March 12, 2017 In Adam or in Christ by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Romans 5:12-21 and the Problem of Death

Romans, chapter 5, our text this morning, we found there in verses 12 -21 as we continue in our series through this book of Romans. Romans, chapter 5, verses 12 -21. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift of the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Question could be asked, what is the problem with the world today? I read a quick survey where what we call millennials, those who in the early part of the 21st century came into young adulthood, that's that general description of the millennials, starting at number 10 and working up to number one, they said the problem with the world is lack of economic opportunity, unemployment, number nine, food and water security, then lack of political freedom and political instability, number seven, lack of education, number six, safety, security, and well-being, five is government accountability, transparency, corruption, then poverty, then religious conflicts, then large-scale conflict and wars, and then finally the number one problem with the world.

According to the millennials in this one survey, climate change and destruction of resources. In the European Union, they went from don't know nuclear weapons, armed conflict, spread of infectious disease, increasing population, availability of energy, international terrorism, the economic situation, climate change, and finally the number one is poverty, hunger, lack of drinking water.

What is the problem with the world today? After reading Romans chapter five verses 12 to 21 with you, I think we could say that the problem with the world today is that there's too much death in it. In fact, the problem with the world today is that there is really death at all.

We see so much of it that we become inured to it. What we today call entertainment has so much shooting and violence and death in it that we sometimes forget just how awful it really is, how antithetical it is to God's original design for creation, that there be death at all.

All around the world, death reigns. Lives are lost in war. Lives are lost in starvation because of disease. In some places, people decide in order to make a political or religious point or whatever the case may be, they drive trucks down sidewalks and mow people down.

In Somalia, drought is snuffing out lives. In Yemen, civil war and drought. Cancer bringing end to lives before their time or at least before the time that we've grown accustomed to saying people should die.

And on and on it goes. Not one of us would be surprised if we were listening to the news on the way home after church services today to hear of more violence in the world and more deaths being caused.

If not on the radio, then by the time we get home and turn on the news, it would not be shocking at all. See, the problem with the world is not all these things in those two surveys that I went through so quickly for you.

The problem with the world today is that there is death in it. The problem with the world is that there is death at all. We're looking this morning at Romans 5, 12 to 21, and in these verses, some of our most important questions that can be asked are answered.

Why is there death? The answer we have in Scripture has nothing to do with our biology or our physiology or anything like that. There is death because of sin. Why is there death? There's death because of sin.

Where did sin come from? The answer in Scripture is that sin was introduced. One might even say that sin was only possible, but until its initiation in the garden, which Ken just read to you from Genesis chapter three, it wasn't there.

Why must I suffer the consequence of something I didn't do? If death came from Adam and I wasn't there in Adam doing that, why do I have to die, which is the consequence of sin? The word of God denies our innocence.

You and I were there, and we are as guilty as the first man who committed this first treachery against God. Romans 5, 12 to 21 is full of theology and full of doctrines regarding this sin, original sin, its consequence, where it came from, and praise God and hallelujah, how it's reversed.

We have here, first of all, a doctrine that we need to get our arms around. We need to understand there's a doctrine which we call federalism or federal theology, the idea of representation. We have in these verses, the second thing I think, is original sin, that there was a sin, an act against God that preceded all others.

And from this, we find the cause of all misery, including, ultimately, death. And we have universal guilt taught in these verses, which really proceeds from the first two. You see, the first sin committed by a representative head, who, of course, is Adam, it brought sin and death where it had not previously been.

And with it, actual guilt to each and every soul that was under his federal headship. To put it another way, you are guilty, not only of the actual sins that you personally committed against God, but also, with Adam, guilty of his breach.

Federal Headship and Original Sin in Adam

To understand the Apostle Paul's point, we need to first look at this idea of federalism. Federal theology. Now, the word federalism is not in our Bibles any more than is the word trinity. But just as the word trinity expresses a core biblical truth that God is one, and he's one unified God, eternally existent in three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

And this truth is one that we will fall on our swords over because it is that core, that important. So also, federalism is a word that expresses the truth of Romans 5, 12 to 21. It's simply the idea of representation.

And we should be used to this, we should understand that. Living in the country that we do, in our nation, in our form of government, we are represented by elected officials. Now, I don't want to delve into, and I don't want your minds wandering off into the quality of that representation.

And many people say we're not represented at all, and I don't want to go there and turn this into a political exercise. Our form of government is federal, is one of representation. In California, we're represented in the Senate by two women known to be extremely liberal.

