In our last session, one of the things we learned was that God must be the reference point for properly grasping any dimension of human existence, human identity, human purpose. We hear today that we ought to express ourselves, that we ought to be true to ourselves. Some form of that counsel is as old as Socrates, the ancient philosopher, Found in Plato's writings, Socrates said, know thyself. Socrates, however, intended us to know ourselves apart from God and his revelation. John Calvin had a fundamentally different understanding of how we're to know ourselves. And he said so in the opening words of that famous work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, a line and a few opening lines that remain virtually unchanged through all of the different editions of the Institutes. They all said this, nearly all of the wisdom we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts. the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern." See what Calvin is saying there. He says, true and sound wisdom consists of two parts, knowing God and knowing ourselves. But these two These two realities are joined by many bonds such that it's hard to tell which one brings forth the other. Do we begin with knowledge of God or do we begin with knowledge of self? He's saying you can't divide them up, you can't slice them, you can't separate them. Insofar as we know ourselves truly, we must know God truly. If we know God truly, we're going to come to know ourselves truly. Well, if we move on in the institutes, Calvin tells us something else that is critical to properly knowing ourselves. And I want to consider it with you before lunch together. This is what he says in book two. In the beginning, God fashioned us after his image, that he might arouse our minds both to zeal for virtue and to meditation upon eternal life. But that primal dignity cannot come to mind without the sorry spectacle of our foulness and dishonor presenting itself by way of contrast. Since in the person of the first man, we have fallen from our original condition. When Calvin says we have fallen from our original condition in the person of the first man, he's bringing into view at least two things. Number one, Calvin is recognizing that we have all been implicated in the effects of Adam's fall. The effects of the fall reach into the very depths of our hearts, into the very depths of our world. But second, we experience the effects of Adam's first sin because we are implicated in his first sin itself. As Calvin puts it, we have fallen in the person of the first man. Well, let's take the first easy one. We experience the effects of Adam's first sin. We know this in our hearts, don't we? We know this from the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed. We know that the effects of sin are in us and upon us and all over this world. Let me just name three effects of Adam's fall into sin. Well, four. First, Adam's fall into sin brings, first and foremost, a change in God's relationship with man. God remains holy, but now God's holiness meets fallen man in the form of alienation and righteous enmity and anger and the curse of God and the condemnation of sin. We see Adam's guilt and God's response to it right there in Genesis 3. We see God's just wrath against sin today, Paul says, in the way that He hands people over to the lust of their sin. There is a change in God's relationship with man. We see Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, hiding from the presence of the Lord, fearful of His voice, knowing that they are naked and wanting to escape His presence. Secondly, Adam's fall into sin brings a change, not just in our objective relationship with God, but a change in the condition of our hearts. Theologians call this original sin. They call it original sin because it was brought on by Adam and because original sin is the is the fountain out of which flow all of actual sins that we commit. Original sin is the innate corruption that Adam's first sin brings upon every human being. And also we see it right there in Genesis 3, don't we? The deep sense of shame and fear arising from a guilty conscience. We see the selfish mindset of Adam and Eve, a sinful desire to evade responsibility. Thirdly, Adam's fall into sin brings a change in our relationship with our fellow man. So there's a change in our relationship with God, there's corruption of our hearts, and there's a change in the way we relate to one another because of sin. How quickly Adam blames his wife when he had just sung over her, bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. Now, in the wake of the fall, he turns to God and he speaks of this woman you gave to me. even for the Christian. We know that the reign of sin is broken. Romans 6 says that we have died to sin. It is no longer our master in Christ, and yet we know all too well that indwelling sin still stirs up within us. Indwelling sin remains for the Christian. It taints even our best works. Let me just give you a very simple illustration of this. I remember hearing a minister talk about wanting to do something kind for his wife. They were going to bed. He wanted to make a bowl of ice cream for his wife. So he goes down into the kitchen. He gets two mugs and he puts ice cream in both of them. He's carrying them back up the steps to love his wife with ice cream. And he's looking into the mugs and he's finding that he is examining the ice cream, trying to find out which one has the more solid scoop of ice cream in it. Which one has more air pockets in the middle of the scoop? So that when he reaches the top of the stairs and looks into his bride's eye, he can hand her the one with less ice cream. You talk to my wife, that is an evidence of the fall. That is indwelling sin right there. There's a change in our relationship with God. There's corruption of our hearts, a change in our interpersonal relationships. And we we shouldn't miss this one. Adam's fall into sin brings a change in the physical world itself. Adam's violation of God's law actually affected the physical world out of which he was made and over which he was called to rule. Paul says in Romans 8 20. that the whole of creation was subjected to futility. Decay and death, things don't work like they should. This world bears the marks of the fall in its innervating futility. That word for futility there in Romans 8.20 is the word that's used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in the book of Ecclesiastes. Remember when the preacher is saying, vanity of vanities, all