Romans 5 S.O.A.P.

13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break.14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Romans 5:13-14

What an interesting thought here about sin and the law. Even though sin was in the world long before there was law to break, men still died from sin. Too often sin is viewed as the breaking of someone's law, man's or God's, when in reality sin is like a deadly disease. The law is merely a sin detection system for our lives. Kind of like the smoke detector in your house. When you burn something while cooking, the smoke detector goes off and alerts you to the real problem, that something may be on fire. Same thing with the law, because the real problem is this deadly thing called sin in our lives that will result in death if not dealt with in the right manner. So men sinned before the law, or they just never had a detection device to let them know how they were doing. The end result is today what it was in those early days: death. Jesus' life provides us with the antidote for sin: forgiveness.

21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:21