We who are of a conservative bent, like it or not, are represented by them. When a law is passed, whether it's one you agree with or not, we are under the auspices of that law. If the Congress should, at the President's request, declare war on a nation, then like it or not, because we are under a federal representation, you and I together, with the rest of the individuals under that representation, are at war with that nation.

So to put it in biblical terms, which I think you'll recognize from the reading in Romans, we are in our senators when they vote. We're in them when they vote. Federal theology, the scriptural idea of federal theology is like that.

Adam, as the first man, represented someone. Or represented the entire human race. He represented all that would come from him as the sum and total of everyone who exists, really. The Lord God had entered into a covenant agreement with him that he, that Adam, would work the land, and from that work he'd receive a fair recompense, living in harmony with God, in direct fellowship with him, the ground giving forth from his efforts to feed him, and he would be then God's steward over this land, this globe, this earth, really.

The term of the covenant was stated negatively. If you do this, if you eat of this one tree, you will die, which implied just as strongly the unstated positive. Refrain from this one thing, and you will live.

So Adam's mandate was to fill the earth and subdue it, and by fill it, we understand that in order for the mandate to be fulfilled, there would have to be more people than just Adam. I've heard some people say Adam could have done it all because he was some type of superhuman, being made without sin, and before he sinned, he was like that.

He was super smart, super strong, super enduring, and all these, I don't buy that. Adam was a man like us. We came from him, we are like him, which means that he's like us. His order was to fulfill the earth and to fill the earth, and subdue it, and by fill it, we have to understand that there would be more people than Adam in order to fulfill the mandate, that the earth itself would be filled with people fulfilling the mandate.

All who came from him in satisfaction of that mandate, of that command from God to fill the earth, all who came from him would then follow in his character. We are like him physically, and we are like him morally.

We inherit both from him, humanity and our moral character. I wanna look at how this is supported in Romans 5, 12 to 21. I want you to look, if you had your Bibles open, look, if you will, at the end of verse 12 there in chapter five.

Just the last few words. It says, because all sinned. Because all sinned. Just as sin came into the world through one man. Now what's that talking about? What is Paul referring to there? Just what Ken read to you a few moments ago from Genesis three.

The historical fact of the first sin. Sin came into the world through that one man, death through sin, because all sinned. And I wanna focus just for a moment on this word sinned. He uses the same, he being Paul, he uses the same form of the word for sin as he did back in chapter three, verse 23.

If you wanna turn back there for just a moment, let me start at the last few words of verse 22 and I'll read it. For there is no distinction. That's the end of verse 22. For there's no distinction, verse 23.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The word there for sinned in Romans 3, 23 and at the end of verse 12 in chapter five is exactly the same form of the word. Now why am I focusing on this?

I'm not gonna spend too much more time on it. The meaning of the word in both cases is a definitive action taken at a time, at a point in time. A definitive action at a point in time. In Romans 3, 23, we understand that we have indeed sinned and the standard for sin is given right there.

We've fallen short of the glory of God and if we have any idea of the glory of God, we know that we fall short of it so if sin is falling short of that glory, we indeed can say yes, at a point in time, not meaning just once, I have indeed sinned.

Romans 5, chapter 12 at the end, because all sinned is the same. In time and space, definitively, we've sinned. Now what's the difference between the two? The difference between the two is clearly when it happened.

Romans 3, 23, when did you sin? Well, we read that in context, I sinned as I walked through this life, since I was born, since I've been living on this globe, I've fallen short of the glory of God. We could add parenthetically, intentionally fallen short of the glory of God.

That's a subject for another day. At a point in time, I did this. In Romans 5, chapter 12, the Apostle Paul, remember he's writing by direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God, Romans 5, 12, he takes us where?

He takes us back to the garden, to Genesis chapter three, which Ken read to you the whole chapter. That is when we sinned. We sinned while we were in Adam. His single act of disobedience made us judicially guilty.

It also brought to us moral corruption. Psalm 51, verse five says, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. What's all this saying to us? Well, it's federal theology.

It's this doctrine of federalism, representation in the Bible. Adam, as our head, had, in a manner of speaking, all humanity within him. You know, this isn't the only place that we have this idea. Hebrews chapter seven, verse 10, and you don't have to turn there because I'm just gonna read a part of the verse there, but Hebrews chapter seven, verse 10, relies on this very doctrine.

