The following is a production of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. For more information about the seminary, visit us online at gpts.edu. It is a privilege to be with you to renew old acquaintance and to make new acquaintance as we take up the very important issues we've already been considering this afternoon. Now, I have prepared a handout, and I've seen a couple of people with that handout. There should be two sides to it. If you have not received it, I'm hearing the flapping of pages, that's a good sign, you have it. If you don't have it, please talk to someone official and I'm sure they can help you get hold of one. My assigned topic is the covenant of works. I feel a bit like the biologist asked to address a convention of his peers given the topic of water. His audience is well disposed to the subject. They are persuaded of its importance. But where does the poor speaker begin? Well, when we come to the covenant of works, the array of issues stemming from and involved in the covenant works is staggering, to say the least. And a brief survey of these issues may not be a bad place to start. There is, firstly, questions of terminology. John Murray has famously questioned whether it's proper to speak of a covenant of works. He prefers the term Adamic administration, all the while, it seems to me, retaining the substance of the doctrine. Now, among theologians who understand that administration to be a covenant, well, there's been a variety of descriptors. A covenant of what? The phrase covenant of works, the fetus operum, has roots in the 16th century and of course is enshrined in the Westminster standards. But even Westminster doesn't insist exclusively upon the term works. It's happy to describe the covenant as a covenant of life, larger catechism 20, or simply the first covenant, larger catechism 30. Others in the Reformed tradition have been happy to speak of the covenant of nature, Turidon, or the covenant of creation, Palmer Robertson and many others. Second, there's the question of the timing of the covenant. Was man created in covenant or was the covenant instituted subsequent to the creation of our first parents? 17th century Reformed writers tended to argue that Adam created after the image of God, with the law written on his heart, was brought into covenant after his creation. More recently, theologians, including Dr. Morton Smith, among many others, have argued that Adam, from the moment of his creation, existed at least incipiently in covenant relation with God. This question is really unresolved in Reformed theology and has significant implications for the way we understand nature and grace. Now third, there's the question of Adam's standing within the covenant. In the covenant of works, did Adam relate to God as servant or son? Or to put the question a little differently, what did the covenant hold before Adam? Was it the prospect of going from servant to son, or of advancing from one degree of sonship to another? Fourth, there's a variety of questions concerning the workings of the covenant itself. Is it proper to admit the presence of grace to any degree in that covenant, as Dabney and many others have argued? Or must one insist on that covenant as a meritorious administration of strict justice, as Meredith Klein, after 1968, has strenuously insisted? or a related question or a different question. What was the life that God held before Adam in the period of his probation? Was it eternal life or was it confirmed temporal life? To put the question a little differently, is it proper to speak with Gerhardus Voss and others of a pre-redemptive eschatology in the garden with all that that doctrine entails? And another question under this heading of the workings of the covenant, how did the tree of life function within the covenant of works? Our confession identifies it as a pledge of the covenant of works and Turidan has, I think in complimentary fashion, called it sacramental. Fifth, there's the question of the relation of the covenant of works to all the biblical covenants that follow it in scripture. Now, the Westminster standards unapologetically hold to what has been called a bi-covenantal doctrine of the biblical covenants. You have the covenant of works before the fall, and then you have the covenant of grace in the singular after the fall, Confession of Faith 7. But among those who hold to this doctrine There have been differences, say, concerning how we're to understand the relationship of the Covenant of Works on the one hand and the Mosaic Covenant on the other. Is it proper to speak of the Mosaic administration as a republication of the Covenant of Works? And those of you who follow current discussion and debate within Reformed theology know that this is a live and unresolved question. Now, these five categories of issues have been, for the most part, intramural. That is to say, they're issues that have been discussed within the conservative, Reformed, and Presbyterian community. We've yet to mention the criticisms that have been voiced against the Covenant of Works. There has been the line of criticisms coming from Karl Barth and other neo-Orthodox theologians. There have been the criticisms that American dispensational theologians have brought against the covenant of works. Now, any one of these points merits reflection. And any one of these points could consume the remainder of our hour