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1. Some say that there can be no criminality where there is not wilful transgression of the law: and therefore God could not impute guilt from birth to every child of Adam. To this we answer, that there is no other way of explaining the certain facts. All men suffer the penalty of sin and death. Now, why? Our explanation is that they are primarily held guilty before God. To deny this is to involve the question in yet greater darkness. It is to charge God with inflicting suffering upon our whole race without a reasonable cause.

2. Paul argues in the text that death had reigned from Adam to Moses, and therefore could not have resulted merely from the violation of the Mosaic law. It took effect on myriads who had no law to guide them but the dictates of conscience or of tradition, and on children who died in unintelligent infancy. But death is the practical imputation of sin: and such imputation implies the existence of a broken law. What law, then, can it be, but God's command to Adam? And what breach of its but his transgression? And therefore, it was because they were regarded as having been implicated in Adam's sin, that they were surrendered to the tyranny of death. Yet their criminality was very different from his. Theirs was indirect and accredited, while his was direct and real. Theirs was unconscious and involuntary, his deliberate and intentional. Theirs was through the crime of another, his through his own. His was the root, and in its damage the branches equally suffered. He was the fountain, and in its defilement all the stream of human existence was polluted.

3. Nor does this contravene our natural sense of justice. We ascribe blameworthiness to wrong states and tendencies of disposition, without staying to inquire how these were originated. A commoner may be elevated to the peerage, and thus confer titles and dignity on all future generations. Or a nobleman, convicted of treason, may involve his posterity in poverty and ignominy.

4. Now, this procedure on the part of God may strike you at first as unjust. And so it would be, if it stood alone. But —

I. WE MUST CONSIDER IT IN CONNECTION WITH GOD'S GREAT SCHEME OF REDEMPTION. Paul invariably links the two together. Here he shows that Adam's headship is a type of Christ's: and if in one all men have been made sinners, so in the other all have, at least conditionally, been restored to righteousness. Similarly in 1 Corinthians 15 he affirms that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."

II. OUR RUIN BY THE FALL DOES NOT ENTAIL ON US THE DOOM OF FINAL PERDITION. The life to come is always set forth as the retributive consequence of the present. And no principle is more clear or more frequently stated than that each man must give an account of himself before God, and receive the reward of his own doings. We are here treated as sinners for Adam's sake: but hereafter, if so treated, it will be for our own sake. The necessary loss which we have sustained by the fault of another is limited and temporal; it will be our own fault if we make it absolute and eternal. This arrangement, then, has simply altered the conditions of our probationary life. There are two distinct courses which such probation may take.

1. Men might be created holy, and be left to obey or disobey. In the former case their righteousness would be sealed to them forever; but in the latter they must forfeit it forever. In this way the probation of angels was accomplished: and that of Adam and Eve.

2. The other mode is that of souls originally depraved, but furnished with adequate means of self-recovery through grace. And this is the method adopted in regard to all the posterity of Adam and Eve; and it is with reference to it that they are all born under the imputation of the first great transgression.

III. COMPARE THESE TWO ALTERNATIVES, THAT YOU MAY SEE HOW MUCH MORE DESIRABLE THAT ONE IS, IN WHICH WE FIND OURSELVES CONCERNED. We see what our probation now is, and how easy it is for us, through God's grace in Christ, to escape perdition, to triumph over our native depravity, and to lay hold on eternal life. But suppose the opposite method had been adopted, do you think that your eternal safety would have been more likely or certain than it is now? Is it not probable that the great majority of mankind would act as Adam and Eve did?

IV. THE IMMENSE PREPONDERANCE OF GOOD WHICH ACCRUES TO THE SAVED, THROUGH THE ECONOMY OF GRACE IN CHRIST. There is a mighty superiority in the Saviour's headship above that of Adam. The ultimate benefits of our salvation will infinitely exceed the little temporary sufferings of our loss and ruin through the fall. Conclusion:

1. Let us tremble at the thought of sin, when we survey its terrible results in the ravages of death.

2. Be convinced of sin, and stirred up to seek salvation from it.

3. Let us confidently accept and embrace the salvation of the gospel.

4. Here is an argument for submission and patience under the ills of life. Our subjection to affliction and sorrow is not meant to be our permanent and everlasting state.

(T. G. Horton.)

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KJV: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

WEB: For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not charged when there is no law.