It's good to get back to Romans.
It's where we left off last time. And this is one of the most comforting
passages of Scripture in the whole Word of God. At the end
of verse 14, we're told Adam is the figure of Christ that
was to come. Adam is the type, the figure,
picturing Christ who was to come. How so? Now listen carefully. In headship only, in headship
only is Adam a figure of Christ to come. Now Adam was the head
of his bride and of all who would be born in natural generation
of Adam. He was the head of His bride
and the head of all who would be born of Him in natural generation. Christ is the head of His bride,
the church. Just as Adam was the head of
His bride, Christ is the head of His bride. That's how Adam
is a picture of Christ. Christ is the head of His bride,
which is all those who shall be born again by supernatural
regeneration. of Christ through the Spirit. So it's written, the first man
Adam was made a living soul. Everything he did was natural,
giving natural birth to his children. The last Adam, Christ, was made
a quickening spirit. He makes his children to be born
again, quickened and newness of life. Now some mistakenly
think that because Adam was head of all mankind and represented
all mankind, then Christ represents all mankind. That's not so. That's not so. Adam is the figure
of Christ simply because Adam was a head and a representative
man. Adam was head of all his family. Now that happens to be all men
without exception, because we all came from Adam. So yes, He
did represent all men without exception, but that was all His
family. He represented them as their
head. Christ is head of all His family.
But that's not all men without exception, because not all men
are born of the Holy Spirit of God in regeneration. Only those
Christ represented, only those God the Father gave to Christ
in eternity. That's who Christ represented.
So when we read our text here and we read the word all, understand
it means all who Adam represented. When it's speaking about Adam,
it means all who Adam represented. When it's speaking about Christ,
it means all who Christ represented. Okay? And that's how we need
to understand to read scripture. You know, you hear men say, all
means all. All means all in the context of whoever it's talking
about. When it's talking about Adam,
it means all men without exception. When it's talking about Christ,
it means all men Christ represented. Alright, let's read it now. Beginning
in verse 12. We're going to take the parentheses
out. I'm going to come back to it at the end. But verses 13
through 17 are parentheses giving us some additional information.
But I want you to read the context here, verse 12. Wherefore, as
by one man, that's Adam, sin entered into the world, and death
by sin. And so, death passed upon all
men that Adam represented. For that, the margin says, in
whom? You could read it like this,
For that in Adam all have sinned. That's why God imputed sin and
death came upon all men. Because in Adam all have sinned. Now verse 18, Therefore, now
here's how Adam was a figure of Christ. Therefore, as by the
offense of one judgment came upon all men who Adam represented
to condemnation, Even so, by the righteousness of one, the
free gift came upon all men who Christ represented unto justification
of life. He's saying it's by what our
head did. According to what our head did,
that's what was imputed to us. Alright, look, for as by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience
of one shall many be made righteous. You see that? Alright, we're
going to come back to the last verses there when we take the
parentheses. Now the title of the message is Adam the figure
of Christ. And since Adam was our head,
what Adam did, his people did in him. And therefore, what Adam
did was imputed to all who Adam represented. Adam was the head,
so what Adam did, all his people did in him. And therefore, what
Adam did was imputed to all who Adam represented. You get that?
Well, the reason that's important to see, if we don't like that,
we don't want to have a part in that, we can't have a part
in this next thing. Because as that was so of Adam, Christ was
head of His people. And what Christ did, His people
did in Him. So that God imputes to us what
Christ made us. He imputes to us what Christ
made us. Now, as all who Adam represented
were made sinners and died by Adam's disobedience, so all who
Christ represented shall be made righteous and live eternally
by Christ's righteousness, by His obedience. You get that? What Adam did was disobedience. It made all his people die and
so God imputed sin to us and condemnation and the curse came
upon us and we died. Death reigned. But because Christ
represented His people, everything Christ did His people did in
Him so that God imputes righteousness to us because that's what Christ
made us. And so we are going to live eternally
by Christ's obedience. We are all going to be found
in one of these two heads. Christ or Adam. In the day of
judgment we are going to stand in Christ or Adam. Now first
of all let's look at Adam. Adam being the head, all who
Adam represented did what Adam did and were made what Adam made
us. All that were in Christ did what
Adam did. We were made what Adam made us to be. Look here in verse
12. As by one man sin entered the
world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that in Adam all have sinned. Now a few weeks ago we
saw in Genesis chapter 3 how Adam sinned for breaking that
one law that God gave in the garden. He broke one law. He ate of the one tree that God
forbid him to eat. And death was the result. Now what does that mean? Death
by sin. By one man sin entered the world
and death by sin. Well, the wages of sin is death. Adam died three ways. First of
all, when it says death passed, this is what it means. We're
talking about Adam himself now. When Adam sinned legally in accord
with the law and justice of God, because he broke the law, the
just judge of heaven and earth imputed sin to Adam so that death
came on him, condemnation came on him. He was guilty. He became
a curse. He sinned and God for that reason
imputed sin to him and this death of condemnation and the curse
came upon him. He was legally guilty before
God. Two, Adam died spiritually. He
died morally. His nature became corrupt. He
became impotent to all that is good because God forsook him. God removed his spiritual presence
from Adam and he fell. He fell. Man cannot stand on
our own. He fell into corruption. And
at that moment, the third thing is he began to die physically.
