Latest / Reformed Thinking / The One Man: The Federal Headship of Adam and the Ruin of the Race (Romans 5:12–19)

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The One Man: The Federal Headship of Adam and the Ruin of the Race (Romans 5:12–19) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is the show where we try
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  to, you know, step back from the noise for a bit and really think
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  theologically about the structure of reality.
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  It's good to be here and yeah, structure is the right word.
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  We're not just looking at the surface today.
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  We're going down to the studs, checking the foundation.
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  Absolutely. And to get us started, I want to
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  begin with a number. It's a statistic that I think
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  for most of our lives we actively try to ignore, but it's
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  the one statistic that holds true for every person, every
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  culture, across all of history. The mortality rate is 100%.
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  It's the one data set with no exceptions.
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  None. Every single person listening to
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  this, you and I, unless the Lord returns first, we'll all end up
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  in the ground. And one of the sources we looked
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  at had this, this really powerful line that said every
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  single graveyard is basically a monument to the tyranny of
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  mortality. And that word tyranny is so key.
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  It's not an accident. A tyrant is a ruler, an invading
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  king. It suggests that death isn't
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  just a natural thing, not just a biological process.
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  It's an active power. Yes, it has a reign which.
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  That just flies in the face of how our culture talks about
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  death, right? The modern world says death is
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  natural, it's biological, it's the circle of life, you know,
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  Disney version. Exactly.
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  It's just a neutral expected part of the.
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  System. But the apostle Paul, and this
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  is where we're going today, he completely rejects that idea.
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  In the book of Romans, he argues death is an intruder.
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  It's a hostile power and maybe most shockingly, it's a judicial
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  penalty. It's a sentence being carried
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  out. That is what we're digging into
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  today. We're going to be in Romans
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  chapter 5, specifically verses 12 through 19.
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  This is one of those sections of Scripture that is just
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  incredibly dunce. It's a theological Everest for
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  sure, but the view from the top is worth it.
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  It's probably the most important passage for understanding the
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  whole system of salvation. The pivot point of the whole
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  book you could say. I think so.
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  So before we dive into the really heavy concepts, and we're
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  going to be talking about things like federal headship and
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  imputation, let's just get our bearings.
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  Where does this passage fit in Paul's overall argument in
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  Romans? Well the first 3 chapters are
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  basically Paul acting as a prosecutor for God.
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  He puts the whole world in the dock.
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  He indicts the Gentiles, He indicts the Jews and the.
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  Verdict is guilty for everyone, yes.
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  Chapter 3 gives the verdict. None is righteous.
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  No, not one. The whole world is condemned.
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  So that's the universal problem. The bad news?
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  The really bad news? Then starting in the
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  second-half, Chapter 3 and going through the first part of
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  Chapter 5, Paul lays out the solution.
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  Justification by faith alone. Right.
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  We're declared righteous by God not because of what we do, but
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  because we trust in what Christ did.
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  Correct. He's explained the what of
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  salvation, but then you get to verse 12 of chapter 5 and
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  there's a huge shift. The sources we have say he moves
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  from the what to the why and the how.
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  That's a great way to put it. He's going under the hood.
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  He's explaining the cosmic rationale.
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  Why is the whole system broken in the 1st place?
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  And how is it legally possible for one man, Jesus, to save
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  untold numbers of people? Which brings us to our mission
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  for this deep dive, we really need to get our heads around
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  this concept of federal headship.
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  It sounds like something from a government textbook.
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  It does, but it's the key that unlocks everything.
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  It explains why the world is broken because we are in Adam
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  and how it's fixed by being in Christ.
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  The two men, that's the title we're using Ruin and Redemption.
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  The goal really is to help you, the listener, understand that
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  you're not just an isolated individual making your way
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  through life. You are a member of a race and
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  that race has a representative, a head, head.
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  And there are only two options. OK, let's get into the text
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  itself. Romans 5.12.
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  Now all the commentators we read point out something really
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  strange about the grammar right at the start.
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  They call it an an Akalathon. Yeah, the anacolathon.
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  It's a Greek term, and it basically means a broken
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  sentence. The syntax gets interrupted,
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  Paul starts a thought, and then just.
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  Stops. He just leaves it hanging.
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  He does. He starts a comparison in verse
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  12. He says therefore, just as sin
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  came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and
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  so death spread to all men because all sinned, and then
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  you'd expect him to complete. It you'd expect him to say so
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  also. Righteousness came through
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  Christ. Exactly.
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  That's the other half of the Justice so Also formula.
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  But he doesn't do it. He breaks off and leaves the
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  comparison incomplete until all the way down in verse 18.
