(for until law sin was in [the] world; but sin is not put to account when there is no law;
Paul has just traced sin and death back to one man, Adam. Now he pauses to answer an objection. How could people be sinners in the long stretch of history before God gave the law through Moses? His answer turns on two things — when sin entered the world, and what it means for sin to be "counted."
The order matters. Sin was already at work in the world long before Moses, so the law cannot be what produced it.
The apostle answers a possible objection, and he proves that sin exists apart from law... So the Jew could not even make the sad boast (and what will a man not boast about?) that the law came before sin. The whole purpose of law is to prove that people sin. Sadly, sin is not limited to Israel; it is everywhere. "Sin was in the world," where the law was not. When God gave the law through Moses, it put sin to account. But sin was already there, and it spread far beyond the area the law had in view when it came. Law could not cure sinners. It could only record sin — it could not remove it.
Paul does not use the same word here that he uses elsewhere in this letter. This is the language of a ledger.
The mistake is to suppose that "counted" here means the same thing as it does elsewhere in the letter. It is really a different word. The true thought is this: sin is not put on the account, the way separate items are listed on a bill.
So were people before the law simply let off?
It is still sin, and those who sin without law perish without law. But God does not call them to account for it at once in His government.
If God kept no ledger, how do we know sin was there at all? Paul points to the graveyard.
It is true that sin is not put to account where there is no law. Still, death reigned from Adam to Moses. That showed sin was there, because death is the wages of sin, and not only of breaking a law... It was clear that death reigned just the same — it struck people who were not under the law.
If sin was already everywhere, why give the law at all?
Sin is lawlessness, and it had been filling the earth ever since Adam's fall. But as soon as God gave the law, He drew a clear line. Step over that line and a man became a definite lawbreaker. His sin could now be put to his account in a way that was not possible before. God meant Israel to give definite proof of the fallen and sinful state that people were in.
This verse also settles what sin actually is. One familiar definition of sin cannot survive it.
1 John 3:4 has often been translated, "Sin is the transgression of the law." It should read, "Sin is lawlessness." If sin were the breaking of the law, there would be no sin before God gave the law; but there was... Besides, that idea lowers the standard of God's holiness. Sin is lawlessness — refusing to be under God. The very fact of having a will of our own set against God is sin.
Paul's history lesson has a wider purpose. If sin reached people who never had the law, then grace must reach them too.
The apostle's argument is that death proved sin was there before there was any law. You cannot limit grace to the Jews. If you do, you make grace narrower than sin. Death and sin were already there, and all had sinned. So if you shut grace up to those under law and keep out the Gentiles, you make sin a more powerful thing than the grace of God.
- Sin first. Sin was in the world before Moses. The law did not create sin. It only exposed and recorded what was already there.
- No account. "Counted" here means listed like the items on a bill. Where there was no law, God did not charge particular acts in His government.
- Death still reigned. Death reigned anyway, and that proved sin was there. Death is the wages of sin, not only of law-breaking.
- The line drawn. The law drew a clear line. Crossing it made a man a definite lawbreaker, and his sin could then be put to his account.
- Grace goes further. Sin and death reached far beyond the nation that had the law. Grace must reach at least as far, or sin would be stronger than God's grace.
but death reigned from Adam until Moses, even upon those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is [the] figure of him to come.
Paul has traced sin and death back to one man. Now he proves it from history. Between Eden and Sinai there was no law, yet people kept dying. The verse ends with a phrase that turns the whole argument around — Adam is a type, a preview, of Christ.
The two names in the verse mark the two moments when God laid down a formal command. Between them, sin had a different character. There was no written law to break.
Moses gave the law. From Adam to Moses there was no law, and men had only their conscience to guide them; by it they knew good and evil... Adam had a commandment, and he broke it. Since there was no law till Moses, the generations after him could not sin in the same way Adam did. Sin is lawlessness... However, sin becomes transgression when there is a law.
If no law was in force, how do we know sin was still there? Every grave answered the question.
Adam had a law, and Moses made the law known. Between them God dealt with men by neither the one nor the other. Yet men sinned, as Scripture shows again and again. So death reigned, for it is the wages (not of transgression only, but) of sin... They sinned, they did their own will, they were corrupt and violent, and later added idolatry to their evil ways. So death reigned even over them. They were sinners, though they were not transgressors, as Adam was at first and Israel later.
Genesis makes the same case without a word of argument.
It is striking to follow the line of long-lived men from Adam to Noah, with the same words attached to the end of each short history: "and he died." Death was reigning, a sure proof of sin having come into the world.
The previous verse says sin is not counted where there is no law, and that phrase is easy to misread. It does not mean God overlooked sin. It means sin was not put on people's account the way a written law puts it there.
The mistake is to suppose that "imputing" here means the same thing as elsewhere in this letter. It is really a different word. The true thought is that sin is not put on the account, the way separate items are put on a bill... "From Adam to Moses" covers most of the history in Genesis. It is the time before law, when sin was already in the world, but had not yet gained this added seriousness.
Commentators differ over who these people are. Grant, in the same passage, dismisses the idea that infants are in view. Others read the group more widely:
I think two groups are in view here. First, the Gentiles as a whole, who were never under law, while Adam was clearly under law. Second, infant children, who die all the time, though their age makes them incapable of any actual offence.
The closing clause looks like a side remark. Yet Adam resembles Christ in one specific way: he stands at the head of a race, and what he is, his family becomes.
Adam is the fountain-head of a stream of fallen, sinful humanity — a race of sinners who share the disastrous results of his sinful act. Seen this way, he is a "figure" of Christ.
Every person stands in one of two families, under one of two heads. That makes the question personal.
Adam did not become the father of a family until after his disobedience. All his offspring stand with him under condemnation and death. Christ became head of a new and heavenly race in resurrection. All who are identified with Him stand before God forever in His acceptance and blessing... In the divine thought there has been a transfer from Adam to Christ; but are we conscious of it in our own souls?
A type does not mean a copy. Adam pictures Christ at one point. At every other point he is the opposite.
Christ comes before us in two ways: by figure and contrast. Adam, as God made him, was the figure of Christ; as he made himself in his fall, he becomes a contrast to Christ... No finer man was ever placed in finer circumstances than Adam — yet he fell. As a fallen man, he became the head of a race like himself. What can come from such a source? If the fountain is polluted we shall not expect clean waters to flow from it.
- One head. Adam's single act made him the fountain-head of a race that shares his condemnation and his death.
- One reign. Death ruled the whole stretch from Eden to Sinai, when there was no law. That proves sin was already in the world.
- One account. Without a law, sin was not written up against people as transgression. It was still sin, and death still collected its wages.
- One figure. Adam is like Christ in one way only: each is head of a race. In everything else he is the contrast — a polluted fountain against a pure one.
- One transfer. Christ became Head of a new race in resurrection, and all who are His stand in His acceptance — the question is whether we know it.