And that's why eventually he did. Now, since Adam was the
head of his family, it didn't just apply to Adam only. All
his offspring, all Adam's offspring, all who would be born of Adam
were in Adam's loins. We were all in Adam. And so before
God, we all did what Adam did. Make sure you understand headship. I was in that garden. God gave
me that law. I'm the one who broke that law
in the garden. I did it. I did it. And so did
you. So did you. So did you. So did
you. So did everybody who came from
Adam. That's all of us. You were there. I was there. We broke that law
in the garden. We did it. We put our hands to
the fruit, to the forbidden tree, and we took the fruit and we
ate it. We broke God's law. That's how
God views headship. When Adam did it, We were in
Him and we did it. That's how one God views headship.
Turn over to Hebrews 7. Turn over to Hebrews 7. I want
you to see this one more time. The Lord's talking here about
when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. And look what he says. Verse
9. And as I may so say, Levi also,
who receiveth tithes, paid tithes in Abraham, for he was yet in
the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him." Levi wasn't
born until a thousand years later. or many years later. But God
said Levi himself actually paid tithes to Melchizedek because
he was in the loins of Abraham. And when Abraham paid those tithes,
Levi really paid tithes to Melchizedek. That's headship. That's headship,
brethren. And so you and I, we weren't
born for thousands of years after Adam. But we were in Adam's loins. All His offspring were in His
loins. And we sinned that day in Adam
because we were in His loins. When He sinned, we sinned. But
for God, all that matters is what it is in God's sight. And
that's what it is in God's sight. God says now, for that reason,
for that reason, because we really did sin in Adam, For that reason,
God imputed sin to all Adam's offspring. And the judgment of
death, the judgment of condemnation, of guilt, of the curse, it came
upon all men because in Adam all really did sin. Look at Romans 5.12 again. By
one man, sin entered into the world and death by sin. And so,
for that reason, Death passed. That means God imputed sin. God
imputed guilt. God imputed sin. And the curse
came upon us. That's the death he's talking
about. Condemnation came upon us. Also, that corrupt nature
came upon us when we were born ourselves. But legally here,
this is what he's talking about. That death came upon us, brethren. That condemnation, that's why
it's because when Adam by one man sin entered and death by
sin, and so God imputed sin to us and death reigned upon us. And look, it says, for that or
because in Adam all have sinned. Look down to verse 18. Therefore,
by the offense of one, judgment came. Sin was imputed. God imputing sin is God's judgment. He imputed sin upon all men to
condemnation. For as by one man's disobedience,
many were made sinners. That's why. God gave an illustration
now back in verses 13 and 14. Go back there with me. He's sure
that we understand the reason God imputed sin to us and death
reigned over us is because we were made sin by Adam's disobedience. That's what He's driving home
this point here. Look at verse 13. For until the
law, that is until the law was given at Mount Sinai, sin was
in the world. But sin is not imputed when there
is no law. That's one of the most important
statements in all of scripture. Sin is not imputed when there
is no law. God is righteous. He's righteous. God does not arbitrarily impute
sin to innocent people. He doesn't do it. He's righteous.
God will not impute sin to a man unless he's really been made
sin under law. So here you have these people.
They're sinning. Sin's in the world. But God won't
impute sin where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned. He's saying the same thing. Nevertheless,
death passed upon them. Sin was imputed to them. Condemnation. They were under the curse. They
were condemned. From Adam all the way to Moses.
