Federal Headship (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ. Based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "...but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry, Mike Abendroth here. You can tune in to some YouTubes on NoCo90, just go to NoCompromise90. We have a channel there, I don't know, 13, 15, 20 videos for your viewing.

Pleasure. I'm glad I get a dollar per view, so make sure you keep watching. Because if you'd like a relevant, authentic community that's missional, that would be NoCo360. Oh, man, you can write us, I was going to say you can call us, you can call us if you'd like.

The other day, I got an email from someone, followed by a phone call, and the phone call basically said on the answer machine, anybody that goes to this church, leave. I don't know, maybe the secretary, that's why I haven't seen her lately, but I quick erased it so nobody would actually hear that and leave.

I don't think that person was very happy with me, and I wish they would have wanted to talk a little bit more, but that's okay. All right, what will we talk about today? Well, I could just throw things out like Jean-Paul Sartre's Hell is Other People, and we could just talk about that the whole time.

That might make for a good show. But I'd like to talk about Romans chapter five instead. Romans chapter five, federal headship, representative imputation, saved by the work of the church. Luther said of Romans five, in the whole Bible there is hardly another chapter which can equal this triumphant text.

And so, I think probably we'll play a little bit of my sermon from Romans five someday on No Compromise Radio, but in the meantime, we need to discuss this very, very important passage. Now, what's happening so far in Romans?

Well, Paul is trying to tell everyone, Jew or Gentile, that in and of yourself, you have no righteousness, and you need righteousness. And you need the righteousness that only the righteous God can provide for you through the righteousness of his Son, Jesus Christ.

If you want a simple outline for the book of Romans, 16 chapters, of course. Chapters 1, 2, 3, the first part through verse 20, 3a we'll call it, that is sin, universal sin. Chapters 3b, beginning in 321, technically, through 5, salvation.

We have justification stated in chapter 3, illustrated in chapter 4, and in chapter 5 we see the benefits of that. And of course, that's where we're going to camp today, but as we continue through the outline, we might as well keep going.

Six and seven, sanctification. Eight, security. Nine through 11, the sovereignty of God, future for Israel. You think there's a future for Israel? We'll talk about that soon enough. Twelve through 15, service.

And then 16, salutations. I think my brother says stuff, a variety of things. So that is the outline of the book of Romans. And so chapters 1, 2, and 3a, the need for righteousness. Every person, if they'd like to see God in heaven, they need the righteousness found in the work of another, because if the command to get to heaven is do this and live, completely obey the commandments, no one can do that.

And they can't do it for lots of reasons, because at the top they would be sinful and they have no righteousness of their own. And so if you look at chapter five, we see that we have the benefits of justification through the work of another.

So it's interesting how Paul does this. Five one, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so through the work of a man, oh yes, he's more than a man, through the work of a God-man, we have justification, where God forensically declares us not guilty based on the work of another, where God forensically declares us through the work of God's imputation, he declares us righteous by the work of another.

So Christ gets credit for our sins, we get credit for Christ's righteousness, it is a confirmed transaction based on the resurrection, it is through a person. If you look at chapter five, verse 11, through whom we have now received reconciliation, speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Much more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And so we are saved through the work of another. Now people ask the question though, wait a second, it says in chapter five, verse two, through him we have also obtained inheritance.

How can anyone be saved by the work of another? When the Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, as I described last week, I said to them, how can one man save me? Now there were lots of problems with the Jehovah's Witnesses, Arian, non-eternal sonship, all kinds of things, but I wanted them to think through why Jesus would have to be God to also secure my salvation for dying for me.

Now people are saying, how can one man represent other people? That's the question that Paul is answering here in Romans chapter five, through Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, and then at the end of the chapter in verse 21, chapter five, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And so that brings us to Romans 5, 12 to 21. If you don't have a crease on your Bible here, you need to crease it so when your Bible just normally and naturally and plainly opens up, it goes right to Romans chapter five, because all good theologians, any good theologian, their Bibles open to Romans 5.

They've just been in there so often, camped in that chapter so often, that their Bible opens up, not just for the benefits of justification like peace with God, obtaining access, hoping in the glory of God, knowing that we rejoice in our sufferings because what suffering produces, knowing God loves us and demonstrates that, knowing that if He saved us and did great things for us while we were enemies, won't He do things now for us as friends, as children?

And we come to 5, 12 and following. This great chapter that Paul, and section that Paul deals with, Jesus the representative. How can we have representative work by another? How can Jesus save someone else?

That's the question. And Paul is going to try to tell us here that representation is everywhere you go, including back in Genesis with Adam. And then Paul will say, and by the way, Jesus, the last Adam's work, is a lot better than the first Adam's work.

If Adam was a representative, greater is Christ's representative work. And then for those Jewish people who have questions, is this representation somehow against the law, anti-law, antinomian? Then Paul will answer that towards the end.

