The Imputation of Adam's Sin
S. Lewis Johnson, Jr.
Introduction
The Christian church has lost the sense of the importance of theology. The church, therefore, is weak. "We hear, repeatedly," Elton Trueblood has said, "the cliché that deeds are everything while beliefs are unimportant; but this is manifest nonsense. The truth is that belief leads to action, and acting often depends upon believing. We are wise to remind ourselves of what Dr. Johnson said to Boswell on July 14, 1763, apropos of a man who denied the existence of a moral order: 'If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why Sir, when he leaves our house, let us count our spoons. '" [1]
One of the great theological words is the word imputation. It means to think (cf. Rom. 2:3) , to count (4:3) , and to reckon (6:11) , or perhaps we should say, more accurately, that the verb to impute means those things. The Greek verb logidsomai and the Hebrew verb chashab, which underlie the English words in the English translations, mean essentially the same thing (cf. Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3, 6).
There are three great acts of imputation in the Bible. They are these:
First, the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, or to the whole race of men (cf. 1 Cor. 15:21-22).
Second, there is the imputation of the sin of the elect to Jesus Christ, who bore that sin's penalty in His death upon the cross (cf. 2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13).
Third, the imputation of the righteousness of God to the elect (cf. Rom. 3:24-26; 4:1-8).
It is to the first of these imputations that the passage in Romans 5:12 refers. In it Paul offers an important interpretation of the sin of Adam, one that is fundamental for all theology.
The question of the imputation of sin to the human race raises many questions, some of which are more important than others. For example, one might ask, "Is the doctrine of sin itself all that important?" The answer to that is very easy. Of course, for that is the reason that He came in the first place, is it not? Does not the evangelist make that point (cf. Matt. 1:21)?
But, "Is the human situation today the same as in Paul's day?" Well, one could hardly call Paul dated. He is vindicated in his teaching every day. Unbelief, pride, materialism, and all the other products of the Adamic nature, abound in the present culture.
But, "Is Paul's diagnosis true and tenable?" Have the march of scientific advance and the discoveries of modern psychology antiquated the Pauline solution? Is modern man's predicament really due simply to capitalism as the Marxist might claim? Is it due to ignorance and lack of heart as the modern liberal says? Can we expect these philosophies to rid us of the sin that doth so easily beset us and bring us on thinkers' wings to the New Jerusalem on earth? When will man learn that he does evil, because he is evil? Speaking of the professing Christians of liberal persuasion, Reinhold Niebuhr once said something like this, namely, that such men and women had begun to put their trust in a God without wrath who brings men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross. [2] It is a brilliant and true insight. The holocaust of two world-wide conflicts and many other minor ones in this century have shown that thinking men and women cannot but believe that there is something radically wrong with the heart of man. Would that they would study the Pauline solution! Man does evil, Paul would say, because he is evil, and the root cause of the problem is what happened centuries ago in that beautiful garden planted by God. That is the subject of the text that we study in this message.
I. THE ORIGINATION OF HUMAN SIN AND DEATH
The source (Rom. 5:12a). The apostle opens the discussion by the statement, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin . . . ." And the first question the reader should have is, "What is the connection between verses twelve through twenty-one and verses one through eleven? Paul's connecting phrase, dia touto (AV/ "wherefore"), is causal and is to be rendered by for this cause. We shall by-pass the discussion of the meaning of the phrase and simply state the conclusion from my own study of the matter. Paul appears to me to be saying: For^ this cause, that is, we now have a sure salvation by one man, Jesus Christ, there exists this likeness between Christ and Adam.. As the-world was introduced to sin and death by the first Adam, so it has been introduced to righteousness and life by the Last Adam. Sin, condemnation, and death are by our human progenitor, just as righteousness, justification, and life are by our spiritual progenitor, Jesus Christ.
"The master-thought of the whole passage," Gifford believes, "is that unity of the many in the one, which forms the point of comparison between Adam and Christ." [3] So, if one should ask, How by the well-doing of one, Jesus Christ, are the many saved? it may be said, in reply, How by the disobedience of one, Adam, were the many condemned? The picture is that of solidarity, then, but of contrastive solidarity.
