Good morning, welcome, those who are visiting, good to have you with us in our adult Sunday school. What we do in Sunday school at this hour is that we are studying systematic theology. We've been doing that for about a year's time now, and we are right now in the fourth module of systematic theology. We've covered one, two, three, and we are in the subject of humanity or the doctrine of men, as is commonly called, or anthropology, not as a geologist or as a doctor, but from a systematic theology point of view. And under anthropology, we have covered the creation of humanity, the creation of man, and I will repeat the word man, And as I've said before, I don't want the ladies to feel discriminated. Man, anthropos, mankind in general. But we're referring to both man and woman. And now we are under the subject or under the unit of fallen humanity, fallen man. We've been several lessons already, several weeks covering the fall of man by that meaning If that terminology may be strange, perhaps for you guys, when Adam and Eve violated God's commandment in the garden not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they took it, they ate, they fell. That's the way it's called because they were in a state of innocence, became sinners at that point, and that's called in theology the fall of men. And under the fall of man we are dealing with the consequences of that fall. What happened to man, to mankind after Adam sinned. And after that we'll cover man restored or redeemed and then man glorified after death. And in this section we are covering specifically, we already went to the account of Genesis 3, how the serpent, how Satan took hold of the serpent and through the serpent he deceived Eve. Eve ate of the fruit. It appears that in the original, Adam was with her when she ate. Adam, apparently, that's all speculation because the Bible doesn't say. It's just trying to hint it from the translation or a possible translation of the Hebrew. Adam didn't intervene as this temptation is taking place. The woman eats of the fruit and gives to the man who is with her. And when the man eats, that's when the actual fall takes place. That's when the catastrophic consequences of sin come. Death enters the world. Sin enters the world. And that is the portion we're covering. We dealt with the account. We dealt with the curses that came to earth and to mankind as a result of sin. And now we are dealing with how is sin transmitted to mankind. How are sin and guilt transmitted to mankind? And this is where people fight. And this is where Christians disagree. But I think, in my understanding of Scripture, that the Bible is very much black and white as to how does sin come to us. and how did death come to us that's what we started to consider last time and we saw the transmission or started to consider the transmission of sin and the transmission of the sinful nature and we said that when Adam sinned we inherit The guilt of his sin. If any of you have been raised Roman Catholic, I was. This is something that the Roman Catholic Church has right. And they have it right, not because they are the Roman Catholic Church, but because they got it from the Bible. that we are born with original sin. And what is meant by that is something we called federalism. Federalism is that you have someone who represents you and what he or she does affects you directly. We have a federal government. when President Obama declares war to any country whether I like it or not it is my war I'm an enemy from the citizens or with the citizens of that country because I am represented and someone who represented me declared war when Adam declared war to God when he ate of the fruit he represented me and he declared that I was in war against God and his guilt passed to me and we saw last time that the proof this is all review of federal theology is found in those two passages of scripture in 1st Corinthians 15 21 and 22 and in Romans 5 12 through 21 and we read the passages and we dealt with them in detail. The one in 1 Corinthians 15, 21, and 22 states, just as death entered through one man, also through one man came the resurrection from the dead. For just as in Adam all die, also in Christ all will be made alive. And the language of the text is unequivocal. In Adam all die. I mean, I don't know how else to interpret it. That's black and white language. I love when the Bible speaks so clearly on any subject. And there is a contrast we saw and a similitude between Adam and Christ. Just as Adam's sin brings death to all men through the principle of solidarity, Christ's death on the cross brings life to all those who believe in him. That's the parallel the Bible runs. And that's why the Bible calls Christ the second Adam. Let's make an inference. If a person can be saved on their own without Christ, And probably most evangelicals will say, no, impossible. Christ is indispensable to salvation. Well, if you can get saved outside of Christ, you can be a sinner outside of Adam. No either. because we are constituted sinners in Adam. That's the point of that similitude. And when we spoke about the principle of solidarity, we did not say, or when theologians speak of the principle of solidarity, they do not mean solidarity that I agree. Oh, that's good that Adam sinned. Yes. Amen. No, it simply means that I'm a descendant of Adam. I'm a human being coming from Adam and Eve. And I was solidarious in his act against God. That's what he's meant by that principle. Some people, some theologians use the term seminal representation. Seminal representation is described. Jason, what's the other