How differently things look now! It first appeared
that God might be unfair, condemning us as sinners, in Adam. But now we
see this was in order that He might receive us as saints, in Christ. If
the imputation of Adam�s sin to all mankind resulted in condemnation,
the imputation of Christ�s righteousness results in justification. The
means for man�s justification is the same as the means for man�s
condemnation�imputation. The work of one man both condemns and saves
men.
How Paul�s words must have shaken those
self-righteous Jews, who believed they were righteous by virtue of their
identification with Abraham and their possession of the Law. Being of
the physical seed of Abraham did not save anyone. Being of the physical
seed of Adam, however, condemned them. They were not righteous, in
Abraham, but they were sinners, in Adam. And since Adam was the head of
the whole human race, there is no distinction between Jews and Gentiles.
Every son of Adam is a sinner, guilty, condemned, and subject to the
death penalty.137 Being a �son of Abraham� did not change this.
Possessing
the Law was no salvation for the Jews. The Law did not remedy the
problem of sin but only caused sin to increase so that the problem
became more dramatically evident. The Law not only increased sin; it
made sin a personal matter. Now, those under the Law were not only
sinners, in Adam, they were shown to be sinners on their own merits. Not
only were the Jews guilty sinners, in Adam, they were also guilty
sinners, on their own, as defined by the Law. The Law did not deliver
any from sin, but it did declare many to be sinners. In these verses,
Paul knocks the props out from under Jewish pride and boasting, in
Abraham and in having the Law. If the Jews rejected Jesus as their
Messiah, they rejected the only cure for the curse. Only Jesus could
reverse the curse and make sinners saints. For them to reject Christ was
to be left guilty, in Adam.
When the apostle Paul
presented Christ as the cure for the curse of mankind, brought about by
Adam�s sin, he removed all basis for boasting and pride. Those who are
sinners, in Adam, can hardly boast about this. Those who are saved, in
Christ, are saved by the work of the Lord Jesus and thus can take no
credit themselves. As James Stifler writes,
Adam is a
figure of Christ in just this respect: that as his one sin brought death
to all, even when there was no personal sin, so Christ�s one act of
obedience brings unfailing righteousness to those who are in Him, even
when they have no personal righteousness.138
Contextually,
Romans 5:12-21 serves a very important purpose. It lays the groundwork
for Paul�s teaching on sanctification in Romans 6-8. If the work of
Christ provides sinful men with a solution to the problem of God�s
righteous wrath, it also provides men with a solution to the problem of
the reign of sin and death.
Because of our own
fallenness, we even tend to look at the work of Christ in a selfish,
self-centered way. We who are saved delight in the certainty that, in
Christ, our individual sins are forgiven. Our past, present, and future
sins are all forgiven in Him, because of His death, burial, and
resurrection on our behalf. But Christ�s work does much more than give
us the forgiveness of our sins; by means of the cross, He has also
provided freedom from the dominion of sin. This freedom from the reign
of sin is the subject of Romans 6-8.
We might say that
the work of Adam was a bad beginning for the whole human race. But the
work of our Lord Jesus Christ offers men a new beginning. Christ�s
death, burial, and resurrection does much more than to allow us to go on
living just as we have in the past, but knowing that the sins we commit
are forgiven. The work of our Lord makes it both necessary and possible
for us to begin living in a whole new way, not as the servants of sin,
but as the servants of righteousness. The work of our Lord not only
forgives the sins of our past, it wipes out our past, and gives us a new
future. What hope and encouragement for the sinner! In Christ, God
offers men a whole new life, a new beginning, a fresh start. What good
news this is�to the ears of a repentant sinner.
Taken
in a broader perspective, Romans 5:12-21 explains much about the coming
of our Lord. How important, and how fascinating some elements of the
gospel accounts become when we see our Lord�s coming as being for the
purpose of offering a cure for the curse which came through Adam. Was
Adam a man? So Jesus was a man as well. The genealogies of the gospels
make a point of this, and Luke specifies that Jesus was both the �son of
Adam� and the �son of God� (Luke 4:38). While Adam brought sin upon the
world, our Lord was proven to be without sin, so that He could die in
the sinner�s place (2 Corinthians 5:21, see also Hebrews 4:15; 7:26; 1
Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5). While Adam was only a man, who could bring the
guilt of sin on the world, Jesus was the God-man, whose righteousness
could be imputed to men, by faith (Romans 3:21-22). Adam was tempted and
failed (Genesis 3), but Jesus, though tempted, resisted sin (Matthew
4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13). All of the �sons of Adam� are born sinners; Jesus
was the �seed of the woman� (Genesis 3:15), and His conception and birth
were of divine origin, through the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:34-35). Every
aspect of Jesus� birth, coming, life, death, and resurrection
corresponded to that which was necessary, due to Adam�s sin, to save the
human race.