The apostle writes that the origination of human sin is to be traced to "one man." Paul alludes, of course, to the fall in the Garden of Eden. There, after the creation of Adam and Eve, God placed them and gave the terms of the probation to Adam, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; 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" (Gen. 2:16-17). The tree was not the symbol of the sex act, as some have contended, nor was it symbolic of wine. It was a test of man's creature-hood, for the condition hinged upon man's belief in the Word of God. And, of course, it was not provocation on God's part, for the maxi- mum of freedom was permitted man and the minimum was forbidden. Nevertheless, sin came and man fell. Adam became the instrumental cause by which sin entered the world.
The fact (Gen. 5:12a). The apostle writes, "sin entered." The sin of Adam in one sense was an irrational act, for no explanation of sin can be given that makes it reasonable. In this instance it arose in the heart of Adam as an inclination to take the fruit from the hand of his wife. At the moment that the inclination began, Adam sinned. The action that followed is the completion of the inclination. Adam, it is to be noted, wanted the one thing that was forbidden him. Like a little child, who has all the toys but one, and yet tries to get that one from his playmate, so Adam, the big child, acted childishly and evilly by desiring the fruit from the tree in the midst of the garden.
The apostle's use of the word, "entered," should be noted, too. The word, which looks at the fall by its tense, suggests that sin was in existence in the universe before the fall (cf. 1 Tim. 2:14). Paul gives us no details of that fact, although there are some hints in other parts of the Scripture that seem to say that sin began in heaven with the sin of Lucifer (cf. John 8:44; Ezek. 28:11-19; Isa. 14:12-17). At any rate, Adam's sin was the original human sin, so far as the devastating results for the human race are concerned.
The result (Gen. 5:12a). The catastrophic result of the first human sin is stated in the words, "and death by sin." The fact that sin is said to be the basis of universal death strongly implies that Adam's sin has produced universal sin. The clause, "and death by sin," clearly teaches that death is a penal evil and, as Hodge points out, "not a con- sequence of the original constitution of man." [4] That which was implied in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 is here stated plainly. While Chrysostom, Augustine, and Meyer regarded the death here as physical, the greater number of commentators regard it as both physical (cf. 5:14; Gen. 3:9) and spiritual (cf. 5:18, 21; 6:23: here the death is contrasted with spiritual life, for Paul writes, "eternal life").
There are three aspects to the death that is the result of sin, although the penalty is really one penalty. The first aspect has to do with spiritual death. It is clear from the fact that Adam was told "in the day" that he ate of the fruit he would die that the reference to death is fundamentally spiritual, for he did not die physically when he ate the fruit. Thus, death in Genesis 2:17 must be spiritual death.
The second aspect is seen in Genesis 3:19, where, after Adam had fallen, it was said that he should eventually become dust. The words are, "for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." There the reference is plainly to physical death.
The third aspect is found in Genesis 3:22-24, where man is driven forth from the Garden of Eden, and the way back is barred to sinning man forever. More clearly, however, is the death that is eternal found in Revelation 20:11-15.
To sum up, when Adam sinned, he died spiritually immediately. In Adam's case, he was brought to faith and thus escaped the eternal effects of spiritual death. He did not, however, escape the effects of physical death, and he eventually died physically. When the unbelieving man dies, he dies physically, for he was already dead spiritually. Thus, spiritual death leads to physical death and, if salvation does not come, then that spiritual death, which leads to physical death, is prolonged to eternal death. The three aspects of death, then, are spiritual, physical, and eternal.
The remedies of death are set forth in the Word of God also. The remedy for spiritual death is eternal life, the gift of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the suffering and crucified Savior. The remedy of physical death is the bodily resurrection, which takes place at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ for believers. For eternal death there is no remedy!
II. THE IMPUTATION OF SIN AND DEATH
The apostle moves from the entrance of sin in one man to its penetration to all. He writes, "and so death passed upon all men." The death referred to is probably physical in its emphasis, but it appears to me that in this context it is inseparable from spiritual death.
