20250302 Romans 5:12-17 Adam and Christ - part 1
The Book of Romans • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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42 And they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers.
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31 Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
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Call to Worship
1 Yahweh reigns, let the peoples tremble; He sits enthroned above the cherubim, let the earth quake! 2 Yahweh is great in Zion, And He is exalted above all the peoples. 3 Let them praise Your great and awesome name; Holy is He.
Scripture Reading
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the gracious gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. 16 And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. 17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
Introduction: Romans 5:12-17 Adam and Christ - part 1
In this section of Romans 5 we continue Paul’s theme of justification, and how our sin and lack of righteousness means that we are all under the guilty verdict of a righteousness and just God but who through grace gives to his elect the new birth which then produces in us the ability to believe and to receive the righteousness of Christ . And now in Romans 5 we will meet the first Adam of Genesis who sinned and the Lord Jesus, called the last Adam, who was sinless and took the place of sinful humanity when all of God’s wrath was placed on Him at the cross
Romans begins with the promise of the gospel because of our condemnation and then moves to the power of the gospel to provide our justification by faith in Christ
We will deal this morning with the questions: What is original sin? How does it affect us? How are we to understand it? and How is the first man Adam connected to it?
Paul is writing to a church made up of Jews and Gentiles - we all find our origin in Adam the first man. While Abraham may be seen as the father of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, Adam is the father of every person every born
The movie Spartacus, the escaped slave. I am Spartacus - the purpose of this morning’s message is to slay any notion that if we had been in the garden we would have stayed sinless. Instead, we should say instead of I am Spartacus, I am Adam
(1) Adam the man
Both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke give the genealogy of Mary and Joseph. And Adam is included as a real historical person in Luke’s gospel
And Jesus refers to Adam and Eve in Mt 19:3-6 and Mark 10:6-9 when he talks about creation and the one flesh bond of marriage
3 And some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?” 4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, so that they will have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
16 And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
Adam, an actual person, the first person created, a person who was morally innocent, who was created very good, without sin and placed into a world without the corruption of sin
(2) Adam the sinner
6 Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, so she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Adam was not intrinsically sinful but he was morally capable of obeying or disobeying God. What Adam experienced in the perfect garden Jesus experienced in the wilderness. And in the Jesus rejected the lies of Satan and obeyed the word of God while in the garden Adam obeyed Eve and listened to the lies of Satan when he disobeyed God
What we’re really asking is this: Is sinfulness intrinsic to true humanity? We can answer only in the negative. To say that sinfulness is intrinsic to authentic humanity requires two conclusions: first, that Adam before the fall was not a human being; second, and more seriously, that Christians in a state of perfected glory in heaven will no longer be human.
(3) Adam the representative
The federal headship of Adam
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
the question of how our sinful nature can be inherited from Adam. If we are born with a fallen nature, if we are born in sin, if we are born in a state of moral inability, how can God hold us responsible for our sins?
We remember that original sin does not refer to the first sin but to the result of that first sin. The Scriptures speak repeatedly of sin and death entering the world through “one man’s transgression.” As a result of Adam’s sin, all men are now sinners. The Fall was great. It had radical repercussions for the entire human race.
There have been many attempts to explain the relationship of Adam’s fall to the rest of mankind. Some of the theories presented are quite complex and imaginative. Three theories, however, have emerged from the list as the most widely accepted. The first of these I will call the Myth Theory of the Fall.
According to this theory the first few chapters of Genesis are mythological. There never was an Adam; there never was an Eve. The very structure of the story suggests parable or myth because it includes such elements as a talking serpent and such obviously symbolic objects as the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
The realist view of the Fall demands some kind of concept of the preexistence of the human soul. That is, before we were born, our souls must have already existed. They were present with Adam at the Fall. They fell along with Adam. Adam’s sin was not merely an act for us; it was an act with us. We were there.
THE FEDERAL OR REPRESENTATIVE VIEW OF THE FALL - federal or representative government
This view teaches that Adam acted as a representative of the entire human race. With the test that God set before Adam and Eve, he was testing the whole of mankind. Adam’s name means “man” or “mankind.” Adam was the first human being created. He stands at the head of the human race. He was placed in the garden to act not only for himself but for all of his future descendents. Just as a federal government has a chief spokesman who is the head of the nation, so Adam was the federal head of mankind.
The chief idea of federalism is that, when Adam sinned, he sinned for all of us. His fall was our fall. When God punished Adam by taking away his original righteousness, we were all likewise punished. The curse of the Fall affects us all.
45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Christ is now representative, our head, our advocate, our substitute. And just as in Adam we fell into separation and sin, in Christ we rise to new life and new birth
We’ll continue this study of Adam and Christ next week.
Benediction
You only have to suffer a little while. The God of all grace, who called you to eternal glory in Christ, will see that all is well again. He will comfort, strengthen and support you. His power lasts forever and ever. Amen.
Communion
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was being betrayed took bread, 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until He comes.
