Sin and Death, Death and Sin

Thomas Schreiner offers an intriguing reading of the end of Rom 5:12, “death spread to all men EPH HO all sinned.” The Greek phrase has long been a crux: Most recent commentators take the phrase as causal – death spread because all sinned; Augustine interpreted it as equivalent to “in him,” concluding that all men sinned in Adam; John Murray used this as a basis for the doctrine of the imputation of Adam’s sin; others have suggested that the antecedent of the pronoun HO is “death.”

Schreiner rejects this last possibility as it stands, arguing that EPH HO “is an idiom that does not point to a specific antecedent (2 Cor 5:4; Phil 3:12; 4:10).” But he suggests that the idea that there is a reference to death in the phrase is “theologically promising.” He also rejects the notion that the phrase is causal, picking up on Fitzmyer’s suggestion that the phrase could be “consecutive,” naming a result of the spread of death rather than a cause. He points out that the commentators who defend a causal interpretation differ among themselves about what that involves (which doesn’t mean it’s wrong, of course). More importantly, he notes that the most natural reading of “all sinned” is that it is a reference to “the personal and individual sins of all people.” If we go no further than that, however, we are left with a Pelagian view in which men sin simply be imitating Adam’s unfortunate actions. But this cannot be, Schreiner says, given the parallels between Adam and Christ; it would surely not be true to Paul to say that righteousness comes by our imitation of Christ’s one act of righteousness.

Schreiner concludes that 12b should be translated as “death spread to all men, with the result that all sinned.” He points out that “death” does not refer only or even primarily to physical death, citing Gen 3 in support. Death is fundamentally estrangement from God, and it is because all are born in this state of death that they sin. Ephesians 2, he argues, provides a parallel sequence: “God remedies the situation [of death in sin] by granting life to those of us who are dead and as a result of his life we do good works . . . . the consequence of death is trespasses and sins, whereas the result of life is good works.” Paul teaches a doctrine of “original death,” which results from Adam’s sin. Of course, the sequence in Paul is not always death-sin, but can move in the other direction as well (Rom 1:32; 6:16, 21, 23; 7:5, 10, 13, 8:2).

A couple of additional comments that support Schreiner’s reading. First, his interpretation fits nicely with the concrete details of Genesis. Adam sinned and was chased from the Garden, and from the tree of life. When his children were born, that judgment against Adam applied to his children as well: Cain and Abel were not allowed to reenter the garden either. They were born in a state of original death, exclusion from God and alienation from him.

Second, the structure of the passage could be taken as support for Schreiner. 5:12 is chiastically structured:

A. sin entered world (Adam’s sin)
B. death came through sin
B. death spread to all men
A. and as a result/on the basis of this all sinned (personal sins)

In the first half of the verse, Adam’s sin has the consequence of admitting death into the world. In the second half of the verse, the contagion of death spreads and reigns over men with the result that all sin. Adam’s sin brought death; death brings sin.