Romans 5:12

George Goolde goolde at mtnempire.net
Fri Oct 1 02:32:04 EDT 1999


Dear Friends,

	Thank you, Al, for this post.  It is a good and important question.  As 
Carl accurately observed sinned is an aorist indicative.  This means that 
most exegetes would see it indicating past time and undefined aspect.  The 
idea that the aorist indicative shows a past action in a point of time is 
an inaccurate summation.  What the aorist indicative DOES show is that the 
aspect is not defined.  (The word aorist itself comes from horizo with the 
alpha privitive.  Horizo means to mark out a limit; with the alpha 
privitive it means unlimited.)

	Carlton's post shows that he, too, understands the aspect to be undefined, 
or at least uncertain.  Here is where we ought to realize, as we struggle 
to be honest with ourselves and our own presuppositions, that we 
unconsciously read our presuppositions and/or our theology into our 
exegesis.  We cannot make the text mean something it does not say, such as 
making this verse a present tense; that would be eisegesis.  But as we work 
to select an appropriate description of which use of the aorist indicative 
we believe this to be, we will probably make a selection that is 
"influenced" by the above factors.

	I myself would understand that the three aorist indicatives happened at 
the same time.  Sin entered the world through Adam.  At the same time death 
passed to all men (in a positional sense; some men weren't even born yet so 
they didn't die yet temporally).  The reason for this is that, at the same 
time, these same all men sinned.  This is, in my opinion, the most natural 
way to understand the aorists.  It is clearly not possible to understand 
the first aorist imperative (entered) as gnomic.

	I would like to think that this particular exegesis informs my theology, 
but I must also wonder if my theology does not prompt me to interpret these 
aorists as I do.  I do not see this as a statement that explains that men 
always do sin (although I agree that we habitually do!).  I see this as a 
statement that Adam's sin was imputed to the entire human race so that all 
die physically as a result.  The reason for this is that all sinned (in the 
person of their substitute, Adam),  The passage goes on to explain that we 
receive the imputation of God's righteousness, thereby leading to 
justification, because of the gift of the Second Adam, Christ.  I'm not 
intending a theological discourse here, but am trying to show evidence in 
the passage for interpreting the aorist indicatives of verse twelve as 
simple, cotaneous actions in past time, with no emphasis on or definition 
of aspect.

Hope this helps.



	
George A. Goolde
Professor, Bible and Theology
Southern California Bible College & Seminary
El Cajon, California

goolde at mtnempire.net



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