“Two Representatives”
Romans 5:12-19
2/13/08
When you think about some of the achievements of the
human race, we’ve done some pretty remarkable things.
We’ve been to the moon. We’ve been to the top of Mt.
Everest. We’ve come up with cures for many diseases.
We’ve made great advancements in medical technology.
We’ve written extraordinary books. We’ve composed
beautiful pieces of music. We’ve invented machines that
help us to communicate, travel, and keep in touch with what’s
going on in the world. And, of course, this is no exhaustive
list. We could think of many more things that we’ve
accomplished as a human race.
But notice how I’ve used the word
“we” for all of these achievements, as if we here have done
these things ourselves. But we haven’t been to the moon;
only a hand-full of people have. We haven’t been to the top
of Mt. Everest. And I don’t know anyone here who has come
up with a cure for any life-threatening disease. And yet, we talk
as if these achievements were our accomplishments. Even though it
was Neil Armstrong who walked on the moon, we say we’ve been
there. But we say “we” because Armstrong was a
representative of the human race. In fact, not only did he
represent all human beings as a whole, but specifically citizens of the
U.S., so that we proudly say that we Americans were the first ones on
the moon.
But there’s a darker side to the achievements
of mankind, things that we’re not so proud of. We’ve
committed genocide. We’ve invented powerful killing
machines. We’ve murdered. We’ve tortured
people. We’ve aborted babies in the wombs of their
mothers. We’ve invented ways of helping people to end their
lives peacefully. We’ve done all kinds of harm to others,
both by what we’ve said and by what we’ve done. And
here, too, we must use the word “we” even though we may not
want to. Like it or not, criminals and tyrants represent the
human race as well. They represent us.
Now, you may not identify personally with any of
these individuals, whether they be heros or villains. You
haven’t personally been to the moon, and you haven’t
personally murdered anyone. But there are two people that you are
identified with, whether you believe yourself to be so or not.
Those two people are the men that St. Paul mentions in tonight’s
epistle text: Adam and Jesus Christ. Both of these men are
representatives of the entire human race. The actions of both men
have consequences for every human being. And in them each one of
us can truly say, “That was me! I was there. I did
that along with them.”
We’re going to look at Adam first, and then
we’ll look at Jesus to see how each of them represents us and to
look at what they pass on to us. So, first Adam... Adam
represents us. Adam brought sin into the world. But unlike
with Neil Armstrong, we cannot say that we had nothing to do with
Adam’s actions. The Apostle Paul here says that “sin
came into the world through one man [that’s Adam], and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men because all
sinned.” What Adam did we did, and what happened to him
happened to us. He was our representative; what he did he did in
our place. We may not say things like, “Well, I
wasn’t there. I didn’t sin. I would have done
better than Adam. I wouldn’t have disobeyed God and eaten
of that forbidden fruit. It’s not my fault.”
No! Adam represents you. You were there with Adam, doing
what Adam did. You sinned with Adam. You disobeyed God; you
ate of the fruit of which He told you not to eat. Some believe
that people are born innocent, that they aren’t guilty of the sin
of Adam. If they die before they’re able to understand
what’s right and wrong, how can they be called sinners, how can
they be held responsible? But Paul makes it clear that even those
who were born after Adam and before the giving of the ten commandments
at Mt. Sinai were also sinners as evidenced by the fact that they
died. This applies to people who are yet in their mother’s
wombs. Some want to say that babies are innocent, that they
aren’t sinners. Well, they may not have committed any
particular sins, but the fact that babies die proves that they, too,
are guilty of the sin of Adam. Babies are sinners as well, and
they’ll manifest that they’re sinners the older they
get. And so, the entire human race was there with Adam in the
garden. We all sinned with him, and as a result we are born into
this world as sinners.
Because you and I were there with Adam as our
representative disobeying God, we with Adam reap the consequences of
that sin. Paul here tells us what those consequences are.
They are sin, judgment, condemnation, and death. These are the
things that we inherit from Adam, the things that have been passed on
to us from him. It’s not like a genetic defect that you
might have been born with in which you could say you are purely a
victim. Again, we are not only victims of Adam’s sin, but
we are the culprits as well, so that God is justified in judging and
condemning us with His words of Law. We were there with Adam; we
did what he did; the fruit of his actions, therefore, is ours.
But thanks be to God, there is another Adam, the
second man that Paul mentions here, Jesus Christ. He, too, is a
representative of the entire human race. What He does He does for
us and in our place, so that it’s as if it were we ourselves who
were doing it in Him. And His actions also have consequences for
us, just as the actions of the first Adam did. Paul writes,
“Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so
one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all
men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were
made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made
righteous.” Well, we know what the trespass or the
disobedience of Adam was. But what was this one act of
righteousness and obedience of Jesus? It was His perfect
obedience to the will of His Father. Jesus perfectly kept all of
God’s commandments, even to the point of submitting to His
Father’s command to go to the cross. Where Adam failed at
obeying God and plunged the human race into sin and death, Jesus
reversed the effects of Adam’s [and our] sin by re-doing for us
what we should have done and by suffering for us in our place what we
deserve on account of our sin. Whereas in Adam, our first
representative, we sinned and die as a result, through Christ, our
second representative, we have perfectly kept God’s Law and
live. Just as the human race was there with Adam in the
beginning, so the human race was there with Christ.
And yet, Christ’s one act of righteousness can
be rejected. With Adam, you cannot escape the guilt and
condemnation that he passes on to you. You are in Adam by virtue
of the fact that you have been born into this world. You cannot
escape the fact that you are a child of Adam and thus a sinner like
him. But even though what Jesus did He did as the representative
of the entire human race, people can and do reject His work for them;
they can reject Jesus as their representative. The Apostle Paul
here writes that it’s only those who receive the abundance of
God’s grace and the free gift of righteousness in Jesus who will
reign in life through Him. In other words, it’s by faith in
Jesus that what Jesus did and gives becomes yours. But this faith
is not something you can produce yourself. It is worked in you by
Baptism and the Word. Just as you were born in Adam and had
nothing to do with that birth, so you were born again in Christ through
the washing of the water and the Word, and in this way you receive all
the benefits of His work for you.
In Jesus what you got from Adam has been given to
Christ, so that what is Christ’s might be given to you.
From Adam you got sin, judgment, condemnation, and death. But
Jesus took these upon Himself as if He were you, the sinner. Not
only have you been identified with Him, but Jesus identified Himself
with you, so that you might get the gifts that He gives: the gift
of salvation, God’s grace, justification (God’s declaration
that you are righteous), and life through faith in Jesus. Now,
though you are still a sinner, your sins are forgiven. Though the
Law and the devil still try to judge and condemn you, God judges you
“not guilty” and declares you righteous in Jesus. And
though you still die, death cannot hold you any more than it held
Jesus. Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the
life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,
and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”
Jesus came to be your second representative, a
representative of the entire human race, in order to trump the first
representative, Adam, so that all who believe in Jesus and are baptized
in His Name might not stand before God in their sins any more, receive
His condemnation, and die, but stand before God clothed with Christ and
His righteousness, receive His grace and mercy, and live. As we
follow Christ to His cross during this season of Lent, let us look to
Him, our perfect and faithful representative, who has done for us what
we could not do for ourselves and reversed the damage brought on by our
sin through His perfect obedience to the Father, His sacrificial death
on the cross, and His bodily resurrection from the dead. Amen.