What does it mean that sin is not imputed when there is no law (Romans 5:13)?

(V. 13). First, as to law. It is evident that Adam was put under law — in his case a very simple law forbidding him to eat of a certain tree. Two thousand five hundred years later the law was given to Israel through Moses. But, between Adam and Moses there was no specific law forbidding this or that. The question then arises, Can man be condemned for doing that which is not forbidden? The answer is that sin is not put to man's account, as actual transgression of a known law, where no law exists. Nevertheless, though not charged with transgression when there is no law, it is evident that man does his own will and in consequence suffers the penalty of death. This is proved by the fact that death reigned from Adam to Moses. It is thus proved that Adam's race is under sin and the penalty of death apart altogether from Law and the transgression of law.

Sin was in the world before the law came — that is, the law given by Moses, as is the case wherever the expression “the law” is used without any qualifying clause. “But sin is not reckoned up (or tabulated) when there is no law.” Does this suppose that man is less guilty when he has no law?Not at all. Sin is sin, and the perpetrator of it is fully responsible, whether with or without law. Was Cain not criminally guilty in slaying his brother Abel? Yet there was no law. Was the world of Noah's time not responsible for their corruption and violence? Was Sodom not richly deserving of God's unsparing judgment? These points can give no difficulty to any reasoning mind. Still, God had given no law to forbid their sin. However, there was the perfect order of creation, there was the speaking of conscience, and the promise of God that the Seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's head — that is, that Christ would triumph over the devil and sin. Thus, while there was no direct prohibition, there was abundant testimony to man's guilt, if he would but listen.

In 2 Cor. 5:19 the aspect in which Christ came to earth was that of grace. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, and not imputing to men their offences; but, alas, they refused the grace, and put Him to death. In Rom. 5:13 the word is ἐλλογέω, "sin is not put to account when there is no law." It is sin, and those that sin without law perish without law; but they are not at once called to account for it in God's government: cf. Acts 17:30.

The parenthesis now begins. The apostle meets a possible objection, and certainly proves that the existence of sin is independent of law. "For until [the] law sin was in [the] world; but sin is not put to account when there is no law." Thus the Jew could not even make the miserable boast (for what will not man boast of?) that the law preceded sin. The very object of law is to prove the sin of men. Alas! it is not confined to Israel; it is universal. "Sin was in the world," where the law was not. When it was given by Moses, it put sin to account; but sin was already there, and far more widely than the sphere which law contemplated when it came. Law could work no remedy for sinners; it could only register — not get rid of — sin. Law gave sin the character of offence; sin, where law spoke, became the transgression of a positive and known commandment. "Where no law is, there is no transgression." It is a pernicious mistake to understand that the apostle denies sin to be where no law exists. Sin is not the transgression of the law, though transgression assuredly is sin. But sin is a wider and deeper thing. The Authorized Version notwithstanding, 1 John 3:4 teaches really otherwise — that sin is lawlessness, and not necessarily the violation of law. Thus both apostles are restored to harmony, instead of either clashing mischievously or tempting an expositor to a still more mischievous paring down of the truth to save appearances. Never is this needed with scripture. As being the word of God, we must eschew and resent all such manipulations of its language. It is only our ignorance which finds difficulties; it is ill-will which sets one passage in antagonism to another. If John could have meant us to gather that sin and transgression of law are the same thing, nothing could save the statement from opposition to our text.

This is yet more apparent from the support the Apostle Paul adds in verse 14 to what was laid down in verse 13: "But death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those that sinned not in the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was coming." The two points are named when a positive commandment was imposed by God. Adam had a law; by Moses the law was made known. Between them there was no dealing with men by either the one or the other; yet men sinned as scripture abundantly shows. Hence death reigned, for it is the wages (not of transgression only but) of sin. It reigned in the case of Adam and Eve; it reigned from Moses' day; but not at either epoch only, but between them, when there was no law. Death reigned over all those that sinned; for sin they did, even though it was not in the likeness of our first parents' transgression. Their antediluvian posterity, as well as those who followed the flood down to the gift of law from Sinai, could not sin as their father in Eden or the children of Israel after they heard the ten words. But they sinned, they did their own will, they were corrupt and violent, as they afterwards added idolatry to their evil ways. Accordingly death reigned even over them; for they were sinners, though not transgressors, like Adam at first and Israel afterwards.

