Article May 5, 1973 Issue

Words of Current Interest

Related to the Lesson-Sermon for May 13, 1973,in the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE QUARTERLYSubject: Adam and Fallen Man

For until the law sin was in the world . . . (Rom. 5:13-15)

"It often becomes easier to follow Paul's arguments if the reader imagines the apostle face to face with a heckler, who makes interjections and receives replies which sometimes are withering and brusque. It is by no means impossible that some of the arguments in Romans first took shape in this way, in the course of debates in synagogue or market place" (Harper's New Testament Commentaries: The Epistle to the Romans by C. K. Barrett).

Phillips vividly paraphrases vv. 13, 14: "Sin, you see, was in the world long before the Law, though I suppose, technically speaking, it was not 'sin' where there was no law to define it. Nevertheless death, the complement of sin, held sway over mankind from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sin was quite unlike Adam's. . . ."

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