It says that Levi, while he was still in the loins of his ancestor Abraham, paid tithes to Melchizedek. Now, Levi wasn't there. He was still within. He was still being represented, if you will, by Abraham.

And Abraham then, on behalf of Melchizedek, representing Melchizedek, his federal head, he pays the tithe to Melchizedek. Melchizedek is a type of Christ. Melchizedek is a forerunner of Jesus Christ. Now, Levi, thinking of Abraham again for a moment, Levi is going to be born to Jacob, Abraham's grandson.

He's not there, but he's represented. Hebrews chapter seven, verse 10, depends on this doctrine of federalism, of representation, just as we have it in Romans 5, 12 and following. Now, let's think for a moment about how important this is, how key this is to our Christian faith.

When Abraham paid the tithe to Melchizedek, he was establishing the superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood over the one of Levi who was being represented within Abraham. Hebrews 7, 10 says that this very fact, this historical fact, this thing that actually happened in time and space, establishes the validity and the superiority of Jesus's eternal priesthood.

Melchizedek being that type of Jesus, that forerunner of Jesus. And Hebrews 7, 10 says, because of that, because Abraham federally represented Levi when he did that, when he paid that tithe, that's how we know that his, Melchizedek's priesthood is superior to the one being represented by Abraham.

The ramifications here are huge. They're irreversible. If these are subject to change, then Jesus's eternal priesthood, and with that, his constant intercession for us, and with that, the sufficiency of his sacrifice, and with that, the meaning and the validity of even his resurrection are all called forth and called into question.

It's that important, this idea of representation. And that Abraham federally represented Levi, and on his behalf, paid tithe to Melchizedek, and thus established the superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood, which establishes for us the superiority of Jesus's eternal priesthood.

This is why it's so key to us, to understand this idea of representation. Adam was our head. He had been given dominion over the earth. He had authority as God's steward to name the animals, which is an authoritative position to take, and to the extent delegated to him by God to set the course for all who would follow him.

By his one act, meaning his one act of disobedience, he brought sin where it had not been. By his one transgression against God, he brought death where it had not been. And had he not done what he did, I believe death would not be.

Why Infant Salvation and Denying Original Sin Fail

Federal headship is so important. This idea of representation, understanding that we were in Adam when he did what he did. Federal headship, I think, is a blow against those who hold that all infants are saved.

Now, I'm gonna touch some sensitive things here, because this is when it gets people riled up, but gotta think about this for a minute and how key this is. Men like John Piper and John MacArthur say that because a child, an infant, has committed no particular and discrete sin, that therefore God will not condemn them, and in every sense of the word, they are therefore saved automatically.

The problem with that is this idea of federalism, federal representation. Romans 5 .12 says that we all sinned in Adam. Ken read to you from 1 Corinthians 15 .22, and what does that say? We all died in Adam.

Why did we die in Adam? Death came from sin. Ephesians 2 .1 says you were born, you were dead in trespasses and sins. Now, I can sympathize with wanting babies to live. All of us can. But if Piper and MacArthur are correct, when do they incur the guilt of Adam's sin?

At what age or from what volitional act does one become guilty? I think the problems mount themselves quickly. The Bible says that Adam was our federal representative and that in him and because of him, we are all judicially guilty.

We are all born morally corrupt and guilty before God because of our representative's first transgression against him. Well, this is what Paul's relying on here. He doesn't use the word federal theology or federalism any more than the Bible uses the word trinity, but we do because it reflects a biblical truth.

Adam's is what we call original sin. The original sin, the sin that preceded all others. And this is what Paul had in mind when he wrote in Romans 5 .1, that sin came into the world through one man. That's Adam.

That's Genesis 3. Sin came into the world through him. That's chapter five, verse one. Verse 15, many died through one man's trespass. Verse 16, one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation.

Verse 17, one man's trespass. Verse 18, one trespass. Verse 19, one man's disobedience. In time and space, in history, as a fact, original sin came into being. It's clear from the history that Ken read to you in Genesis.

It's a hard doctrine for us to wrap our arms around. Misunderstanding has led to some very strange fires throughout church history. Pelagius denied that original sin was our inheritance. He said that we're born good, but then we sin and we make ourselves bad.

Arminians hold that we are born with moral corruption, though somehow they deny our T in total depravity, but then they deny that we share in Adam's guilt. Roman Catholicism generally agrees with inherited guilt, though properly nuancing their position in errors would take more time than we have.

