As Paul argues for justification by faith in Romans, he makes one of the most profound and yet misunderstood arguments in the whole book in the last part of chapter 5. In this passage he compares and contrasts the effects of the sin of Adam and the righteous act of Christ on the cross as those effects relate to those in Adam and those in Christ.

He begins with the statement that death entered the world though sin just as sin entered the world through one human being (v. 11), that man being Adam. God had told Adam that if he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil he would die (Gen. 2:17). Adam extended that command to his wife Eve (Gen. 3:3) and she broke the command first, but Paul places the blame on Adam (cf. 1 Cor. 15:22) because when God confronted Adam He said, "I told you [singular], 'You [singular] shall not eat of it'" (Gen. 3:17). Eve merely became the voice in contrast to God's. There were consequences of disobedience: man would have to work painfully by the sweat of his brow to till the now cursed ground and ultimately he would return to the dirt from which he was created (Gen. 3:17-19). He was now a "dead man walking." Sometimes it is argued that Adam died spiritually that day when he sinned (Eph. 2:1), but however that might be, God explained the consequence of his disobedience as physical death, returning to the dust of the ground. So when Paul is talking about death, he is referring to physical death brought about by Adam's sin.

Paul goes on to state that death spread to all people because all sinned. He does not say that all people sin, a statement equally true with the exception of Christ and infants too young to sin. Rather he makes the statement in the past tense. How can we understand this? I submit that this is a statement sometimes described as using the "federal headship" concept. An example of this is found in Hebrews 7:9-10. There Levi is said to have paid tithes to Melchizedek because he was in the loins of Abraham when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. We understand there was a time when all that we are physically was in our parents and before that in our grandparents, and so forth. If fact, if we go back far enough, all people were at one time in Adam and Eve, and since Eve was made from Adam's side, all were at one time in Adam. The name Adam means "mankind," and thus Gen. 5:2 says that both the male and the female were called Adam/Mankind when they were created. The man Adam was told that he must return to the dust from which he was created, but a little bit of him survived in his children and then in his grandchildren, and so forth. Adam/Mankind is now some seven billion in number, but we all are cursed to die. That this understanding is the correct one is seen from verse 15 where Paul writes that "many died through one man's trespass," and verse 19 where he says that "many were made sinners by one man's disobedience."

Now someone might say that people die because of their own sins. For some people this is true. The daughters of Zelophehad said that their father died because of his own sin (Num. 27:3). However, David's first child by Bathsheba died because of David's sin, not the child's (2 Sam. 12:14). People may cause their own or others' death, but death is the fate of all because of Adam's sin.

Those who hold to the doctrine of original sin realize that Adam's sin is the cause of death, but they also want to make all people guilty before God because of that sin. They fail to distinguish between consequence and guilt. But Ezekiel 18:19-20 says that a person is not held guilty because of a parent's or child's sin. People suffer guilt for their own sins. The idea that we are guilty of Adam's sin is the pretext for baptizing babies, but Paul is clear in Romans that justification is by faith in Christ, and babies are not old enough to believe. They don't need salvation until they are old enough to have their own guilt.

For us the question then may be why do babies die, but for Paul the question was why did people between Adam and Moses die. It is true that they were sinners, but there was no law specifying the punishment for sin at that time like there was with the command that Adam disobeyed. Thus there was no transgression of the law (cf. Rom. 4:15). His answer is that they died because Adam sinned and they were in Adam.

Paul states that Adam is a type of the one who was to come, that is, the Christ. However, there is a big difference between the trespass of Adam and the free gift of Christ (v.15). The trespass of the one man Adam brought death to many people, while the gift of grace by the one man Jesus Christ abounded for many people. Unlike the gift, the sin of one man brought the condemnation of hard work and physical death, while the free gift that followed many trespasses of people brought righteousness (v. 16). Some would say that the condemnation of Adam's sin was suffering in hell, but that is not what the text of Genesis 3 says. Paul goes on to elaborate that if death reigned because of the one man Adam and his trespass then those receiving the abundance of both grace and the gift of righteousness would reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ (v. 17).

It follows then that just as all people were condemned to death through one trespass, all people will be acquitted resulting in life through one righteous act (v. 18), that is, the death of Jesus on the cross. Now this has been misunderstood to mean that all people in the world will ultimately be saved. That understanding ignores the main point of Romans that justification is by faith, that is, that God considers a person's faith to be his or her righteousness, which is elaborated in chapter 4. Those without faith will not be considered righteous. When Paul says all people he is referring in the first place to all people in Adam and in the second place to all people in Christ. He uses that language of "in Adam" and "in Christ" in a similar passage in 1 Corinthians 15:22. Just six verses later Paul states that one is baptized into Christ and into His death. The same understanding of "in Adam" and "in Christ" is implied in the next verse. Paul says that just as many were made sinners through the trespass of one man, that is, Adam, so many will be made righteous through the obedience of one man (v. 19), that is, Jesus Christ. Here again it is the many who are in Adam and the many who are in Christ. Although Paul does not use the language of "in Christ" here, he assumes the reader has previously read the preceding passages of the letter. This illustrates the danger of reading verses out of context. Paul elsewhere states that the wicked will "suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thess. 1:9).

Paul concludes his point about the comparison of Adam and Christ by going to the time of Moses and stating that the law was added to increase the trespass. With the giving of the law there was not only sin, but transgression of that law. But he says that where sin increased grace abounded even more (v. 20) so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness (that is, the righteousness from faith) to result in eternal life though Jesus Christ our Lord (v. 21). Praise God for his wonderful gift of grace through Jesus Christ's one act of righteousness on the cross.