So today on No Compromise Radio Ministry, we're talking about Romans chapter 5, that chapter that should be creased in your Bible. Now, if you have an iPod, an iPad, a Nook, something like that, I don't know how you put a crease in there.

You're allowed to highlight things in electronic books. You're allowed to make them bold. You can make your own notes. But so far I've yet to see people crease their Nooks. I dropped my iPad. I think it's a second generation iPad.

I dropped it in that thing, just the glass. So a little tape, a little dabble, do you? And it still is working. Spider webs reminds me of Spider-Man every time I use it. We need the work of another, and here's what's going to happen in Romans chapter 5.

Paul's going to say, the same way we're lost by the work of another, federal representation, federal headship, covenant headship, covenantal headship, the same way we're saved, well, in the same manner we are, see now I'm backwards already, in the same manner we're lost, we are saved through the act of another.

We're going to see similarity here between Adam 1 and the last Adam, the real Adam, whose name was Adam, whose name was really Adam, that's what I meant to say, and Christ Jesus. They are representatives who affect those who are in them.

Representation isn't anything new. Adam introduces sin and death, and so Jesus introduces righteousness. People are asking the question, how can one person save many? How can the righteous acts of Jesus Christ save many?

And Paul is going to say, think solidarity, and of course, this is very good for all of us here, even in No Compromise Radio Land. We are so individualistic. We are so isolationist in our thinking, is that a word?

I don't even know. I'm just making stuff up. We just make things up. You know why? Because I need the fire Bible, it ignites at the touch of a button, and I also need the love letter. It's still sitting here, the love letter that I got from Osterhaus Publishing.

So we need these things. Sin, righteousness, acts of another. We're going to take a look at this today, federal headship. Now, when you read Romans chapter 5, let me give you some hints. When you take a look at the word sin, you're going to see singular, right?

We have singular, plural, we have masculine, feminine, nuda. We have a lot of these different grammatical things that are important. Sometimes it seems more important than others, and this is one of those times.

Singular. We are talking about the first initial sin of Adam. We're not talking about Eve's sin. She wasn't the federal head. We're not talking about Adam's subsequent sins, because that's going to be important on how we think of Adam's work with symmetry, with Christ's work, Adam's first sin.

In Eden, Adam was acting not just for himself. He wasn't a private person. The Puritans like to call Adam what? A public person. The other day, I ate at the public house, and it wasn't a private house, it was a public house here in central Massachusetts, in Sturbridge.

You know Sturbridge, Sturbridge Village. And so Adam wasn't just the father of the human race, he was our legal agent. He stood in our stead. He was a covenant leader, federally representing all of his children, one acting on behalf of many by God's good, sovereign decree.

Now you might automatically start saying, that's not fair. I don't like this public person. I don't think that could be true. I wasn't there with Adam's sinning, I didn't earn the sin, I didn't merit the sin.

How can I get credit for Adam's failure? Now I'll just lead with this because I don't think I can cover all of it today on No Compromise Radio, so it might just be bad news first. Think of Christ's work at Calvary, if you think of all of his life in Calvary put together with one common united theme of parallelism, we have symmetry when it comes to Adam's work and Christ's work.

We weren't earning Christ's work, we weren't meriting Christ's work. He did it, federally representing us. And so before you say, I hate federal representation, I'm down on that, I don't like it, how could God do that?

Well, I have lots of things to say to you if you'd say that, but you're going to end up liking federal representation. Maybe that's what I should call it today. In love with federal representation. See, it's not new.

There's nothing new about it. And so Paul says, let's think about Adam, Romans 5, 12. Therefore, just as through one sin, one man's sin entered into the world, and death through sin. And so death spread to all men because all sinned.

Now if you're not careful, you're going to go over those words, because all sinned, too quickly. Excuse me. These are very important words. So important. Somebody's calling me right now on No Compromise Radio, but I'm not taking the call.

Something's buzzing in my pocket. Because all sinned. What does that mean? Well, the Pelagians would say they just sinned by themselves. How do all people sin? Well, they just sin because they sin. They see the example of Adam.

They see the example of their parents who inherited that example from their grandpas, grandpas, grandpas, grandpas, all the way back to Adam. And Adam's sin is horrible because we imitate it. That is because all sinned, Pelagians think, well, all sinned by the example of Adam.

They don't see any connection between our own sin and Adam's sin. You and Adam aren't linked together. But what about children? Do children die? Yes, some sadly do. Some infants die. Why? Because they imitated Adam's sin?

No. Plus, if you think of symmetry for a while and you look at Christ's death on the cross, His life and death, we get saved now by imitating His good example? So the Pelagian view, because we all sinned by example, that's why Adam's sin was bad, it doesn't hold any water.

This entire section of Romans 3b, 4, and 5 destroys that Pelagian view. Paul is trying to teach that men are justified by the works of Christ, not their own works. You can't follow Christ's good example and therefore save yourself.

That's a wrong view of all sinned. Now there's another option. What does it mean, because all sinned? Some people think it's hereditary depravity. Our physical relationship to the first man puts us with him in the garden due to our physical connection to him.

