Edenic Law and the Book of Romans – Part 2

Is it fair that we all share the consequences of Adam’s sin?

Is it fair that we all share the consequences of Adam’s sin? After he and Eve sinned, they were cursed and exiled from Eden’s garden. We find ourselves under Adam’s curse and outside Eden too, but we weren’t the ones responsible. Perhaps you’ve asked, “If I was there, would I have sinned like Adam and Eve?”

David—A Test Case

To test this supposition, Paul uses a test case example that undergirds his message to the Romans. In verse 3 of the first chapter, he mentions this example: “Concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh.”1 David is a perfect test case to prove Paul’s message because he was a man after God’s heart (1 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22), a truly wonderful testimony about David’s character and commitment to God. 

While Paul can’t time-travel David back to Eden, we do see him sinning in the same way as Adam. In fact, David is both Adam and Eve in his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah. Elsewhere Paul writes, “and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” (1 Timothy 2:14).

Let’s give David the benefit of the doubt that he was deceived by the beauty of Bathsheba. The record states, “It happened, late one afternoon, when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; and the woman was very beautiful,” (2 Samuel 11:2) echoing the woman who “saw that the tree was good for food” and “a delight to the eyes” (Genesis 3:6). However, just as Adam wasn’t deceived and knew what he was doing in partaking of the fruit, David understood perfectly what he was doing when he planned the murder of Uriah.

After his sin, Nathan confronted David with the story of a “rich man [who] had very many flocks and herds” (2 Samuel 12:2) who “took the poor man’s lamb.” (v. 4) Notice David’s reaction as his “anger was greatly kindled against the man.” (v. 5). Who else was a rich man with very many flocks and herds in David’s life? Nabal! I imagine David thinking to himself, “He’s just like Nabal, that horrible fellow!” David then brings down his judgment on the man—“the man who has done this deserves to die.” (v. 5).

Paul echoes David’s words at the end of a long list of sins in Romans 1. He says they “deserve to die” (Romans 1:32), just as David said. This was, of course, the judgment in Eden for failing to obey the commandment—“for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:17).

However, as soon as David uttered those words, Nathan pointed at him and said, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:7), something again echoed by David in the next verse in Romans: 

And that’s what David did, despite judging the sin of the man in the parable as worthy of death. He was the man and had practiced the very same thing he condemned by taking Bathsheba and killing her husband.

Under the Law of Moses, David deserved death both for adultery (Leviticus 20:10) and murder (Leviticus 24:17). However, after acknowledging his sin, Nathan said to David, “The Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” (2 Samuel 12:13).

Notice what Nathan did not tell David to do: go to the temple and offer a sacrifice in the hope God would forgive him. In fact, no sacrifice under the Law could atone for David’s sin. God simply forgave him, and he was a recipient of His grace and mercy.

One of the interesting aspects of David’s forgiveness is the lack of repentance. David did repent, as his psalms attest, but that came later. He did confess his sin, but God didn’t wait for him to repent; He had put away his sin before the conversation with Nathan. Likewise, a lack of repentance is evident in Eden after Adam and Eve sinned and before God provided the animal skins. 

Paul explains the enigma in Romans 2:4, writing, “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” This is an aspect of the righteousness of God—God’s right way of dealing with the problem of sin. What leads to repentance is not the strictness of law or threat of death if you disobey. What works is God’s kindness, and David is a prime example of the power of the gospel of grace that leads to salvation.

Courtroom Scene

In Romans 1, Paul highlights the sinfulness of the world, using the example of David in Chapter 2. He explains that the Jewish world is just as sinful. He sums it up in Chapter 3 with the words, “For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin.” (v. 9). Those words form the accusation of a courtroom scene Paul develops through the chapter. 

After the accusation of verse 9, we have the evidence listed in verses 10-18, where Paul makes six quotations from the Old Testament, each of which outlines the sinfulness of humankind. Then we have the verdict in verse 19—

Before we look at the sentence, notice Paul’s mention of the law in verse 19. This is a courtroom where the prosecuting lawyer is the law itself. However, as Paul will go on to say, the defense lawyer, and ultimately the judge, is God. Verse 21 is the turning point of the chapter, where Paul begins by saying, “But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law.” (v. 21).

In other words, despite the correct verdict of the law, all are guilty, God’s righteousness is revealed apart from it. That was Paul’s opening point in his thesis statement in Chapter 1. The revelation of God’s righteousness is not seen in the strictness of law but in the abundance of grace. If we have faith (v. 22), then we “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” (v. 24). In other words, through the death of Christ, God has provided us with the animal skins as a gracious gift to cover our nakedness.