is vanities, looking out over the over the fallen world, and he's recognizing that there is no achievement of man, no cultural endeavor, no human ambition that can bring about ultimate paradise on earth. God must do what this fallen world is now incapable of bringing about through the obedience of the first Adam. It's a distinctive of biblical Christianity over all other religions and worldviews, that these features of our lives are the result of Adam's fall into sin. Other philosophies, other worldviews look for sin's origins elsewhere, even as they redefine sin. And maybe what's wrong with the world is simply found in the very constitution of the world, a world inherently made up of good and evil forces. Perhaps sin is located in the original constitution of man, who's made up of a lower, baser element of fleshly desires that is counterbalanced by a more intellectual and rational element. Some see sin's origins or what's wrong with the world, quote unquote, in man's evolutionary past and his propensity to revert to more primitive, savage patterns of behavior and tendencies. Maybe man simply has not evolved yet to yet higher stages of ethical awareness. Maybe programs of education would remedy what's wrong with the world. In all of these cases, in all of these worldviews, what we would call sin is simply a fact of life. It's just the way it is. Friends, the Christian cannot believe that this is just the way it is. It is not the way things are supposed to be. The world thinks that it's foolish and arrogant to imagine a true paradise ever existed. And it thinks it equally foolish to ever think that an ultimate paradise could ever come. Could ever come certainly at the hands of a savior, as the gospel declares. But as believers, structuring our thinking about the world in terms of creation, fall, and redemption, if God is our creator, then it is impossible that sin is woven into the universe He has made from the outset. No, sin, in all of its effects, is a function of Adam's fall, his rebellion. He is now guilty, corrupt, and helpless, and because of that, we see all of these terrible effects in the world. George Whitefield, the great revival preacher, said this about the world, what we observe in it, and the reality of sin. He said, there are many poor souls that think themselves fine reasoners, yet they tell us that we are not born in sin. Let them look abroad into the world and see the disorders in it and think if they can, if this is the paradise in which God did put man. No. Everything in the world is out of order. I've often thought when I was abroad that if there were no other arguments to prove original sin, the rising of wolves and tigers against man, nay, the barking of a dog against us is proof of original sin. For when the creatures rise up against us, it is as much as to say you have sinned against God and we take up our master's quarrel. Now, as much as we accept Whitfield's description of the effects of Adam's sin on the world, as much as we experience those effects, it is, I think, his final line of the barking dog that can get us. All of it is due to one man's sin and our implication in that sin. To use Calvin's language, in the person of the first man, we have fallen from our original condition. No sooner do we hear these words that there can arise in our hearts a subtle protest. I hear these words from my children sometimes when I ask them to do something, or they're giving their own analysis of a situation, and they're offering a subtle frustration with the way things have shaken out. The idea that all of these horrible consequences of the fall, those experiences that we so keenly and concretely experience are due to the sin of Adam can cause these words to come off of our lips. That's not fair. That's not fair. Now, if we just think about that claim for a moment coming from the creature's lips, given what we've seen from Genesis 1 and 2, it's absurd. If we think about it, it is foolish, not to mention terribly arrogant for us to charge God with injustice, since God himself as the absolute self-attesting authoritative God is the very standard of what justice is. How can then we as finite creatures imagine our own standard of justice and subject the eternal God to it? It's foolish. It's arrogant. It would be yet another expression of our sinful desire for autonomy to declare that God must be subjected to our standard of justice. But this fact has not kept many scholars, even biblical scholars, from making just this charge against God. And on that basis, rejecting the idea that we are implicated in any way in Adam's sin. This is what one writer says. His name is Oliver Crisp. He says, it seems monumentally unjust that God should condemn me for the sin of another. particularly for the sin of a long dead ancestor. Why, we might ask, should I be punished for the sin of Adam? Now, we need to be very careful about exactly what Crisp is saying. He is rejecting the idea that all people are punished for the sin of another, one whom he calls, quote unquote, a long dead ancestor. I want to take up that objection. I want to try to address it by looking at Romans 5, verses 12 to 21. Now, I need to give a few opening remarks about this text. Let me tell you right off the bat that this text is not going to answer all of your questions, possibly. It is going to lead us, as all of God's Word does, to bow to the wisdom of God. But I can tell you this, I believe that our consideration of this text will answer Crisp's objection. The idea that we are merely and unjustly punished for the sin of another, a long dead ancestor. Our main theme is still in view that Adam and Eve and Adam as the image of God is basic to the gospel, that it is that which makes the gospel coherent, gloriously good news. We want to have a specific idea of what we're after in this text as well, and this objection is it. How are we to think about Adam's fall and our implication in it? Let me read the text here, verses 12 to 21. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, And so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through the one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Just to give you a little bit of an orientation as we consider this text, let me give you opening three points right off the bat. We want to look first at Paul's overall message, not only in the book of Romans up to this point, but in this text itself. I'm going to argue that Paul is really making one main point from verses 12 to 19. Secondly, I want to zero in primarily on verse 12 and ask, what exactly is our relationship with Adam? And thirdly, what is Paul's view of Christ's work in this text? What is the glorious gospel message that he has, particularly as it bears on our justification, that is, our legal standing before God in his courtroom? So first, Paul's overall message. Anytime we're dealing with Romans, we're dealing with the Himalayas of Scripture. We need to step back and see where we are in this mountain range. So let's try to get a sense of where we are in chapter 5. You know that Right there at the beginning of chapter one, Paul introduces the gospel of God's Son and those opening four verses. He speaks of the righteousness that is revealed in this gospel. It is a righteousness, as Martin Luther discovered, that is not a righteousness we must attain in order to receive God's blessing, but it is a righteousness that is given by God to sinful man by sheer grace through faith. Paul then explains In devastatingly clear terms, the problem that this revelation of righteousness in the gospel addresses. That the whole human race is caught up in sinfulness, that no one can be justified by works of the law, Romans 3 20. The righteousness revealed in the gospel, Paul goes on to say, is applicable to both Jew and Gentile, because both Jew and Gentile have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3 23. Finally, this is a righteousness that is revealed in the death and resurrection of Christ. This is a work that magnifies God's justice against sin. It is a work in terms of which God, the holy God, can justly justify the ungodly. And it is a gospel, a revelation of righteousness in the gospel that excludes all human grounds for boasting. basically is the message of chapters 1 through 3. Then in chapter 4, Paul turns to the Old Testament and he tries to make the argument successfully that every Old Testament believer who was saved was justified by faith alone in the Messiah of God. And he takes Abraham and David as two examples. What we learn from chapter four, among other things, is that we are saved in the same way the Old Testament believer was saved. We hear the same gospel as Abraham did, though we hear it in greater detail and specificity. We join in the same faith of Abraham that he exercised in his own day. Most importantly, we turn to the same Christ who saved the people of God in the Old Testament. And then finally, in chapter five, and here I'll start to slow down a little bit as we as we approach verse 12, Paul begins to draw out some of the benefits that we receive from Christ's work of redemption. Paul mentions that the Christian enjoys peace with God, not just a subjective sense of calmness and assurance, but but an objective peace with God. We have been reconciled to God by the death of his son. Reconciliation has been occurred as has occurred. Enmity has been removed. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then he says in verse two, the Christian also has a certain hope in the coming glory. This is a hope that is so secure that it enables the Christian even to rejoice in suffering. Because the Christian knows, in the context of union with Christ, that our trials, when they are born for Christ and by faith and for His glory, our sufferings themselves belong to Jesus. They are instruments for the display of His power and grace in our lives. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians 4. that we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh. Our trials are also, Paul says in Romans 5, the means by which we are made more holy. God uses suffering and trials in the life of the believer to cultivate in you a more resolute endurance. a more tested character. And as by the grace of the Holy Spirit, He does this in you, it increases your confidence in the hope of glory. And then thirdly, in verses 6 through 9 of chapter 5, Paul tells us that all of this, the peace of God that we have through the death and resurrection of Christ, the certain hope of future glory that sustains us and colors our trials as Christians, All of it is fueled by the sovereign love of God, an otherworldly kind of love, a love that outstrips the very best of human love that we witness in this world. Paul says that God demonstrated His love for us in the death of Christ. For while we were still weak, verse 6, At the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. This is the kind of love that God has shown. God did not love us because we were lovely. He loved us in our ungodliness and so acted while we were ungodly. But in such a way that out of love, he would deal with our ungodliness in the death of Christ. God's love for us in Christ is therefore not constrained by any qualities in us. There is absolutely nothing about us that that that moved God to love us. This is how human love works, it's not how divine love works in the gospel. God's love for us is a matter of the sovereign love of God for us in Christ. And if this is true, Paul says in verses nine through eleven, if all of this is true, if God has done all of this for us, if he has sent Christ to die for us while we were sinners, while we were in alienation from him. If he has reconciled himself to us while we were enemies, will he not carry on this good work unto glory, surely, now that we are reconciled to him, now that Christ is raised and is seated at the right hand of God the Father, surely. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to the day of Christ. So it's after all of this good news that Paul finally gets to our text in Romans five, verse 12, and what he does at the beginning of verse 12 is he he widens the lens to bring into view the full sweep of redemptive history. He situates the work of Christ within the widest possible context. And he does so by bringing into view the thesis that we have today, that we have to understand Adam as image of God in the Garden of Eden if we're to understand the work of Christ. What Paul is going to say specifically in this text is that at the end of the day, all of history and every human being in it is defined by one of two Adams. There are two atoms at play, two atoms that govern the entire structure of history, two atoms to whom each of us belong in one way or another. And furthermore, if you look on your handout, I've tried to put a little structure of what Paul is going to say in these verses. Each atom represents a corporate people in terms of his activity. So I have there the act. Each atom brings a divine verdict upon those he represents and upon