Romans 5:12

These words clearly teach that original sin is common to all men, regardless of the personal sins of each one.

All men for whom Christ died died in the sin of the first Adam, and all who are baptized into Christ die to sin.

Since the apostle said: "By man death entered into the world," it was surely essential that the victory over death should be achieved by man as well, and the body of death be shown to be the body of life, and the reign of sin that before ruled in the mortal body be destroyed so that it should no longer serve sin but righteousness.

Such was the soul's first state. Created pure Through sordid union with the flesh it fell Into iniquity; stained by Adam's sin, It tainted all the race from him derived, And infant souls inherit at their birth The first man's sin; no one is sinless …

St. Paul says that when Adam sinned he became mortal because of it and passed both on to his descendants. Thus death came to all men, in that all sinned. But each person receives the sentence of death not because of the sin of his …

Everyone in the following of Adam has died, because they have all inherited their nature from him. But some have died because they themselves have sinned, while others have died only because of Adam's condemnation—for example, children.

Death entered into the first man, and into the beginnings of our race, because of sin, and very soon it had corrupted the entire race. In addition to this, the serpent who invented sin, after he had conquered Adam because of the latter's unfaithfulness, opened up a way for himself to enter the mind of man: "They are corrupt … there is none that does good." Therefore, having turned away from the face of the most holy God, and because the mind of man willingly inclined towards evil from its adolescence, we lived an absurd life, and death the conqueror devoured us accordingly.… For since we have all copied Adam's transgression and thus have all sinned, we have incurred a penalty equal to his. Yet the world was not without hope, for in the end sin was destroyed, Satan was defeated and death itself was abolished.

As the best physicians always take great pains to discover the source of diseases, and go to the very fountain of the mischief, so doth the blessed Paul also. Hence after having said that we were justified, and having shown it from the Patriarch, and from the Spirit, and from the dying of Christ (for He would not have died unless He intended to justify), he next confirms from other sources also what he had at such length demonstrated. And he confirms his proposition from things opposite, that is, from death and sin. How, and in what way? He enquires whence death came in, and how it prevailed. How then did death come in and prevail? "Through the sin of one." But what means, "for that all have sinned?" This; he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the tree did from him, all of them, become mortal.

"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death, and so death passed through to all men, in whom all sinned. For until the law sin was in this world. But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who sinned after the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the figure of him who was to come." After he had taught the difference between faith and the law, and between those who are justified through faith and those who cannot hope through the law for the promises that were made to the fathers; and when he had disclosed the hidden things of the secret mystery, that "when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled through the death of his Son," now he consequently sets forth also the reasons why we were enemies, and why that reconciliation required the death of the Son of God: so that, beholding how great the things are that Jesus has bestowed upon us — nay rather, how great the things are that he has endured for us — we may be held to him by a more deeply rooted faith and by an inseparable love. Therefore, though not in every respect laid open, he nevertheless indicates to us the account of yet another secret when he says: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into this world, and through sin death," and the rest. But before we come to the exposition of the whole chapter, a few things must be said about what appears in what follows to be a defect in the expression itself. […]

It is probably therefore with reference to the consummation that Salome says: "Until when shall men die?" The Scripture uses the word "man" in two senses, the outward man and the soul, and again of him who is being saved and him who is not; and sin is said to be the death of the soul. That is why the Lord gave a cautious answer - "As long as women bear children," that is, as long as the desires are active. "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin death came to all men, in that all sinned, and death reigned from Adam to Moses," says the apostle. By natural necessity in the divine plan death follows birth, and the coming together of soul and body is followed by their dissolution. If birth exists for the sake of learning and knowledge, dissolution leads to the final restoration.

So that no one can accuse God of injustice, in that we all die because of the fall of Adam, Paul adds: "and so all have sinned." Adam is the origin and the cause of the fact that we have all sinned in imitation of …

After indicating the benefits we obtained through Christ's grace, the Apostle now indicates the evils from which we were set free. And concerning this he does three things. First, he shows that through Christ's grace we have been freed from the slavery of sin; second, …

Having said that the Lord Jesus justified us, he turns to the root of evil, to sin and death, and shows that both the one and the other, that is, sin and death, entered the world through one man, Adam, and again by one and …

He does not therefore properly make a digression, but returns to speak again of sin and of righteousness. As by one man - Adam; who is mentioned, and not Eve, as being the representative of mankind. Sin entered into the world - Actual sin, and its consequence, a sinful nature.

, to the end ), which not only illustrates the truth he is discoursing of, but tends very much to the commending of the love of God and the comforting of the hearts of true believers, in showing a correspondence between our fall and our recovery, and not only a like, but a much greater power in the second Adam to make us happy, than there was in the first to make us miserable.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

26 ), so that according as this nature proves through his standing or falling, before he puts it out of his hands, accordingly it is propagated from him. Adam therefore sinning and falling, the nature became guilty and corrupt, and is so derived. Thus in him all have sinned. [2.] Death by sin, for death is the wages of sin.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-citation-number+unbalanced-parens

Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world,....

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world - From this verse, to the conclusion of the chapter, the apostle produces a strong argument to prove that, as all mankind stood in need of the grace of God in Christ to redeem them from their sins, so this grace has been afforded equally to all, both Jews and Gentiles. Dr. Taylor has given the following analysis of the apostle’s mode of argumentation. The argument stands thus: - “The consequences of Christ’s obedience extend as far as the consequences of Adam’s disobedience.

Rom 5:12-21 has been usually regarded as the most difficult part of the New Testament. It is not the design of these notes to enter into a minute criticism of contested points like this. They who wish to see a full discussion of the passage, may find it in the professedly critical commentaries; and especially in the commentaries of Tholuck and of Professor Stuart on the Romans. The meaning of the passage in its general bearing is not difficult; and probably the whole passage would have been found far less difficult if it had not been attached to a philosophical theory on the subject of man’s sin, and if a strenuous and indefatigable effort had not been made to prove that it teaches what it was never designed to teach. The plain and obvious design of the passage is this, to show one of the benefits of the doctrine of justification by faith. The apostle had shown, (1) That that doctrine produced peace, Rom 5:1. (2) That it produces joy in the prospect of future glory, Rom 5:2. (3) That it sustained the soul in afflictions; (a) By the regular tendency of afflictions under the gospel, Rom 5:3-4; and, (b) By the fact that the Holy Spirit was imparted to the believer. (4) That this doctrine rendered it certain that we should be saved, because Christ had died for us, Rom 5:6; because this was the highest expression of love, Rom 5:7-8; and because if we had been reconciled when thus alienated, we should be saved now that we are the friends of God, Rom 5:9-10. (5) That it led us to rejoice in God himself; produced joy in his presence, and in all his attributes. He now proceeds to show the bearing on that great mass of evil which had been introduced into the world by sin, and to prove that the benefits of the atonement were far greater than the evils which had been introduced by the acknowledged effects of the sin of Adam. […]

How could physical science prove that man is not depraved? You do not cut a man open to find his sins. You do not boil him until he gives forth the unmistakable green fumes of depravity. How could physical science find any traces of a …

In his new Utopia he says, for instance, that a chief point of the Utopia will be a disbelief in original sin. If he had begun with the human soul—that is, if he had begun on himself—he would have found original sin almost the first …

Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. But …