As promised, today we’re going to seminary together.  These waters we’re wading into are deep, but hopefully will be helpful to better understand the gospel.  Specifically, today we’re going to look at the depth of man’s sin, and what is called the “Federal Headship” of Adam.

I want to ask a leading question first.  What is man’s greatest problem?  Now many people would answer “sin”, and not a bad answer in itself, but not really complete in light of Romans 5.  I want to take that answer a step further today, and suggest that man’s greatest problem is that he is born through the line of Adam, thereby inheriting the condemnation of Adam.

Let me explain what I mean by that.  Most people know the story of Adam from Genesis, how Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil against the command of God.  The consequence of Adam’s rebellion was the judgment of God that Adam would endure hardship from then on and would ultimately return to the earth (death).  Federal Headship is the Biblical concept that Adam, as the first born man, represented all of humanity, thus when Adam sinned against God, His sin was counted (imputed is the Christianese term) to all of humanity.  That means that the consequences of Adam’s sin; a sinful nature, physical death, and separation from God were also put on everyone that would come through the line of Adam.  (Quick side note:  This is also why it was essential that Jesus was born of the Spirit, not through Joseph)  Therefore, everyone born through Adam has already been judged by God as guilty in Adam.  In a very real sense, every one of us is born already condemned.  People talk about sin and separation from God as being the “cause” of our judgment, but really those are not the cause of our judgment primarily, sin and separation from God is our judgment, the fact that we willfully continue as sinners merely stores up the wrath of God against us to be unleashed upon those unbelievers for eternal punishment.

How do we know that man is born condemned?  Aside from the Bible telling us it is so, that everyone of us is born in iniquity (Psalm 51:5), it is seen because everyone of us sins against God in the same manner as our common father, Adam, and everyone of us sees the fruit of that sinfulness in physical death.  Adam’s sin was counted as our sin.  In many cultures, this idea is well understood and accepted without issue, but in the US and western culture people (myself included initially) often take issue saying “it’s not fair”.  My short answer to that response is that everyone who makes that argument has themself sinned against God willfully, and therefore their point about fairness is moot.  The longer answer is that the complete and total fall of ALL humanity through Adam is actually good news to us, and I explain why that is so.  That’s where I hope to get to today; where as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are encouraged by this Biblical doctrine of Federal Headship and find a greater peace and joy through Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:12-14 – “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.  Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.”

A lot of people think about sin as perhaps breaking one of God’s 10 commandments.  Romans 5 raises an interesting question though.  If one of the consequences of sin was death, how was it that people were dying before God gave Moses the written law? (roughly 2,500 – 3,500 years)  The answer given above is that sin was already present in the world, evidenced by physical death.  The entire purpose of the written law was not to remove sin from man, but simply to be a mirror to show man how truly sinful and fallen they were, that they could “count” their own sins.  I would lose count personally after a couple days of living.  In Adam, as mankind’s federal head, man had fallen such that they were incapable of any true righteousness before God.

So how does the Federal Headship tie into the gospel and why is it good news?  To understand that in Adam, your Federal Head, you have already been judged and condemned, you are immediately confronted with the reality that in yourself you have 0 hope, none.  No amount of “good works” could undo the condemnation already incurred.  It would be like a convicted murderer on death row, going back to the judge and asking to be set free because he’d cleaned up his cell some.  Now, there is no more troubling knowledge for those who fear God to know that He has already condemned you, and your time/sins now are only storing up God’s wrath to be unleashed upon you for all eternity.  If you do not see that, you will not treasure Christ as you ought, you will not understand what Christ accomplished for you as you ought, and your joy in Christ will be limited because you will believe that Christ merely covered “part” of you on the cross (the sinful part) instead of ransoming a whole condemned person under judgment already.  Even more, just as the sin of Adam was imputed to you through Adam’s sin, the perfect righteousness of Christ has now been imputed to you through faith in the finished work of Jesus.  If through one sin in Adam, you were condemned to die, how much greater must the grace of God through Jesus Christ be to you, who have inherited His life and righteousness?  Let’s see how this is explained in 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 – “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”