"He started it." You've probably heard that from the backseat or from a distant bedroom. "He started it." If you have a daughter, the variation is, "She started it." Children become more sophisticated as they grow up, but the jostling and blaming continue.

Blaming one another is a human trait; that's why it's recorded in the Bible's story of Adam. In Hebrew, the name, Adam, means "humanity" and the name, Eve, means "life." In Genesis, chapter 3, after Adam eats the fruit, he blames Eve and then goes on to blame God, reminding God that Eve wouldn't be around if God hadn't given her to him. God then confronts Eve and she blames the crafty serpent. Adam as humanity and Eve as life portray how we humans often respond to one another and to God.

In our text in Romans 5, Paul explains the prese…