Romans - Lesson 24

Class Discussion on Romans 5:12-21 

A. Challenges in Interpreting Romans 5:12 

Question: 
The preposition eph ho can mean something like whereupon, on which, it doesn’t have to be because. But there is a real reticence to accept that as a reading, and to me that solves the problem because it is saying “on death passing into humanity, all sinned.” So, then you don’t have to worry about in Adam or anything else, it’s just saying that sin is a by-product of spiritual death.  To me it solves the problem. I don’t understand why there is such reticence. 

Dr. Moo: 
I would argue that it creates a problem. The problem has two levels it seems to me with that view. It is a fairly popular view. Tom Schreiner argues this in his commentary; Fitzmeyer in his commentary argues it. So, it is not the majority view, but it is certainly fairly popular.

The problem I have with taking it that way is two-fold. First of all, the idea that death spread to everyone on the basis of which, that is death, all sinned. You really have to add something to have this make any sense at all. On the basis of death, all sinned. Death spread to everybody, on the basis of death, all sinned. 

The question then is what does death mean here? Should we take death to mean a corrupt human nature? This is a meaning for the word that I don’t find anywhere else in scripture. So that to me creates a problem to begin with. 

The second problem is that it reverses the way Paul argues in verses 18 and 19 which are parallel. In the verses 18 and 19, the argument is not that people sin because they are dead; the argument is that people die because they sin. That then would mean that verse 12 seems to run in the opposite direction that Paul is very clearly arguing in verses 18 and 19.

Those are the contextual reasons I have a problem with it. Yes, the phrase in Greek can mean, ‘on the basis of which’ or something like that. It also means ‘because’ very often as well. To me, it is very significant when so many of the English translations use the word ‘because’ here. 

Let me methodologically talk about that for a moment, not just because I am a translator, but because translations are processes that the text has gone through. When you have a translation, that translation has been through the sieve of a number of different people. They are looking at the text and arguing about what it means and then they come to a conclusion.  Therefore, our English translations are an invaluable exegetical resource that I think are underused sometimes. 

All commentators, me included, have their personal bias; we are writing our own views. Sometimes they are not checked very carefully; most of these are serious editors, but sometimes the editors do a very light job and don’t really get involved very much interacting with what you are doing. 

Once a particular word or phrase ends up in an English translation of the Bible, it has been through several committees usually and a lot of scholars have looked at it, argued about it and debated it. Those tend to be the more legitimate exegetical options. Often by comparing six or seven translations of the Bible you can really have a window into the options of any verse. Here are the different exegetical views that emerge. 

Now, the fact that English translations haven’t picked up that alternative up is not a definitive case against it by any means. But it does suggest to me that people are seeing the same kind of problems that I am seeing and that is why they tend to translate it as ‘because’ here.

B. What is the Meaning of “Death Reigned until Moses”? 

Question: 
I struggle with verse 14 talking about death reigning until Moses, even though they hadn’t broken the law. I think also about Enoch who walked with God and was taken to be with God; he did not die.  It is a curious thing to me in verse 14 and what it means when he says that death reigned.

Dr. Moo: 
Verse 14 is one of those verses where we all have this experience. We try to work with a passage and understand it; we read everybody we can think of but at the end of the day, we still don’t really understand it. This is that kind of verse for me; I am still not sure about verse 13 and 14. People keep writing about it. I read an article on it three or four months ago about it; it was on a new way of reading the two verses. It was interesting but I wasn’t completely convinced in what it was saying. They are difficult verses. It’s really tough. 

Clearly Paul wants to say that people between Adam and Moses were caught up in sin and condemned because of it. Even before the Law of Moses was given, God counts sin against people. I think we are going to see in Romans 7 especially that Paul also sees that the coming of God’s Law increased responsibility for sin. That might be the sort of thing that Paul is talking about here.

C. There was Faith in Adam’s Day. 

Question: 
I try to view it from faith to faith, and so maybe this is an implied way of saying that even back in Adam’s day, it was faith that would save you. 

Dr. Moo: 
That could be part of it as well. In verses 13 and 14, this is where Paul sort of interrupts himself with these two verses. He interrupts himself in terms of the Law. That is a thread throughout Romans, even when Paul is talking about Adam and Christ, he has to recognize that he has to say something about the Law here also because that was such a significant moment in the history of Israel. He does the same thing in verse 20 as well where he talks about the Law: “The Law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.” Paul’s point again is to say, particularly against the Jewish understanding, that he hadn’t talked about the Law because the Law didn’t provide a solution to Adam’s sin. The Law made the situation worse if anything. Paul feels the need to bring in the issue of the Law here in some way.

D. This Could Have Something to do with Jewish Teaching regarding Sin: 

Question: 
I wonder whether he is responding to a Jewish teaching that people didn’t die until they transgressed the Law. 

Dr. Moo: 
That is possible; the Jewish people put so much emphasis on the Law and you do have, in some Jewish writings an interest in the age of accountability; when does a Jewish child become truly responsible for their spiritual state? Hence, the Bar Mitzvah, the Bas Mitzvah, that developed out of that idea. 

Question: 
So, a person is relatively sin free but then at that first conscious sin, that first rebellion against the Law, they began to die.  

Dr. Moo: 
It would make sense against that background.

E. What Does it Mean that God “Passed Over” Sins? 

Question: 
We are talking about death reigning from Adam to Moses, in chapter 3:25 it talks about God passed over former sins. How do you bring those two together? 

Dr. Moo: 
The “pass over” there has a sense that God did not punish with the full seriousness that sin deserved. It doesn’t mean that God ignored it or over-looked it. Paul knows his Old Testament well enough. He knows that all of those people died; all those people were condemned and the Old Testament makes that clear. It is the fact that God did not punish sin with the eternal death that it deserved, and that is because of Christ.

F. What About Infant Death and Salvation?  

Question: 
You brought up infant death and have probably answered the question many times.  I’ve heard Piper answer the question and he will on the one hand say that the elect are saved, and not elect, but that all infants that have will be saved. But I never heard an explanation of how that works.

Dr. Moo: 
I don’t understand that either. Granted Piper’s theology, in my view this is somewhat an inconsistent approach. So, I am not sure how he works that out either.

G. Universal Death is Spiritual, not Physical: 

Question: 
What about the two men in the Old Testament who did not die? 

Dr. Moo: 
There are always exceptions that make the rule as it were. Obviously, these two men were transformed in a sense directly from life into heaven. I would argue that they did die spiritually, that they, like all human beings they were in spiritual death, but their faith rescued them from that death. They didn’t pass through the experience of physical death, just as believers who are alive when Christ returns will not pass through the experience of physical death. But that doesn’t mean that they weren’t spiritually dead at some point. 

Since Paul is talking about spiritual death, his point is that is a universal experience. Not all human beings will experience physical death. You have exceptions in the Old Testament and you have a lot of people who will be exceptions, Christians who are alive when Christ returns in glory. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t spiritually dead, which is the point Paul is focusing on here.