The Two Heads of Races. — There is but one human family viewed after the order of nature, and one head of the race. With him by natural generation we are all connected. Adam is that head. He fell, and the consequences of his fall affected not himself only, but all his posterity likewise; and indeed, as we shall see further on, this creation also. By him "sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Sin, let the reader remark, not merely sinning, but sin itself, that which is defined in 1 John 3:4, when rightly translated, as lawlessness, by Adam entered into the world, henceforth to dwell in man, and to weigh heavily on this creation. And by sin came death. The introduction of both is here traced up to him, so they were both on earth antecedent to the giving of the law; and this is evident, since death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression. Here for the understanding of the passage the difference between a sinner and a transgressor should be noted. A good deal depends on this. Adam was a transgressor, for he had disobeyed a positive command. All his posterity were sinners, though all of them were not like him transgressors (Hosea 6:7, margin). For a law makes a man a transgressor, whether there be a code as the Mosaic, or a single command as in Adam's case. Now sin is not imputed when there is no law. Yet all men were sinners, and death reigning was a proof of it. Hence it is plain that the act of the head of the race may, and in Adam's case did, affect all his race. Now there is another head, and that of another race. Of Him Adam, we are told, was a figure, or literally a type, even Him who is elsewhere called the second Man and the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45, 47). The second Man, since all others born of woman are ranged according to nature under Adam's headship. The last Adam, seeing that there will not be another race, nor another head of a race. Now since the doctrine that the race shares in the consequences of the act of its head is undeniable in Adam's case and in all connected with him, can that doctrine be extended to the second Man, and to the race connected with Him? Analogy would suggest that it might be so. Revelation assures us that it is so, as we shall now see.

Now observe the five verses included in the parenthesis. The first two of these meet a difficulty that might arise in the minds of those very familiar with the law. Adam sinned against a definite commandment, hence his sin was a transgression. After that some 2,500 years had to roll away before the law of Moses was given, when once more transgression became possible. Between those points there was no transgression, for there was no law to transgress. Yet there was sin universally, as proved by the universal reign of death. The practical difference lay here, that sin is not "imputed" when there is no law: that is it is not put to our account in the same way. Only those who have known the law will be judged by the law, as we saw when reading chapter 2.

But before turning more particularly to that, we will look at the contrast of grace with the law, of which the whole passage treats: "until the law sin was in the world," but the times of this ignorance God winked at, inasmuch as He did not treat with them as breakers of the law, when there was no law; but when there was law, they were governed by the law, and therefore Israel had the rod held over them, they were to be chastened for breaking the law, and banished ultimately into captivity. But the Gentiles have sinned without law, and He will judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus; law never made sin, the sin was going on all the time from Adam to Moses, but law made the transgression. The sign of sins was present when there was no law, for death was there. My child may have a bad habit of running about the streets, but if I command him not, it is another thing, it is disobedience then, but before it was only a wrong thing that needed to be corrected. Though not after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is, though not disobedience to a positive commandment men are sinners still, though they have not broken a given law. (It is a quotation from Hosea 6:6, "They, like Adam, have transgressed my covenant.") Sin was always there, death was always there to prove it, but law was not always there. "Imputed," in the phrase "sin is not imputed where there is no law," is a different word from "imputed" for righteousness, and the like. It signifies a positive existing act reckoned to the account of a person, as in Philemon 1:18.