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  Why? I mean, Paul is normally such a
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  logical, structured writer. Why just stop mid sentence?
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  The consensus view from the sources is that this is a moment
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  of what you might call pastoral gravity.
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  He's just written down this bombshell idea.
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  Let all of humanity sinned and Adam, and it's like the weight
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  of it hits him. He realizes how hard that is to
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  accept. He knows it's a massive
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  theological pill to swallow, so he pauses the main comparison to
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  take a detour to explain and prove the depth of the ruin
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  first. It's like a Doctor Who starts to
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  explain a cure but then stops and says wait.
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  Before I tell you about the medicine, you need to understand
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  just how sick you really are. That's a perfect analogy.
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  You can't appreciate the cure until you're absolutely
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  devastated by the diagnosis of the disease.
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  Paul has to prove the ruin before the redemption can have
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  its full impact. OK, so let's look at that ruin,
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  he says. Sin enter the world.
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  The sources pointed out the specific Greek words there,
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  Hamarshia for sin and Isilthin for entered.
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  Right, Hamarshi can just mean missing the mark.
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  But here Paul is doing something more.
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  He's personifying it. He's not talking about
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  individual bad acts like telling a lie.
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  He's talking about sin, capital S as a power, a king.
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  A tyrant and Isilthin what does that word tell us?
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  It means invaded or broken. This confirms what you said
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  earlier. Sin wasn't part of God's
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  original, very good creation. It's an alien power.
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  It breached the walls. So Adam wasn't just making a
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  personal mistake. He was, in a sense, opening the
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  city gates to an enemy army. He unlocked the door and the
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  text is clear. Once Sin the Tyrant invaded, it
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  brought its executioner with it, and death through Sin.
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  So death is the direct result, is the penalty.
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  It's the wages. As Paul says later, it is the
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  judicial consequence of this invasion.
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  It proves that humans weren't created to die.
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  We were created for life with God.
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  Death is the punishment for cosmic treason.
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  This all hinges on the person who opened that door, the one
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  man. The text says.
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  Through one man, sin entered. We have to address the modern
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  elephant in the room here. Many people, even in some church
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  circles, want to read Genesis as a myth or Adam as a symbol for
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  humanity. Yeah, that's a common view.
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  Theistic evolution, Mythological readings, They're all attempts
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  to reconcile a Bible with modern scientific or literary theories.
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  But what do our sources say about Paul's argument here?
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  Can it survive if Adam isn't a real historical person?
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  No, they are absolutely clear on this.
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  Paul's entire argument here stands or falls on the
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  historicity of Adam. Why is it so rigid?
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  Why can't Adam just be a metaphor for our fallenness?
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  Because of the structure of the comparison he's making.
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  Just as ruin came through the one man Adam, so also redemption
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  comes through the one man, Christ.
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  So if the first one and as a metaphor.
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  Then the second one man logically has to be a metaphor
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  as well. And a metaphorical Christ can't
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  save you from a real death. A storybook savior can't atone
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  for real guilt. So the historical reality of the
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  problem requires a historical reality for the solution.
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  Precisely to solve the problem of real death and real
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  condemnation, you need a real historical Adam who caused it,
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  and a real historical Christ who fixed it.
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  Adam stood as the legal representative for the entire
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  human race. That phrase legal representative
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  is the perfect transition we have to define this concept of
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  federal headship. It's the engine driving this
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  entire passage. It is.
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  Federal headship is just the theological term for the idea
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  that God deals with humanity in covenantal groups, not just as a
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  collection of disconnected individuals.
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  And each group has a head, a representative.
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  Exactly. The word federal comes from the
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  Latin word fittest, which just means covenant.
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  So it's a covenantal headship. The sources just use the analogy
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  of a head of state, like a king or a president.
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  That's a really helpful way to think about it.
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  If a president declares war, the whole nation is at war.
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  It doesn't matter if you were personally for it or against it.
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  You could have been asleep when the declaration was made.
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  Your legal status as a citizen of a nation at war has been
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  determined by the action of your representative.
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  Or like a father in a more traditional family structure.
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  Yes, If the father makes a decision that bankrupts the
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  family, the children suffer the consequences.
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  His actions are binding on those he represents.
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  OK, now I have to be the skeptic for a minute because I know what
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  the listeners thinking. This sounds deeply unfair.
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  Our entire modern culture is built on individualism.
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  I am the captain of my soul. I'm responsible for my choices
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  and that's it. The idea that I'm condemned
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  because of something a guy did thousands of years ago in a
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  garden. I mean, I didn't vote for Adam.
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  That's the fairness objection, and it's a completely natural
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  reaction for a 21st century Westerner.
