the very outset. How can it really be said that sin and death entered by Adam? For sin does not exist without law, and the law did not come in till Moses. And yet we have proof that sin must have been there; for death, its consequence, prevailed all through this period in which law was still wanting. The fact was, the sin which then prevailed, and had such wide and disastrous effects, was Adam's. So that it is strictly legitimate to compare his fall with the act of redemption. It is strictly true to say that by one man sin and death entered into the world, as life and grace entered by another. In either case the consequence was that of one man's act.
For that all have sinned.--.Rather, for that, or because, all sinned--i.e., not by their own individual act, but implicitly in Adam's transgression. They were summed up, and included in him as the head and representative of the race.
Verses 12-21. - (b) From consideration of the blessed effects on believers of faith in the reconciliation through Christ, the apostle now passes to the effects of that reconciliation as the position of the whole human race before God. His drift is that the reconciliation corresponds to the original transgression; both proceeded from one, and both include all mankind in their results; as the one introduced sin into the world, and, as its consequence, death, so the other introduced righteousness, and, as its consequence, life. It may be observed that in ch. 1 also he has in one sense traced sin backward through the past ages, so as to show how all mankind had come to be under condemnation for it. But the subject was regarded from a different point of view, the purpose of the argument being also different. There he was addressing the heathen world, his purpose being to convince the whole of it of sin, on the score of obvious culpability; and, suitably to this design, his argument is based, not on Scripture, but on observation of the facts of human nature and human history. It did not fall within his scope to trace the evil to its original cause. But here, having shown Jew and Gentile to be on the same footing with respect to sin, and having entered (at Romans 3:21) on the doctrinal portion of his Epistle, he goes to Scripture for the origin of the evil, and finds it there attributed to Adam's original transgression, which implicated the human race as an organic whole. This is the scriptural solution of the mystery, which he here gives, not only as accounting for things being as they are, but also, in connection with the stage of the argument at which he has now arrived, as explaining the necessity and the purpose of the atonement for the whole guilty race, effected by the second Adam, Christ. Verse 12. - Wherefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. To this sentence, introduced by ὥσπερ, there is no apodosis. One has been sought in the course of what follows, and by some found in ver. 18. But ver. 18 is a recapitulation rather than resumption of the argument, and is, further, too far removed to be intended as a formal apodesis. It is not really necessary to find one. The natural one to the first clause of the sentence would have been, "So through One righteousness entered into the world, and life through righteousness;" and such may be supposed to have been in the writer's mind. But, after his manner, he goes off to enlarge on the idea expressed in the second clause, and never formally completes his sentence. A similar anacoluthon is found in 1 Timothy 1:3. Sin is here, as elsewhere, regarded as a power antagonistic to God, which has been introduced into the world of man, working and manifesting itself in concrete human sin (cf. Romans 5:21; Romans 6:12, 14; Romans 7:8, 9, 17). Its ultimate origin is not explained. Scripture offers no solution of the old insoluble problem, κόθεν τὸ κακὸν: its existence at all under the sway of the Omnipotent Goodness in which we believe is one of the deep mysteries that have ever baffled human reason. All that is here touched on is its entrance into the world of man, the word εἰσῆλθε implying that it already existed beyond this mundane sphere. The reference is, of course, to Gem fit., as the scriptural account of the beginning of sin in our own world. It is there attributed to "the serpent," whom we regard as a symbol of some mysterious power of evil, external to man, to which primeval man, in the exercise of his prerogative of free-will, succumbed, and so let sin in. Through sin entered also death as its consequence; which (primarily at least) must mean here physical death, this being all that is denoted in Genesis (comp. Genesis 3:19 with Gen 2:17), and necessary to be understood in what follows in the chapter before us (see ver. 14). But here a difficulty presents itself to modern thought. Are we to understand that man was originally so constituted as not to die? - that even his bodily organization was immortal, and would have continued so but for the fatal taint of sin? We find it difficult at the present day to conceive this, however bound we may feel to submit our reason to revelation in a matter so remote, so unknown, and so mysterious as the beginning of human life on the earth, in whatever aspect viewed, and indeed of all conscious life, must ever be. But St. Paul himself, in another place, speaks of "the first man" having been, even on his first creation, "of the earth, earthy" (1 Corinthians 15:45, 47), with a body, like ours, of" flesh and blood," in its own nature corruptible (1 Corinthians 15:50). Neither is the narrative of Genesis 3. inconsistent with this idea. For it seems to imply that, but for his eating of the mystical "tree of life" (whatever may be meant by it), the first man was in his own nature mortal, and that his liability to death ensued on his being debarred from it (Genesis 3:22). It may be impossible for us to understand or explain. The following considerations, however, may perhaps help us in some degree.