> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Reisinger [mailto:jreisinger@...]
> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2003 11:32 AM
>
> (8)      Romans 5:12 does not say "death spread to all men,
> because ADAM sinned," but because "ALL sinned." All people,
> including the infant who dies, actually, literally, "sinned in Adam."

I think this is not a legitimate interpretation of Romans 5:12.  Consider
that Romans 5:18 says, "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came
upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free
gift came upon all men unto justification of life."  Would you want for your
hermeneutic (where "all"=all people, without exception) applied to "the free
gift came upon all men unto justification"?

I think that "all" in Romans 5 should be taken to refer to all _categories_
under discussion--i.e. "Jews" and "Gentiles" (or "male" and "female", or
"slave" and "free").

This makes problemmatic your conclusion:

> (10)     The only way the guilty infant can be saved is by
> proving that just as the infant, and all the elect, were actually
> in Christ on the cross at Calvary in the same sense that they
> were in Adam in the Garden. Our condemnation and our
> justification are both grounded in the same truth of imputation
> and representation.

Chris McKinney