Please turn to the book of Romans, the fifth chapter. I'm going to read verses 12 through 18 to give you some of the context of verses 12 through 14 this morning, if you would stand with me for the reading of God's word. Verses 12 through 18. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, And so death spread to all men because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even of those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, Much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. For if by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. May the Lord bless the reading of His Word and the preaching of it. You may be seated. Some have said that this passage, verses 12 through 21, is the most difficult passage in the entire book of Romans. Some said maybe even in the whole Word of God. I don't know about that. But it's challenging. So let's seek the Lord the Spirit to teach us. Let's pray for His blessings. Our Lord, our desire is to hear Your voice clearly speaking to us. And this, Your Word, is the way that You do that. But we know that the Word only lives and is only understood from the ministry of Your Spirit taking this Word. May He be our teacher, our instructor, help us to humbly think and listen and wrestle with the text and begin to pray about and consider the broad and vast implications of Adam, our head, and then also Christ, our head. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. traveler in Venezuela illustrates the readiness of men to lay their faults on the locality or on anything rather than themselves. And I would say by way of implication upon God himself. By the story of a hard drinker who came home one night in such a condition that he could not for some time find his hammock When this feat was accomplished, he tried in vain to get off his big riding boots. After many fruitless efforts, he lay down in his hammock and pondered aloud. Well, I have traveled all the world over. I have lived five years in Cuba, four in Jamaica, five in Brazil. I have traveled through Spain and Portugal and been in Africa. But I never yet was in such an abominable country as this, whereas a man is obliged to go to bed with his boots on." You might say, truth is turned upside down on its head by this man who doesn't understand reality. And we come to a text of Scripture that not a few have done the same thing, have said, I can't handle what I'm hearing here. It must not mean that. And so, brothers and sisters, we need to approach the word of God in humility and we need to be teachable. We need to learn to see God's world and reality as God has ordained it. not as we, an individual, think it ought to be. And as His children, we need to be very careful that we do not take the Scriptures and pour our ideas into them, but instead open the Scriptures and let, as we compare Scripture with Scripture, God speak to us and conform us to the image of His Son. That's our goal. Our father's goal, and that should be ours as well. The proposition statement is this. Adam is our father, sadly enough, in sin. As covenant head of the human race, his one sin became ours and condemned all men to hell. Context is so crucial, and so I spend a little bit of time in that this morning before we get into the text. What has Paul been talking about in Romans? Well, he's developed in the first three chapters man's need of grace, of salvation. Man is lost. Not a few men, not a lot of men, all men. And then he opens up in the second half of chapter three, all the way through verse 11 of our text in chapter five, his remedy, justification, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And we've been looking in recent weeks in verses 1 to 11 of the marvelous fruits that flow from this right relationship with God. And we have assurance of our salvation. Now that theme, this assurance of salvation, our security in Christ, our being in Christ, continues on all the way through the eighth chapter. All of this flows, this assurance and these blessings flow out of our mystical or spiritual union with Christ. Paul loves to talk about us being in Christ and he in us. Verses 12 through 21, and that's what we're plunging into this morning, compare and contrast two different men, and the union we have with both of them. Can you name them? Adam is the first, and we're going to look at Adam today, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the second. Chapters 6 through 8 show our continued union with Christ, our battle with sin, some call it sanctification, and that's what it is, and the blessed assurance we have of our victory, once again I say it, in Christ Jesus. Paul begins to lay the groundwork by showing the covenant relationship we have, first of all, with Adam. I'd like to read a couple of paragraphs out of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is a great summary, as we know, of various portions of our faith. Westminster Confession, Chapter six. This is on the fall of man of sin and the punishment thereof. And I'm going to read this second and third paragraph by this sin in the sea. He's talking or they're talking about Adam and Eve. We read Genesis three, one through twelve earlier by this sin. They fell from their original righteousness and communion with God. and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. We call that total depravity. They being the root of all mankind, that's us, all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed. And the same death and sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. And so we stand guilty in Adam is what this is teaching and I'm going to read another paragraph here. We stand guilty in Adam. We are corrupt because of his first sin and out of that corruption of nature, we perform actual sins ourselves. We exacerbate, we make the problem even worse. In the next chapter, entitled, Of God's Covenant with Man. The second paragraph I read, The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. So, life to Adam and those in Adam. The entire human race. you represent it. Let's go to the text. Verse 12, through one man, sin and death. