2 thoughts:
1. Weren't Adam and Eve already under the law? Didn't it already have a penalty of death?
2. Being placed under the law is different from being guilty and condemned. Jesus was made under the law. That fact didn't make Him guilty.
I understand that the consequences of Adam's sin are passed to all mankind. That's not my question. My question is...how are we made guilty apart from sin being reckoned to us?
1. I don't think so. God gave them a command not to eat from the tree with the warning that if they did, they would die. I don't
believe that is the same thing as being under law. Paul tells us that he was alive once without the law. He said
this because spiritually, he (and we) were in Adam's loins since he was the progenitor. Without that law there could be no sin.
8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.
For without the law sin [was] dead.
9
For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. ...
11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment,
deceived me, and by it slew [me].
2. This will probably take some getting used to, but the law of sin and death is a law and sin unto itself, it not being like the other laws. By its name we can see that it is both at the same time. So, for those under it, just by being under it, they sin.
I realize this is hard to accept because it is so different from what we've become used to, and many can't comprehend it.
But, if we look at the other side of Rom 8:2, we can see that Christ saves those whom He saves from that specific law/sin, with no
other laws being mentioned in that verse.