together. So why take the time to mention them, especially if we're not going to look at any of them? Well, I should answer my question. I think one reason is to help us understand that each of these issues has profound implications for our whole system of theology. Let me take one example from recent discussion to illustrate the point. One of the things that recent controversies surrounding the teaching of Norman Shepard and the federal vision One of the things that those controversies have impressed on many is how central covenant theology is to this discussion. Many federal vision proponents avowedly recast covenant theology in a mold that they deem more biblical and authentically reformed. And this project is not without consequence for the covenant of works. Critics have rightly questioned whether certain federal vision formulations of the Covenant of Works were not in fact mono-covenantal. In other words, whether those formulations did not blur, if not eradicate, the biblical lines of division between the Covenant of Works and the Covenant of Grace. Critics have also observed that these formulations of covenant theology were not without consequence for their doctrine of justification and their doctrine of sanctification. Rework the relationship between the first Adam and his posterity, and that will have implications necessarily for the way you understand the relationship between the second Adam and his posterity. The troubling formulations of federal vision proponents concerning justification and the place of good works in our lives, these are integrally related to their broader understanding of covenant theology, including the covenant of works. So how do we proceed? Well, one fruitful avenue, I think, is to take up the covenant of works from what at first glance may seem to be a rather peculiar angle, and that is the angle of contemporary New Testament scholarship. Now, why might we go this direction? Well, quite simply because some of the strongest and clearest testimony to the covenant of works is found in the New Testament. Chiefly, 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans chapter five, the passage that was just read a few moments ago. So the exegesis of New Testament scholars, and particularly of Pauline scholars, is not without consequence for the way we understand the covenant of works. Now, I have only marginally limited our study. I've shaved some ice chips off the iceberg, but we need to go a little more narrowly. One New Testament scholar who has attracted considerable attention within conservative evangelical reform circles is N.T. Wright, and a number of you have heard of him. Wright is perhaps best known for his work on the Gospels and on Paul. He is widely regarded as having advanced a robust defense of the bodily resurrection from the dead. But he's also known to have raised serious questions about the Reformation's doctrine of justification. Now, these are, to a great degree, fair characterizations of what Wright is about. But very often, these discussions fail to grasp that Wright is answering these questions and posing these questions in the context of a much bigger project. And that project is purposefully and statedly biblical theological. And those, his biblical theological project has distinct implications for his understanding of justification. Now let me make a few remarks about Wright's broader biblical theological project. As many of you know, Wright is currently preparing a comprehensive theology of the New Testament. It's already in three volumes. The fourth volume is scheduled, on Paul, is scheduled to be released in three installments later in the year or early next year. Now, what's striking about this project, especially given that Wright is working within and speaking to the Historical Critical Guild of New Testament Scholarship, what's striking about this project is not only its girth, it's massive, and would occupy much space on any shelf, but that its working principle is that there is a single and coherent theology of the New Testament. Now, to say that in an audience such as ours would hardly bat an eye. But in the broader historical critical body of scholarship, that is a radical position to take, that there is one coherent theology of the New Testament. Where most critical New Testament scholars have sought theologies, disparate theologies of the New Testament, Wright has argued for agreement and concurrence. Now, what's all the more striking is that Wright insists that there's not only coherence within the New Testament itself, but that the New Testament writers are in continuity with the Old Testament itself. And that point has emerged powerfully in his work on Paul. Now, how does Wright see this continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament? Well, a couple of observations. The continuity is, in the first instance, narratival. That is to say, for Wright, Paul understands the death and resurrection of Jesus as the climax of a single storyline that began in the Old Testament, in the law, continuing through the prophets, and climaxing in Jesus. Furthermore, the continuity is not only narrative, but it's also covenantal. Wright understands Paul's doctrine of justification to be covenantal, but he also understands Paul's whole theology as covenantal. And it would be true to say that Wright is not only a biblical theologian, but that Wright is a covenant