In Christ As We Were In Adam
Romans 5:12-14
The goldmine that has produced more gold than anywhere else on earth is located in South Africa. It has produced, over its lifetime 2,292 tons of gold, so that at the current price of gold, which is $1007.20 an ounce—this mine, which is over two miles deep mine has produced roughly seven and a half trillion dollars of gold. Now, if you were to compare the amount of gold discovered in just this one mine, which is only one among hundreds of mines that have been dug to discover gold—to the amount of mine discovered by gold panners—there is simply no comparison. The discovery and production of gold from gold panning from its very inception to today can’t even begin to register on the chart when it comes to what this one mine in South Africa produces in just one year. As one gold speculator put it—if you want a $10 flake of gold get yourself a pan and some sunscreen. If you want a $100 thousand dollar nugget get yourself a shovel and a sweatband. In other words, if you want to find the richest nuggets—you’re going to have to dig for them.
This principle holds true for spiritual nuggets as well. If you are content with a “devotional” type of Christianity in which you are barely skimming the surface of the Bible and in fact aren’t following the teaching of God’s Word with enough effort to keep yourself awake then you may have collected a few gold flakes over the years that you keep returning to as your spiritual treasures. On the other hand, if you actually study your Bible and apply yourself to getting as much out it as possible and to intently listening and staying engaged when the Bible is taught you probably have a spiritual treasure chest full of spiritual nuggets of truth that are bearing great dividends in your personal walk with the Lord. But the fact is—you won’t grow deep in your Christian life and walk with the Lord without digging deep. There is simply no substitute for the hard work of reading, studying, thinking about, and praying about a Bible passage if you are to understand it enough to dig out its treasures. As John Piper puts it—“if you want leaves get a rake—if you want nuggets get a shovel.”
Today you are going to need a shovel—because Paul is going to take us a little bit deeper in this whole subject, which we introduced last Sunday of being in union with Christ. As Paul moves into the next section of Romans 5, he begins by using the word, “therefore” to tie what he has said in verses 1-11 with what he is going to say in verses 12-21. In essence, he has in verses 1-11 told us why the believer can be fully assured of his salvation. And in providing us with several reasons for this assurance, he reached the climax in verse 10 when he wrote that ultimately “we shall be saved in the life of Christ Himself”. But realizing that it might be difficult for his readers to envision what this concept of “being in Christ” actually looks like and how it works in regard to our lives—Paul—gives us a contrasting example to compare this concept against.
We often do this when we are trying to explain or describe someone or something that is difficult to understand. Bethany just took her driving test to get her driver’s permit last week. In helping her prepare for her test I reviewed the driver’s manual with her and I would often contrast the correct driving procedure with an incorrect one just to, if you’ll pardon the pun, drive my point home. Well here in Romans 5:12-14, Paul is contrasting what it is for the true believer to “be in Christ” by comparing it with what it was for the true believer to have “been in Adam”.
You see, before you were “in Christ”, you were “in Adam”. And it is important to understand that you cannot be in both Adam and Christ at the same time. To be “in Adam” is to be lost, unsaved, unregenerate, without Christ, condemned, and on your way to hell. To be “in Christ” is to be saved, to be regenerated, born again, justified, reconciled to God, and on your way to heaven. All of us here in this room are either “in Adam” or “in Christ”. We all live either in union with Adam and his sin or we are living in union with Christ and His righteousness. And whereas, these two unions are different in their essence and certainly in their consequences—they also share some conceptual similarities that help us to understand what it is to “be in Christ”.
Here in Romans 5:12-21, Paul gives us both—the differences and the similarities between the two—and today we will deal with the similarities as found in verses 12-14. And it is because there are similarities between both unions that Paul, after telling us that our ultimate ongoing and eternal salvation from the wrath of God for our sin is guaranteed by the fact that we as true believers are “in Christ”—likens this new union in Christ to our old union in Adam. Now specifically what Paul is trying to further explain to us is this whole idea of having the righteousness, works, merits, and identity of Christ imputed or reckoned to us as though in Christ we really did fulfill the law of God and really did die with Christ at Calvary and really did rise from the dead a new creation.
