ADAM AND CHRIST. Revised.
Romans 5:12-21.
1. THE ENTRANCE OF SIN.
In ROMANS 5:12, Paul tells us that sin came into the world through one man. That man was our first father, Adam, the representative head of the human race and ancestor of us all. This is the teaching of the Bible, and needless to say the Apostle held such teaching to be true. On the basis of this doctrine Paul rests his whole argument in the verses we are now studying, where he compares and contrasts Adam and Christ.
Within families it is the father who is held responsible for what happens. If the family is at fault, ultimately the father must shoulder the responsibility. However, the consequences of such fault or sin are shared by the whole family. Conversely, when Joshua made his famous declaration of faith, he spoke for his whole family (cf. Joshua 24:15).
This principle is older than the family of Israel. It dates back to Adam, our first father, as demonstrated in ROMANS 5:12.
Adam was accountable for the eating of the forbidden fruit, and we all also suffer the consequences of that first sin, just as surely as if it had been ours (ROMANS 5:18-19). We cannot understand this working of God’s justice, but who are we to question God?
There is a little rhyming couplet that says:
'In Adam’s fall, We sinned all.'
2. THE WAGES OF SIN.
Paul tells us in ROMANS 5:12, “Sin came into the world, and death through sin.” Later he adds, ‘The wages of sin is death’ (cf. Romans 6:23).
This was just what Adam had been told by God (cf. Genesis 2:16-17). When Adam ate of the forbidden fruit he died a spiritual death, and became liable to physical death.
(i) Adam forfeited a life of fellowship with God.
(ii) God’s anger turned against His beautiful Creation, and He cursed the ground (cf. Genesis 3:17).
(iii) Death entered the world. And ‘in Adam all die’ (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:22).
(iv) Man became inclined to all kinds of evil.
Man was evil before the flood (cf. Genesis 6:5). Evil remained even after the Flood (cf. Genesis 8:21).
Solomon in his old age testified, ‘This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes’ (cf. Ecclesiastes 7:29).
3. THE FREE GIFT.
In comparing and contrasting Adam and Christ, the Apostle Paul does not leave us dead in our sins, but balances our predicament with what he calls “the free gift” (ROMANS 5:15).
Death became necessary as soon as man sinned, but Adam and Eve were not struck physically dead on the day of their sin. God was making provision for their salvation. He promised that the woman would have a descendant who would crush the devil, and that descendant was Jesus, ‘born of a woman, born under the law’ (cf. Galatians 4:4).
Jesus is introduced as the new representative head of the human race (ROMANS 5:15).
In anticipation of the free gift, God instituted the Old Testament sacrificial system. This served as a Shadow and Type of the one full and final sacrifice, once offered by Jesus Christ for all the sins of all His people.
The first sacrifice was offered by God Himself, when He took the skins of animals to clothe His wayward children there in the Garden. The last sacrifice was God Himself, in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now those who accept Him are made righteous in Christ (ROMANS 5:21). Death has lost its sting through His resurrection, and we have eternal life in Jesus.