But they stumble over Mary, and they credit her as having been born without original sin, with no participation in Adam. She's somehow exempt from Romans 5 .12. That's, by the way, what we mean, or what they mean, when they speak of the immaculate conception, that she was immaculately conceived outside of this corruption introduced by Adam.

And the problem here is the same as Piper's or MacArthur's position on infant salvation. If we're not born guilty, as Romans 5 .12, and all the following would make us, as 1 Corinthians 15 .22 implies by bringing us under the effect of Adam's sin, as Ephesians 2 .1 says, that we must be because we're born as living monuments of the death that he brought, well, then all you need to do to avoid damnation is just not sin.

Wouldn't that be an implication of all that? If we're not born that way, if we're not all dead in trespass and sin, as Ephesians says, if we're not all guilty in Adam, as Romans 5 says, then all you need to do is just not sin, and you'll be okay.

Why, then, did you die in Adam? If you're born without the stain of original sin and all its effects, how could you have died in him who committed the sin? How, then, conceived in sin? How, then, born dead in trespass and sin?

The problems mount. If you deny the historical fact of the original sin and all its effects, then you really have no explanation for sin at all. And even if you give sin a far looser definition than our Bibles do, you can't explain it.

You cannot explain any of its consequences, primary among them, death. You're just saying that bad things happen. But then bad things, under that kind of a metric, requires your particular definition of what is bad, and it becomes all very relative.

On 9 -11, when some 3 ,000 people died in the Twin Towers, many people thought it was a bad thing. Even non-Christians might be able to call it sinful. But I recall seeing on the news the next day Palestinians celebrating in the streets, rejoicing in America laid low.

They thought what had happened was good and righteous. So if we deny original sin, the other problem we run into is that the bad things that we might call sin, or whatever name you want to give it, become very subjective, becomes our own personal viewpoint.

And we set aside our Bibles, which makes a very clear, unequivocal definition of what is sin. Sin is sin. The confession captures it perfectly. What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God.

So Paul says in Romans 3 -23, we fall short of the glory of God. That's sin. A man named Lyttelton wrote this. Let me give you this quote. There must be then some law corresponding to the fact and explaining sin.

Such a law is that which we assert in the doctrine of original sin. For this doctrine does not simply declare that all men sin. That would be merely a restatement of the universal fact. But it asserts that this is the result of inheritance depending upon the physical relation of one generation to another, and that each human being brings with him into the world a tendency to sin which is due to no act or wish of his own, but is the working out of far off causes among the dim origins of the human race.

Original sin says that man was not made sinful. That would place the onus on God. If God made man sinful, then he is the cause of sin, and he ought not to blame us for it. That's not the case. After man was made, male and female alike, God said it was very good.

God didn't make man sinful. Man became so. At a point in time in the garden, the first man committed the first sin, and death came to us all as a result of that. I would suggest to you, if we wanna know what the problem with the world is, the problem with the world is death.

If we wanna know where death came from, death came from sin. And where did sin come from? Sin came from Adam's first transgression, which he then passed on to all of us in our moral corruption and in the physical consequences of it.

In verses 13 to 14 of our chapter, Paul says that death reigned between Adam and the giving of the law by Moses. He said, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam. Adam's transgression was the violation of that one law, to leave that one tree alone.

No one else but he could violate that one law because it was given to Adam at that time, in that place. And in any case, the tree, which was the catalyst, the tree is no longer there for any of us to access.

He's saying, Paul is saying, that regardless of the specific species of our sin, whether against the law of Moses or whether it is following in the aftermath of Adam, whichever specific species of sin we have in view, it is still sin.

And it still brings death. Original sin is that powerful and far-reaching. The doctrines here are federal theology, original sin. We also have universal guilt. And this third one seems to have been covered by the first two.

We were in Adam as our federal head and the representative of the race of which he was the first and so we inherited from him the corrupted nature brought on by his original sin. And with that, all of its fallout.

It's important doctrines here. If we take the scriptures at their word, then everyone was really and literally, though obviously not physically, in Adam. And this means that in a real and literal way, we actually participated with him.

You or I did not eat from the tree. We did not sin like Adam in that way. Romans 3 .23 says, for all have sinned. What does this mean? It means we each sinned in our own particular, special way. We sinned in the way that we wanted to sin.

Not reaching out for that tree that's no longer there and was so many ages ago. We sinned because we came from Adam. We sinned because we inherited a sin nature. We sinned, we sin now because we wanted to then and we want to now.