239 "Sin is not imputed when there is no law," it is true. But this is not the word elsewhere rendered "impute"; it means the particular sin is not put to account. You are a sinner and lawless when you have no law, but I cannot say to you, Such and such a thing is forbidden. As if my child runs into the street, instead of doing its lessons, I cannot say in a particular sense, "You have been disobedient"; but if I have told him not to go out into the street, then it is not a general question of his idleness, but I say I am going to whip you for that particular thing. In Romans 5:13, what the apostle is reasoning on is that death was a proof that sin was there before there was law. You cannot confine grace to the Jews, for then you make it narrower than sin; for death and sin were there, and all had sinned, and if you shut up grace to those under law and do not let in the Gentiles, you are making sin a more powerful thing than the grace of God. Death was reigning there before ever Moses' law came in, and that is the meaning of the expression "who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," a quotation from Hosea 6:7, "but they like men" - Adam - "have transgressed the covenant." These Gentiles never did that, the Jews did. They transgressed it, and Adam too transgressed the commandment he had; yet these Gentiles were under sin and death, though they had no law at all. You must now take up Christ as answering to Adam in headship, though first he adds more, that the law entered that the offence might abound, but where sin - not offence - abounded, grace did much more abound. The difference between "impute" in Romans 4 and 5, is that in chapter 4 it is reckoning a man to be something; in chapter 5 it is putting so much to his account. It occurs again in Philemon, "put that to my account."

Q. What is "sin is not imputed when there is no law"?

A. It is not the word elsewhere rendered "impute," but it means the particular sin is not put to account. You are a sinner and lawless when you have no law; but I cannot then say to you such and such a thing is forbidden. As, if my child runs into the street instead of doing its lessons, I cannot say in a particular sense, "You have been disobedient;" but if I have told him not to go out into the street, then it is not a general question of his idleness, but I say, "I am going to punish you for that particular thing." In that passage, Rom. 5:13, what the apostle is reasoning on is, that lie has death as a proof that sin was there before there was a law. You cannot confine grace to the Jews, for then you make it narrower than sin, for death and sin were there, and all had sinned; and if you go on and shut up grace to those under law, and don't let in the Gentiles, you are making sin a more powerful thing than the grace of God. Death was reigning there before ever Moses's law came in; and that is the meaning of the expression, "Them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression" (Rom. 5:14), a quotation from Hosea 6:7, "But they like men" — Adam — "have transgressed the covenant." These Gentiles never did that. The Jews did; they transgressed it; and Adam too transgressed the commandment he had. Yet these Gentiles were under sin and death, though they had no law at all. You must now take up Christ as answering to Adam in Headship, though first he adds more, that the law entered that the offence might abound; "but where sin" — not offence — "abounded, grace did much more abound." (Rom. 5:20.)

Paul mentions here, as an existing fact, the presence of sin in the world. The twelfth verse gives the positive proof of the existence of sin in the world by the fact that death is there. Death is the sign of sin for which man is condemned, law or no law. The following verses appeal to the early inspired history which no Jew would dispute. Until law sin was in the world. There was then something more than Adam's sin. It is true that sin is not put to account where there is no law: still death reigned from Adam to Moses; and this demonstrated that sin was there, for death is the wages of sin, and not only of transgression. If man is under a law given by God and infringes it, his death is the necessary consequence. But without that, without law, when there was not this rule whereby God, in His government, imputes sin by virtue of a given law, it was clear that death reigned equally — that it attacked individuals who were not under the law: the proof too that they were under everlasting ruin also. Death reigned, he says, over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam's transgression (that is, over those who, in a different position from that of Adam and of the Jews, had sinned without the law). Paul groups together the position of the Jews and Adam, according to the true sense of Hosea 6:7, which charges the people with having acted like Adam. "But they, like (not "men," but) Adam, have transgressed the covenant." Both of these had a positive command, which each violated. But it was not so with sinners between the two points. They had died because they sinned, but it was not after the resemblance of Adam's transgression.