The most interesting words are, "passed upon all men." The Greek word is one that means literally passed through. With it the apostle refers to the diffusion of sin and death and, since he adds "upon all men, it is clear that he thinks of the diffusion of sin as universal in its scope. One is reminded of the psalmist's, "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies" (58:3), and of Moses1, "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; FOR THE IMAGINATION OF MAN'S HEART IS EVIL FROM HIS YOUTH; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done" (Gen. 8:21).
"Oh, the awful power which sin thus to turn the world into one vast cemetery, and to slay the whole human race," Mr. Spurgeon said. [5]
Barnhouse writes, "Some who read these words may react against the truth that we set forth. But we remind them that we do not originate truth, we reflect it. We teach only what is in the Word of God. If you quarrel with us, you must first prove that we are teaching what the Bible does not teach.
"Throughout the Bible, the principle of collective judgment because of sin is taught. In the Ten Commandments we read: 'I the Lord your God am a jealous God (jealous for them to have the best) visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations . . . (Ex. 20:5, 6)." [6] Cf. Ezek. 18:2.
Ill. THE FOUNDATION OF THE IMPUTATION
The final clause of the verse has been one of the major battlegrounds of the systems of theology. In what sense may we say that all sinned? That is the question. Now, there are a number of interpretations that have been offered, and it is impossible within the limits of this paper to speak of them all. What I shall attempt to do is to refer to the most important of them, and then to suggest one for consideration as the most likely view of Paul.
First, there are many who, like Pelagius, but including such distinguished scholars as James Denney [7] and C. K. Barrett, [8] who refer the last clause to the actual personal sins of individual men (cf. 3:23). This interpretation would be more likely, if the present tense had been used, "for all are sinning." Further, the repeated claim is made in vv. 15-19 that only one sin is the cause of the death of all. Five times Paul makes that point. Finally, verse fourteen is opposed to this view, for there it is stated that certain persons, part of the all and ones who suffer death as the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's-- that is, individual and conscious transgressions. They must, then, have died because of Adam's sin. The Pelagian theory, therefore, in spite of its illustrious advocates, must be discarded. [9]
Second, there are many who have seen in the clause a reference to a realistic union between Adam and his descendants. This view, like the final two to be discussed, is based on a common understanding of the relation of the final clause to the main clause. It is admitted that the death of all is grounded in the sin of all (v. 12), and that the death of all is grounded also in the sin of one, Adam (vv. 15-19). In some way and for some reason, Paul is able to say that one sinned and that all sinned--and in both statements refer to the same fact. [10] This solidarity and universality, or this union, must be a part of any explanation of Romans 5:12. Shedd contended that the union between Adam and his posterity was genealogical and biological and must be regarded as natural or seminal (cf. Heb. 7:9-10). Thus, men were co-sinners with Adam in the fullest sense of the term. All the individuals descending from Adam participated in his humanity, which was a specific and numerically one entity, and, thus, in his act of sin. They were in him really when he sinned. The interpretation does full justice to the past tense in "sinned," but there are insurmountable objections to the view. Since at the time Adam sinned, his posterity as individuals and persons did not exist, how was it possible for them to act in Adam? Can we act in a real sense, before we are? Second, Romans five over and over relates our sin and guilt to the act of one man, but never once to the act of all men, which one would expect, if realism were true. Further, the analogy drawn in the passage between Adam and Christ is broken, for our justification is not related to the fact that we were in Christ seminally when He died for our sins. Finally, the last clause of verse fourteen overthrows realism, for it suggests that there is a different modus in sinning for some people. Realism, however, cannot admit any, for by its very definition every man is supposed to have been in Adam, when he sinned.
