Romans 5:12-19

Each of us has a unique story. We live our lives in the story mode, as the narratives of our individual lives intersect with the stories of others. Each story is unique. Each has its own heroes and villains, its own twists and turns of plot. Yet often we have trouble understanding how our own story fits with other people’s stories, and ultimately how it fits in with God’s story. In this section from Romans the apostle Paul shows us how our life stories are intertwined with the stories of the two most significant individuals to have lived in human history.

Adam’s Story (5:12-14)

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Romans 5:12-14 focuses on the impact of Adam’s story on our stories. Even though Paul presents us with a bare thumbnail sketch of Adam’s life in these verses, he assumes that his readers are fully acquainted with the biblical story of Adam from Genesis chapters 2 and 3. Through Adam’s act of disobedience, sin entered into the world. In v. 12 “sin” is personified, as if it were an actor making his or her entrance onto a stage.1

In some way that Paul does not fully explain, Adam’s first act of disobedience opened the door for this character known as “sin” to walk out onto the stage of human history. Like a shadow, death fol-lowed sin’s entrance. Wherever sin went on the stage, death followed on its heels. Like a deadly toxin, sin spread and infected everyone. The proof of this universal infection is the fact that everyone sins.

Paul’s point is to show us that our experience of sin and death is directly connected to Adam’s disobedience. Until we see how our own story intersects with Adam’s story, we won’t fully understand why sin and death plague us. We’ll be tempted to explain away sin as a mere social phenomenon or the result of ignorance.

I heard recently about an entire national forest in Oregon that had been infected by a fungus.2 This fungus started as a single microscopic spore, but it’s been weaving its way through this forest for about 2,400 years, killing tress as it grows. Today this fungus has infected 2,200 acres of this national forest. Essentially the fungus is a gigantic mushroom you can’t see from the ground, but it’s killed hundreds of thousands of tress, all from a single spore.

That’s similar to how Adam’s sin opened the door for sin and death to spread like a fungus through the entire human race.

Christ’s Story (5:15-19)

This brings us to the other person our story is intertwined with: Jesus Christ. Just as he sketched Adam’s story, Paul also sketches Jesus’ story. Here we find that Jesus was able to “undo” all the consequences that Adam’s sin had set into motion. The principle Paul seems to be assuming is that it takes far more effort to clean up a mess than it takes to make the mess in the first place.3 Although Jesus’ story and Adam’s story share a certain correspondence, Jesus comes out as the superior figure because through His death he was able to set right all that Adam set wrong. In these verses Paul wants us to understand our own story as intertwined with the story of Jesus.