The guilt of Adam's sin by way of inheritance and commission falls on all of us. And this is also Paul's point here in chapter five and verse 12. The problem with the world today, I think, is death. The problem with death is that it came with that which God had not intended.

But man, you and I in Adam, you and I in life freely chose, which is sin. You know, when someone loses a loved one, we often hear things like, it was so tragic, he or she was so young. Or who would have imagined he or she was in such good shape that took such good care of themselves?

Other times you might hear something like, well, he or she had a good long life, as if that makes it okay that there's death. But death is not okay. Death was not God's design. I believe Adam would be alive now had he obeyed God or had he not disobeyed.

We would not have the specter of death hanging over us today had he not brought sin into the world and with sin, death. Does all this sound kind of hopeless? If we were in Adam and we weren't there physically, but we were represented by him and like it or not, when we are born, we're born inheriting all this from him.

Does this sound hopeless, all this federal theology, this original sin? We don't take Genesis three as a fable or as an allegory, historical record is what it is. And giving us truly and without pulling any punches, the consequences of it.

How's that make us feel? We've got an unwitting accomplice and we're guilty for a crime that we didn't commit and then we're held responsible for sins that we did commit by way of a nature we received, but we didn't even choose for ourself.

What are we to do? Augustine, the great fifth century theologian, he said, nothing remains but to conclude that in the first man all are understood to have sinned, whereby sin is brought in with birth and is not removed save by the new birth.

Christ the Last Adam and the Free Gift of Righteousness

Look now at the end of verse 14 in chapter five of Romans. I'll read the whole verse. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who is to come.

Who is the one who is to come? Who's really the star of Romans chapter five verses 12 to 21? I've been hammering on this point of inherited guilt, of death as a consequence of sin, but who is the star of Romans five, 12 to 21?

It's the one who is to come. It's Jesus Christ. The one who is to come is Jesus. That Adam was a type of him, a prefiguring one of him. What does that mean? It means that he was like Jesus in some way.

Context tells us that the way Adam prefigured Jesus is in just what we've been talking about here, in his federal headship, in the fact that those who are in him reap the reward of his one act. Now verses 13 to 18 in Romans five, they're really sort of a digression in Paul's line of thought.

He says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, and then he stops, as it were, for a moment. Most of your Bibles have a hyphen there.

And verses 13 to 18, he's in a bit of an excursus. He doesn't come back to his main line of reasoning until verse 19. After verse 12, Adam sinned. Verse 13 to 14 speak of death's reign from that time forward.

And verses 15 to 17, they're part of the same digression, but here he writes about Jesus and how he had in him a people who would reap what he sowed. If we reap the reward of Adam because Adam represented us and what Adam brought was sin and death, now we have Jesus under the same doctrine, this federal representation, and those in him reaping the benefits of his act.

Where Adam, the one man, sinned and brought death, Jesus, the one man who was to come, obeyed God and brought life. Look down at verses 15 to 17, speaking of Jesus Christ. In each of these verses, we find this one term, free gift.

Read along with me as I go through these just quickly. Verse 15, the free gift is not like the trespass. Verse 15 again, the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. Verse 16, the free gift is not like the one man's, which is Adam's, sin.

Again, verse 16, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. And then verse 17, the free gift of righteousness through the one man, Jesus Christ. You see, this doctrine of federal theology, this doctrine of representation, it's not just condemnation.

It's not just condemnation. If it seems unjust to you that we are guilty in Adam because something he did and not you or I, just consider for a moment that salvation works just the same way. Salvation of your eternal soul works the same way.

Federal theology springs from the well of imputation, which we covered in chapter four. It is the reckoning of something to your account, in this case, the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

A reckoning, an imputation, a putting onto your ledger something that wasn't there, imputed to you, a righteousness which we in our being do not have, but by faith is imputed, is reckoned, is, as it were, given to us, imputation.

Federal theology flows from this imputation. It just as clearly explains how Christ's righteousness can end up credited to my ledger. If you have faith in him, repentance for your sins, and flee to him for forgiveness, that righteousness credited to your account.

I remember from my accounting days, debits on the left, credits on the right. We increase the assets on the left side of the ledger. That's where it goes. Takes an unrighteous, fallen sinner, an inheritor of Adam's sin who willingly follows in that way, who hears this message, this message of federal representation, repents of their sin, and God, as it were, puts on the left side of that ledger this asset.