Third, two final views involve the principle of imputation and the truth of representative union. One is called mediate imputation, and the other immediate imputation. Those holding the theory of mediate imputation contended that, instead of making Adam's first sin the ground of human condemnation and the corrupt nature a consequence, the corrupt nature inherited from Adam is the ground of condemnation. The guilt of the first sin becomes, then, dependent upon participation in the corrupt nature. This view originated with Josua Placaeus, a distinguished professor at the French theological school at Saumur, the school of Moise Amyraut, the foremost proponent of hypothetical universalism in the doctrine of the atonement, or popularly, "four point Calvinism." Aside from the fact that the word, "sinned," cannot mean became corrupt as those who held this view contended, it is inconsistent with the parallelism drawn between Adam and Christ in the passage. Just as we are not justified by inherent righteousness, so we are not condemned by inherent corruption. And also, if inherent depravity is a punishment— and it is hardly possible to argue otherwise— then guilt must have preceded it. What, then, could the guilt be other than the guilt of Adam's first sin?
Fourth, we come, then, to the theory of immediate imputation. According to it, men are understood to have stood their probation in Adam, their natural, or seminal, and representative head. Thus, his act was deemed their act; his sin was their sin. As the Scriptures say, they sinned in Adam (cf. 5:12, 18-19; 1 Cor. 15:22). This is immediate imputation. There is much in the Bible that supports this view. First of all, Adam was a representative head, for the promises of dominion given to him were also given to the race, as the unfolding of the Word of God indicates. The threats given to Adam were threats for the race, and the consequences of his sin fully indicate that. The penal evils have affected the whole race. Further, it is implied in the fact that men are born spiritually dead, evidently under a curse (cf. Eph. 2:1-5). Third, it is most suitable to the illustrative analogy between Adam and Christ drawn by Paul in the section. He says all die because all have sinned (cf. v. 12). Then in vv. 13-19 he says that all die because one sinned. He is hardly dealing with two different things. The one fact may be expressed in terms of both plurality and singularity. The sin of all is the sin of one. The solidarity must be that of federal, or covenantal, representation. [11] Fourth, it enables us to see why only the first sin of Adam and not his subsequent sins, nor the sin of Eve, is imputed to men. Fifth, it is the only interpretation that satisfies the requirements of the relation of vv. 13-14 to v. 12. The "for" indicates that vv. 13-14 are designed to substantiate the statement of verse twelve. If, however, verse twelve means that all men are sinners (cf. Pelagius), or that all have become corrupt (mediate imputation), or even that all actually sinned in Adam (realism), the verses do not substantiate the assertion of verse twelve. If, however, verse twelve asserts that all have sinned in their representative, then everything is clear.
Conclusion
I think I know what some are thinking! First of all, you are saying, "It is not right that something Adam has done before I was born should affect my eternal lot." Well, really it does not, for you may turn in repentance and faith to the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, and be saved eternally.
Actually, if one reflects upon the divine scheme here, he will soon come to the conviction that it is the best possible method of saving men and women. If the testing, or probation, of man were individual, then most of us admit we would have fallen. We would not have had the fact of being the representative for all of our posterity as a check on us to prevent us from easily falling. The representation by Adam makes it possible for the principle to be operative in the case of Christ. He may become our Representative in our salvation. The angels sinned individually, and they have no representative for salvation. I must confess that I like the principle of representation. We fell through no personal fault of our own; we rise through no personal merit of our own. When a father strikes oil, the children get rich. And we have hit a gusher in the Last Adam!
Footnotes
1 Elton Trueblood, A Place to Stand (New York, 1969), p. 19.
2 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Kingdom of- God in America, p. 193.
3 Gifford, p. 115.
4 Hodge, Romans , p. 147.
5 Spurgeon, III, 26.
6 Barnhouse, II, 47.
7 Denney, II, 627-28.
8 Barrett, P. 111.
9 Pelagius ' views, see Pelagius ' Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of_ St. Paul, ed. by A. Souter (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 45, 48.
10 John Murray, The Imputation' of Adam ' s Sin (Grand Rapids, 1959), p. 21.
11 Ibid., Romans, I, 185-86.
Source:
http://teachall.net/hl/slj/systematic_theology/anthropology/adamsin.htm