theologian. Now, these features of Wright's work on Paul undoubtedly go some distance in explaining why some Reformed covenant theologians have expressed a more-than-passing interest in Wright's work. Could it be that Wright is a co-belligerent? Could it be that Wright is a fellow traveler? Well, before we answers to these questions, we have to understand exactly how Wright understands Paul's understanding of the Old Testament and the theology of the Old Testament. And one of the questions that we need to bring to table is how or if the covenant of works in concept or in form functions within his understanding of that Old Testament theology. I think if we ask and answer this question, we'll not only have a clearer and more incisive sense of what Wright is about, particularly on some of the controversial questions that are being posed today, but it will also impress on us the importance of the covenant of works for one's overall understanding of biblical teaching. Now, to turn to Wright and his understanding of the covenant theology of the Old Testament as represented in Paul. Now, this is admittedly a difficult matter. Wright, in No One Place, outlines this. One must inductively pull this together from his varied writings. And that's what we've attempted to do. And I think we can best understand Wright's understanding of the progress of Old Testament biblical theology in four basic categories, and I've listed them in your outline. The first of these is creation. Now, according to Wright, creation is fundamental to the covenant reflections about Israel circulating in the Judaism of Paul's day. Wright says, Israel's covenant vocation caused her to think of herself as the creator's true humanity. And he adds the true Adamic humanity. Elsewhere, he reflects on Deuteronomy chapters 27 to 30. And he said, these passages bring together creation and covenant in terms of the land. If Israel obeys the voice of Yahweh, the created order within the promised land will be abundantly fruitful. So, Wright begins with Israel's God as both creator God and covenant God. And for Wright, this axiom is at the very heart of Paul's own theology. And Wright sees this axiom as central in Paul's formulation, the righteousness of God, Romans 1, 16 and 17. Listen to how Wright glosses this phrase, the righteousness of God. He says, because God is the creator, he has the obligation to put the world to Wright's once and for all. not from some abstract ideal, but from the Creator's obligation to the creation, and from the covenant God's obligation to be faithful to His promises. So Paul shared this conviction, the Creator and covenant God of Israel, as his starting point in theology. Now, of course, Paul, like other Jews, Wright says, recognized that there is a deep problem in the creation. And that problem, Wright says, is sin and death. Now, Second Temple Judaism, following the Old Testament, Wright notes, will trace this sin back to the sin of Adam. And so there is an Adam theology to Paul's peers and to the Old Testament itself. And Wright argues that the significance of this Adam theology in the Old Testament is that it either advances, he says, or develops a claim about the place of Israel in the purposes of God. It is another way of saying that the world was made for the sake of Israel or that Israel is or is to become God's intended true humanity. So Israel, he says, has picked up the ball that Adam dropped. Israel, in the Judaism of Paul's day, was the eschatological or last Adam. Now, Paul has to be understood, Wright continues, against this background. And he says you've got to understand Paul against this background, not just here and there in Paul's writings, but all along the line. So he argues that when Paul says Jesus is the last Adam, 1 Corinthians 15 verse 45, he says you've got to understand that in terms of Israel, the eschatological Israel who will be raised from the dead as the vindicated people of God. He continues, Jesus is the one through whom God is doing what he intended to do, first through humanity and then through Israel. Now listen, Paul's Adam Christology is basically an Israel Christology and is predicated on the identification of Jesus as Messiah in virtue of his resurrection. So when Paul identifies Jesus as the second or last Adam, He is doing so thinking of Israel as the eschatological or last Adam. Jesus has done what Israel has failed to do. Now Wright argues that this point is made by Paul in Romans 5 verses 12 to 21. Now he sees in the opening chapters of Romans Paul claiming that God's answer to the sin of humanity, that is of Adam, is the people of Abraham. And Abraham's true people are those redeemed in Christ. And it's at Romans 5 that, according to Wright, Paul begins to speak more specifically about Adam. Listen to what he says. Christ had to begin where Adam ended. That is, by taking on to himself not merely a clean slate, not merely even the single sin of Adam, but the whole entail of that sin, working its way out in the many sins of Adam's descendants, and arriving at the judgment spoken of in chapters 1, 2, and 3. And he continues, the obedient work of Jesus in Romans 5 is the act, listen to this, of Israel's representatives, doing for Israel what she could not do for herself. And it's in that way that Jesus undid Adam's sin. So then when Paul speaks of Jesus as the last Adam, he says, you've got to have in mind the