term? Natural representation. Thanks. And that is used in Hebrews 7 when it is spoken of Melchizedek. When we go, we'll get there in our series on Hebrews on Sunday mornings. But we're not there yet and I'm not going to give it away yet. But the argument there is, well, Melchizedek is greater than Levi because Levi paid tithings to Melchizedek. And you say, wait a second, Melchizedek lived 200 years, 400 years before Levi. How could that happen? Oh, because Levi was in the DNA in the loins of Abraham to use the biblical language. And since Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek 400 years before, it means that Levi is under him. That's an argument from the Bible. But that is not the argument the Bible uses when it speaks of the transmission of guilt and sin. It is used for Melchizedek But it is not used in 1 Corinthians 14 or in Romans 5 to speak of Adam sending or re-inheriting sin and guilt from Adam. Jason. Which happens when you're two years old. I love those theories. And then you start really, you know, two years old? Why do you have to be two years old to become the, to be the, to commit the first sin? Yeah, that's right. We're going to go there. That's right. I'm going to come. Guys, am I driving you nuts by moving here? Should I stay quiet in one place? Or you're fine there? You're fine there? Good. Thanks. Happy to know that. Somebody brought the issue of universal salvation. When you make the comparison between Adam and Christ, all and all, does that mean that everybody will be saved? And we said the context is very obvious from both passages, where they come from, what wraps them. All who believe in Christ will be saved, not all men, because Jesus himself said that not everybody will be saved. Paul could not be so blatantly contradicting what Jesus answered when he was asked, are there many who are being saved? And he said, make sure you go through the narrow door because there's a lot of people who go through the wide door that leads to destruction. So we dealt with the issue of universalism. I know it's there. And another more complicated doctrine is also there, but we'll get there when we deal with the doctrine of Christ. The second passage we reviewed was Romans 5.12 through 19. Therefore, just as through one man death entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. That's Jason's statement. If we are sinners, because we sin, then that verb would have been in present tense. And that's when we started our systematic theology class. We started with the inspiration of the Bible. That every word, every conjugation, every tense, every gender, number, particle, connector, preposition in the original manuscripts is inspired. So when the Holy Spirit chose to put a verb in past tense, in aorist, in our indefinite past, it means that it happened already. When did that happen? In the context when Adam sinned. Correct. I didn't say that, Jason said it, but before Jason, it's been said for many centuries. Correct. It's not that we are sinners because we sin when we turn two and we steal our first cookie from the cookie jar. No, we are born sinners and we'll see that in the Bible too. We sin because Adam made us guilty That's why we die, and Adam gave us a nature that is sinful. And that's why we need to train our children in righteousness, but the bad things come in the software by default. Thanks for bringing that up, because we have a summary of the arguments, okay? Let me just go through that. Thanks for bringing that up. Death did not pass to all men because all men sinned, but the context favors that the sin that caused the transmission of death was the sin of Adam. And the conclusion we draw from these verses is that every member of mankind was represented in Adam at the time of his test in Eden. and as a representative Adam sinned, but God considered us as guilty as Adam. God determined that Adam's guilt was Adam's since he is the supreme judge of the universe. Sorry for that Spanish there. And since all his thoughts are always true, Adam's guilt is our guilt. God rightly imputed to us Adam's sin. Where do we get that? Look at those verses from the same context of Romans five. I'll get to you, Luis. Just let me go through the verses. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died." Read it in the context of Romans 5.12. It's talking about Adam's sin. The transgression of the one, the many died. The judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, so then through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. For though as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. Do you see that the language is pretty overwhelming? Through one, this mess happened to all. What mess? Sin, death, and guilt. He said, where's the guilt? That death's passed to all. And Paul's argument in the passage is, death reigned on earth even in those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam's transgression. And we saw that. What was the likeness of Adam's transgression? Adam, don't eat from this fruit, whatever the fruit was. Says who? Now after Adam, what commandments were given to men? They still kept dying. Of course they violated the law of the conscience. That's Paul's argument in Romans 1. Everybody sins because everybody has a concept of good and evil. And they violate that concept and it's written in their hearts by God when He makes them. But still, the point remains. The law came 2,000 years, 2,000, 2,400 years later. But still death reigned. Because the law, the only thing that the law did was to define transgressions. That's what Galatians 2.19 says. And what Romans 7 