(|8) In v.^'^ St. Paul affirms the entrance of sin into the world, and death as its penalty, as the result of Adam's transgression, and the diffusion of death among mankind in consequence either of Adam's sin alone, or of the spread of sin among all his descendants. There is this ambiguity about the meaning in the clause ' for that all sinned,' which is not only grammatically irregular, but seems even to be logically inconsistent. To fix his meaning we must examine his language very closely. The connective phrase i<l> cp has been variously interpreted. It is improbable that y is masculine and the antecedent either Adam or death ; taking it as neuter, the rendering ' because ' is more probable than 'in like manner as' or 'in so far as.' In what sense did ' all sin ' (irdvTes ■i]/MapTov} ?
(1) The Greek commentators take the obvious sense of the words, regarded apart from the con- text : ' all as a matter of fact by their own choice committed sin.* To this interpretation two objec- tions from the context may be urged. Firstly, if individual death is the penalty of individual sin, Adam is not responsible for the sin or the death, and so there is no parallelism with Christ as the source of righteousness and life to all ; but the purpose of the Avhole argument is to prove a con-
nexion between Adam and the race similar to that between Christ and redeemed humanity. Secondly, in the next verse St. Paul goes on to show that till the time of Moses, in the absence of law, the descendants of Adam could not be held as blame- worthy as Adam himself was ; while sin was in the world it could not be imputed as personal guilt, incurring of itself, apart from the connexion ^^^th Adam, the penalty of death.
(2) Some connexion with Adam must be asserted ; but of what kind ? An explanation accepted by many commentators, while on grammatical grounds not rendering ^<^' <? 'in whom' but ' because,' yet treats the sentence as conveying the equivalent meaning. Bengel presents this view in its classi- cal expression: omnes peccarunt,Adamo peccante. If St. Paul had meant this, why did he not supply the words? it is often asked. But when we observe the irregularity of the stnicture of the very sentence, introducing such ambiguity into St. PauFs meaning, we do not seem entitled to expect him to express himself with such logical precision. On this ground alone we must not set aside the explanation. But even if we accept it, what sense are we to attach to the statement that in Adam's sin all sinned ?
(i. ) Firstlj', there is the realistic explanation : that as Adam was the ancestor of the race, so all his descendants were physically included in him, even as Le\T. is represented to have paid tithes to Melchizedek * in the loins' of Abraham (He 7*"^"). But such a physical explanation only increases the difficulty of understanding the connexion.
(ii.) Secondly, there is the legal explanation, so prominent in the federal theology of the Reformed Church. Adam acted, not for himself alone, but as representative of the race, and so the race shares the responsibility of his act. But to this explana- tion there is the obvious objection that a repre- sentative must be chosen by those for whom he acts, if they are to be in any sense responsible for his acts ; and the race had no voice in the choice of its first ancestor. If the objection is met by appealing to a Divine appointment, the plea of in- justice is not answered, but the will of God is re- presented as overriding the rights of man. In a Calvinistic theology alone could such an explana- tion carry conviction.
(iii.) Thirdly, the explanation more generally accepted is that from Adam all mankind has in- herited a tendency to evil, which, while not abolishing individual liberty and responsibility so as to make individual transgression inevitable, yet as a fact of experience has resulted in the uni- versal sinfulness of the race. This is the view of Sanday-Headlam (op. cit. p. 134), and they support it with the references to Jewish literature already noted. The writer of this article in his Com- mentary on Romans (Century Bible, 1901) accepted this conclusion. ' Without expressly stating it, Paul assumes the doctrine of original sin in the sense of an inherited tendency to sin, for what he affirms beyond all doubt here is that both the sin and the death of the human race are the effects of Adam's transgression' (p. 154). A further study of the problem has led him, however, to recognize at least the possibility of another explanation. Tennant, who of modern writers has made this subject specially his own, in his three books, The Origin and Propagation of Sin (1902), The Sources of the Doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin (1903), and The Concept of Sin (1912), has not only contended against the doctrine of such an inherited tendency, but has also maintained that this idea is not present in St. Paul's mind in this pass- age. Referring to Sanday-Headlam's objection to Bengel's explanation that the words ' in Adam ' would have been given had St. Paul intended
that meaning, he presses a similar objection to their view.