In all honesty, some of you had and are still having some difficulty with this concept. I’ll admit—it is a tough one to get your mind around. I mean, to think that Christ’s life has been attributed to us so that when Christ obeyed God—we were the ones “in Christ” obeying God is pretty difficult to imagine. It is hard to believe that Christ’s identity is so completely our identity that when we stand before God He will deal with us just as though He were dealing with Christ Himself. It is almost unthinkable to imagine that “in Christ”, all of Jesus Christ’s, righteousness and everyone of His actual righteous deeds in which He fulfilled the Law of God have been attributed to the believer just as though the believer fulfilled them. Well, it is because this concept is so huge to get our minds around that Paul likens it to what it was for us to be “in Adam” back before we were saved. So, let’s read Romans 5:12-14.
In verse 12, Paul immediately begins to set the stage for comparing not only Adam with Christ but also “being in Adam” with “being in Christ” with the words: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned.” Then, realizing that he needs to explain the fact that through Adam death really did spread to all men because all men really did sin in Adam he pens verses 13-17 as sort of a parenthesis.
Then, he picks up his comparison of Adam and being in Adam to Christ and being in Christ in verses18 and 19. So if you were to read Paul’s initial comparison and really his main point without the parenthetical explanation found in verses 13-18 it would read:
“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—So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
The first thing Paul begins to contrast is the impact of Adam’s disobedience upon us versus Christ’s obedience upon us as well as our involvement in both Adam’s disobedience and Christ’s obedience from God’s perspective. So let’s go back and really dig into verses 12-14 because what Paul is going to show us is that whereas the impact of Adam’s sin meant universal spiritual death and condemnation upon all people—it was because, as far as God is concerned, all people actually did sin “in Adam” when he sinned. Let’s flesh this out and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.
Look at verse 12 again. Note that it is making three important points.
1. Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world.
2. Through sin death entered into the world.
3. Death, once in the world, spread to all men because all men sinned.
When Paul uses the words “sin” and “death” in verse 12, he uses definite articles with them so that he is actually writing, “the sin” and “the death”, making the verse actually read:
“Therefore, just as through one man the sin entered into the world, and the death through the sin and so the death spread to all men because all sinned.”
So, because he used the definite article with sin—he is not talking about sin in general but rather a specific sin—that being “the original sin of Adam”. And because he uses the definite article with death—he is not talking about death in general but a specific death—that being “the spiritual death of Adam”, which spread or passed to all men. So, here in this verse we see that through Adam’s sin as recorded in Genesis 3, in which he disobeyed God and took and ate from the fruit of the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil—that “the sin” or “the original sin” entered into the world.
In other words, “the original sin”, which is the source of all sin and which is the cause of spiritual death did not enter into the world through Satan’s disobedience but though Adam’s disobedience. And this is important because it signifies that Satan was never man’s representative so that someone could argue that all men sinned in Satan. That simply is not true because even though Satan sinned first—he did not sin as mankind’s representative or head. Likewise, even though Eve sinned before Adam in listening to Satan and eating of the fruit and then giving it to Adam to eat—she did not sin as the head or representative of the whole human race—thus we did not sin in Eve because Eve was not our representative. Mankind did not fall until Adam sinned because all of mankind was in Adam when he fell.
Now, just as through Adam’s sin, “the sin” entered into the world—through this original sin of Adam, “the death” in terms of spiritual death and subsequently physical death also entered the world of men as well.
Now that’s the first two points of verse 12 and we probably don’t have any problem with either one of them. Most believers have no problem agreeing with these two points but do struggle when they come to Paul’s third point which is that—the death, once in the world, spread to all men because all men sinned.
Now, Paul is not saying that spiritual death and condemnation passed to all men because all men have sinned just like Adam did. If this were what he was saying—most Christians wouldn’t have a problem with verse 12. Because if this is what Paul was saying then people become sinners by sinning rather than sin because they are sinners. Furthermore, if this is what Paul is saying than people are not born sinners but rather are born innocent, neutral toward God, and only become sinners upon actually sinning and if they can keep from sinning then they will not be condemned. Therefore, if this is what Paul was saying then it is possible to never sin and to go to heaven upon your own merits if you never sin and thus are never condemned. But you see—this is not what Paul is arguing here in verse 12 and he explains this in verses 13-14.
Let’s look.
In verses 13-14, he makes the point that sin—NO DEFINITE ARTICLE—was in the world being committed before the Law of God was given but because the Law of God had not been given man’s individual sins—acts of disobedience—were not imputed against him or charged against him—because there was no Law that had been given stating such sinful practices were wrong. There can be no law breaker unless there is a law to break.
However, even though man’s individual acts of sin were not counted against him—all men from Adam to Moses—who was the man who recorded God’s Law for us—still died.