Even them that didn't have a known law like Adam had so that they
could break it and know they were breaking the law. Well then,
that's how God approves original sin. By original sin, here's
what the Scripture means. They were conceived with Adam's
corrupt nature. That's why they sinned. That's
why there was sin in the world. They came forth sinning. They
were conceived of his corrupt nature. That's one aspect of
this death. And God imputed the guilt of
Adam's transgression to them so that death, condemnation reigned
over them. That's another aspect of this
death that reigned. They were condemned, they were
guilty. How was God just to impute sin to them when they did not
even have a law to know they were breaking it. They didn't
have a written law. They didn't have a law like Adam
did. How could God be just to impute sin to them? The point
is, it's because in Adam we all really have sinned. God never
gave another law. He didn't need to. We broke one
law in Adam in the garden and that's all that was needed to
condemn us. Death came upon us and death reigned over us for
that reason. For that reason, we really broke it. There's a
saying, if it's new, it's not true. Now to some, what I'm saying
sounds new. But let me tell you something,
it can be new to you and be true. If it's in God's Word and it's
been in God's Word all along, it's not new. It's been in God's
Word, it's just new to you. Scripture declares that God imputes
what a man has been made by a prior act. If God imputed sin or righteousness
to someone who was not first made sin or righteousness, that
would not be just in any shape, form or fashion, brethren. It
would not be. Here's how God imputes. Leviticus
17.3. I've showed you this many times. I'm going to give you
a couple of other examples today. Leviticus 17.3. He says, we're talking about imputation
of sin and guilt here, and here's how God does it. Hold on, let me see. I've got
to find the script for myself. Alright, here we go. What man
so ever there be of the house of Israel, you see it there?
What man so ever there be of the house of Israel that killeth
an ox or lamb or goat, he can be in or out of the camp, it
doesn't matter. and he does not bring it to the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation to offer an offering
unto the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, blood shall be imputed
unto that man. Why? Because he hath shed blood. That's why. God's going to impute
to him what's a fact. He hath shed blood. And God said,
so blood shall be imputed to him. It wasn't the imputing of
blood to him that made him to be guilty of shedding blood.
He was guilty of shedding blood, because he did it, and therefore
God imputed sin to him. And he's cut off from among his
people. That's how God imputes. I'll give you another one. You
can look this up at your leisure. In 2 Samuel 4.2, there's a parenthesis,
and it talks about this little town called Beroth. And it said
Beeroth was a town that all the people reckoned, they imputed
that town to Benjamin. Now, their imputing that town
to Benjamin didn't make that town to belong to Benjamin. But
why did they impute that town to belong to Benjamin? Because
back there when Joshua delivered them into the land of Canaan,
God gave Beeroth to Benjamin. He gave him that town. And so
therefore everybody knew, and they reckoned that town to be
Benjamin's. They accounted it to be Benjamin's.
That's imputation. There's another example, I can't
remember the scripture now, where God, remember the Levites, they
didn't have, they were priests, they served in the temple, in
the tabernacle. They didn't have, they couldn't grow corn out in
the field. and go to the threshing floor
and bring that and offer it to the Lord. They couldn't. They
didn't have any land. And so God said, when the people
bring their offering and they give their offering, you'll take
a tenth of that, the Levites, you'll take a tenth of that and
you'll do a heave offering to the Lord and it will be counted
as that very, like you grew it and you produced it. Why? Why will it be accounted as being
mine? As being my possession that I
earn by my work and my sweat? Just like those that planted
in the garden and they harvested it. Their reward for that, all
that work was God gave them all this fruit. And they had to acknowledge
it and bring it to God and give it to God and say, yes, Lord,
you gave us this. And the Lord said, and what will
happen is when they bring that offering, you take a tenth of
it. And that's your reward. That's your inheritance. All
of that they bring is for you to live upon because as your
reward for doing all this service in the tabernacle, in the temple. And so, that's really yours. It really is yours. It's your
inheritance. It belongs to you. God said,
I've given it to you, Levites. And therefore, it's going to
be accounted. as yours just like I count that coming out of the
field to be theirs because God had really given it to them.