Indictment

Let’s return to the evidence presented in verses 10 through 18. What is intriguing about the six Old Testament quotations is that five of them are psalms of David. In each psalm, David highlights the sinfulness of man through the various interactions he has had with people like Saul and Doeg. However, each psalm also has an interesting twist. Let’s look at three examples.

The words “the venom of asps is under their lips” (v. 13) come from Psalm 140:3 (NKJV): “The poison of asps is under their lips.” However, if we carry on reading in the next verse, David goes on to say the following:

Who was a “violent man” who had “set traps” for Uriah the Hittite? Here is David’s complaint about the sins of those he encountered, but as Paul says in Romans 2:1, David did “the very same things,” and David’s own psalm is a formal accusation against him.

We see the same thing with Paul’s words: “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness” (Romans 3:14) found in Psalm 10:7, another psalm of David. If we carry on reading, David continues:

Again, we see words that indict David. He set an ambush for Uriah and murdered the innocent.

Likewise, the words “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Romans 3:18) come from Psalm 36:1. If we carry on reading in the next verse, we have another indictment against David:

David was guilty of all these things, and Paul expertly crafted his list of evidence with David as his test case. 

God Saves

The one quote that is not a psalm of David comes from Isaiah 59 (see Romans 3:15-17), which is also a courtroom scene. There, the prophet begins with the evidence in verses 1-8 (including the words used by Paul in verses 7 and 8) before there is a guilty plea in verse 12:

In the rest of the chapter, the prophet surveys this cosmic law court and sees that “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away.” (v. 14). How will righteousness manifest itself? The prophet says of God, “He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no one to intercede.” (v. 16). Just like in Romans, the prosecuting lawyer is the law. At first, there is no defense lawyer, as this verse explains, so “his own arm brought him salvation.” (v. 16). God steps into the breach and defends the ones found guilty.

Notice how “his own arm brought salvation” is coupled with “and his righteousness upheld him” in the same verses. That parallelism continues in the next verse—“He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head.” Here, once again, is the revelation of God’s righteousness as he saves those guilty of sin.

The chapter ends with the words, “And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression” (v. 20), and it is that redeemer that Paul mentions in Rom. 3:24—the Lord Jesus Christ. But it is only for those who “turn from transgression.” The point of this quotation by Paul and his words in Romans 3 is to explain that in Christ, we are justified by faith—vindicated by God despite our sins. Justification means being counted innocent, and with God as our defense lawyer, the verdict is repealed, and we are set free.

However, the point is not just to let us off the hook as if God is indifferent to sin. We still need to “turn from transgressions” or repent. But, as Paul said in Chapter 2, God’s kindness in forgiving our sin is meant to lead us to that repentance, and in future chapters in Romans, Paul will explain that the work of salvation in Christ is designed to produce in us a new way of thinking and a new way of life.

Justification

Paul has transitioned from illustrating that “all have sinned” (Romans 3:23) to the fact that we are “justified by his grace as a gift,” but, in fact, Paul started the chapter by talking about a different kind of justification. This time, it is God who is the defendant in the courtroom. In verse 4, Paul again quotes David concerning God:

People judge God and complain that He does not act the right way. For instance, why has God condemned humanity to death because of Adam’s sin (something Paul will develop in chapter 5)? We weren’t guilty of Adam’s sin, so why do we share in the consequence of his sin? Paul vindicates God by showing how all have sinned. Or, to put it another way, we vindicate or justify God every time we sin, showing that God was right to place us all under condemnation. 

The section ends in Chapter 4, where Paul switches from David’s example to Abraham’s. Once again, Paul quotes David in verses 7-8:

However, there is one more quotation from a psalm of David hidden in Chapter 3, in the pivot verse of the chapter: “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight.” (v. 20). Those words come from Psalm 143.

So, the chapter is bracketed by two psalms of David (Psalm 51:4 and Psalm 32:1-2) and the pivot verse in the middle from another psalm of David (Psalm 143:2). What is interesting about all three psalms is that each one is David’s plea for mercy following his sin. Psalm 51 opens with the words, “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love,” and shows David’s faith in God’s righteousness revealed in his character of kindness. Similarly, in Psalm 143, David prays that God will “give ear to me pleas for mercy” (v. 1) as he again rests in God’s kindness and love (v. 8, 12). In Psalm 32:10, after acknowledging his sin, David praises God with the words, “but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD.” 

Paul’s expert crafting of his treatise on justification by faith centers on David and teaches us through his example that, despite our sins, we can rely on God’s kindness. 

Richard Morgan,
Simi Hills Ecclesia, CA