In other words, even though their own individual acts of sin were not counted against them, they still suffered the effects of the original sin, which is the original condemnation and thus they all died. Now verse 14 also makes the point that even though all the people who lived from Adam to Moses died—they did not die or suffer condemnation for their own individual sins because none of their sins were like Adam’s sin. Listen, because Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden after they sinned, they nor their descendants ever had the opportunity to sin against God’s one prohibition against eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil again. Thus no one since Adam has ever sinned in the same way as Adam did and furthermore no one has ever sinned in the same position as Adam was in as the representative of the entire human race.
Therefore, if people’s sins prior to the Law being giver were not counted against them because their was no law and because they could not possibly sin in the same way or in the same position as Adam did—why were they suffering the consequences of sin, which is spiritual and physical death—Unless they had all sinned “in Adam”. In other words, as far as God is concerned Adam represented the whole human race and when he sinned everyone sinned with him and in him so that Adam’s disobedience, sin, and condemnation were all imputed to everyone’s life and account before God. Thus, the reason why men from Adam to Moses who did not have God’s Law died even though their individual sins were not counted against them. You see, they died, not because they sinned personally but, because in Adam—they actually were seen by God as having actually sinned.
If you’ll go back to verse 12 again and notice the grammar of the verse. The word “sinned” in the phrase: “because all men sinned” is an aorist indicative verb meaning that it is referring to an act that occurred once rather than continually. Now, I don’t know about you but I have never just sinned once and that was it. Oh how I wish that were the case but it isn’t. I have sinned many times and so have you and so has every one that has ever lived. In other words, spiritual death passed upon all men because all men sinned once in Adam when he sinned because we were “in Adam”. The fact that all of us continue to sin is simply the proof that we all sinned in Adam and through that sin experienced spiritual death and having our natures completely effected in a negative way by that sin attributed to us by virtue of being “in Adam”.
For more confirmation that we all sinned in Adam and reaped the consequences of this act look at v. 15 where Paul writes: “For if by the transgression of the one, the many died . . .”. See also: v. 16 where Paul writes: “for on the one hand the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation . . .” Check out v. 17: “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one . . .” Look at v. 18: “So then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men . . .” And finally check out v. 19 where Paul writes: “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners . . .”
You cannot miss the point—one sin committed by Adam condemned us all because as our representative—our head, if you will, we all were seen by God as participating in that very sin so as to be as guilty as Adam was in committing it. So that, “in Adam”, we all sinned—we all were disobedient to God because his sin was attributed to us thus condemning us before we ever did one sinful act.
Now you may not like that but if you don’t understand it you won’t understand how God could attribute to you the believer all of Christ’s righteousness before you ever did anything righteous. I mean how can it be that God can declare a sinner who believes in Jesus as righteous before that sinner has an opportunity to do anything that is even remotely righteous? Because—just as in Adam, Adam’s sin became our sin because in God’s sight— we while in union with Adam were the ones who actually took that fruit and ate it—in Christ, Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and in God’s sight we obeyed God with and in Christ when He lived His life upon the earth. And that is why Paul makes the point at the end of v. 14 that Adam was a type of Him to come.
The word “type” comes from tupos, meaning a model or a pattern. It does not necessarily mean a perfect model or pattern but a general pattern or model of something or in this case someone who is coming. And the One Whom Adam as the representative of the human race was a model of is Jesus Christ, the representative of a new human race made up of God’s elect chosen people. So that just as “in Adam” all people sinned and were condemned for that sin attributed to them by virtue of what Adam did on their behalf—In Christ Jesus, all believers have had attributed to them all of Christ’s righteousness and righteous acts just as though they had been there with Jesus doing the same. So that the believer is indeed guaranteed eternal salvation by God because the believer is in Christ Jesus and all that was true and is true and will be true of Jesus Christ in His perfect humanity is true of the believer as well.
If you are not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and thus are still “in Adam”—you will one day stand before God one day and be treated as the sinner you are, which means you will be condemned to hell for all of eternity—On the other hand, if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and thus are “in Christ” you will one day stand before God and be treated as one who not only possesses the very righteousness of Christ but also has “in Christ” accomplished the very righteous acts and works of Christ—All because whereas, in Adam you possessed Adam’s identity and were guilty of his sin—in Christ you possess Christ’s identity and are given all of His righteousness for all of eternity so that God will always love you, accept you, and desire you just as He would Christ Himself.
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