5:12. Paul had now finished his description of how God has revealed and applied to humans His provided righteousness on the basis of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ received by faith. One thing remains to be done—to present the contrastive parallelism between the work of Jesus Christ (and its results in justification and reconciliation) and the work of another man, Adam (and its results in sin and death). Paul began by saying, Therefore (lit., “because of this”; cf. 4:16), and started his comparison, just as; but he became concerned by other matters and did not return to the comparison until 5:15. Paul explained that sin (in Gr., “the sin”) entered (eisēlthen, “entered into”) the world through one man; and, in accord with God’s warning (cf. Gen. 2:16–17), death (in Gr., “the death”) through sin. God’s penalty for sin was both spiritual and physical death (cf. Rom. 6:23; 7:13), and Adam and Eve and their descendants experienced both. But physical death, being an outward, visible experience, is in view in 5:12–21. Paul concluded, And in this way death (“the death”) came to all men. “Came” is diēlthen, literally “passed or went through” or “spread through.” Eisēlthen, “entered into” (the first clause in the verse) means that sin went in the world’s front door (by means of Adam’s sin); and diēlthen, “went through,” means that death penetrated the entire human race, like a vapor permeating all of a house’s rooms. The reason death spread to all, Paul explained, is that all sinned.