first Adam, and you've got to have in mind Israel. Now, we've taken some time to exposit Wright's statements about the creation in relation to the Old Testament and Paul, it may be helpful to summarize what he's saying under three headings. Firstly, Wright is clear that for Paul, sin originated with the one sin of Adam. Now Wright is unclear about how that one sin relates to the sins of Adam's posterity. At the very least, we can say that Adam's sin came first and in some way brought on the sins that follow. Second, Wright argues that the Jews of Paul's day understood Adam's forfeiture through his sin of his calling to be truly human to mean that Israel was to be God's true humanity. That is, Israel was to be the last Adam. But Paul, however, for Paul, the last Adam, the eschatological Israel, is not the nation of Israel, but Jesus. And then third, Wright insists, in Jesus, God is not abandoning the creation, he is renewing the creation. And that is the goal of Jesus' work as the last Adam, namely to bring creation to renewal. Now, we can speak a little more briefly on the second, third, and fourth stages in Wright's understanding of the Old Testament for Paul. And those second, third, and fourth stages relate to Abraham, to the law, and to fulfillment in Christ. Now, if we ask the question, how did Israel come to think of herself as the last Adam? Well, Wright's answer is the Abrahamic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant, according to Wright, is when Abraham inherits the role of Adam and Eve. And he calls Abraham a new Adam. And God intended through Abraham and his descendants to rescue the world from its plight. Now that brings us to Israel. And on Israel fell the mantle of rescuing the world from its plight as the last Adam. And that's the reason, Wright says, that God gave her the law. But of course, we know what happened. Israel did not obey and bring blessing for herself and others. Israel disobeyed, and the result was curse. And that curse, which God pronounced against the nation of Israel, resulted in her exile. Now in exile, Israel, and Israel continuing into Paul's day, was looking for God to fulfill his promises to renew the world. They were looking for God to show, to demonstrate his righteousness. And that is the significance of the phrase, the righteousness of God. This is, Wright says, when God would show his faithfulness to his own covenant to Israel. And that is where justification for right becomes important in the Judaism of Paul's day. As Israel was waiting for that day when God would show himself to be covenantally faithful, as Israel was waiting for the day when God would come and fulfill his covenant promises, well, the question was, how do we know that we're going to be vindicated when God comes? And the answer to that question, how do you know that you'll be vindicated? The answer to that question was, well, you keep the law. And that, for Wright, is what it means to be justified. Now, that brings us to the fourth and final stage, and for our purposes, the most important stage in Wright's Old Testament theology. What was Paul doing with this Jewish theology that he inherited? Wellwright says Paul doesn't put it to one side and start anew. Rather, what he does is he takes this whole system and he completely reworks it around Israel's Messiah, Jesus. For Paul, Israel had failed miserably to keep her covenant charter, she had failed to bring blessing to the creation, and she was misusing the law that God had given her. And so for Paul, the answer to that problem was found in Jesus. He says, speaking of Romans 5, 12 to 21, that the conventional Jewish understanding of identifying Adam with the descendants of Abraham as the true humanity is there in Paul. But what Paul does that's so different is he declares that Abraham's people are none other than those who belong to Jesus. And that his people are the true humanity that Israel was supposed to be, but could not be. Now, it might seem on the face of it that Wright is saying that Paul simply substituted Jesus for Israel. But he says that really wouldn't be true to all that Paul is doing. He says it's not that Jesus came and started something new, picking up where Israel had left off merely, but he says Jesus came to deal with the problem of the old, the problem that had gone back all the way to the creation, what Paul calls many trespasses, and the judgment that follows from those trespasses that resulted from the sin of Adam. And Paul came to that conclusion by reflecting on the death and the resurrection of Christ. And for Paul, Wright says, the death and the resurrection of Christ are the very way that God is going to bring his purposes in creation to fulfillment. He says, by becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross, Jesus enacted God's saving plan for the world, a plan that had been Israel's vocation all along. So to summarize then, the cross was the place where Jesus, as the new Israel, the eschatological Adam, took upon himself the covenant curse of Torah. And when he did that, Israel's exile came to an end. And God's purpose to bless the creation through his Adam was unleashed. Now, this is a sweeping and comprehensive survey of the Old Testament and of Paul. And this survey, brief though it is, highlights the way in which Wright understands the narrative continuity, not just throughout the Old Testament, but between