himself. Not only is there an act performed, there's a divine verdict that follows upon the act. And then finally, each divine verdict brings a final consequence, a sanction, a judgment upon them. So I have here a sanction slash consequence. So the first triad, notice sin, condemnation, death, pertains to the first atom. And the second triad, righteousness, justification, and life, pertains to the second atom, to Christ. Notice that in this structure of two triads, there's a similarity. Both involve, as we said, an act, a verdict, and a consequence with each case, Adam or Christ. And yet, within that structural similarity, act, verdict, consequence, there is opposition between the two triads. Righteousness, conceived as conformity to God's law. Answers to sin, Adam's trespass against God's law. Justification, As the declaration of God as judge stemming from Christ's work of obedience answers to condemnation. And life answers to death and destroys it. So this is going to be a lens that we are going to take to help illumine what Paul is saying in Romans 5, 12 to 19. But here's the point I want you to get by comparing Christ to Adam along these lines. Paul teaches us that Christ's work as our Redeemer is patterned after Adam's role as the first man. By comparing the work of Adam and Christ in this way, we'll also discover the nature of our relationship with Adam. We're not there yet. That's point two. But as we survey Paul's overall message in these verses, along these two triads, we're going to become more acquainted with the nature of our relationship with Adam as the first man. And then we'll look thirdly at Paul's glorious gospel good news. Well, let's look more particularly at verses 12 to 19. Let's unpack these two triads as they pertain to Adam and Christ respectively. In verse 12, Paul indicates to us right off the bat that he's going to be making some kind of a comparison. And we know he's going to be making a comparison because he begins with these words, therefore, just as. Those words, just as, are the very beginning of the comparison. And the comparison is going to follow this format. Just as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar A few heads went up on that. Just as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA championships, so also did Michael Jordan. So it's going to be a just-as-so-also comparison. Notice in 512. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Now let me pause right there. In your Bibles, you probably have a dash at the end of the word send. The opening line in this grand comparison is an unfinished sentence. This is striking. Paul gives us the first half of the comparison in verse 12, and then he stops before giving us the second half of the comparison. Where's Michael Jordan? He's given us Kareem, but he's not giving us Jordan. What's going on here in Romans 5.12? Why the dash? Why the incomplete sentence? Why does he stop in such a monumental text? Well, Paul realizes that what he has just said in verse 12 requires elaboration. And so he pauses in verses 13 and 14 to give an explanatory detour on the end of verse 12. But then, to make matters slightly more complicated, in verse 14, he says something that requires yet more elaboration and explanation. So he gives you Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, first half of the comparison in verse 12. At the end of verse 12, he knows he's got to explain something, so he spends two verses explaining it. In verse 14, he realizes he has to do more explaining, and he spends verses 15 through 17 explaining that. So by the time Paul resumes the original comparison, he does so five and a half verses later in verse 18. In fact, he's gotten so removed from the first half of the comparison in verse 12 that he actually restates it. In other words, in the beginning of verse 18. But it's really the second half of verse 18 that is the completion of the comparison itself. Let me just read verse 18 for you. Therefore, Paul resuming the original comparison as one trespass led to condemnation for all men. So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Now, here's where I hope the two triads I gave you are helpful. Remember, there are two triads, an act done by an individual, a divine verdict and a consequence. Well, if you look at verse 18, we almost have all six features built into verse 18. The only one that we don't have is death, and it's implied. But notice it says, just as one trespass, right? The act of sin led to condemnation for all men. Here's where we would imply, and therefore death. Now he goes to the second triad. So also one act of righteousness, the act of Christ, leads to justification, the divine verdict, and life, the sanction or consequence for all men. Both triads are almost all there, right there in verse 18. Well, another way to look at the Adam-Christ comparison, the overall point Paul is making is to go back to verse 12 and get the first half of the comparison leap over the explanatory detour in verses 13 through 17 and go right to the end of verse 18. So let me read just verse 12 and then jump to 18b. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, verse 18b, so one act of righteousness might say righteousness of another man leads to justification and life for all men. Again, Paul's point is the work of Christ is patterned after but antithetical to. The sin of Adam, the work of Adam. Structural similarity, but there's internal opposition. Okay, well that's Paul's overall message in this text, which at first glance can seem a little complicated. I want you to get that basic comparison down. That's the main point he's making from verses 12 to 19. But what of our relationship with Adam? I said that this text would address the question of how exactly we're related to Adam. If this is Paul's overall message, that Adam and Christ are to be compared in terms of an act, a verdict, and a consequence, how are we related to Adam? For that, we have to return to verse 12. We need to take the first half of the comparison and take it very slowly. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, let me just pause there, We know this is biblically true. Sin was introduced to human existence through one man. That's what Paul is saying, very beginning of verse 12. That man in verse 14 is identified as Adam. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. Sin brings the judicial consequence of death in like an evil shadow. Right there in Genesis 2, we read of it. God says to Adam of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Paul certainly has that text in the back of his mind when he's writing Romans 5, 12. Romans 6, 23 is coming. The wages of sin is death. So sin came into the world through one man, death came through sin. And so death spread to all men. The consequence of death not only passed upon Adam, but the consequence of death passed upon all men. And the final clause in verse 12 tells us why. Why did death that came through the sin of the one man pass to all men? The final clause of verse 12 tells us, it is because all sin. Here's an easy question. Why did death spread to all men? How much more practical can we get? If your children come to you and say, why do all people die? Paul gives us a straightforward answer. Why do all people die? Paul says, because all sin. Here's the hard question. What does Paul mean here when he says, because all sinned? What does Paul mean that all sinned and for that reason first and foremost death spread to all men, the death that came in through the sin of the one man? What does Paul mean, because all sinned? Let me give you three options. The first is this, Paul might mean that all sinned in their own persons independently of Adam, although after his bad example. In other words, living, breathing individuals sinned in their own persons and did so after the bad example of Adam. And for that reason, death spread to all men. So the connection that we have to Adam on this proposal is that Adam sets a bad example that we follow. Now, let me just say right here that, biblically speaking, we do follow Adam's bad example. That's biblically true. But is that the reason that Paul has in view when he says in Romans 5.12 that death spread to all men because all sinned? Does he have in view our following Adam's bad example as the reason, first and foremost, that death spread to all men? Second proposal. Paul might mean that all sinned in their own persons, as living, breathing individuals, although due to the corrupt nature that they inherited from Adam. This is a little bit stronger. Not just that all people sin after Adam's bad example, but they sin after his bad example because they have inherited a depraved human nature from Adam. Let me say again, biblically speaking, we do sin. after Adam's bad example, because of the corrupt nature we inherit from Adam. That is true. He did pass on a sinful nature to us. But is that the reason here that Paul gives for the fact that death passed to all men? Is that what Paul means when he says at the end of verse 12, all sin? Notice that both of these first two options, sinning after Adam's bad example and sinning because we inherit a corrupt nature from Adam, both interpret the phrase, because all sin, in terms of our living, breathing, individual sinning as concrete people. Is that what Paul has in mind? Well, one way to answer this question is to look to the explanatory detour that Paul takes in verses 13 through 19. Notice particularly in verses 15 through 19, Paul focuses like a laser on the one sin of the one man, not the personal sinning of you and me as concrete, living, breathing individuals. Paul's whole explanation centers on the one sin of the one man. Look at verse 15. He speaks of the one man's trespass. Verse 16, one man's sin and one trespass. Verse 17, one man's trespass and one man. Verse 18, one trespass. Verse 19, one man's disobedience. As he focuses on the one sin of the one man, Paul also speaks of the divine verdict upon that one sin. as well as the consequence of death for that one sin in such a way that the verdict and the consequence belong to all men. Notice verse 15, he says, the many died through the one man's trespass. Verse 18, the one trespass led to condemnation for all men. What Paul seems to be saying when we take the end of verse 12, because all sinned, and the explanatory detour in verses 15 and 19 together, is that he is saying that when Adam died, all died. When Adam was condemned, all were condemned. And why is this true? Because when Adam sinned, all sinned. In other words, if we allow Paul's elaboration in verses 15 through 19 to interpret and clarify the end of verse 12, Paul is saying that death comes to all men because all sin, not in their own persons as living, breathing human beings, but all sin in the one sin of the one man, Adam. Listen to John Murray. as he examines this text. John Murray says, we are compelled to infer that when Paul says all sin, and this is the question we have. It's Murray's question. We are compelled to infer that when Paul says all sin, and when he speaks of the one trespass of the one man, he must be referring to the same fact or event. that the one event or fact can be expressed in terms of both singularity and universality. And the only solution is that there must be some kind of solidarity existing between the one and the all, with the result that the sin of the one may, and here is key lines, at the same time and with equal relevance be regarded as the sin of all. The kind of union or solidarity that Murray has in view there is a covenant union, a covenant solidarity. It is a covenant union that explains how it can be that the one sin of the one man can, with equal relevance, be ascribed to all men. To put it more sharply, when we say that Adam was our covenant head or Adam was our covenant representative, we mean that his actions and the wisdom of God were determinative. In fact, were life and death decisive for those in him and represented by him? Adam's actions are determinative for those in him because God counts Adam's action as their action by virtue of their covenant union with him. In other words, to say that Adam was our representative in this covenantal sense is to say something more than what we say about our elected politicians as our representatives. We go to the ballot box, we vote for electoral representatives, and they go to Washington, and they represent us in a way that their actions remain their own actions performed in Washington, though performed on our behalf. We hope that they would act in a way we would want them to act, and if they don't, The majority of people can kick them out of Washington. But here's the point. When they act in Washington, it is only the consequences of their decisions and actions that come down upon us. Only the consequences, even sometimes in frustrating ways, come upon us. But Adam is our covenant representative in a more personal way. Covenant union is not like an elected representative in Washington. Covenant Union, according to Paul here, is