This effect on mankind of the sin of Adam may be inferred (according to Ro 5") from the death of Adam's descendants who lived before the law was given. In the absence of law they were not liable to puni.shment. To account for their mortality, 'generic' guilt mu.st be assimied. It is evi<lent that such an argument cannot be pressed abso- lutely, but must be correlated with the statement, as to Gentile responsibility without the Law (Ro 21216) J see Sanday- Headlam on Ro 5".
(2) But besides generic participation in Adan\'s guilt we have also to consider the doctrine of the inheritance from Adam of a sinful nature. In OT the transmission of a sinful nature from [larent to child is clearly admitted (Ps 51», Job 14'), but it i.s not traced back to Adam. It is a question whether St. Paul so traces it, for neither Ro 5'- n<ir 5" is decisive on the point. Taking the section (Ro 5'-'-')
• See TuUueh, Chrhtian Doctrine o/Sitt, p. 193.
as a whole, it is difficult to (liseiilaiijile with ciTtainty the idtas of a tiansmitttti sinful disposilicui, or of an actual sinfulness of all men, from the idea of the generic i;uill of mankind (described above) with which they are closely interwoven. The latter is certainly tiie lea<lini; thoujjh not the only thought (cf. v.'- iip If TToi-Tfs T^ixapTov) of tlic passagB, which is occupied much more with the reign of death than with the reign of sin. The view taken of the sin of Adam is not so much that thereby human nature w;us infected in itself, but rather that there- by sin, an alien power, got a footing in the world, and, involving all men in actual sin, brought death upon all. This is verj' far short of tlie Augusliniau doctrine of Original Sin, which appears to be a development of 2 Ks 3-' 4'» rather than of anything to be found in XT. The language of St. I'aul ('sin came into the world,' Ho o'-) leaves room for the comnmnication of a sinful tendency, not only by heredity in the strict sense of the word, but also by all that interpenetration of the individuals by the race which makes it inipo.ssible to regard them a.s isolated atoms dependent only on birth for their characteristics.*
((•) Tlie feat iifsiii. — Strictly .speaking, this is in the will ; but in a wider sense its seat is in that which moves the will, namely, in 'the flesh.' 'The flesh' in St. Paul denotes not merely senisual desires and appetites, but ' man's entire life .so far as it is not determined by the Spirit of God.' It may thus denote ahso man's rational nature. The fleshly mind is ' the (lod-resi.stiug disposition in virtue of which man in self-sufficiency and pride opposes himself to God, and withdraws himself from the spirit of Divine life and love.'t In .short, ' the flesh " is man in his .sclfi.sline.ss. But neitlier the flesh in the material .sense, nor human nature on the whole, are in themselves evil ; for the body may be brought into subjection (1 Co 9-'), may become a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Co 0'»), and its members may be 'servants to righteousness unto sanctitication.'
(il) Sin (IS a pawer. — St. Paul regards sin not as an i.solated act, nor as an accumulation of acts, but as a power which has gained a lodgment in man (Ro 7'"), enslaving and paralyzing his will. 'The flesh' is oidy the material medium in which it works. Cf. above, Pri'/nldrij (2), and .In 8^', and see csp. Sanday-IIeadlam on Ko S"^'--', p. 145.
(e) Sin and law. — Here we have something new, new as the re.sult of conscious reflexion, yet the result of what h;is gone before. St. Paul looks back on the hist(jry of the nation, and of his ownspiritual experience, and .sees (Ko H') rd aSiimToti To5 y6iiov (the inability of the Law) for the restraint of sill. The result of law, by itself, must always be sin rather than righteousness. It provoked and revealed sin. ' The strength of sin is the law' (1 Co \-,'>').
(/) Sin and death. — St. Paul, as stated above ('/), regarded physical death as the con.sequence of the Fall, and argues from this premiss in Ko 5'^-'. Hut it is probable that he (like the author of Wisdom) did not .separate strictly the conception.s of physical an<l moral ileaih. lie u.ses the words 'death' an<l 'life' with a breadth which makes it difficult to say in any particidar civsi' which kind of death he is attributing to sin as its effect, <\(j. Ko «-' il. To him physicid death is but tlie symbol of its far more lerril)le moral counterpart, final separation from God, and the extinction of the life of the Spirit; cf. Ja l'^. See Bey.schl.ig, NT Thiol., Kng. tr. vol. ii. p. fi.'jff.
((/' Dfath to nin. — The wide use of the idea of ' death,' illustrated above, enabled it to be applied
• Cr. nornnr, Si/nlfin Chr. Dnclr., ICnj. tr, viil. Ill, ji. .Mi IT, + Di.rn.T. .<iiiHlrw Vh r. Pnclr., Etik. tr. vol. II, p. .S19. The whole po.ssatfr un (Tapf !th(iiil4 bi" rofprred to. 8co olso ftrt. Flksii.
to any absolute final separation of objects hitherto closely related. Hence the entry into union with Christ is death to sin (Ro 0'-"). All that St, Paul has to say on the sinfulness of tin; flesh, on sin a.s an inmate of the soul, on sin as a riding power, relates to the state before justification. The Christian is, as such, dead to sin. St. Paul con- templates the Church (as in Eph. passim) and the Christian in their ideal state. But he is no dreamer ; he knows how incompletely the ideal is realized. His delineation of il is his mode of ex- pressing the imperative. His hopefulness as to its realization is not mere opinion, but the experience of a man who himself had felt what he taught, of a teacher who had entered into the heart of the gospel. The doctrine of St. .John (see below) con- verges to the same goal, starting from a different ]ioiiit, and expressed in different phra-ses. And it must be remembered that 'death to sin' is not ei|iiivalent to insensibility to temptation ; it is rather deliverance from bondage.