the Old Testament and the Apostle Paul himself. What are we to make of it? Well, to be sure, Wright emphasizes the importance of the two Adams. And he does it when he addresses Romans 5 in particular. We've seen how Paul argues that Jesus is the last Adam. That is, Jesus undoes what the first Adam did. Jesus does what Adam failed to do. And on the face of it, Wright seems to be saying exactly what Reformed covenant theologians have been saying all along. He seems to be saying exactly what Reformed theology has said about the two atoms and the two covenants that are tied to the two atoms. But, and you knew there was a but. On closer inspection, Wright's really saying something different. In fact, and I underscored this in the course of presenting his position, you saw how often Wright invokes Israel in connection with Jesus as the last Adam. In fact, I think it is fair to say that Israel stands parallel with Adam on the one hand and Jesus on the other hand. Israel bore the mantle that Adam failed to bear. That is, Wright says, an eschatological calling. Israel fails. And then Jesus comes along. And he's the last Adam. And he takes up that mantle. And he reconfigures Israel around himself. So for Wright, I think it's fair to say, Jesus as the last Adam can't be understood apart from his relationship with Israel. In other words, Israel is an indispensable bridge or link between Adam and Jesus in Wright's theology. It may be too much to say that Wright works not with two atoms, but with three atoms. But I think it would come close to Wright's formulation. Now, what's the problem with putting matters that way? Well, firstly, there is an exegetical problem. Though we don't have time to explore the passages We cannot see from the scripture, I would argue, the kind of Adam-Israel-Christ construction that Wright says is present in Paul. He appeals to Philippians 2, and he appeals to Romans 5 through 8. But when we look at Romans 5, which we will in just a moment, I'm unable to see anywhere in that passage where Paul expressly identifies Adam with Israel, or by good and necessary consequence, we can identify Adam with Israel. I just don't see in Paul where Israel plays the role that Wright claims for him. There are two Adams to be sure, but there simply does not seem to be a place for Israel standing between those two Adams as Wright has urged. Now, as we look at this understanding of Old Testament theology from the vantage point of Paul, Wright says, I think we can turn to a distinct concern, one that is theological and gets more to the heart of where we're going. When Wright comes down to explain how it is that Adam's sin has affected his posterity, He is not particularly clear or lucid. Now, Wright is clear that Adam's sin is prior to the sins of his posterity, and that there's some kind of relationship between the two. But if we ask the question, well, in what way did Adam's one sin impact his posterity? By what mechanism did that one sin come into the possession of his posterity? You simply will not find answers to that question in Wright's writings. Now, the answer of Reformed exegesis, and we'll turn to this passage momentarily, It is that the way Adam's sin comes into the possession of his posterity is by imputation. That is to say, the one sin of Adam was reckoned or accounted or imputed to his ordinary posterity such that they stand justly condemned before God. Now, Wright is clear that Wright's one sin impacted his posterity. But beyond that, he's not clear at all. Now, this imprecision also shows up when he speaks of justification. Now, in Romans 5, Paul argues that Adam and Christ are parallel representative federal heads. And the way that Adam's sin comes into the possession of his posterity is just the same way that Christ's righteousness, that is his perfect obedience and his full satisfaction, is the same way that his righteousness comes into the possession of those whom he represents. And just as Adam's one sin became ours by imputation, Well-reformed exegetes have argued, Christ's righteousness has also become ours by imputation. When we look at Wright and talking about the work of Christ and how it becomes ours, he's clear that Jesus' death was substitutionary on behalf of his people. He even says that it's propitiatory, it removed the wrath of God from his people. And he's clear that believers benefit from Jesus' death. But Wright does not see Paul teaching that Jesus' righteousness is imputed to the believer. He expressly denies that in more than one place. But the problem is that he never articulates exactly how Jesus' work comes to be mine so that I'm forgiven and accepted. Why are we pressing this point? And this is where we're going. The very same imprecision that we see in Wright in explaining how Adam's sin becomes ours, that same imprecision is present in explaining how Jesus' righteousness comes into the possession of his people. There is no mechanism for Wright, much less a forensic mechanism to explain how the work of the representative becomes the possession of the representative. Now, compounding this difficulty is the way that Wright understands sin and death to be at work in Paul's argument in Romans 5. And when you read Wright's exposition of sin and death in Romans 5 and following, it becomes very clear very quickly that he understands the importance of sin for Paul as it has dominion, as it corrupts