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Let us consider —

I. THAT SIN WHICH BY ONE MAN ENTERED INTO THE WORLD.

1. What this sin was, and how it came to be committed. The sin itself, as to the outward act, was the eating of the tree of knowledge contrary to the command of God. The manner of doing it may be collected from Genesis

3. compared with other Scriptures.

2. Its heinousness.

(1) It contained many sins.

(a)  Direct disobedience and rebellion against God.

(b)  Unbelief.

(c)  Inordinate indulgence to the sensual appetite.

(d)  Pride and covetousness.

(e)  An envious discontent with God.

(f)  Sacrilege; for God was robbed.

(g)  Idolatry; because the trust due to God only was transferred to the devil, and because they made a tree a god to themselves, and expected from it greater benefits than their Maker would bestow.

(h)  Ingratitude.

(i)  Injustice and cruelty against all their posterity.

(2) It had special aggravations.

(a) It was committed in a direct manner against God, and struck at all His perfections at once. His Majesty was treated by it with irreverence, His truth was arraigned, as though He had spoken what was equivocal or false. His Omnipotence was impeached, by the hope of escaping an evil certainly threatened; His goodness was contemned by ingratitude. Finally, His omnipresence, wisdom, justice, and holiness all shared in the affront.

(b) It was perfectly voluntary, being done against the clearest light.

(c) The broken command was an easy one, for it required nothing to be done, but only somewhat to be foreborne.

(d) The sin was committed in paradise, a delightful spot, honoured with the special presence of God and friendly communion with Him.

(e) This sin was the first in our world, which gave birth to the innumerable sins and calamities.

II. THE CONCERN WHICH ALL MEN HAVE IN THE FIRST SIN.

1. All men suffer and die through it (vers. 14-17).

2. It belongs in the guilt of it to all men. "All have sinned." How? Why, in Adam, their common father and head. (See also vers. 18, 19.)

III. THE DREADFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE FIRST SIN TO ALL THE POSTERITY OF ADAM.

1. Natural death, with a long train of miseries in life preceding it.

2. The punishments of another world.

3. One which commences in every man on the first union of soul and body — the want of habitual rectitude, or of effectual principles to incline and enable him to do what is pleasing to God, together with the inherency of an evil habit and bias prompting and disposing him to sinful actions.Conclusion:

1. Let us learn from the first sin growing into such an enormous size, though conversant about a matter in itself inconsiderable, never to account the doing of anything which God forbids a slight trespass, and never to venture on it under such a pretence (1 Corinthians 5:6; James 3:5).

2. Let us be deeply humbled before God, for original sin without us, even that of our first parents, which, though not done by us is yet upon us by a just imputation, and for original sin within us.

3. Let us see that we abuse not this doctrine by charging all our sins so to the score of original corruption, as by the presence of a necessity, either to take an unbounded liberty in sinning or to extenuate the guilt of what we do knowingly with free and full consent of will. On the contrary, it is incumbent on us to watch, strive, and pray the more carefully and earnestly against sin as it easily besets us.

4. Let us take occasion from the view of our fall in the first Adam, with its sad consequences, to admire and thankfully use the way of our recovery in the second, which is in exact opposition to the former, only with superior efficacy and advantage.

(Hubbard-Puritan.)

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KJV: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

WEB: Therefore, as sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin; and so death passed to all men, because all sinned.