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin. If you care to, you can turn with me. I'm going to be going to various texts of scripture I want you to see Scripture comparing Scripture here. In Genesis chapter 2, in verse 17, I want to read what God said to Adam. I'll back up to verse 16, Genesis 2, And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. That's pretty clear, isn't it? For in the day that you eat from it, You shall surely die. Go over to 3 verse 6, When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Sin entered the human race through our head, even Adam. Sin is universal. Romans 3.23, what does that say? For all have sinned and come short or fall short of the glory of God. You see, in Romans 5, Paul goes to the source of this awful river that covers the earth. That's where he's going. He backs us up all the way to the very beginning. so that we can appreciate who we are and what we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. But first of all, He wants to show us how lost we are and why that is so, and how God orders His world and has set things up. And I'm going to keep repeating this to you today, probably in the next couple of weeks anyway, as we work through the last part of Romans 5. He goes to the source. What is the source of that river? The fountain of that river, or the source of the river, is Adam himself. Death, says Paul in Romans 5, flows from sin. And death is also universal, implying sin is universal throughout the entire human race. We read about it in Genesis 2, 16 and 17. You shall not eat in the day you eat You shall surely die. It's not a doubt in the mind of God. It is a certainty. He has declared reality, and that reality has taken place. In Genesis 3, in verse 19, the Lord speaking in judgment to Adam says, By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. Because from it you are taken, for you are dust, and to dust you Return, you shall die. Again, chapter 6 and verse 23, the wages of sin, the result of sin, is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The writer of the Hebrews concurs with this when he writes in Hebrews 9.27, it has been appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment. Now, God didn't appoint death because God doesn't care about man. It's been appointed because of sin. Then comes the judgment. It's God's punishment for sin. Now, how did death spread to all? Notice in our text, verse 12, it says, and so death spread to all men. I mean, why did it have to spread to all men? Well, it did spread to all men. We know that. It is universal. And the answer is because all sinned. And that could be one of the most difficult parts of the whole second half of chapter five. Those three words, because all sinned. What does it mean? All sinned in Adam or all sinned individually in themselves? And that's where the debate hinges. Is it all in Adam? Or all in themselves as individuals? We're all individuals. And that, as Kurt has already underlined for us this morning, that's the perspective of our culture. And much of the church is we are a bunch of individuals doing our part with God. Okay? And I'm not negating the fact that we are individuals. But it's interesting how God shows us what reality is in terms of a covenantal relationship with God and with one another. How did sin and death spread from Adam to the human race? Well, there are various views. I'll give you four different views this morning. One is called Pelagianism. Man sins entirely apart from Adam. And it is his own sin that brings condemnation and death. He has this absolutely free will and it's his choice apart from God and God's influences upon him to make his own decision and he's a sinner before God because he's chosen to sin on his own. It has nothing to do with Adam. As we go on in our text you will see that this view is clearly refuted by the text so I'm not going to try to refute it right now as we work through Romans 5 today and the weeks that follow, you will see that. Another view is the view that some say is Calvin's view, although he seemed to have taught something else in other places, it's not real clear. Calvin's not at his best here. He is debating against Pelagians and Roman Catholics of his day on this issue, and so Calvin takes a certain approach to the text, which I would disagree with. Calvin says sin, in this context, meant corruption. Sin passed to all because all being corrupted sinned. They got the corruption from Adam, but it was their ultimate sinning themselves as a result of being corrupt in themselves that constituted them sinners. I think Calvin is off on that. A third view is known as Augustinianism. Augustus Strong and others have held to this view. And it's also known as the seminal view or the realistic view. If you're taking notes and you want to study on these things, all men are physical descendants of Adam. So when Adam acted, the whole race acted in him. When he was judged, we were judged. In other words, we were in embryo form in Adam. When he acted, because we are physically related to Adam, the head of the human race, so we acted in him. Now as you read the text of Romans 5, it's not what it's teaching, and so we have to reject that view, although it is interesting if you read Hebrews 7, 9 and 10, It says that Levi paid ties to Mechizedek through Abraham, even when he was in the loins of Abraham. And so the view is taken out of that text that there is some kind of connection, and there certainly is a connection between us and Adam, our father. But that's not what Paul is teaching in Romans 5. And I'm not going to try to refute all these things now. As we go through Romans 5, I want you to see what it says. Then any view that comes along, you say, no, wait a minute, but the text says this. So you're founded, you're grounded on the word of God. Another view, a view that I would agree with is known as federalism or the covenantal view. And