Romans 5:13

for until the law This and the following verses are not a parenthesis: see on Romans 5:12. "Until" here practically = "before." The period "from Adam to Moses" is in view, the Law of Moses being taken as the first elaboratestatute-giving of God for man. "Laws" existed long before Moses; e.g. those of Marriage, of the sanctity of Life, and of the Sabbath. But the Mosaic Law covered the field of dutyin a way unknown before; so as to suggest the question whether human beings, in the previous ages, in some instances, had not satisfied the claims of then-knownduty, and so escaped death. But no: in those ages, as in the Mosaic, "death reigned;" therefore there was sin; therefore there was broken law; and that law, in numberless cases, (viz. infantine,) must have been broken only"in Adam;" for it was unknown to the persons in question.

law … law Both these words in the Gr. are without the article. In spite of some difficulty, we must interpret the first of the Mosaic Law, and the second of Law in some other sense; here probably in the sense of the declared Will of God in general, against which, in a particular case, Adam sinned, and we "in him."

is not imputed So as to bring penalty. Therefore, had there been in no sensea (broken) law in the primeval age, there would have been no death. But death was universal.