Righteousness, righteousness of God, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Federal theology is not just condemnation, not just saying Adam's sin, Adam death, you've got it, you inherited it. You're guilty because of Adam, because Adam had you in him when he did this.

I can coin a term here, and I don't think my term will catch on like the term original sin did. My term is only for purposes of this one message. I'm sure the world's not tuned in to hear what Josh Sheldon says here at Providence Bible Church on this one day, but I think it's going to fit this term, or this message.

If we have original sin as a widely accepted way of describing Adam's historical failure, my term is original redemption. Christ is referred to in scripture, chapter 15, verse 45 in 1 Corinthians, as the last, and we often say the second, Adam.

This is because of the many parallels between these two in their respective places in redemptive history. Adam's one act of disobedience brought sin and death to the world. Jesus' one act of obedience, righteousness and life.

Speaking here of redemption. An original act of redemption, original obedience to God like none other, which has to take our minds to and only to the cross, the cross of Jesus Christ, where he suffered God's wrath for our sins.

Parallels between Adam and Jesus. Adam, disobedience, sin, death. Jesus, obedience, righteousness, life. Adam's sin is by natural physical inheritance. Jesus' righteousness, a free gift conferred by faith.

If Adam's was the first transgression, Jesus was really the first obedience. I mean true, full obedience. I mean full obedience to the will of the Father with nothing held back, with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.

His one act, the cross. Even the death of the cross, as Paul says in Philippians, is the reversal of Adam's. It is his sacrifice of himself on behalf of sinners. You know, the old gospel song asks, were you there when they crucified my Lord?

We can add to that, were you there when our Lord obeyed his Father and went to the cross? Were you there with him while he suffered? Well, of course, none of us were. I wasn't there 2 ,000 years ago. You weren't there to suffer with him.

I didn't obey the Lord, nor did you. None of us were any more than we were there in the garden. But just as much as by birth we inherit from Adam the consequences of his one act, so also by faith we gain the same from Jesus.

Sin, death, versus righteousness, eternal life. How? Why? We're dead in Adam because we're in Adam when he sinned. We're alive in Christ because God has placed us in Christ when he obeyed. We receive Adam's moral corruption.

We're imputed to us in just the same way and under the same doctrinal head, righteousness of life from Jesus Christ. The two couldn't be more different. Adam transgressed, excuse me. Jesus obeyed. Adam brings judgment.

Jesus brings righteousness. Many died through Adam. Grace abounds in Jesus. Because of Adam, death reigns. Because of Jesus, life reigns. We can't have it both ways. We cannot deny what Adam gave, but then accept the benefits of Christ.

If you plead innocence because you weren't in the garden, because it wasn't you who took the fruit, it wasn't you who listened to the serpent, I answer, nor was it you who went willingly to the cross.

Nor was it you who prayed, not my will, but yours be done. It wasn't you or I who hung there and took into our souls all the fury of God against all sin. Against me, my sin. All sin from that day in the garden until now.

And yet by faith, the benefits of his sacrifice are yours. On the same principle that made you and me heirs of Adam's sin and all its repercussions. On the same doctrine that proved Jesus' priesthood to be superior to all that came before him.

Because the word federalism accurately describes how we are condemned in Adam. On this fundamental axiom, so also by faith is everything secured by Christ on his cross. Righteousness, forgiveness, atonement, eternal life, on the same basis as sin is inherited, so also these are yours.

By faith, by faith, by faith alone. You see, if we don't appreciate the nature of our sin, if we don't appreciate how infused it is into us, how dreadful it is that sin even came into the world and got passed on to us, it's in every fiber of our being.

In some of us, it's more, in some of us, it's less, but in all of us, it's thorough, all pervasive, all pervasive and unavoidable. A nature opposed to God at every step, worthy of guilt and condemnation and death.

All of that through Adam, and if we don't appreciate that, if we don't get that, I don't believe we can fully appreciate the gift of life imputed to you by faith. The one is ours by birth, by natural descent.

The other, by rebirth. As Jesus told Nicodemus, tells us, you must be born again. Unless one is born again, he cannot even see the kingdom of God, can't even realize that there's salvation out there to be grasped after.

By faith in Jesus Christ and the conviction that we were in him when he obeyed, and so we now enjoy what he gained for us, eternal life and the very righteousness of God. Amen? Heavenly Father, we thank you again for the day that you've given us.