humanity. So for Wright, the importance of sin for Paul is as it is master or Lord, is as it corrupts the post-Adamic landscape. Now, it's not as though Wright has nothing to say about the judicial or forensic dimensions of Paul's theology. They're certainly there. But when we come down to the proverbial brass tacks and Wright begins to expound, particularly Romans chapter five, the very heart of his concern for sin in Paul is sin as it is bondage and corruption. In fact, I think it would be fair to say that for Wright, the Adamic problem, the Adamic problem that Christ came into this world to address can be defined chiefly in terms of sin as bondage and sin as corruption. Now, if Christ has come to bring the solution to the problem that Adam has wrought, and we in him, then we are not surprised to see Wright explaining Christ's work with a similar emphasis, that at the very heart of Christ's work as he expounds these passages, is that Jesus delivers sinners from the dominion and the corruption resulting from sin in the world. Now, what's the problem in putting matters that way? Well, the problem is not that Wright has introduced something that's foreign to Paul. Of course, part of what Jesus has come to do is to deal precisely with the dominion and the corruption of sin. That is a chief concern in Romans 6, on into Romans 7 and 8. The problem, though, in putting matters that way is that we hear very little about the forensic line of Paul's two-atom theology. And we hear very little of that, particularly in the one place where we would expect to find it, and that is in Romans 5, 12 to 21. Now, this reduction, if not elimination, of the forensic dimension of Christ's work as second Adam, I think highlights an additional liability in Paul's theology according to Wright. And it is that Wright's two Adam theology has no appreciable place for the wrath of God against individual sinners. It has no appreciable place for the sinner's reconciliation with God. And it is just here in a discussion of Christ as second Adam in Romans chapter five that we would expect these very points to rise to the surface. But it's just this matter that is absent in Wright's work on these very passages. So let me summarize then our response to Wright. We've noted certain similarities between what Wright is saying and what Reformed Covenant theology has been saying, at least superficial and structural similarities. However, these similarities are more apparent than real. And we can underscore that by noting two things that we've seen. Firstly, we've seen Wright argue that Israel is a kind of bridge or link between the first Adam and the last Adam. And we've argued that there is little warrant, no warrant from this in Paul's writings. Secondly, Wright mutes at very best the forensic elements of Adam's sin and its consequences in Romans chapter five. And we've seen a corresponding muting in his exposition of Christ's work in Romans chapter five. That's borne out, we've noted, by the absence of any sustained considerations of the forensic dimension of the wrath of God and reconciliation to God in connection with Christ's work as second Adam. So what seems to be similar on the surface on closer inspection, it becomes clear that we have two very different systems. Now, I want to wrap up our time by looking at Romans chapter five and by surveying this passage to rehearse what this passage has to tell us about the covenant of works before we draw to a conclusion. Now, I understand this passage will be the theme of Dr. Piper's message a little later in the conference, and since he bought my ticket home, I better not say too much about this passage now. But we can say a few things, I think, that will help, on the one hand, for us to see the moorings and foundations of the doctrine in Scripture, but also help us to appreciate the importance of this doctrine to biblical teaching. Now, three observations. Firstly, it matters how you understand the problem that Paul outlines in these verses. The problem, as Paul outlines it in these verses, is not, in the first instance, sin as an enslaving power. Paul will go on to speak of sin as enslaving power in subsequent chapters. That is not the heart of what Paul's about here. Well, how does Paul present the problem of sin in these verses? Well, notice how Paul concentrates his attention on the one man, that is Adam. He says it five times, verse 12, verse 15. Verse 16, verse 17, and verse 19. Further, Paul narrows his consideration even further. It isn't simply the one man. It is not the one man's lifetime of sinning. It is the one trespass of the one man. See verse 16. See verse 18. And note verse 14. transgression of Adam. And that one sin, of course, was his eating the fruit that God had said not to eat. Now, Paul goes on to say that that one sin of the one man comes into the possession of Adam's posterity. And who are they? Well, he calls them in verse 12 and verse 18, all men. He calls them in verse 15 and verse 19, the many. So there is a relationship between Adam and his posterity such that Adam's one sin becomes their sin. Now, what kind of a relationship is this? Well, and the answer is that it is a federal union that God has sovereignly established between the representative, Adam, and the representative, the human race. Now, how would this passage help us to see that? Well, for one thing, we can rule out that the relationship