Romans 5: 12 Only Makes Sense If Christ's Crucifixion Occurred at Genesis 1

My Romans professor, Dr. Ray Shelton, said that from constant use a theologian's Bible automatically falls open to whichever page that has Romans 5: 12 on it. Romans 5: 12 is THE perplexing problem.

Romans 5: 12 states: "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (KJV).

The verse seems to say that death passes upon all men because we all sin. No sin -- no death. But that is clearly not the case: "Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come" (Romans 5: 14).

Dr. Ray explained that the confusion stems from the translation of the Greek 'o (ho), "because of which." They translated it as "for that," which now means the opposite of what it did four hundred years ago. The verse shows a parallel: one man sinned, so death passed upon him. All men have sinned, and death has passed upon all men. But what about the 'o? The 'o reverses causes. It is not saying that having sinned we died, but that death passed upon all men, BECAUSE OF WHICH -- DEATH -- all sinned.

Oy vey! The theologians' minds go 'round and 'round. Is it original sin? Where is the justice? A person is to be judged for his own faults. If we are judged for Adam's . . . ?

Systematic theology gets derailed at Genesis 1: 1, for it sees separation between the Creator and his creation. Beep! Division is not there. The Creator is an emanation of the Ineffable, and his "creation" is his manifestation. There is no separation or division between him and it -- either which way. The Creator is the conscious intelligence of the Ineffable's imagining. This is infinite and unlimited in potential. It imagined a man, and all men from that man. It imagined that man having become Its perfect manifestation. Cool! Except to become that perfect manifestation, the man would have to be generated to perfection through affliction and futility. Whoa! Who came up with that plan? God. For us to become generated into the perfection of the Ineffable's imagination, we have to spend our "three days in the grave."

Thus the one man died for all at the beginning. In fact as the Beginning. He became UNLIKE GOD -- sin -- in ignorance -- to become us. And by that ignorance death entered upon us. All of us in becoming into the world become unlike God. We become ignorant and "die" of our Godhood. We enter the death of forgetting, BECAUSE OF WHICH FORGETTING we sin in our daily lives. We do not die because we sin, we sin because we are "dead." We are dead because one died for all, and if one died for all, then all are dead.

That is why we have to repent, i.e., take a new direction, and accept regeneration from God. Regeneration. It has got to work, because he who imagined the man perfected in Genesis 1, imagined all the men from him perfected, too, for they all are him! "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 5: 21).