Thursday, April 24, 2008

Romans 5:12

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.
The propositional components of this verse are:
(1) Just as
(2) through one man sin entered into the world
(3) and death through sin
(4) and so
(5) death spread to all men because all sinned
The broad flow of the verse is governed by (1) and (4). The words indicated by (1) are important to isolate because they anticipate a parallel or a comparison through (4). (2) and (3) together will be the content joined to (5) by (1) and (4). In other words, there will be a parallel between the intent of “through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin” and the intent of “death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Defining the terms: The flow of (2), (3), and (5) hinges on identifying some generic terms which will indicate where Paul is expecting an identifiable (if not fully equivalent) relationship between terms or phrases. So, in (2), “through one man” refers to the act of one man, which will be labeled “A”, for “Adam sinned”. Also in (2), “sin entered into the world” will be “S” for “sin is present”. In (3), “death” will be “D”, for “death is present”, since Paul is borrowing the predicate “entered into the world” from the previous phrase. Those terms are all that is needed to clarify the passage. In order, the terms are:
A = Adam sinned;
S = Sin is present;
D = Death is present.
Now for the argument: The relationship in (2) amounts to “sin entered the world because of one man’s sin”. The relationship in (3) amounts to “death entered the world because sin entered the world”. And the relationship in (5) amounts to “death spread through the whole world because (of) men’s sin(fullness)”. Whether the parenthetical “of” and “fullness” ought to be the reading of the last phrase is indeterminate from the passage. It makes a difference doctrinally, but the difference does not affect how this argument flows at this point—an advantage for interpreting the verse in this case.
Using implication (-->) as an expression of causation, (2) and (3) create the premises of a straightforward syllogism.
(2) A --> S
(3) S --> D.
Now there is no doubt that the verse is chiastic—sin produces death and death comes from sin. But that rhetorical order in no way undermines the syllogism. Paul’s enthymematic conclusion is that Adam’s sin has lead to death’s presence in the world. That it is enthymematic means that while he does not write the words, it is assumed readers will supply the meaning. So the conclusion of the syllogism is:
A --> D.
The question to be resolved is about (5). What does Paul mean by “death spread to all men because all sinned”? It is a very simple statement taken in the context of the argument as described here—in fact, nothing more than a repetition of (3), which is to be expected in the chiasm. So (5) simply repeats the idea that
S --> D.
In the arrangement of the verse in natural language, that repetition makes sense as a substitute for stating the obvious conclusion, since the term “S” is the middle term providing a means for taking the step from one man’s sin, “A”, to death’s presence throughout the world, “D”. Of course, sin is more present as more people appear on the earth, but that increase is not significant regarding the flow of argument in the verse. Similarly, of course, death grows in its numerical impact from its first entrance into the world when there is only one man to die and its count now when there are so many, but that change has no impact on the flow of the argument either.
The point of verse 12 then, has nothing (or relatively little) to do with men facing immediate judgment because of Adam’s sin. Rather, it has adamantly to do with the fact that every man sins as a result of Adam’s sin, and that because of that (sin’s) pernicious presence, death also follows.
Those who care about the doctrinal significance of the difference in those two meanings most likely already understand the weight of this interpretation.

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