That's how God accounts. That's how He imputes. I've said
this and others have said it too that God made us sin by imputation. But Romans 5 is showing us here
God imputed sin to us because Adam made us sin. Adam made us
sin. There's a thing called doceticism
that the Gnostics believed and the Docetic means seemingly. And so what they said was Christ
couldn't have come down and been made flesh because everything
that's fleshly is sinful. If He'd have been made flesh,
He would have been made sin. So it was just seemed as if He
was made flesh. And so it just seemed as if He
was made another law. And it just seemed as if He was
made sin. And it just seemed as if He was
crucified. But it was all really just a
spiritual sort of mirage. That's what they taught. And
what I'm telling you here, the reason we don't say that God
made us sin by imputation is because that leads to you saying that He just imputed righteousness
to us and treated us as if we were righteous. Did God impute
sin to us and treat us as if we were sin? God imputed sin
to us because we were really made sin. This thing is not a
seemingly, it's not an as if, it's done. Adam made us this. And that's so very important
to understand because Adam is the figure of Christ to come.
However, Adam made His people sin and however the sin of Adam
was imputed to us. That's how Christ made His people
righteous and how the righteousness of Christ was imputed to us.
There's a correlation here brethren. The very reason Christ came as
head and representative was to declare the righteousness of
God. To show that God always does
right. The judge of heaven and earth
is just and He only does what's right and just. God prohibits
imputing righteousness or sin to a man unless that's what they
are. To do otherwise, He says, is
iniquity. He said to the judges, you shall
justify the righteous. You're going to impute righteousness
to the righteous and justify the righteous. And you're going
to condemn the wicked. You're going to impute sin and
condemn those who are really sinners and wicked. He said,
ìHe that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just,
even they both are an abomination to the Lord.î You justify a wicked
man, you impute righteousness to a wicked man and justify a
wicked man, or you impute sin to a just man and condemn
a just man. God says, ìEither way, thatís
an abomination to me.î He that saith unto the wicked, Thou art
righteous. He that saith unto the wicked,
You're righteous, I'm going to impute righteousness to you.
Him shall the people curse. Nations shall abhor that man. He's talking about the judge
who did it. The judge who said to the unrighteous man, I'm imputing
to you that you're righteous. He says the nations better abhor
that man. Can you imagine what our nation
would be? We see what it is. with unjust
rulers. But to them that rebuke the wicked,
to that judge that condemns him and that imputes sin to him because
that's what he is, God said he'll be the delight and a good blessing
will come upon the people. Isn't it so? If you have just
rulers in the land, you're going to have a just land. You got
corrupt rulers, you're going to have what we got. So God imputed
sin to all men and death and condemnation passed upon us because
by Adam's one transgression, Adam made all men sin. Now, just as we did what Adam
our head did, just as we were made what Adam our head made
us, Christ being the last Adam, all who Christ represented did
what Christ did. And we were made what Christ
was made, what He made us. Look at verse 18. Therefore as
by the offense of one judgment came upon all men who Adam represented
to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free
gift came upon is imputed to all men who Christ represented
unto justification of life. Because as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous. By the offense of one, judgment
came. Sin was imputed to all men that
Adam represented and so we were condemned. By his disobedience,
we were made sinners. The prior act by which Adam was
made sin was Adam's own offense to God. Adam's own disobedience
to God. That was the prior act that made
him sin. God didn't impute sin to Adam
when he was innocent. No, sir. That would have been
unjust. Would it not? Tell me. Would
it have been unjust to impute sin to Adam when he had not sinned?
Yes, it would have been. God did not do that. God only
imputed sin to Adam after Adam made himself sin by his offense
to God, by his own disobedience. Therefore, God did not impute
sin to Adam's people to make us sin either. God imputed sin
to us because Adam made us sin by his offense, by his disobedience.
And even so, see that word, even so, by the righteousness of one,
the free gift came. It was imputed to all men who
Christ represented unto justification of life. By the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous. The prior act, now listen carefully,
by which Christ was made sin was by Christ's righteousness. by His obedience. How could that
be? That seems like an oxymoron,
doesn't it? That somebody could be made sin by their righteousness
and by their obedience? God did not impute sin to our
innocent Lord Jesus to make Him sin. He did not. That flies in
the face of everything that we just saw in this passage. He
didn't. God only imputed sin to Christ
and death and the curse only passed upon Christ after the
spotless Lamb of God righteously obeyed the Father by presenting
Himself so that He hath made Him sin for us who knew no sin
that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. That was Christ's
righteous obedience. He came spotless to God. And this is what he was crying
about. This was his soul trouble in the Garden of Gethsemane.
