The Law of Sin and Death

The Law of Sin and Death
Kurt Simmons

In any discussion of this kind, it is important to take account of the universal nature of the law of sin and death and that mankind’s salvation lay in redemption from it, and not from the Mosaic law, as some Preterists have supposed. The law of sin and death was in force from the time God made man and placed him in the garden. God’s instruction to Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil carried with it the sanction of death for its transgression: “For in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17) There are no fewer than five types of death that may be identified in the scriptures: 1) moral and spiritual, 2) legal and juridical, 3) physical, 4) hadean, and 5) eternal death. Moral and spiritual death speaks to mankind’s inherent fallenness, the moral depravity that besets the whole race due to Adam’s transgression. Juridical death speaks to the legal censor and sentence of death pronounced upon all that transgress God’s law. Paul alludes to juridical death when he says, “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” (Eph. 2:1) That is, God had acquitted them of their sins and the penalty of death, and made them heirs of life.

Whatsoever is not of faith is sin. (Rom. 14:23) This means that sin is tied to man’s moral faculties of faith and conscience, exculpating infants and idiots from guilt. From the time he arrives at the age of accountability, man lives under the sentence of juridical death for his sins. Unless he is saved from his sins, and receives pardon by obedience to the gospel, at the time of physical death man’s fate is fixed and the sentence of eternal death awaits him. However, prior to the eschaton, man’s spirit was kept in hades; thus, the origin of hadean death. This was necessary so that the souls of the righteous might be kept in safety until Christ could accomplish the work of his cross, making redemption for their sins. It is to the souls of the just in hades paradise that John refers in Revelation when he says he saw the souls of them beheaded for the gospel, living and reigning with Christ. (Rev. 20:3-6) The wicked were also kept in hades tartarus until the judgment of the last day, when they were cast into the lake of fire, which is called the “second death” (eternal death). (Rev. 20:11-15; cf. I Pet. 3:19; II Pet. 4:2)

The point that needs to be made here is that death came into the world independent of Mosaic law. The reign of sin and death was universal; all men were under its power, both Jew and Gentile. Bringing in the Mosaic law did not create mankind’s bondage, nor would taking away the Mosaic law deliver him from it. The Mosaic law was superimposed upon the law of sin and death; its ordinances merely served to demonstrate man’s condition, which obtained from the time of the race’s fall in the garden. Paul said “The law entered that the offence might abound.” (Rom. 5:20) That is, the Mosaic law did not create the offence, it merely magnified it; it served to teach man about his bondage to the law of sin and death, and the hopelessness of his condition apart from the substitutionary death and atoning sacrifice of Christ. Proof of this is seen in the fact that the Mosaic law is no longer in force today, yet all who are not in Christ are under bondage to the law of sin and death. Moreover, the Gentiles were never under the law of Moses, but they were under bondage to sin and death, and every bit as much in need of salvation as the Jews. It was to Gentiles Paul wrote when he said “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1) - juridically dead in sin, even though not under the law of Moses.
Paul makes express mention of the law of sin and death in his letter to the Romans:

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death. For what the [Mosaic] law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. Rom. 8:2, 3; emphasis and bracketed matter
added.

Notice that two laws occur in this passage: 1) the law of sin and death and 2) the law of Moses. The Jews thought that perfection came by the Mosaic law, but Paul shows that it could not deliver from the law of sin and death. This is because man can never rise completely above his flesh, but lives under condemnation of the moral and spiritual law he is bound to transgress. Moreover, the law of Moses made no provision for redemption (the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sins, Heb. 10:4): “For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did, by which we draw nigh to God.” (Heb. 7:19) A little earlier, Paul identified the law of sin and death with the law of man’s inherent fallenness in this passage:

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in
my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Rom. 7:22-24; emphasis added.

In this passage, the “law of God” that delights the inward man is the moral and spiritual law. Violation of the moral and spiritual law brings man under the law of sin and death. Like the law of sin and death, the moral and spiritual law exists independent of the Mosaic law. Although much of the moral law was codified by the law of Moses, it did not derive its force from it, and it continues to exist today even though the Mosaic law has passed away. The “law of sin in my members” refers to the elemental forces of man’s inherent fallenness. The Spirit and Inspiration that God breathed into our first ancestor that enabled him to live above his flesh, was lost to Adam and his descendants through sin. Man is now “carnal, sold under sin.” (Rom. 7:14) It is impossible that he ever live completely above his flesh, even though he aspires to do so. Hence, Paul’s lament “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death.” Paul is not seeking physical death in this verse, for physical death without redemption is eternal damnation. Rather, Paul is expressing the impossibility of ever achieving salvation under the moral and spiritual law. No matter how much man might aspire to the moral and spiritual law, the law of sin in his members brought him into captivity to the law of sin and death. However, Paul expresses his thankfulness for the redemption in Jesus when he says “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Since man’s problem laid in the universal law of sin and death, it should be clear that an exclusively “Jewish” eschaton would avail man nothing; something more had to be taken out of the way than the Mosaic law.