For each of the past 95 years, Time Magazine has selected a person of the year, someone who has had a profound influence on events. Last year it was Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the year before, Elyon Musk. Ask yourself, who are the two persons, not of the year, but of human history. In Romans 5 Paul tells you that two men stand in a unique position as our representatives: Adam, and Jesus Christ. He discusses Adam’s fall in the context of the justifying work of Jesus Christ and compares those representatives.
Adam acted as your representative. Mankind was created perfect. The “one man” of Romans 5:12 is Adam, see verse 14. In his representative capacity, he prefigured Christ. (This chapter is a strong theological argument for the historicity of Adam—something that has come under increasing attack.) Paul’s focus on “entered” in out text takes you back to Adam, created sinless in the Garden of Eden. Mankind was created perfect. He was characterized by true righteousness and holiness. And he (his whole person, including the righteousness and holiness) is image of God. Both Genesis 3 and Romans 5 refute any notion that God is responsible for sin. Guard against the blame game. Keep in mind the context of Genesis 3. In Genesis 1 mankind, male and female, is made in the image of God. That gives you value and worth. Adam acted for you. God ordained him as your representative. He was more than simply the ancestor of the human race. Adam’s actions involve you. Regardless of your political persuasion, your President and the members of Congress have taken certain actions which involve you. Adam’s testing took place under the ideal conditions of the Garden of Eden. You know the result of that test.
“Adam and Christ are clearly in view as individual persons. But as individuals they no less clearly have a significance that is more than individual. They are contrasted as each represents others, as each is a head in a way that is decisive for those ‘in him.’ This union-based contrast exhibits the representative or federal principle that is at the root of the covenant theology taught in the Bible. This principle may be sufficiently summarized for our purposes as follows: as Adam by his disobedience has bought sin with all its consequences into the originally good creation for himself and those ‘in him,’ so Christ by his obedience has brought salvation from sin and all its consequences for those ‘in him.’… The uniquely pivotal place of each in the unfolding of redemptive history is, respectively, at its beginning and its end. Further, their roles are such that no one else ‘counts’; no others come into consideration. Only Adam, in his representative role in union or solidarity with ‘all,’ is the ‘type of the one to come’ (Rom. 5:14). As Christ is the omega point of redemptive history, Adam is its alpha point.”
Continue reading “Death Came to All Men”