says, what does the law do for me? Paul says, oh, I didn't know I was a covetous man until the commandment said, thou shalt not covet. And then I look at my neighbor's house. Is that prettier than mine? And his grass is greener. And his car is more modern. And his whatever, he makes more money than me. And he's more handsome than me. And why does my neighbor have better things than me? And the commandment comes and says, thou shalt not covet. I'm a covetous man. That's the point of the law, just to point to you what you're doing. But the sin was already in your software because of Adam. Luis, I dealt with you. That's why I like to read those passages because many times I sweep questions. Raymond, absolutely. That's right. And that's a valid point. If you're a baseball fan, why does a pitcher get you with three strikes but you need to get to base with four balls. It should be three and three or four and four. Well, whomever wrote the rule said it's four balls to go to first base to get a walk and three strikes to get a strikeout. Fine, that's a deal. And many times that's the approach we take and we'll deal with that at the conclusion. The apologetics of doctrine, we can deal with the apologetics of doctrine and we can use the baseball example. You don't see the fans complaining. Come on, man! Three strikes, give him another one! That's the baseball game rule. But at the end of the day, it's not about apologetics. It's about the Bible states it. Do we believe it or not? Do we take Scripture at face value or not? And you're right. The Bible doesn't say God is fair. It says God is righteous and judge. And he doesn't say fairness and truth are the foundation of his, or fairness and equity, it says righteousness and truth are the foundation of his throne. And that's the God we worship. Not popular, but that's the God we worship. I saw another hand somewhere. George, right. In fact, Ecclesiastes 7.29 states, Behold, God made man righteous, but they loved many transgressions. And in that sense, God is cleared from the accusation, even by his own word. Yes. Correct. He could not sin because his nature hinders him from sinning. Correct. And we dealt with that, I think, at the point of creation or at the point of the fall. We were created, Adam was created with the ability to choose Sin or righteousness? When God said to him, thou shall not eat of the fruit, Adam, sorry ladies for the example, okay, but I need to bring an example that hits home, and we live on earth. Adam was not looking at a billboard with a semi-naked woman. You're driving, and you feel the pressure because of the remaining sin that incendiates lust, Adam didn't feel that you and I feel with a semi-naked woman on a billboard that we have to basically push ourselves. Sometimes we even feel a shock. We feel the adrenaline and we have to push ourselves to walk the other way, to look the other way and fight it. Adam didn't have that. He was perfectly free from temptation. That's right. He willfully chose. He looked at Eve. looked at God and took Eve. And that is the heinousness of his sin. So that, oh, but you have to understand, I mean, the poor guy, I mean, he was salivating, he saw that billboard. Isn't that normal, that his nature? Adam didn't have in remaining corruption. Adam didn't have the James 117 lost inside him. He willfully chose to rebel. And that is the heinousness of his sin. And that's why when he sinned, that's it. He took us all with him. The best of man fell. God had to send a second Adam to undo what the best man he created did. And the second Adam undid it by living the perfect life and then dying to rescue those who he died for. So is the doctrine unfair? Actually, that's where we stopped last time, and it's good. I'm glad that in the recap we rehashed some of the things. Is the doctrine unfair? The Bible teaches it. Therefore, we believe it. Though, admittedly, we may not understand all the nuances of it. But it's great when we can approach our Bibles, and even after decades of doing it, we hit a text, and we still don't get it. That's wonderful to me. That is the greatest proof that I'm dealing with a book that is alien, is not from planet Earth. I can still not get it. And I read and read and reread and always something new. That's fine. The Bible teaches it that way. Now, if you can overturn the interpretation of a clear passage of Scripture, let's discuss it. But the argument of unfairness doesn't hold any water. We're dealing here with God's revelation, not with what seems to be righteous or not. Secondly, and this is an important aspect, if you're dealing with someone in an evangelistic context, the condemnation of men and women will not be based on Adam's sin but on personal sins. When you read Romans 2.4-9, Paul clearly says the secrets of man's heart on that day will be revealed and exposed according to God's truth that I preach in my gospel. When you deal with Revelation 20, that should be 1 Corinthians 3.25 by the way, when you deal with Revelation 20 in this pictorial image of judgment, I honestly believe it's an imagery. I mean the book lends itself to be an imagery, to be an allegory of things that will happen. And the books are opened. I don't think that Literal books? I mean, there could be, but it's very obvious that the language is the language of imagery. The books are opened and the dead are judged according to the works that appear in those books. Works that show their unrighteousness. Works that Jesus and Matthew 25 spoke about. I was hungry and you didn't feed me. I was thirsty and you didn't give me water. I was in the hospital