it's held by many of the greatest interpreters in in all walks of Protestantism. And here's the view. Adam is the head or representative of the human race. When he sinned, we sinned him. Not because we are biologically connected to him, although we are, but because God placed him as our covenant representative. His one act was not only for himself, but for the entire human race. He was on probation and we were on probation in Him as our covenant representative. And I'm going to keep bringing that to you. If that's a little fuzzy in your thinking, what does that mean? How can that be fair? We're going to keep looking at it from different angles because that's what Paul does. The all sinned in our text means that Adam acted and in him all sinned. All were condemned. and all would receive the just penalty, which is what? The wages of sin is death. Lloyd-Jones writes on this passage and he says this, Adam's sin is imputed to us in exactly the same way that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. So if you understand justification, You ought to understand the imputation of Christ's righteousness, then you ought to understand the imputation of Adam's sin to us, because he stood as a covenant head as well. We inherit, of course, a sinful nature from Adam, but that is not what condemns us, writes Lloyd-Jones. What condemns us and makes us subject to death is the fact that we have all sinned in Adam and that we are all held guilty of sin. It is our union with Adam that accounts for all our trouble. It is our corresponding union with Christ that accounts for our salvation. And Paul, and I believe we need to maintain with Paul, this consistent look at both of these men, a parallel together in this text. If it's true of this one, it's true of that one, because that's what Paul is doing in the text. And you will see that as you read it. Illustration for you. You've heard of the two names, Bush and Kerry? You know, it's interesting. A lot of conversation about those two individuals. Well, what's the big deal? It's just politics. Who cares about politics? Well, it seems like a lot of people care about politics. And whether they understand it or not, whether it's Bush or Kerry, whoever is elected to become President of the United States, That man's representing our nation. The highest office in our nation. His decisions, whether you like him or not, whether you voted for him or not, will impact your life greatly. May impact your pocketbook greatly. That's why a lot of people get so heated about the debate of, you know, What's this guy stand for? And what's he going to do? And you know what? And those debates are important. And we know that. Whether Christian or non-Christian, we all know that. And even if you disagree with a man's life and his decisions, the decisions he makes will impact your life and probably the lives of your children as well, maybe beyond that. And we have to live with his decisions. But I wasn't there in Washington, D.C. I didn't ask him to make these decisions. I didn't even vote for the guy. But nevertheless, whatever decisions he will make, they will impact your life and my life greatly. You see, he acts as a head, a representative of the people. That's what Adam did. I didn't like Adam's decision. It didn't help me out at all. But I know it's true, and I'm grateful now for Christ much more. You see, Christ will be elevated. As we understand this, we just look to God's wisdom and we see the blessedness of our Savior and what He has done for us. You see, Adam's decision brought sin and death and hell. That came through one man, even our father Adam. Well, verses 13 and 14 explain verse 12. See, law reveals sin, and it brings condemnation. That's theologically accurate. Look at verse 13. For until the law, sin was in the world. Now that's interesting, Paul. What in the world do you mean by that? But sin is not imputed when there is no law. 13, and it may be indicated in your Bible, in your translation, is the beginning of a parenthesis. which ends at the end of verse 17. Verse 12 reads, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned, skip over to 18, so then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. That's the answer of the question we have in verse 12, you see. The thought is continued there, and in between is this parenthesis. Verses 13 and 14 attempt to explain verse 12. And then I'll talk about 15 through 17 in just a moment. You see, here's first of all, a fact, the first statement in verse 13, it just states the fact, sin the world before the law of Moses. And we know it's the law of Moses because verse 14, helps us to see that clearly. It was in the world before the Law of Moses. How do we know that? Well, there are many examples. Sin was in the world and there was punishment. You see? What happened to Cain? God punished him. He judged him. What about the universal flood during the time of Noah? God judged the whole human race except for Aten and so on. So we know that sin was in the world and God was judging sin. But then there's a general principle, and this puts a little tension here. Here's the general principle in the second half of 13. Sin is not imputed when there is no law, when there is no objective standard. Paul's already stated that in Romans 4.15. For the law brings about wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation. OK. Let me illustrate this for you a little bit. I hope it helps. There's a husband and wife. I mean, my wife and I have done this together. You ever hang pictures in your home? That's always an interesting time spent sometimes, especially if you've just moved and you're tired and everything's in boxes and you're trying to hang pictures and everything. It's challenging. I used to get out my level and tape measure and You know, tape it off the wall and level it. I don't even do that anymore. I just go, yeah, it looks pretty good to me. You know, they never stay straight anyway. And so I hang some pictures and I would rather do it than have my