(1) When we pay regard to man's spiritual capabilities and aspirations, even as he is now, death does seem to us an anomaly - a contradiction to the ideal of his inner self. That a beast of the field should die appears to us no such anomaly; for it has done all that it seems to have been meant to do, or to be capable of doing: it has served as a link in the continuance of its kind, not having been conscious, as far as we know, of anything beyond its surroundings. But man (i.e. man as he is capable of being, so as to represent the capacity of humanity) connects himself in his inner self with eternity; his mind resents the idea of death, as an unwelcome stoppage to its development and its yearnings. It goes on ever maturing its power, enlarging its range, thirsting for higher knowledge, entertaining affections that seem eternal; and then bodily decay and death arrest its progress as it were in mid-career. Thus death, as it comes to us and affects us now, seems to involve a contradiction between man's inner consciousness and the facts of his existence at present; it is shrunk from as something that ought not to be. It is true that, when faith has once grasped the idea of bodily death being but a transition to a better life, the anomaly disappears: but such is its aspect to the natural man: and thus we can enter into the scriptural idea of death, as it comes to us so inevitably now, being something not originally meant for man, though we may be unable to say how it would have been with him had not sin entered.
(2) Though physical death, obvious to men's eyes, and not spiritual death of the soul either in this world or in the world to come, is here evidently in view (see ver. 14), yet we must bear in mind the general idea associated with the word "death" in the New Testament. It is sometimes used so as to imply more than the mere parting of the soul from the body, including in the conception of what it is all the woes and infirmities that flesh is heir to, which are its precursors in the present state of things (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:31; 2 Corinthians 4:10, 12, 16; 2 Corinthians 6:9), being thus regarded also as the visible sign before our eyes of man's present alienation from the life that is in God. St. Paul, then, in the passage before us, though alleging mere natural death as sufficient evidence of sin, may be conceived as having in his view Death armed as he has been with a peculiar sting to man through all known time. The main point of his argument is that the doom recorded in Genesis as having been pronounced on Adam had obviously remained in force throughout the ages; and there is surely no difficulty in assenting to the position that the dominion of death, as it has been exercised since that doom, is evidence of its continuance, and consequently of sin. "For that all sinned" (more correctly so than, as in the Authorized Version, "all have sinned") seems to mean, not that all since Adam in their own persons committed sin, but that all sinned in him - were implicated in the sin of the progenitor (cf. ver. 15; also 1 Corinthians 15:22, "in Adam all die;" and 2 Corinthians 5:14, where all are said to have died to sin in the death of Christ). The doctrine of original, as distinct from actual, sin, thus intimated, has been, as is well known, the subject of much controversy since the time of Pelagius. It does not fall within the proper scope of this Commentary to discuss the theories of divines, but rather to set forth candidly what the language of the portions of Scripture commented on in itself most obviously means, viewed in the light afforded by general Scripture teaching. With respect to the passage before us, it may suffice to say:
(1) That more must be understood than the mere imputation of Adam's transgression to his descendants, irrespectively of any guilt of theirs. This notion, which jars on our conception of Divine justice, is precluded by the entire drift of the earlier chapters of this Epistle, which was the actual culpability of mankind at large, and also by what follows here, sin itself being spoken of - not the imputation of it only - as being in the world after Adam, and universal too, as evidenced by the continued reign of death. All men are said to have sinned in the sin of the first transgressor, because sin was thus introduced, as a power in human nature antagonistic to God, and because this "infection of nature" has continued since. And thus . . .
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