and you did not visit me. Lord, when did we do it? When you didn't do it to any of these little ones who believe in me. When you lived your self-centered, self-focused, personal, interested lives. It was all about you. It was about your goals, and your dreams, and your things, and the things you like, and your money, and how to spend the most you could on Black Friday, and how to have the most fun you can with the money you have. But you never had any hint of compassion toward those who believe in me. You never had any hint of compassion about others. You didn't love your neighbor as yourself. That day, those works will condemn people. And of course, adultery, fornication, and slandering, and lying, and killing, and all of those other things, and coveting, and gossip, et cetera, et cetera. But the Bible is clear that condemnation will not come because of Adam's sin, but because of our sins. And, to me, this is crucial. If I choose to reject the doctrine of Adam's representation, then I really get myself into a bigger problem. How are we justified before God? What is it that God really receives from us? That we're good Christians? That we read our Bibles this morning? Really? That we share the gospel with our neighbors? Really? That we don't commit adultery and we're good Christians and go to church and come to prayer meeting and we're good people and we're morally good and we're nice and kind? That's what will get us to heaven? That will send us right to hell. What God will receive from us on that day is that His Son fulfilled the law. He kept the law all of His life. There was no sin, no deceit in His mouth. all of his life he lived perfectly so perfectly that he told his enemies which of you can attribute sin to me and they had to remain silent and then he went to the cross and died the death of a criminal the death of being accursed for cursed is he who is hanged on a tree the law said And Jesus took upon Himself the curse of God, the curse of the law, so that those who believe in Him may not perish, but have everlasting life. So what do we bring to the deal? Sin. And then we believe. And when we believe, we are completely justified, completely cleansed, completely made acceptable to God and now behold what manner of love that we have been given that we may be called the children of God that's the gospel and that representation and in those passages Paul uses Adam and Christ and traces a parallel line one going to sin and guilt the other one coming to restoration and redemption So if you reject the one, you have to reject the other one. And if you accept the other, by implication, you're taking the one. I mean, it's as black and white as black and white can be, the doctrine of original sin and imputation. Again, quoting Grudem, Adam, our first representative, sinned. God counted us guilty. Christ, the representative of all those who believe in Him, perfectly obeyed God, and God counted those who believe as righteous. This is the way God prescribes for mankind. He considers the race as an organic whole, as a unity, represented by Adam as its head, and conversely, God considers the new race of believers, those redeemed by Christ, as an organic unity, with Christ as their representative and head of His people. What is Christ called with respect to the church? The head of the church. That's the way God deals with us. That's the way God's redemptive plan is traced by representation. We have a mediator before God and man. We have our representative as we had one in the garden who messed us up. And reality? The miniature human being that is conceived in our wives' wombs is conceived as a sinner. Genesis 8.21, after the fall, the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. That's after the flood. For the intent of man's heart is, doesn't say was, He said, well this changed now that I send the flood and only spared Noah and his family. It remains evil from his youth. I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. Psalm 51.5, David confessing his sin after Nathan convicted him of his adultery and crime against Uriah and against Bathsheba. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." Sad to me that the Roman Catholic Church takes that to say that sexual intercourse is sinful in and of itself. That's not what David is talking about. What he's saying is, when I was conceived in my mother's womb, I was conceived a sinner. Psalm 58.3, the wicked are estranged from the womb. These who speak lies go astray from birth. Parents leave your children untrained and you will taste it. You don't need to be told that they are sinners. They start from the crib. Romans 3 10 through 12 quote from Psalm 51. Or I'm sorry, Psalm 14. There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who speaks, who seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become useless. There is none who does good. There is not even one. We sin because we are sinners and not all the way around. And that is key to understand, beloved, because if you don't get it, then you will inflate your kids with all kinds of pills and things to deal with the lack of self-control that they brought from the womb. Oh, no, no, it's HDD, TBCD, whatever, it's a whole It's attention deficit disorder. It is hyperactive attention deficit disorder. Guys, every man, maybe the ladies don't have this problem, but every man has hyperactive attention deficit disorder. My wife has to grab my face and tell me, look at me. I'm going to Publix now, do you get it? And I still tell her that she didn't tell me. Because our minds is elsewhere. And we are in our world, and you