He distinguishes between sin as sinfulness, or unconscious transgression (ἡ ἁμαρτία), and sin as conscious transgression of a known command (παράβασις).
The consequence of the first is death, or moral and spiritual depravity; the consequence of the second is condemnation, or a sense of guilt.
Sinfulness, bringing with it depravity (the general demoralization of human nature), began with Adam. All became involved in sinfulness, and consequently all partook of the depravity which belongs to it as its wages.
It should, however, be observed that it is not the purpose of Paul to teach anything about Adam. His intention is to teach something about Christ. He refers to Adam's case as something they all are acquainted with; he compares Christ's case with it both by contrast and resemblance. But his object is not to instruct us about Adam, but about Christ. He uses Adam as an example to enforce his doctrine about Christ. Through Christ, goodness and happiness were to come into the world. He illustrated this fact, and made it appear probable, by the fact which they already knew—that through Adam sin and death had entered the world. If it seemed strange, in an age in which men were so disunited, that one man should be the medium of communicating goodness to the whole human race, they might remember that Adam also had been the medium of introducing sin to the whole human race. If the Jews wondered that Christ should bring salvation to those who were not under the law, [pg 143] they might remember that Adam had brought death to those not under the law, and who did not sin as he did. If they doubted how Christ's goodness could help to make men righteous, they might remember that in some way Adam's transgression had helped to make men sinners. Yet, after all, the main fact which he states is in the twelfth verse, chapter five—“that by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.” This amounts to saying that sin began with Adam. Then he adds, in the same verse, “that death has passed upon all men, because all have sinned.” He therefore distinctly declares that every man is punished for his own sin, and not for the sin of Adam.
In the other passage (1 Cor. 15:22), Paul says, “As in Adam all die, even so, in Christ, shall all be made alive.” He does not say here, either that “all sinned in Adam,” or that “all fell in Adam,” or that “all died in Adam.” It is the present tense, “all die in Adam.”
What he means by this, he explains himself afterwards. He tells us that as “souls” descended from Adam, we are liable to death; as spirits quickened by Christ, we are filled with spiritual and immortal life.
In the forty-fourth verse he gives the explanation. The body “is sown a natural body” (σῶμα ψυχικὸν)—literally a soul-body, a body vitalized by the soul. “It is raised a spiritual body”—literally spirit-body (σῶμα πνευματικὸν), a body vitalized by the spirit. “There is a soul-body, and there in a spirit-body.” “And so it is written, The first man, Adam, was made a living soul” (which is a quotation from Genesis 2:7—“and man became a living soul”), “but the last Adam,” says Paul (meaning Christ), “became a life-making spirit.” But, continues Paul, the soul-man (psychical man) comes first; the spiritual-man afterwards, according to a regular order. “The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second is the Lord from heaven.” And then he adds,—and this is the key to the whole passage,—“As we have borne the [pg 144] image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” The doctrine, then, is plainly this: that we have two natures—a soul-nature, which we derive from Adam, and share with all mankind, which nature is liable to weakness, sin, and death; and a spirit-nature, which we derive from God, which Christ comes to quicken and vitalize, and the life of which constitutes our true immortality.
The apostle Paul, therefore, does not by any means teach Calvinism. The Catechism says that “our first parents being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed to all their posterity.” But Paul says, “So death passed upon all men, because all have sinned.” The Catechism says that “this same death in sin, and corrupted nature, being conveyed to their posterity, makes us utterly indisposed and opposite to all good,” and that “from this original corruption do proceed all actual transgressions.”
But if this is so, there has been no such thing in the world as guilt since Adam fell. If all actual transgressions proceed from original corruption, and original corruption comes from the first transgression of Adam, it logically follows that there has been but one sin committed in the world since it was made, namely, the sin of Adam. All other sins have been pure misfortunes; his alone was guilt. His transgression alone came from a free choice; all others have come from an involuntary necessity of nature.
Nothing can be more certain from reason and Scripture than this—that transgressions which come from a corrupt nature are just so far done in us, and not done by us. This the apostle distinctly affirms when he says (7:17), “Now, then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” No man is responsible for disease, when he has not brought that disease on himself, but inherited it from his ancestors. The disease may make him very odious, very disagreeable, but cannot make him blamable. Therefore, when Calvin says that hereditary depravity “renders us [pg 145] obnoxious to the divine wrath,” he utters an absurdity. This confusion of ideas runs through all Orthodox statements on the subject, and the only cure is, that we should learn how to make this distinction between natural evil and moral evil, or the evil which proceeds from a corrupt nature and the evil which comes from a free will.