Among some who profess Christianity, there’s the view that we are created upright or innocent as individuals then we choose to commit sin and become sinners. Therefore, everyone is born morally neutral, in right relationship to God and capable of choosing to sin or not to sin. From the starting point of innocence and the right relationship to God, each person then chooses to go astray by committing isolated acts of sin (through the temptation of Satan or their environment). This view impacts how we view salvation because if the cause of our condemnation is acts of sin, we could possibly redeem ourselves by committing acts of obedience. For the Christian, Christ’s death on the cross becomes merely a restoration of the innocence we had at the beginning of our lives and a second chance to live righteously to reconcile ourselves to God by our own obedience. Christ’s work is simply to “make up what we lack” and our salvation is ultimately the result of our obedience and cooperation with God. Fortunately, that’s not the case and God’s word teaches us differently.
Every person is born into this world under the headship of Adam; he is our representative. We’re not under probation in our lives as individuals; Adam was under probation in the Garden of Eden as our representative. Therefore, when Adam sinned, we sinned. Whatever penalty that was the result of Adam’s disobedience is our penalty. We inherited a corrupt nature from Adam and all of our single acts of sin in our lives flow from a corrupt nature and a darkened mind. We sin because we are sinners by nature; we don’t become sinners because we commit acts of sin. Adam was the only man who ever became a sinner by committing a single act of sin (Romans 5:12-14)
“Let us borrow a simple illustration. God did not deal with mankind as with a field of corn, where each stalk stands upon its own individual root; but He dealt with it as with a tree, all the branches of which have one common root and trunk. If you strike with an axe at the root of a tree, the whole tree falls—not only the trunk but also the branches: all wither and die. So it was when Adam fell. God permitted Satan to lay the axe at the root of the tree, and when Adam fell, all his posterity fell with him. At one fatal stroke, Adam was severed from communion with his maker, and as the result “death passed upon all men.”- A.W. Pink
That’s why our only hope for salvation is for another representative to come and succeed where the first Adam had failed and not in our acts of obedience to God’s law. Our probation was already completed in the Garden. It’s too late for us to turn to the same covenant Adam violated to save ourselves from the wrath of God and be reconciled to Him (Romans 3:19-20). We have already received the sentence of condemnation and are simply awaiting its execution (John 3:18, Hebrews 9:27).
Who can deliver us from this death sentence? Jesus Christ, the second Adam, has (Romans 8:1). God the Son became incarnate, lived in perfect obedience to God’s law, fulfilling the covenant of works that the first Adam broke. Then he went to the cross and died, bearing the penalty of God’s wrath. He lived to provide us with the perfect righteousness we owed to God and he died to bear the penalty we owed to God for our disobedience and violation of His covenant. We are reconciled by repenting of our sins, turning our trust away from ourselves and our imperfect works and trusting in Christ as our Substitute. We are united to Christ in His life, death and resurrection and adopted as God’s sons (Romans 6:5-11, Ephesians 1:5, John 1:12). He is the mediator of the new covenant, the covenant of grace.
“Finally, let it be pointed out that the sinner’s salvation is made to depend upon the same principle. Beware, my reader, of quarrelling with the justice of this law of representation. This principle wrecked us, and this principle alone can rescue us. The disobedience of the first Adam was the judicial ground of our condemnation; the obedience of the last Adam is the legal ground on which God alone can justify the sinner. The substitution of Christ in the place of His people, the imputation of their sins to Him and of His righteousness to them, is the cardinal fact of the gospel. But the principle of being saved by what another has done is only possible on the ground that we are lost through what another did. The two stand or fall together. If there had been no covenant of works there could have been no death in Adam, there could have been no life in Christ.”- A.W. Pink
Repent and believe this gospel.
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Faith is the empty hand which takes hold of Christ and His benefits.
The Justified Sinner 