in view is one simply of biological descent. After all, Jesus was descended from Adam. Luke 3, 38, he was, is son of Adam. But Paul insists, while Jesus is of Adam, he's not in Adam because he is the second Adam and he is the last Adam. Paul makes that explicit in verse 14. He is the type of the one who was to come. Adam was the type of the one who was to come. So Paul's concern for human beings in this passage is that they are federally or covenantally related to one of only two representative heads, Adam and Jesus Christ. So we understand then the nature of the relationship, a federal union between the representative and the representative. Now, how did Adam's one sin come into the possession of the representative? And the answer, Reformed theology has argued, on the basis of this passage, among others, is by imputation. Adam's sin was imputed, it was reckoned, it was counted to his posterity, Jesus accepted. Now, what do we mean when we say Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity? Well, let Paul explain it for you. In verse 12, he says, death spread to all men because all sinned. Now, Paul is very clear in the following two verses for all their difficulties that they present. that that sin did not pass from generation to generation because people imitated Adam's bad example. They sinned in Adam. And Paul says this transaction was judicial or forensic in nature. And I think there are three ways that this becomes clear from the text. Firstly, Look at the consequence of Adam's one sin for his posterity. Condemnation, verse 16. Condemnation, verse 18. That is forensic language, that is language of the law court. Second, verse 19, they are constituted sinners. Now most of our modern translations and the older ones render that verb, they were made sinners. And that translation is not wrong, but it is imprecise. Commentators ranging from John Murray to Herman Ritterbosch to John Piper have rightly argued, in my judgment, that that verb is more precisely rendered, constituted. That is to say, Paul is viewing people as there is a change in their standing before God. In Adam, One is counted or constituted a sinner before God, and that is language of the law court. Third, this state of affairs explains why it is that death reigns universally, verse 21. This state of affairs explains why, verse 14, death reigns even over those who didn't sin like the transgression of Adam, that is, follow his bad example. The reason is because death is God's penalty for sin. And when Adam sinned and his sin was imputed to them, they justly bore that penalty of death. So then, it matters how you see the problem. But then second, another important point for understanding this passage, as the problem, so the solution. The way you understand the problem will go a long way to how you understand the solution. Because Paul tailors the solution to the problem here in Romans 5. Now, the solution is found in the work of Jesus. He is the last Adam. And as you read this passage, you'll see how Paul sets Adam and Jesus side by side throughout the passage. But there is, while a parallel relationship between the two, there is imbalance. Because what Jesus has done is so much greater than what Adam has done. Some have called this an antithetical parallelism to capture that very point. And his point is, verse 17, that Jesus has done much more. Verse 20, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So, with that in mind, how does Paul explain the solution? What is it that Jesus Christ has done that is so much greater than what Adam has done? Well, just as the work of the first Adam was forensic, the work of the second Adam is forensic as well. If Adam brought us condemnation, Jesus brought us, verse 16, justification. So again, verse 18. If, by the one man's disobedience, the many were constituted sinners, verse 19, well, the one man's obedience has constituted the many righteous. But how is it that sinners, justly condemned in Adam by our own sins, how in the world can a just God declare such persons righteous? And you notice how Paul sprinkles this passage with words like God's free gift and God's grace, because he wants us to see that God justifies the sinner, not because of anything in us, but only because of the righteousness of his son, a righteousness that is imputed to us and Paul says elsewhere, received through faith alone. The only reason you and I can stand righteous in God's sight, in the sense that Paul is describing here, is because of the work of the second Adam. Now, what is it that the second Adam has done? Well, Paul has earlier in this letter spoken very fully and pointedly of Jesus' propitiatory death. the death that covers the guilt of our sin, the death that averts the wrath of God from us. But there's more. In verse 17, look at the way Paul puts it. It is by virtue of the free gift of righteousness that we reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. It's not simply that we've been brought out of a state of condemnation, But because of this work of Jesus that we have received through faith alone, we are entitled to reign in life. Now, why might that be? Well, remember the standard of the law and the blessing that the law holds to those who keep it. Those who perfectly obey the law see life, Galatians 3.12, Romans 3.10, If a sinner is going to reign in life because of what Jesus Christ has done, that means Jesus has not