Clare, here is a man (Albert Barns) who does know grammar and can get into the nitty gritty explaining what I was trying to explain to you about Romans 5:12. I know you will not agree with him but I thought you might like to know precisely what I believe:
And so. Thus. In this way it is to be accounted for that death has passed upon all men; to wit, because all men have sinned. As death followed sin in the first transgression, so it has in all; for all have sinned. There is a connexion between death and sin which existed in the case of Adam, and which subsists in regard to all who sin, And as all have sinned, so death has passed on all men.
Death passed upon. (dihlyen). Passed through; pervaded; spread over the whole race, as pestilence passes through, or pervades a nation. Thus death, with its train of woes, with its withering and blighting influence, has passed through the world, laying prostrate all before it.
Upon all men. Upon the race; all die.
For that (ef w). This expression has been greatly controverted; and has been very variously translated. Elsner renders it, “on account of whom.” Doddridge, “unto which all have sinned.” The Latin Vulgate renders it, “in whom [Adam] all have sinned.” The same rendering has been given by Augustine, Beza, etc. But it has never yet been shown that our translators have rendered the expression improperly. The old Syriac and the Arabic agree with the English translation fix this interpretation. With this agree Calvin, Vatablus, Erasmus, etc. And this rendering is sustained also by many other considerations.
1. If (w) be a relative pronoun here, it would refer naturally to death, as its antecedent, and not to man. But this would not make sense.
2. If this had been its meaning, the preposition (en) would have been used. See Note of Erasmus on the place.
3. It comports with the apostle’s argument to state a cause why all died, and not to state that men sinned in Adam. He was inquiring into the cause why death was in the world; and it would not account for that to say that all sinned in Adam. It would require an additional statement to see how that could be a cause.
4. As his posterity had not then an existence, they could not commit actual transgression. Sin is the transgression of the law by a moral agent; and as the interpretation "because all have sinned" meets the argument of the apostle, and as the Greek favours that certainly as much as it does the other, it is to be preferred.
All have sinned. To sin is to transgress the law of God; to do wrong. The apostle in this expression does not say that all have sinned in Adam, or that their nature has become corrupt, which is true, but which is not affirmed here; nor that the sin of Adam is imputed to them; but simply affirms that all men have sinned. He speaks evidently of the great universal fact that all men are sinners. He is not settling a metaphysical difficulty; nor does he speak of the condition of man as he comes into the world. He speaks as other men would; he addresses himself to the common sense of the world; and is discoursing of universal, well-known facts. Here is the fact—that all men experience calamity, condemnation, death. How is this to be accounted for? The answer is, “All have sinned.” This is a sufficient answer; it meets the case. And as his design cannot be shown to be to discuss a metaphysical question about the nature of man, or about the character of infants, the passage should be interpreted according to his design, and should not be pressed to bear on that of which he says nothing, and to which the passage evidently has no reference. I understand it, therefore, as referring to the fact that men sin in their own persons, sin themselves—as, indeed, how can they sin in any other way?—and that therefore they die. If men maintain that it refers to any metaphysical properties of the nature of man, or to infants, they should not infer or suppose this, but should show distinctly that it is in the text. Where is there evidence of any such reference?
PS: I do not need a reply if all you are going to do is repeat what you have already presented to me. I understand perfectly what you believe and why you believe it. I have enjoyed digging into this with you, thank you.