wife do it. There's certain reasons. One reason is she uses the biggest nail she can find. Big spikes, you know. I don't know why she does that, but maybe it's easier to hit those spikes. And I'll hang the pictures and I'll say, it looks pretty good to me. And she'll say, well, I don't know about that one on the right. It's kind of down on the right a little bit needs to be moved up. And I go, well, from my perspective, it looks pretty good. It balances out with everything else. And you know, you go back and forth. Who's right? The one who yells the loudest? I don't think so. You see, there's no ultimate standard when you do it that way. It's her opinion, my opinion, the kids opinion, you know, There's no absolute sin, there's no right and wrong. Without the law, you see, sin is not imputed. With no standard, how can man say, I did right or I did wrong? And that's the point that is being made here. Now, I want you to notice something else. The language that Paul uses, it's imputation language. Paul has used it before in Romans 4. Do you remember? What's imputed to us? What's given to us as a gift? Our standing in Christ. We are declared what? Righteous in Christ. It's given to us as a gift. But we can use the word imputed to us. Paul uses it. In the following verses, though, if you read on, you see, he doesn't use the word anymore, but he gives examples of it. Two main examples. come out of the text, one in Adam and one in Christ. What Adam did is imputed to us. What Christ did is imputed to us. A very important principle. It's a matter of life or death for each one of us. With that thought in mind, let's go right on to verse 14. The reign of death implies something. It implies the reign of sin. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses. What do you mean? The Mosaic law wasn't there. There wasn't written law at the time. Verse 13 tells us that. And when there's no law, sin's not imputed. But Paul goes on in 14. But nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses. Notice this now. Even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam. OK, let's walk through this. Death reign from Adam to Moses. Paul chooses this particular time in history. It's a time without what? Law? No. But it is a time without written law. You see, the work of the law was upon the hearts of men at that time. Some say natural law. Some call it the moral law. You turn back to Romans 2. In 14 we read, for when the Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law are law to themselves. These not having the written law are law to themselves. In that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them. And so there's the work of the law. But God, notice this in our text, was not imputing these sins against him. He was imputing some other sin. That's the point. Not that they weren't sins, but the point that Paul's making is a very specific one. You've got to keep it very narrow and you've got to keep it focused in light of the immediate context. Notice 14b, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense, of Adam. People sinned during this period, but it was not by breaking a specific command of God as Adam did. That's what Paul is saying. Adam received a specific command. Other men did not receive that. Not until the Law of Moses, you see. Since there was no specific command for them to break, Adam sinned by breaking a command. Remember? What was the command? You can eat anything you want in the garden, but you see that tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Don't eat of it. The day you eat of it, you shall die. So why did they die during that time? The implication is this, and we'll open it up in the following weeks. They died because Adam's sin was imputed to them. Why did infants die during that period of time? They died because Adam's sin was imputed to them. They didn't break any law. Whether you want to go to the moral law at that time, conscience excusing, defending oneself, or whatever. There was no other written law. But why did they die? Because the one sin of Adam was imputed to them. Adam was their covenant head. Now notice the last part of verse 14. who is a type of him who was to come. Now, this clause connects us with verses 15 through 17. It's kind of like a parenthesis within a parenthesis. So we have here 15 through 17 fits within the larger parenthesis between 12 and 18. You see, in this parenthesis, in these verses, we see that Adam is a type of The one to come, who is the one to come? You read on in the text, we realize it's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a type of Christ by comparison. First of all, what is Paul comparing here? He's comparing two covenant heads. And so he does relate to Jesus. He can be compared to Jesus in that way, but he's also and more time is spent on this, he's also contrasted with the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me lay it out for you like this, and then we'll look at it next week. Adam brings sin, or brought sin, and Christ does what? He brings righteousness. Notice the contrast. Adam brings condemnation. Christ brought what? Justification. Adam's sin brought death. Christ's righteousness brought what? Brought life. And Paul contrasts the two, and we need to maintain the parallel and the contrast between these two covenant heads. So Adam is a type of Christ, the anti-type. Some concluding thoughts this morning. I know it's warm. It's warmer for me than it is for you. And I want you to hang in there with me. We're going to keep working through this. And I hope by the time you get to verse 21, you say, yeah, this is making sense. And if not, come and talk to me and we'll talk together about it. Why are these covenant heads so important? Why is this passage such a pivotal passage? See, we're interpreting what took place in the Old Testament theologically for us. So this is real. It's a real pivotal passage. Well, let me give you a few reasons. First, because covenant headship is taught in Scripture. That's why it's