so personal that Adam's action can be at the same time and with equal relevance counted by God as our action. Now, I said we were going to have to bow our. Thinking to the mysteries of God's wisdom revealed in Scripture. And the key word we have to have in view here is is imputation, a legal reckoning, to our account. God imputes, He reckons the act of one man to the account of all men, such that the legal verdict that God renders upon all men is just, and it is not unfair. Covenant Union with Adam, a union sovereignly designed by God, is the context in which God imputes Adam's sin to Adam to his account as his sin, and on that basis declares him to be guilty, and God imputes Adam's sin to all people as our sin, and on that basis justly declares us to be guilty. We need to bow to the sovereign determination to execute perfect justice in terms of a covenant headship, to administer his justice in these terms. When we grasp the reality of covenant union with a covenant head, we're going to recognize in terms of this union a principle of imputation from one to many. And that that imputation from one to many levels upon all men a true legal status upon which comes the divine verdict of condemnation. And it comes upon all men in such a way that that verdict is just. You see, it's not merely that we receive punishment for another person's crime. This is this is Oliver Crisp's objection. Why should I be punished for the sin of a long dead ancestor? Well, he has missed the context in which the legal imputation of Adam's actions are given to us upon which God's declaration stands. Paul says that we are not punished for another person's crime. He is saying in Romans 5.12 that Adam's sin was our crime. Because we were in covenant union with him. Even though we were not there living, breathing, personally biting into the fruit. It was our crime. precisely because God had appointed Adam as our covenant head. And in terms of that relationship, God counts his sin as ours. So to do justice to Paul's logic in Romans 5, 12 to 19, we have to maintain two things. We have to recognize the very real fact that we were not there physically in the garden biting with our own teeth the forbidden fruit. And yet we were still involved in Adam's sin, such that we are, by virtue of our union with him, truly blameworthy. We are not the victim of a mere punishment that Adam alone deserves. We were not really there, but in Adam, we were there. And so justly receive the divine verdict of condemnation. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, in Adam all die. Well, Romans 5, 12 goes even deeper than that. And it explains why all people die. It is because all sinned. Not here in terms of their own persons living, breathing today in 2015, but in Adam. Now on your handout, I've included two objections. Maybe they're objections that are arising in your own mind, so I want to deal with them briefly. Here's the first objection. I will only accept a divine verdict upon my life if it is delivered on the basis of what I do as a living, breathing individual. In other words, this objection says, I reject the very concept of covenant union that you say renders us truly worthy of a divine verdict and its consequence. If that is your objection. Then Paul will say that you have a really major problem in the way that God justifies sinners in the gospel of his son. I want you to see this in the gospel. God justifies sinners by uniting them by faith to another covenant head whose actions justly count as ours and so renders us by grace truly worthy of the declaration of justification and its reward eternal life. If we reject that, God can justly count the guilt of Adam's sin as ours. and therefore justly condemn us in order to be consistent. We have to also reject that God can justly count the righteousness of the last Adam and his obedience as ours. And so justly justify us. Remember, the whole point that Paul is making in 12 to 19 is this summarized in verse 18. Therefore, just as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness, Christ's obedience as a whole leads to justification in life for all men. Now, quick word here on verse 18. Paul is not a universalist when he says life for all men. He's at pains to make the parallel so explicit. But certainly elsewhere, he makes it very clear that not all people are justified in Christ. Let me just paraphrase, therefore, in the fullest way, verse 12 and the second half of the comparison, verse 18. This is what Paul is saying in other words. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all people in union with him, because all sinned in Adam, So also righteousness came into the world through another man and life through righteousness. And so life spread to, quote unquote, all those in union with him because all are counted righteous in Christ. Friends, just as our covenant union with Adam brings upon us the just verdict of guilty, and leaves us worthy of eternal punishment in Adam, even though we weren't there in the garden personally sinning. So too our covenant union with Christ brings upon us the just verdict of righteous and leaves us worthy by grace of the reward of eternal life in Christ, even though we didn't obey personally as living, breathing human beings. If we reject the covenant union that Paul assumes in Romans 5.12, Then we have a real problem with the way God justifies sinners in verse 18. Let's move to the second objection. Second objection is a little more sophisticated and it runs like this. I'm OK with a covenant union with Christ, but not with a covenant union with Adam. I will accept the imputation of righteousness and its divine verdict of justification on account of my union with Christ. I agree that my union with Christ renders me justly worthy of eternal life because of imputed righteousness. But I will not agree that my union with Adam renders me justly worthy of eternal death. And I reject the imputation of sin and the divine verdict of condemnation. OK, if you want to slice it up that way, then once again, I think we destroy the comparison that Paul is at pains to make in verses 12 to 19. The whole point is that the principle by which the sin of Adam is justly imputed to those in Adam is precisely the principle by which the righteousness of Christ is justly imputed to those in Christ by virtue of covenant union. Listen to how Gerhardus Voss puts it. He says, if one has an objection to the imputation of sin and no objection to the imputation of righteousness, one thereby betrays that the objection