only in his life and death obeyed such that our sins are forgiven, but he has so obeyed the law of God that we now enter in to the blessings of life, the life that comes from the law perfectly obeyed. We are on good grounds, solid grounds for saying that Jesus' righteousness is not only his death at the cross, but his whole life of obedience to the law of God. What we have in Christ is not simply the passive obedience of Christ, as precious as that is. We have imputed to us the active obedience of Jesus Christ, so that we are not simply brought out of condemnation and stand back at the start line, but that in Christ, we reign in life through the work of the second Adam. And now thirdly, do you see the relationship between the covenant of works and justification by faith alone, perhaps a little more clearly? Because on Paul's terms, these doctrines are closely intertwined. Adam and Christ stand here parallel. Each is a representative head. The work of each is imputed to the represented. And Paul highlights that this is conducted in God's law court. You can see that to go astray in one area could very well have implications in the other. Now, let me conclude. We began the hour by surveying a range of theological questions relating to the covenant of works. And we observed that the implications of one's formulation of this doctrine can be significant for other doctrines in the theological system. We turned our attention to N.T. Wright, who is avowedly a covenant theologian. And though he doesn't use the term covenant of works, he realizes in his work on Romans 5, the importance of the two Adams in Paul's theology. But in the end, we concluded that Wright's understanding of the two Adams is not that of the Westminster Standards and back of that, and most importantly, that of the Apostle Paul. We noted the lack of clarity concerning the mechanism by which the representative's work comes into the possession of the represented. And we've seen Wright's consistent failure to bring out in all of its gospel fullness the forensic importance of what it is that Christ has done, the forensic nature of what it is that Christ has done. These are not incidental to Wright's own understanding of justification. And what we saw when we turned to Romans 5 is that how the doctrine of justification and federal theology are in the apostle's mind interwoven. There is a genetic relationship between the biblical doctrine of the covenant of works and justification by faith alone. Now, in putting matters this way, I need to close by saying what we're not saying and what we are saying. We're not saying that one could never believe justification by faith alone in the absence of believing and upholding the covenant of works. Our Orthodox Lutheran brethren testify to this fact. Nor are we saying that any and every deviation from the Bible's teaching on the covenant of works will necessarily result in a straight-line departure from the Bible's teaching on justification. Again, we could point to countless examples, even within the Reformed tradition. But what we have been urging in a variety of ways is that one's understanding of the covenant of works matters for one's understanding of justification. One's understanding of the covenant of works is not without consequence for one's understanding of justification. That is to say, justification does not exist in a vacuum. Its very atmosphere is the covenant theology revealed in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. And as those of us who are students of the Scripture, and some of us who are officers in the church, what this means, and what I hope this underscores, is the importance of covenant theology to our understanding and our exposition of Scripture. Now covenant theology, and particularly the covenant of works, has never really found a warm reception in the individualism of American culture, much less of the American evangelical church. And while we as reformed Christians confess covenant theology on paper, temptations abound to mute it in the life and ministry of the church. Now, thankfully, there are signs within the Reformed and Presbyterian churches that covenant theology is waxing strong. And there are many reasons for you and for me to celebrate this trend. One reason I hope we've seen this hour is that Scripture gives us every reason to expect that a strong and robust covenant theology bodes well for a strong and robust gospel. And it is a robust gospel, and only a robust gospel, that in the end can ever produce a robust church. Let me close in prayer. Our Father, how we praise you that you are a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. We rejoice that you have revealed our salvation as the work of one who makes and keeps his promises and pledges, and how we've seen this written in the fair lines of the life and ministry of our Savior. Father, help us to appreciate afresh the beauty and the glory of Jesus Christ as the one who did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves, as the one who not only rescued us from our own plight in Adam, but has, through his work, has brought us to reign in life as sons and daughters of the living God. and help us, Father, with the understanding of who you are and what you have done in your Son, to go and to tell others and to build your people up with the knowledge of this great and glorious salvation. For we ask this in his name. Amen.