so important. We ought to believe that which is taught in Scripture. Let me give you some examples. Korah's rebellion in Numbers 16. Korah rebelled. Who was judged? Everything under Korah's headship, everything within his family, his wife, his children, everything he owned. came under judgment. Korah made the decision, but being the covenant head of his household, everybody reaped that decision. You might say that's awful, but that's exactly what Adam did. What about Achan's covetousness in Joshua 17? Remember? Finally it's revealed that it's Achan who went and there was a ban on certain items. When they would take a city, there's certain items that were to be set apart. But he saw clothing, he saw gold, he hid it. And finally he says, okay, you're right, I coveted it. I lusted after it. And so I took it. Who was judged? And we might just wince at this entire household was judged. On a positive side of this, It's most marvelous, I think, and there are different examples of this in the New Testament. One is in Acts 16, the Philippian jailer, in the very middle of the night, it's dark, and there's this earthquake, and he thinks that everybody's going to escape, and remember, Paul and Silas said to him, wait a minute, don't kill yourself, as he takes his sword to kill himself. They, in essence, preach the gospel to him, and the text says that he believes, and that very night he was baptized, but not just him, but his entire household. He's a covenant head of his household. See, the principle abides through Scripture. I'll give you more examples. We'll look at more of this in the weeks to come. OK, why are these covenant heads so important? It's taught in Scripture. And secondly, this is our only hope of salvation. You see, we appreciate it, I think, when we look at Christ and see what he's done. We like that side of it. We're not so excited about the other side of it, when some man out there representing us makes a bonehead decision and we have to live with it. But that's true. See, the imputation of Christ's righteousness, our covenant head, is the only way that God can be just and we be justified. That's the only way. Think on these things. Read the text as we come back to it. Thirdly, to understand the doctrine of covenant representation or headship is to understand the way that God has set up his world. You see, it's the way of productivity, it's the way of dominion, it's the way of fruitfulness and blessing. God has set up covenant representation in various fears of headship or leadership in different areas of life. And if we understand that authority, that brings peace and productivity individually doing their own thing, you see. We'll work on that as well. Some I know really go cross-grain with our culture and much of the church today. You know what? Men are fools without God. They cannot understand the world in which they live. They are helplessly bound in sin. Let me give you an example in conclusion here. Surgeon of a regiment in India relates the following incident. A soldier rushed into the tent to inform me that one of his comrades was drowning in a pond close by, and nobody could attempt to save him in consequence of the dense weeds which covered the surface of that pond. On going to the spot, we found the poor fellow in his last struggle, manfully attempting to extricate himself from the meshes of rope like grass that encircles his body. The more he struggled, the more this grass encircled him. And he fought for his very life. You see, he couldn't swim. He couldn't keep himself above the water. And the grass wound itself around him almost as if it were alive. At last, he sank. And the floating plants closed in and left not a trace of the disaster. After some delay a raft was made and we put off to the spot and sinking a pole some 12 feet, a native dived holding on by the stake and brought the body to the surface. The doctor writes, I shall never forget the expression on the dead man's face, the clenched teeth and fearful distortion of the countenance while coils of long trailing weeds clung around his body and limbs, the muscles which stood out stiff and rigid while his hands grasped thick masses showing how bravely he had struggled for life. This portrays, this is a picture of, this illustrates the long enslaved sinner struggling, contending with his sin in his own strength. by his own wisdom. It makes me think of the question, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? You see, apart from Jesus Christ representing us in covenant with the Father, we can fight and wrestle and cry out. We can do whatever we can do in strength, in our own strength, and it's not enough to save us, beloved. That's why it's so important for us to maintain, yes, the covenant headship of Adam over the race. For if that not be true, then neither is it true that Jesus Christ is a covenant head. And we are left trying to swim, trying to break free of the sin that so entangles us. So stop and ponder and pray and prepare yourself for an ongoing study of the text that God might truly help us to see and appreciate his word. Let's pray. We do not claim to understand every detail of your holy word. We seek to and we are going to continue to do so by the grace that you supply. Lord, help us in the days ahead that we might think on these things and study and ponder and And then consider just where is this truth applied in the world about us? And help us to see how it is applied in marriage. It is applied in our families. It is applicable in the church, in business, in various spheres of authority and influence, Lord. Help us to understand it and be those who are faithful to the Word of God, trusting in you. But most of all, Lord, we rejoice in the fact of our Savior taking our place. We weren't there. We didn't struggle. We didn't strive. No, it was His fight, His faith, His obedience, His suffering, His victory that is ours by faith. We praise you for your infinite wisdom in the gospel and for such a Savior, Lord. In His name we pray, Amen.