The Universalism of Luther

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.  1 Corinthians 15:22  NASB

In –  Augustine and Luther taught that all men sinned in the sin of Adam.  They believed that Adam represented every one of the human race and that when he fell, he took the whole human race with him.  They believed that since the Fall, every human being has been born with this stain of sin (called “sinful nature”) and as a result every human being is guilty from the moment of conception, not simply for that person’s individual sins after birth but for the sin of Adam transmuted into the very nature of being human.  They also concluded that as a result of this stain, everyone inevitably follows with personal sinful deeds.[1]

There are only a few verses that seem to support this idea.  1 Corinthians 15:22 is one of them.  But 1 Corinthians 15:22 has an unwelcomed consequence.  If the first part of this verse is Paul’s declaration that every human being dies because every human being participates in the fallen sinful nature of Adam, then the second part of this verse suggests that every human being will be saved (made alive) by the perfect obedience of Christ.  Salvation is no longer a matter of choice, just as my being born with a sinful nature was not a matter of choice.  I was born a sinner because of something done to me, and I will be saved because of something done for me.  The logic seems airtight.  If Luther claims that this verse proves the doctrine of sinful nature, then it seems inescapable that it also proves the doctrine of universalism.  But I know of no theologian (including Augustine and Luther) who is willing to draw this conclusion.  There are many who endorse the idea of sinful nature and the consequence that men are guilty and will die, but there are none who are willing to follow through with a proclamation that all will automatically be saved.  Apparently Paul’s logic needs to be split in the middle.

Or maybe a theological paradigm interferes with what Paul intended.

A quick review of Romans 5:12, correctly translated from the Greek, not the Latin, shows that death passes to all men because all men sin.[2]  Paul does not argue that death passes to all men because Adam sinned.  To do so would be to violate one of Torah’s greatest principles, that is, the person who sins shall die for his own guilt (Ezekiel 18:4).  If Paul clearly connects death with individual guilt in the letter to the Romans (written after this letter), then what does he mean by en to adam and en to Christo?  If death is the outward sign of sin and all die in Adam, doesn’t that mean all sin in Adam?  Does Paul contradict himself?  Wouldn’t it have been so much easier if Paul had simply said eph ho (“because” in Romans 5:12) instead of en to?

The entire problem turns on the way Paul uses the preposition en (“in”).  Is this preposition a description of the material cause or the efficient cause?  If it is the material cause, then Paul would be speaking about what constitutes death, and since death is made up of sin, we conclude that Adam’s death (because of sin) causes our deaths.  In this view, death is sin and therefore to die in Adam is the equivalent of sinning in Adam.  This is the position taken by those who support the doctrine of sinful nature.

But en can also be used as the efficient cause.  If en is the efficient cause, then Adam becomes the person who brings about our experience of death.  Sin enters into the world through Adam and everyone who sins experiences the same result that Adam experienced.  We are connected to Adam because we experience similar results.  With this reading of en, we conclude that we are connected to Christ when we experience the same results that He experienced, namely “being made alive.”  Death is connected to us through the door Adam opened.  Life is connected to us through the door the Messiah opened.  But the efficient cause does not constitute the resulting thing.  It is merely the connection between one thing and another.  I die because, like Adam, I sin, but Adam’s sin does not constitute my sin.

With this reading neither sinful nature nor universalism follow.  My death connects me to Adam because his act brought this result into the world.  I can anticipate the same consequences he experienced when I see what happened to him.  Likewise, I can anticipate the same consequences that I see in the Messiah when I am connected to the Messiah, that is, life!  I will experience what these two opposing men experienced insofar as I am connected to them.

Oh, my.  It’s complicated.  So complicated that even David Stern, who otherwise seems quite comfortable explaining Paul from a rabbinic point of view, actually suggests that Paul believed in a form of the doctrine of sinful nature.  Amazing!  And now you get to go investigate.  By the way, don’t brush this off as just one more issue for the scholars.  If you listen carefully, you will soon discover that this doctrine permeates much of our preaching about sin, atonement, human nature and the grace of God.  And that means it affects you!

Topical Index:  sinful nature, en to, eph ho, in, 1 Corinthians 15:22, Romans 5:12