Death In Adam v. Life in Christ
5:12-17
In this passage, Paul develops a parallel between Adam (the first man) and Christ. Paul’s basing his theological point on Adam shows he believes in the historicity of the Genesis account. He does not treat it as a metaphor.
The parallel is this: Adam is considered the head of the human race. Jesus is considered the head of a new humanity. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The parallel is full of contrasts, though. The end result for Adam’s race is different from the end result of Christ’s.
The connection between the two parallels is the way in which God governs humanity. God deals one way with all humanity with regard to sin and its consequences, death and judgment. (Hebrews 9:27) Likewise, he deals in one way, with grace, toward all of those who are in Christ, the new humanity.
The beginning of the passage in verse 12 can be difficult to understand because Paul begins a comparison between Adam and Christ, but does not finish it in this passage. This is probably because he believed the beginning thought needed further explanation.
First we see that sin came into the world through one man. (12) That man is Adam. That event is told to us in Genesis 3. God told Adam he could not eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Adam disobeyed God and ate. He sinned and sin became part of human existence.
The phrase “came into the world” means the beginning of sin in the human race. [or “entered into” per the New International Version]
Death came into the world through this sin. God had told Adam that he would die if he ate of the forbidden fruit. He did. Death then spread to all men and women, the whole human race. It is the separation of the body from the spirit along with the decay and destruction of the body. (Ecclesiastes 12:7)
Death entered through the sin of one man. It permeated the human race because all sinned in Adam. (12b) He was our representative. His sin was imputed to all of his descendants and brought us under condemnation. It made us all sinners and we all sin and need justification. (John 3:18) The fact that we all sin is proof that we inherited a corrupt nature from Adam.
In response, the Jew might say: I understand that would be true after the law was given through Moses, but what about those who lived before the law? How could they be called sinners?”
Paul explained that sin was in the world before the law was given, since it came from Adam, so all those from Adam to Moses were under the curse of death, even if they did not sin the way Adam did, violating a specific commandment. (14) Because of Adam’s trespass, death came to all men. (17)
In this way, Adam is a type of the one who was to come, Jesus. (14) In typology, you have a type and an anti-type. Typology is a kind of symbolism. A symbol is something that represents something else.
A type represents something in the future. For example, the Old Testatment sacrifices were types of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The shedding of blood was required to bring atonement for sin. It was animals in the Old Testament. It was Christ in the New Testament.
In our context, a type is a person or thing in the Old Testament that foreshadows a person or thing in the New Testament. It does not mean that the type and anti-type are the same in all respects. They may only share one trait.
Adam is a type of Jesus in this way: he is the head of a people (the human race) and Jesus is the head of a people (all believers).
All who are in Adam inherit death.
All who are in Jesus inherit eternal life.
Verse 15 tells us that. Death came to humanity through the trespass (sin) of one man (Adam). Salvation by grace came by the one man Jesus Christ.
That salvation is an abundance of grace, a free gift, that allows us to reign in life through the one man, Jesus. (17)
A Summary Of Comparisons
5:18-21
In these verses, Paul summarized the comparisons between Adam, the type, and Jesus, the anti-type.
First, one trespass (sin) by Adam led to condemnation, one act of righteousness (dying for us) by Jesus leads to justification and life. (18)
Second, one man’s disobedience made many sinners, one man’s obedience made many righteous. (19) The law increased trespass by enumerating the requirements of God, in effect, drawing attention to sin, pointing it out to us.
But, grace abounded even more. Grace is greater than sin.
Finally, sin reigns in death, but grace reigns through righteousness that leads to eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. (21) The reign of grace moves forward toward the life to come. That life culminates it the bodily resurrection of believers, God’s people, to live in a new heaven and new earth which has been delivered from the corruption of sin which has plagued it since Adam.
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