If you really want to understand the definite article in Greek, read Daniel Wallace's section in Beyond the Basics of Biblical Greek. It is 90 pages long! I read it last year! It was tough going, but our Greek prof suggested we read it over Christmas. When I did, he was shocked that I listened to him and wondered how I got through it!
Anyway,
"[FONT="]Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι’ ἑνὸς ἀνθρώπου ἡ ἁμαρτία εἰς τὸν κόσμον εἰσῆλθεν καὶ διὰ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ὁ θάνατος, καὶ οὕτως εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν ἐφ’ ᾧ πάντες ἥμαρτον—" Romans 5:12 Greek[/FONT][FONT="]
What Paul does is set out a chain of [/FONT]causality in 5:12a that exists between the sin of the first man (Adam) and the deprived and sinful condition of all the descendants of that first man, whatever their location, situation or claimed status.
He does not spell out the Biblical details of how sin entered the world - though later in the passage he speaks of Adam's transgression (5:14), trespass (5:15, 17-18) and disobedience (5:19). But by using the nominative articular ἡ ἁμαρτία in the first line of the verse, as well as twice later in 5:20-21, Paul personifies "sin"as a malevolent force that both is hostile to God, an alienates human beings from God. Further, because he uses the genitive articular τῆς ἁμαρτίας in the second line of 5:12, it may legitimately be argued that he was referring to "the sin of the first man" or "that sin" he had just spoken about. And by his two uses of the articular ὁ θάνατος ("the death") here in 5:12, as well as three times later in 5:14, 17, and 21, "death" is personified as a cosmic force that
1. brings to an end the material life and personality of a human being,
2. separates people from God, both during their earthly lives and throughout eternity.
Modern scholars don't talk a lot about the articular use of "the sin" and "the death", but Reformation commentators frequently spoke of "the death" that resulted form Adam's "transgression," "trespass," or "disobedience" as inherited depravity, or which became the basis for every person's sins and personal guilt. John Calvin, for example, insisted we need to "not the order in which he [Paul] follows here," for "he says that sin had preceded and that death followed sin" and so Calvin argued that as descendants of Adam, we do express natural depravity inherited from Adam, which has "corrupted, vitiated, depraved and ruined our nature." Calvin went on to say with respect to Adams' sin and its result:
"Having lost the image of God, the only seed which he [Adam] could have produced was that which bore resemblance to himself. We have, therefore, all sinned, because we are all imbued with natural corruption, and for this reason are wicked and perverse... the allusion here is to our innate and hereditary depravity."
NIGTC - The Epistle to the Romans, Richard N. Longenecker pgs. 256-258
Douglas Moo has some interesting comments on this verse, although not specifically to the use of the article nouns sin, and death.
He sees 5:12 as a transition line, keeping in my mind that the verse starts with Διὰ τοῦτο ὥσπερ δι’ which is three different phrases, to means anything from "because of this" to "final cause" Moo paraphrases 5:12 as:
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"In order to accomplish this, [namely, that God has promised to save all those who are justified and reconciled through Christ], there exists a life-giving union between Christ and his own, that is similar to, but more powerful than, the death-producing union between Adam and all his own."
Paul's claim that "sin came into the world through one man" would have been nothing new to anyone who knew his or her OT or Jewish traditions. For the unbreakable connection between sin in Gen. 2-3, was a staple of Jewish theology.
Verse 12:b depicts the entrance of death as the consequence of sin, v 12c makes explicit that this death has spread to every single person. Finally, he points out that verse 12 is actually a chiasm.
A sin (12a) produces
___________B death (12b)
___________B1all die (12c)
A1 because of all sin (12d)
NICNT The Epistle to the Romans, Douglas J Moo, pages 317-329
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