He came to the Father so that the Father made him sin for us. Well, I don't understand how
that could be. There's a lot of things about God you don't
understand. If you can understand everything your God does, your
God is you. That's right. There's a lot of
things God does we can't understand. We're not supposed to understand
it. We're supposed to believe God. When Adam was made sin, he died. When sin was imputed to him,
he was made a curse. That's that legal death. So,
in accordance with the law and justice of God, after making
Christ bear the sin of His people, after the Lord laid on Him the
iniquity of us all, the just judge imputed sin to Christ so
that the death and the curse passed upon Christ. That's the
order. You go read it. That's how it
happened. That's how it happened in Adam. That's how it happened
with Christ. And when Adam was made sin, another part of that
death was his nature was corrupted because God forsook him. God
departed from him and his nature was corrupted because he was
just a man. But when our Lord Jesus Christ
was forsaken on the cross, his nature was not corrupted because
he's the God-man. He's the God-man. That's what
we hear in all the Psalms. We hear Him doing what the Hebrew
writer said, resisting unto blood, striving against sin. He would
not be corrupted. He would not be turned from God
in an uncorrupt, defiled nature. No, sir. Not at all. That's a
mystery, isn't it? Not only that, Christ was able
to suffer an eternity of that living death of separation from
God. He satisfied an eternity of that
for all His people in three hours. You want to talk about a mystery?
You want to talk about something you can't get your little puny
brain around? How could He do that? He's the eternal God-man,
that's how. When he cried, it's finished,
and he gave up his spirit and yielded to physical death, eternal
death had died for his people. Now here's the good news. I was
as truly in Christ's loins so that I am crucified with Christ. You know what Paul said? I am
crucified with Christ. I was on that cross. That was
me on that cross. I was there on that cross bearing
the wrath of God. I am crucified with Christ so
that my body of sin was destroyed. and such true of you who are
His. We were there, we were in Him. That's headship, brethren,
so that you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When He arose, we arose in Him.
Our text declares plainly, God does not impute righteousness
to the believer to make us righteous. God imputes righteousness to
the believer because Christ our Head made us righteous. That's why. That's the result. That's the only way it's consistent
from Adam to Christ to us. Imputation. If you look at how
men normally say it, they flip-flop it when it gets to Christ. They
say, our sin was imputed to Him. Charged to Him. Adam was made sin by disobedience. God imputed sin to him because
it was fact. The Lord made Christ sin and
God imputed sin to Him because it was fact. He made us righteous
and God imputes righteousness to us because it's fact. That's
the truth. Men won't argue against that.
Listen, that's fine. That's fine if you have trouble
with this. Ask the Lord to give you an understanding
of it. Ask the Lord to reveal it to
you. Those scriptures can't mean anything but that. In fact, you
won't even find in Scripture where Scripture says sin was
imputed to Christ. You'll never find that anywhere
in Scripture. Not those words. Because God
is making sure we understand the Lord laid on Him the iniquity
of His people. He knows about our sin in every
detail, in everything, short of being corrupted by it. He knows everything about it.
He was touched with it. And that's a whole lot more meaningful
to me than just saying, well, I don't see what's mysterious
about it. It's just a legal transaction. If that's all you think about
Christ, He don't mean spit to you. By the offense of one, sin came
upon all men and was imputed to us to condemnation. And by
the righteousness of one, because He made us righteous by His obedience,
the free gift came upon us. I'm going to just skip my last
part here because I've got too much to say. We'll go back and
look at the parentheses next time in those last verses. It
shows us some differences. And here's what it basically
tells us. We gain so much more in Christ by His work than we
lost in Adam by his work. that they're not even really
worthy to be compared. All right, brethren. Let's go
to the Lord in prayer. Father, we thank you for this
Word. Lord, make us to understand this and give us the heart Peter
had when he said of Paul that he says some things hard to be
understood. Yet he didn't forsake him. He
didn't reject his brother. He asked God for wisdom and understanding
Give us that heart if we don't understand this. Lord, we ask
you to really make us enter into it because this is full assurance. This is a done thing. This is something that's accomplished.
This is really, really done for your people. Oh, what a blessing
to know. My sin is gone. It's put away
and I fulfilled the law. I have communion with you that
will never be unbroken, because it's done. Really done. No as
if to it. It's done. It's not seemingly.
It's done. Thank you, Father. Make us see
that, rejoice in that, and bow to the great things our Lord
suffered on our behalf. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. We
ask it in Christ's name. Amen.