that one advances rests more on self-interest than on a sense of justice. The covenant of grace is nothing other than a covenant of works accomplished in Christ. How strong is the desire of the human heart to scoff at the justice of the imputation of Adam's sin to us and his failed covenant task. And yet Voss is saying that if we do that, we must likewise scoff at the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us, for that is nothing other than the fruit of a covenant of works successfully fulfilled on our behalf and given to us by grace. Sadly, today, many do scoff at the good news of the gospel. They do not want the righteousness from another to their own destruction. But there's a second problem with slicing and dicing it this way as well, in terms of our second objection, and it is this. We undermine a key reason why Jesus was crucified. If we reject the imputation of sin from one to another, we miss why Jesus died on the cross. And we need to be careful about this. Christ was our covenant head. He was holy, harmless and undefiled. Scriptures never say that Christ sinned in us. The scripture does say that we sinned in Adam by virtue of our covenant union with him. So Christ's obedience is unique. But the principle of imputation, the reckoning of one person's sin to another. Applies to the case of Adam's sin to us and our sin to Christ. We often speak of Christ's death on the cross in terms of his bearing the penalty for our sin, but this is critical, please hear this, that is true, but that's not the whole story. Christ did bear the penalty for our sin when he was crucified. But he bore our penalty only because he bore our sin. Listen to Isaiah 53, verse six, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the penalty. Certainly, the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. This is the mystery of Christ's humiliation. This is the mystery of his grace, of his love, a mystery that eternity will not exhaust, that without becoming defiled himself, Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree. He was justly declared guilty. Because our sin was imputed to him as our covenant head, and in the light of that imputation, God justly condemned him to hell. Listen to John Owen, the great Puritan, speaking of this imputation of sin. He says, We have no righteousness before God, but by imputation. And when we are made righteous, the righteousness of God, which God ordains, approves and accepts, it is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. How has he made sin for us? Because our sin is imputed to him. Some will say he was made sin for us, that is, a sacrifice for sin, be it so. But nothing could be made an expiatory sacrifice, but it had first the sin imputed to it. Aaron shall put his hands on the goat, confessing all their sins over his head. Be their sins on the head of the goat, or the expiatory sacrifice was nothing. here is the great exchange represented to us in Scripture and these things that all our sins are transferred upon Christ by imputation and the righteousness of Christ transferred to us by imputation. Friends, let us not reject the idea that one man's sin and guilty verdict may be imputed to another because we would have no Christ to whom to take our sin if that were true. Praise be to God that Romans 5.19 is gloriously true. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now to be made a sinner in this context means to acquire the legal status of a sinner because of imputed sin. To be made righteous in this context means to acquire the legal status of righteous because of imputed righteousness. Second Corinthians 521 puts it the same way. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. Sin was imputed to him, he thereby acquired a new status upon which the divine verdict was justly declared so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. so that righteousness was imputed to us and we thereby acquire a new legal status and the divine verdict is therefore justly declared over us and the reward is given. Our God and King, the Lord of heaven and earth has imputed Adam's sin to us because he was our first covenant head and he has imputed our sin to Christ and his righteousness to us as our second covenant head and all of it according to the perfect terms of God's infinite justice. So to recap, we've looked at Paul's overall message in Romans five, comparing Adam to Christ, we've seen how that comparison sheds light on the specifics of our relationship with Adam from verse 12 in terms of a covenant union in which imputation renders the divine verdict, a verdict of perfect justice. So now let's close by looking at the glorious gospel message of Paul as it bears on our justification. I've been harping on how each each man serves as a covenant representative, how each one performs an act that is life and death decisive for those in him. Our union with Adam is such that his sin is simultaneously our sin in union with him and not our sin. It's Adam's in his own person. Adam's sin is both properly our sin and alien to us at the same time. Our union with Christ is such that his righteousness is simultaneously our righteousness in union with him and not our righteousness in terms of our own person. Christ's righteousness is both properly ours and alien to us at the same time. But these similarities are true in such a way that the glorious supremacy of Christ, as his representative headship bears upon our salvation as the last Adam, that is magnified and the grace of God surpasses anything that we receive from Adam. Notice within the structural similarity between these two men, there are glorious points of asymmetry, of opposition, There is difference within the overall symmetry, and that difference is one of the things that Paul wants to identify in his explanatory detour. Notice in verse 15, he says, but the free gift is not like the trespass. He's going to explain in verses 15 to 17 how the free gift is not like the trespass. Let me mention two ways. First, we see how in Christ, God overcomes all of our sin in the salvation that Christ has won. Verse 15, many died through one man's trespass, but much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man abounded for many. Verse 16, God condemned all men after Adam's one trespass, but the free gift that brings justification follows many trespasses. