Study of ROMANS 5:12-14

12 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: 13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

12. Wherefore—that is, Things being so; referring back to the whole preceding argument.
as by one man—Adam.
sin—considered here in its guilt, criminality, penal desert.
entered into the world, and death by sin—as the penalty of sin.
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned—rather, “all sinned,” that is, in that one man’s first sin. Thus death reaches every individual of the human family, as the penalty due to himself. (So, in substance, BENGEL, HODGE, PHILIPPI). Here we should have expected the apostle to finish his sentence, in some such way as this: “Even so, by one man righteousness has entered into the world, and life by righteousness.” But, instead of this, we have a digression, extending to five verses, to illustrate the important statement of Ro 5:12; and it is only at Ro 5:18 that the comparison is resumed and finished.
13, 14. For until the law sin was in the world—that is during all the period from Adam “until the law” of Moses was given, God continued to treat men as sinners.
but sin is not imputed where there is no law—“There must therefore have been a law during that period, because sin was then imputed”; as is now to be shown.
14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression—But who are they?—a much contested question. Infants (say some), who being guiltless of actual sin, may be said not to have sinned in the way that Adam did [AUGUSTINE, BEZA, HODGE]. But why should infants be specially connected with the period “from Adam to Moses,” since they die alike in every period? And if the apostle meant to express here the death of infants, why has he done it so enigmatically? Besides, the death of infants is comprehended in the universal mortality on account of the first sin, so emphatically expressed in Ro 5:12; what need then to specify it here? and why, if not necessary, should we presume it to be meant here, unless the language unmistakably point to it—which it certainly does not? The meaning then must be, that “death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those that had not, like Adam, transgressed against a positive commandment, threatening death to the disobedient.” (So most interpreters). In this case, the particle “even,” instead of specifying one particular class of those who lived “from Adam to Moses” (as the other interpretation supposes), merely explains what it was that made the case of those who died from Adam to Moses worthy of special notice—namely, that “though unlike Adam and all since Moses, those who lived between the two had no positive threatening of death for transgression, nevertheless, death reigned even over them.”
who is the figure—or, “a type.”
of him that was to come—Christ. “This clause is inserted on the first mention of the name “Adam,” the one man of whom he is speaking, to recall the purpose for which he is treating of him, as the figure of Christ” [ALFORD]. The point of analogy intended here is plainly the public character which both sustained, neither of the two being regarded in the divine procedure towards men as mere individual men, but both alike as representative men. (Some take the proper supplement here to be “Him [that is] to come”; understanding the apostle to speak from his own time, and to refer to Christ’s second coming [FRITZSCHE, DE WETTE, ALFORD]. But this is unnatural, since the analogy of the second Adam to the first has been in full development ever since “God exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour,” and it will only remain to be consummated at His second coming. The simple meaning is, as nearly all interpreters agree, that Adam is a type of Him who was to come after him in the same public character, and so to be “the second Adam”).