No, I am not changing it to what I want it to say, but rather I am speaking against interpreting it in an illogical manner.
The word of God is the logic -
For until the law sin was in the world, (Rom. 5:13a)
You notably neglected to explain how your interpretation isn't illogical.
According to God's word
For until the law sin was in the world,
Sin is the transgression of God's law,
You can be selective and pick your favorite definition. But it is not the only explanation of the nature of sin.
Sin is most extensively diagnosed imo and explained in
Romans 7. Sin is virtually Satan in man's fallen body. And that was in the world from Adam's fall.
For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not charged to one’s account when there is no law. (Rom. 5:13)
What First John 3:4 actually says is Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness also, and sin is lawlessness.(1 John 3:4)
It is helpful to know that.
It is also helpful to know - for all that is not out of faith is sin. (Rom. 14:23b)
There are many passages helping man to know what sinning is, what sins are, and what sin as a nature is, and who is a sinner.
Both in Old and New Testament - many verses to help us to know the matter.
And there are many more passages showing us the way of victory through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
In Christ as
"a life giving Spirit" alone is victory over this sin nature.
so how can sin exist without the existence of the law that it is a transgression of?
These I count as more your philosophical musings. However it is written -
For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not charged to one’s account when there is no law. (Rom. 5:13)
Question: Did SIN exist in the world before the law was given?
Answer: Yes, according to
Romans 5:13.
Actually, Paul certainly had the Hebrew Bible opened before him and wrote in accordance with
Genesis 4:7
. . . sin is crouching at the door; and his desire is for you, but you must rule over him. (Gen. 4:7b)
In Romans 5:13, it says that sin was in the world before the law was given, which means that God's law existed before it was given.
Then there was no need for God to GIVE the law ?
What Paul said was that SIN as a nature was not accounted to man until the law, encreasing the accountability and the realization
of the need of God's life.
but sin is not charged to one’s account when there is no law. (Rom. 5:13b)
Of course God Himself is from eternity. And His divine life and holy nature and the law of His life is as long as He is.
Indeed from eternity to eternity, You are God. (Psa. 90:2b)
Again, I did not try to make changes teaches, but spoke in regard to which law we should interpret Romans 5:20 as referring to. In Romans 7:25, Paul contrasted the Law of God with the law of sin, so it should at least be worth considering which of the two it would make more sense to interpret Romans 5:20 as referring to rather than just assume he was referring the Mosaic Law. You notably neglecting explain what it is that is intrinsic to God's law that causes sin to increase.
We do not have to assume. We have to interpret well. And
Romans 5:20 refers to the law of God.
And the law entered in alongside that the offense might abound;
It is not sin entered in alongside of the law but the other way around.
First sin as a nature was in the would, entering with death from Adam's disobedience.
Sin was in the world until the law of God entered in along side.
But the positive side we should not overlook. So consider more of the passage.
For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were constituted sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be constituted righteous.
And the law entered in alongside that the offense might abound; but where sin abounded, grace has superabounded,
In order that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Gradually God unfolds His eternal purpose of imparting into man His life - grace.
Grace is God being for us everything we need. And grace now superabounds if we learn to walk in it.
much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. (v.17b)
Man needs
"the abundance of grace". That is Christ's work outside of us but also much more within us, joined to us, blended with us "organically." Then we can reign in life. Then we can know the
justification of life (v.18)
Romans 6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Yes. I well know.
Paul is making a distinction between serving the law of sin that leads to death or serving the Law of God,
In Romans 6 Paul is teaching that the DEATH . . . the DEATH of Christ is something we can and must apply to our old man.
Latter he elaborates how this can be done in Romans chapter 8. But in chapter 6 it is the DEATH of Jesus which can and must work
for us to terminate, bury, and cross out the old independent self centered adamic man we inherited from Adam.
We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it? Or are you ignorant that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? (Rom. 6:2b,3)
We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life. (v.4)
Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin as slaves; For he who has died is justified from sin. (vs. 6,7)
The apostle does not want us to be ignorant. The DEATH of Christ is applicable, able to be put to work, able to terminate and bury the former
way of life. We have to stand upon this in faith and in praise that in Christ we also DIED and were BURIED with Him.
Everything Christ is and did is for our application, enjoyment, and co-partaking of. Christ has to be our history, our legacy, our entire past,
and all the future we have and will ever have. Even His death is there for us to apply as well as His living in resurrection.
So in the New Testament we have:
Justification through His blood, (Rom. 5:9)
Justification by Faith, (Rom. 5:1)
Justification in His life (Rom. 5:18)
Justification through His death (Rom. 6:7)
For he who has died is justified from sin. (Rom. 6:7)
You are unjustifiably insisting that Romans 5:20 refers to the Law of Moses while neglecting to address the major problems with that interpretation.
No that is not what is happening. What is happening is your desire to exalt the law of God above the Son of God.
Have you come to Christ? Have you been distracted from your first love? Have you made an idol of something other than Christ?
Sometimes Christians loose their first love which exalts Jesus to have the first place in everything.
As the Lord Jesus told the church in Ephesus. They had many good things. But they had left their first and best love of Jesus Himself.
And He knew it even if they did not realize it.
I know your works and your labor and your endurance and that you cannot bear evil men; and you have tried those who call themselves apostles and are not, and have found them to be false;
And you have endurance and have borne all things because of My name and have not grown weary.
But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love. (Rev. 2:2-4)
The position that the Law of God leads us to do what is holy, righteous, and good,
The Law leads us to faith. And faith is for Christ as grace living in us to be everything we need.
So then the law has become our child-conductor unto Christ that we might be justified out of faith. (Gal. 3;24)
For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:16,17)
When we wake in the morning it is so good to say first "Lord Jesus, I love You. Lord Jesus I died with you and am raised with You.
Lord Jesus thankyou for living in me to be my life."
is also the position that it leads us away from sin, the position that the Law of God leads us to sin
The law of God EXPOSING sin in us working against God's law is not
"the Law of God leads us to sin."
We need a stronger Person with a stronger nature to be imparted into our being.
This Person is the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead, the Spirit of God, and Christ Himself.
With His life there is the law of His life. This is so reliable it is like a scientific law. It simply works for us to free us from the
law of sin and death in the flesh.
There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death. (Rom. 8:1,2)
But you are not in the [human fallen] flesh, but in the [human regenerated] spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Yet if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not of Him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the [human regenerated] spirit is life because of righteousness.
And if the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.
So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh;
For if you live according to the flesh, you must die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the practices of the body, you will live.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. (Rom. 8:9-14)