That's how John Murray would describe it, even though he doesn't take that view, he describes it that way. Naturally corrupt. Now I do have Adam's nature, and so do you, but that's not what he's talking about here.

How can it be called one trespass? Why don't we get just credit for that first one? You'd think it'd be for all the trespasses, not just the first one. We produce corrupt people, that's true. But what is Paul talking about here?

Thinking with symmetry, so Jesus produces spiritually, that is, he spiritually produces righteous people? No, that doesn't hold any water, certainly based on the imputation of Adam's first sin. We consequently are naturally corrupt, we have a hereditary depravity, but that's not what Paul is talking about, because all sinned.

Some people think it's a realistic view involved, and there's a solidarity that is natural or seminal, and they go to Hebrew 7 for some kind of funky monkey stuff, where one with Adam's nature, co-sinners with Adam, Burkauer, would describe it that way.

Adam is the head of the race as representative, A. H. Strong says, it holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam, Adam's transgression existed, not individually but seminally, in him as its head.

Shedd said we all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. Now whether Shedd believe it or not, I like Shedd, if he believed that he's wrong, but even as he describes it, it's weird. Isn't it weird?

The focus here, Murray said, for after all on realist assumptions, it is not our union with Adam that is the crucial consideration in our involvement in his sin, but our involvement in the sin of that human nature which existed in Adam.

The distinction which cannot be questioned is that Adam sustains a genetic relation to the whole race, and that all are seminally united with him and derive from him. This does not hold in the relation of Christ to his people.

So see how the analogy is broken? Am I in Christ, and do I perform the act of righteousness on the cross? No, Paul is talking legally. Paul is talking with federal legal representation. Plagian view is wrong, realistic view is wrong, depravity view is wrong, of course I believe in depravity, but in this particular, because all sinned.

How did we all sin? Westminster Larger Catechism, the covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell with him in the first transgression.

See, that is the key. If we're in Adam's loins, as it were, weren't we in his loins when he committed the other sins too? Wouldn't those be just as applicable to us as the first sin? John Murray goes on to say, it is surely necessary to assume that the kind of relationship which Adam sustains to men is after the pattern of the relationship which Christ sustains to men.

Therefore, no compromise, radio listeners, we believe in federal representation, an immediate representative imputation. Adam stands as representative by divine appointment, by divine mandate, by God's ordained plan, and when he sinned, the guilt of Adam's sin, his first sin, singular sin, is credited immediately to all his descendants, including you.

And you say, Mike, including you too. Well, that's true, but I'm preaching to you, right? Later, as a consequence, as a result, we have sinful nature. I agree with that, but Romans 5 is talking about the one act.

You've got to think solidarity here, one on the behalf of another. But as important as that is, you've got to think singularly. You think federally, you think by imputation, you think through solidarity issues, but you've got to think about the first sin of Adam.

It wasn't Eve's sin, it wasn't Eve's second sin, it wasn't Satan's sin, it wasn't Adam's second sin, it was Adam's first sin. Listen to verse 15, for if by the transgression of the one, verse 16, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, verse 17, for if by the transgression of the one, verse 18, so then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, and then verse 19, for as through the one man's disobedience, even there implied singularly one sin.

It's not all the following sins of our forefather imputed to us, it's the first sin. That's it. It's the first sin, immediate imputation, Adam's act deemed as our act. His sin deemed as their sin. His sin deemed as your sin.

Solidarity, federal, covenant, if you will, representation. He represented you. Adam was God's choice, and he divinely appointed Adam as representative for the human race. Because all sinned, Romans chapter 5 then, we all sin because of Adam's sin.

No wonder people, in the next couple verses in Romans 13 and 14 of chapter 5, there's no law that's given yet between Adam and Moses, yet people still die, so how do you die for a sin, how do you die for a law that's broken, you don't even know it's a law?

Well, because they have Adam's first sin credited to their account. For sin indeed, verse 13, was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there's no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.

Nobody told, don't eat of this tree, don't do that, who was a type of the one who was to come. All men die because they sin personally, so all men earn eternal life because they're personally righteous?

No. See, that's why it has to be federal representation. All have sinned, Romans 5 .12, can't mean personal transgressions that you sin, because then you can be personally righteous and earn your salvation.

Federal representation was excellent because that means I didn't have to have my own separate testing. You mean every single person is going to be tested. At least Adam was adult, at least he had a good mind, at least he had a good environment, and here I would be tested as a baby, you would be tested as a baby?

No, that isn't right. We're saved by the work of another. So that's really, the bad news is Adam was our spiritual, our federal head, but in one sense it's good news because then by another man's work, all of Christ's work put together, thinking about it singularly, we can be saved from our sins.

Well, my name is Mike Abendroth. You ought to love federal representation and read John Murray's Imputation of Sin in his little booklet.

God bless you. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff, or management.