Saturday, March 22, 2008
Rm 5, 12-14 Death reigned from Adam to Moses
(Rm 5, 12-14) Death reigned from Adam to Moses
[12] Therefore, just as through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned – [13] for up to the time of the law, sin was in the world, though sin is not accounted when there is no law. [14] But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin after the pattern of the trespass of Adam, who is the type of the one who was to come.
(CCC 399) Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness (Cf. Rom 3:23). They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image--that of a God jealous of his prerogatives (Cf. Gen 3:5-10). (CCC 400) The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination (Cf. Gen 3:7-16). Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man(Cf. Gen 3:17, 19). Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay" (Rom 8:21). Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground"(Gen 3:19; cf. 2:17), for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history (Cf. Rom 5:12). (CCC 402 All men are implicated in Adam's sin, as St. Paul affirms: "By one man's disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners": "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom 5:12, 19). The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men" (Rom 5:18). (CCC 1008) Death is a consequence of sin. The Church's Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man's sin (Cf. Gen 2:17; 3:3; 3:19; Wis 1:13; Rom 5:12; 6:23; DS 1511). Even though man's nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin (Cf. Wis 2:23-24). "Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned" is thus "the last enemy" of man left to be conquered (GS 18 § 2; cf. 1 Cor 15:26).
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