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the free gift of God and Jesus Christ can follow and overcome your many trespasses, your seemingly endless trespasses? John Newton, the 18th century slave trader, came to know himself as a wretch, right? If you read his biography, there are unspeakable things that he did on the high seas as a slave trader. And he writes these words, let us wonder, grace and justice join and point to mercy's store. When through grace in Christ our trust is, justice smiles and asks no more. Why does justice smile? It is because where sin has plunged us into the way of God's wrath, divine grace has intruded in Christ on behalf of his people that entirely negates the condemning power of the law. And not only so, Paul is saying. But the saving work of Christ abounds to its opposite, securing for us the infinite richness of life and reconciled communion with God. Paul speaks not only of the superabundance of salvation over the sin and its condemning power, but all of it is secured by the sheer grace of God. Notice how Paul piles up phrases to throw a spotlight on the free grace of God that is given in Christ. Verse 15 and 16, our justification is a free gift. Verse 15, he speaks of the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus. Verse 17, the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness. The end of verse 20 sums up both the overcoming victory and the sheer grace of God. When Paul says where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. This is grace that is not some abstract potion. This is grace that is found in the face of the person of Jesus Christ. John Newton, who knew himself to be a wretch, wrote this when we understand what the scripture teaches of the person love offices of Christ, the necessity and final causes of his humiliation unto death. and feel our own need for such a savior. We then know him to be the light, the son of the world and of the soul, the source of all spiritual light, life, comfort and influence, having access to God by him and receiving out of his fullness, grace upon grace. Finally, we see the overcoming power of the gospel, we see the sheer grace of God. And in Adam's failure and judgment countered and overcome in the salvation won for us in the judgment of Christ for sin not his own, we see the richest revelation of the moral being of God. We see God's burning holiness and wrath against sin. We see his determination to visit it with just judgment. Through the satisfaction of his infinite justice on the cross, through the resurrection of his son to indestructible life, we see superabounding the display of God's steadfast love and holiness and righteousness and wisdom and mercy and goodness. It's all there in the death and resurrection of Christ. Prophet Micah said, Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. What a strange thing to say, he will have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. How is that true? It is because he has tread our iniquities underfoot after first imputing them to his son and treading upon his son in the great winepress of the wrath of God. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. Moses sang about the superabounding grace of God in the exercise of God's just judgment against sin at the Red Sea, that glorious picture of God redeeming His people from bondage. He sang in Exodus 15, Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you? Majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders. You stretched out your right hand, the earth swallowed them. Swallowed who? The enemies of God, the very personification of bondage to sin. You have led in your steadfast love the people whom you have redeemed. You have guided them by your strength to your holy abode. Truly in the work of God's beloved son and his death and resurrection in wrath against him, God remembers mercy towards us, that we might know that the Lord is God and there is no other. Friends, I hope you see the absolute indispensable role that the historical Adam plays for the gospel. In my view, there are two ways that you can lose the gospel. Number one, you can lose the gospel itself. You can lose the power of the gospel, the teaching of the gospel. You can dilute the work of Christ. But you can lose the gospel in another way, too. You can lose the context for the gospel. You can lose the reason for it. You can lose the need for the gospel. In our day, we're in danger of losing both, aren't we? But when it comes to Adam and the image of God, we're in danger of losing the gospel by losing the context and need for the gospel. If Adam is merely a man-made construct, if he is a literary device to explain the sins of the nation of Israel, if he is a discardable piece of ancient Near Eastern pre-scientific naivete, if he is anything but the covenant representative and natural parent of the human race who stands at the most basic point for the intelligibility of redemptive history and our redemption, If he is anything but that, then we will be forced by the sheer logic of necessity to reformulate the central structure of redemption, to redefine the content of the gospel message, and in so doing, arrive with what Paul calls no gospel at all. Let me direct your attention to the final quote by John Murray. He's referencing a text that we're going to look at in our final session from First Corinthians 15. But he says this, what belongs to the essence of Paul's soteriology, he means doctrine of salvation, what belongs to its essence rests upon the parallel and contrast between Adam, the first man made living soul. and Christ, the second man and last Adam, made life-giving spirit. This exemplifies the peril of questioning the veracity or relevance of any detail in the scriptures concerned. We have not only Paul's imprimatur, we are given to see the implications for what is ultimate in soteriology. Well, after lunch, we're going to draw out what is ultimate in soteriology by looking again at the Adam-Christ parallel from 1 Corinthians 15. We'll look at Adam as earthly image of God, and Christ as the glorified image of God in order to bring into view what is the ultimate hope of the Christian as the redeemed image of God. Let me pray for us and we'll have lunch. Father in heaven, we thank you for your glorious word for the goodness of the gospel of our salvation. We thank you for Christ that though he was rich, yet for our sakes was made poor so that we through his poverty might become rich. Lord, how rich we have become in our union with the one in whom all spiritual blessings are found in the heavenly places. May we honor him in life and in death and even now as we discuss together over lunch. In Jesus' name, amen.