A common misinterpretation of Romans 5:12 denies the concept of inherited sin or federal headship by claiming that death passed upon all solely due to individual personal sins rather than Adam's representative act imputing sin to humanity, which overlooks the verse's structure linking sin's entry through 'one man' with death's universal spread and fails to explain why even infants who have not personally sinned experience death, thus undermining the passage's role in contrasting Adam's sin with Christ's righteousness.
Romans 5:12
King James Version (1769)
12 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:
Romans 5:12 teaches the foundational truth of human sinfulness and mortality originating from Adam's transgression, establishing the doctrine of original sin where sin entered the world through one man, resulting in death as its consequence, and this death spread to all humanity because all sinned in Adam as their federal head, underscoring the universal need for redemption through Christ as presented later in the chapter.