Did we all inherit sin from Adam and Eve?

Every child of Adam inherits something from him: sin. And as a result of sin there is death. Until today death is everywhere and proves that sin has reached every child of Adam.

There is no other explanation of the fact that the children of Adam universally have a corrupted moral nature. The moral nature of man was first corrupted in him — our progenitor. Having become corrupted in him, it has passed on naturally as an inheritance to his descendants. They have a fallen, sinful nature through him. All his children are thus involved in his fall and ruin — the many involved by the act of the one.

(V. 12). The passage opens by tracing all the sorrows that have come into this world to one man — Adam. Through Adam's act of disobedience sin came into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all Adam's race. The outcome of "sin" must be sins, but it is of "sin" that the Apostle more especially speaks in this portion of the Epistle. In chapters 1, to 5:11, the word sin occurs but twice; in this division. 5:12 to 8, it occurs thirty-four times. "Sin" is the evil principle of "lawlessness", or the creature doing his own will. This evil principle entered the world. through Adam's one act of disobedience. Death followed as the penalty of sin. Sins can be forgiven; but "sin", the evil principle which leads to sins, can only be met by death that brings to an end the life governed by sin. Therefore the penalty of sin is death. Thus the death penalty passed upon all Adam's race. That all have come under the evil principle of sin is proved by the fact that all have sinned. The bad fruit shows the character of the tree. So the Apostle says, "Death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned".

Sin came in through Adam. The nature of man was corrupted; by the disobedience of one the many were made sinners; and death introducing to judgment was the stamp of God upon the fallen condition. So, as the apostle says, “in Adam all die.” “In Adam” thus speaks of representation, as the apostle argues as to Levi and Abraham (Heb. 7:9, 10): “And, as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham; for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.” Similarly we were in the loins of Adam when he fell and sentence of death was passed upon him. Thank God, we have heard the voice of Another,—Head and Representative too of His race, which says, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19).

Adam, the fallen head of a fallen race, bequeathed to all his posterity, sin, death and condemnation, as the fruit of his one act of disobedience in Eden. Now Christ's coming into the world was no after-thought with God. Indeed, as setting up Adam as racial head, God had Christ before Him. Coming into the world, and going into death at Calvary, He fully met all that Adam had brought in by his fall. God has been glorified, and now as risen from the dead the Lord Jesus Christ has displaced the first head. HE IS THE HEAD OF A NEW RACE! Just as we read of "the many" who are under fallen Adam's headship, so we read of "the many" who are under the headship of the risen Christ.

Hence it is necessary to conclude that — apart from the question of outward acts — death pertained to Adam's race in consequence of Adam's sin. He was never the head of the race till after the fall: so that his race is sprung from a fallen head. The taint of sin is communicated by natural generation. "By the offence of the one, many have died."

Now, after the same manner — i.e., just as the consequence of Adam's act reaches out to all connected with him, so with Jesus Christ and "the many" who are linked with Him. The effect of His single act of obedience is made good for all His people; i.e., for believers of course (v. 15) as subjects of grace.

It was not until Adam had sinned, and had been expelled from Eden, that he became the head of a race of men, all bearing his features and inheriting his sinful nature. Unfallen he was the head of the lower creation, but children were not born to him till he was outside the paradise of Eden. Those born under Adam's head-ship share the results of his fall, and this is brought before us in Romans 5. Adam came under the sentence of death, and "death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression" (Rom. 5:14). Adam, we are told in this same Scripture, "is the figure of Him that was to come." As the head of a race, Adam was the figure of Christ.

But death has "passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." It is not Adam's transgression that brings death directly to us, but the possession of his sinful nature through which we have sinned and come under death's sentence. Yet it was his offence that brought death upon himself, and upon all under his headship, for that offence made his nature sinful, and this he passed on to all his race. The dire effects of Adam's sin cannot be escaped by any under his headship; all come under judgment, condemnation and death.

How could Adam's disobedience plunge all of us into sin? Theologians from all the major branches of the Christian Church agree that Adam acted as "federal head of the human race." That is, he represented all of us, and his initial act of sin had consequences for everyone, for all time. In his letter to the Romans, Paul sums it up by saying, "Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12). Because Adam was our representative, God counted us guilty because of his sin."

At first glance, Romans 5:12 sounds like an unfair judgment on everyone who lived after Adam. But is it? All of us know by experience that we do not live up to all that we know we should do (or not do) in relationship to God and our fellowman. Scripture teaches that we are all descended from Adam, and because we are part of Adam's family (the entire human race), we all have Adam's nature - a sinful heart. "The heart," writes Jeremiah, "is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" Jer. 17:9.

"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death and thus death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." By one man, the first Adam, sin entered into the world (not sins, but sin). And death followed, which is physical death. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," and this death has passed upon the race because of sin. The margin of the authorized version contains a statement which is responsible for a very unscriptural teaching. The margin states "in whom all have sinned"; upon this it has been taught that the guilt of Adam has been imputed to all. This is not correct. We are not responsible for the sin of Adam nor are we held responsible by God for a sinful nature; we are responsible for the outworking of that nature, that is for our own sins. The wicked dead, those whose sins were not taken away, because they believed not, will not be judged for having had a sinful nature, but solely according to their works (Revelation 20:12). Death comes upon us on account of our sins, as it is stated in this verse "death passed upon all men for that all have sinned.

Thus the change most solemnly affecting the world came in long before the Jew existed or consequently before their boasted law was given. The Jew must look somewhere more largely, and accurately too, into the scriptures. He must not flatter his national vanity or religious pride with the delusion that all hinges either on Israel or on their law. Adam was before them both and affects all mankind (the Jews not excepted). True, the momentous history that shows us how sin and death entered is humbling indeed; but anything will the heart turn into a vaunt. At any rate, that incalculably grave event was outside the Jew in itself, and in consequences went far beyond them. It was not outside man, but contrariwise "by one man;" yet its effect, death, permeated the world.

But the apostle takes care to add to this one man's sin those of all others — "and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned." Thus the last clause is expressly to guard against the exclusion of the sins of men generally. We must therefore beware of enfeebling either side of the case. In the very scripture which opens the discussion of the universal bearing of Adam's sin on the human race (for it is no question here of Israel in particular) the connection of men's own sins with their death is carefully added. No one doubts that infants and idiots die, and this through Adam's sin; but the Spirit does not exclude the consequence where personal guilt can apply. The position of ruin to which the fall consigned the race is not severed from the evil workings of the nature now fallen in all men. Adam's sin is the cause but not the sole account and whole case of the bitter lot of man.