go to a camping trip, and there is a little ball. And you see all the guys, regardless of the age, you see the ladies there talking quietly, and we are just kicking and running after the ball. Regardless of how old, overweight, or out of shape you are. Because we have that thing. We are made that way. And you know how do you deal with that? with loving, training, discipline, correction, and instruction, not with a pill. That's life. But if we don't deal with it, we'll pay direly later on in life. Without God's grace, implications, and this is the conclusion, Man is totally unable to do any spiritual good that is pleasing to God. This usually throws people out, the doctrine of total depravity, which we will deal with later on. But what we mean is not that there are not good people in the world. Some people take this to an extreme that is not right. Of course there are good people in the world. Of course there's philanthropies. I mean, Bill Gates has given billions of dollars to charity. And so has done Warren Buffett and others. And others who are not as famous as them work with the poor, give to the poor, labor for them. You say, but isn't that good? Yes, it is the good produced by God's common grace. It is the good produced by God's image in man. Because we still bear the stamp, it didn't go away. It was a mirror that perfectly reflected an image. And when Adam sinned, a stone was thrown into the mirror, and now it's all shattered and broke into pieces, and you barely see the reflection, and the image is cold, it's cut and it's like pixeled, but you still see the image. And God is good. gracious and merciful and compassionate. And those things we still have, but they are the result of God's common grace, not of our nature improving. We, in fact, get worse. It is only through God's saving grace that a person can receive spiritual life and achieve the God-giving duty of repentance and faith in Christ. I mean, if God doesn't open the eyes, if God doesn't call us, if God doesn't soften the heart, if God doesn't deal with us, we will be unable to desire God. And 1 John says that, doesn't he? We love God. Why? Because since I was little, I was religious. I just had this passion for God? Is that the answer John gives? No. He says we love God because He loved us first. That's the reality of the implications of Adam's sin. Whatever inclinations and aspirations we have after God is answered in John 4, 23 and 24. The Father seeks worshipers. The shepherd seeks after the lost sheep. And when we were wandering, the shepherd found us and changed us. And now we love the shepherd. Already said that. Number three. And this subject, though polemic, is crucial to understand the reality not of sin, I'm sorry for the mistake, in the world and why the imputation of Christ's righteousness is an indispensable necessity for salvation. And some of those who deny the imputation of Adam's sin end up denying the imputation of Christ's justice. And we have to be careful with that, because if you start just twisting things, eventually, well, you're saved, really not because Christ's justice is given to my account, and because he died, but it is because somehow, somewhat, because of my good heart. Because God sees that I have a good heart, and I believe, and I'm a good person, and in the end, God will save all of those who have a good heart and are good people. That's not in the Bible. And again, Let's not worry about defending God. God doesn't need to be defended. The oldest person here is maybe, is not even 70 years old. Maybe. Are you 70 brother? 72. Okay. We have a 72 young man here. So the oldest person here is not 75 years old. Seventy-five years ago, God was perfectly fine, and the world was running, and life was kicking, and everything was working well. We don't need to defend God. He is God. We just present the Scripture. And yes, this is a very reasonable explanation to the presence of sin. Why do people sin? Why sin is so universal? Why sin is so spread out, is so common? It happens the same in every culture. I mean, you could be traveling through Turkey. and you see a one-year-old throwing a tamper tantrum and it has the same manifestation of an American one-year-old or a Dominican or an Argentinian or Chilean why are we so commonly made why everything is the same doesn't matter where you are because all has a common root Adam so God made Adam perfect. He chose sin. We are sinners because we are born sinners, and we sin because of that. However, God left a provision, and blessed be His name. At the end of the day, we learn these things, and the Bible presents this doctrine, and this is the beauty of it. that Paul didn't write these things in 1 Corinthians 14 or in Romans 5 to teach a Sunday school to the Romans or to the Corinthians on systematic theology. He presented these things to bring them again to the great truth of Christ and Him crucified. Let's pray. Father, thank you for allowing us to spend this time considering truths from your Word that we dissect and systematize for our own edification. But ultimately, Father, our desire is that we may see you as you are. we may see the greatness of your plan of redemption, the greatness of your justice, and the greatness of your love and of your grace. Father, we pray that that thought may permeate our minds and soak our spirits. And when we are worshiping you in the next hour, when we're singing your praises or hearing the scriptures read or hearing your word preached, Father, we pray that these things may cause us to love you and glorify You. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.