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  We want to stand or fall on our own merits.
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  So how does the theology answer that?
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  The sources make a critical counter argument.
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  They call it the symmetry of salvation.
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  And the logic is this. If you reject the principle of
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  representation in Adam because it seems unfair, you
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  simultaneously destroy the very principle that makes the Gospel
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  work. Whoa, that's a huge claim.
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  How so? Because the mechanism is
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  identical, we are counted as sinners because of another man's
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  work, Adam's disobedience. That's the bad news.
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  But the good news is that we can be counted as righteous because
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  of another man's work, Christ's obedience.
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  You. Can't have one without the
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  other. The logic has to be consistent.
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  You can't. If you say to God it's unjust to
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  condemn me for what Adam did, then you have to accept the flip
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  side. It would also be unjust to save
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  you based on what Christ did. So if I demand to stand on my
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  own 2 feet before God, he'll let me.
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  But that means I had to be perfect on my own.
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  And no one can do that. So in a strange way, the very
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  thing that seems so unfair, being represented by Adam, is
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  the only principle that makes our salvation possible.
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  We need a representative because we can't represent ourselves
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  successfully. So our only hope is an alien
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  righteousness, A righteousness that comes from outside of us,
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  credited to our account. Precisely.
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  And that only works if representation is a valid way
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  for God to deal with humanity. The sources we looked at made a
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  point to contrast this doctrine of original sin with other
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  historical views, specifically Pelagianism.
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  Yeah, Pelagianism was an early heresy.
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  Pelagius basically taught that humans are born like a blank
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  slate, totally neutral, he said. Adam just set a bad example and
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  we only become sinners when we individually choose to copy him.
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  So in that view, sin is a learned behavior, not an
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  inherited condition. Right.
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  It's a much more optimistic view of human nature, but one that
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  the Church has consistently, instantly rejected as
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  unbiblical. The sources also drew a
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  distinction between this and some more modern secular
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  theories like critical race theory.
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  Now, this is a charged topic, so to be clear, we're not taking a
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  political side here, but just reporting what the sources said
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  about theological distinction. Right.
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  And the key distinction is the basis of the corporate guilt.
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  The sources noted that a theory like CRT tends to ground
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  corporate guilt and sociology and power dynamics, historical
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  oppression, things like that. It divides people based on
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  social groups like race or class.
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  Yes, but the Bible grounds corporate Guild exclusively in
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  theology. It's our covenantal union with
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  Adam. From a biblical perspective,
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  there are ultimately only two races of people, those who are
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  in Adam and those who are in Christ.
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  So the root problem isn't our social location, it's our
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  spiritual location. And the solution isn't a social
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  reshuffling, but a spiritual transfer to a new head.
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  That's the theological argument being made, yes.
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  OK, let's move on. Paul seems to know that people
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  are going to struggle with this idea.
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  He knows they're going to say prove it, show me the evidence
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  that I was condemned before I ever didn't anything wrong
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  myself. And he seems to do that in
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  verses 13 and 14. This is that parenthesis we
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  mentioned earlier. He puts his main argument on
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  hold to provide historical proof, and he looks at a very
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  specific period of time, the generations between Adam and
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  Moses. Why that time frame
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  specifically? Because the law, the written
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  code of the 10 commandments, wasn't given until Moses at
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  Mount Sinai. For thousands of years before
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  that, there was no revealed written law from God.
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  So Paul is anticipating the objection.
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  Wait a minute. If sin is defined as breaking
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  God's law, and there was no law, then how could people be
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  sinners? He is and he even conceives the
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  point in verse 13. He says sin is not counted where
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  there is no law. If there's no speed limit
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  signposted, you can't be ticketed for breaking the posted
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  speed limit. But then.
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  He points to the evidence. He points to the graveyard.
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  Yes, verse 14 is the hammer blow.
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  Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses.
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  Despite there being no written law.
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  People still died. Everyone died.
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  Death ruled them. And then he had this critical
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  little phrase. They died even over those who
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  sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.
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  What does that mean? Not like the transgression of.
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  Adam, it means they hadn't broken a direct explicit verbal
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  command from God. Adam was told do not eat from
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  this tree. He heard the command and broke
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  it. The people between Adam and
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  Moses didn't have such a command.
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  OK, so here's Paul's detective work.
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  Premise one, death is the penalty for sin.
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  Premise 2. People died for thousands of
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  years. Premise 3.
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  They didn't die for breaking the Law of Moses because it didn't
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  exist. So why did they die?
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  There's only one possible conclusion left on the table.
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  They must have been guilty of something else.
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  They were guilty of Adam's sin. That's the only explanation that
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  fits the evidence. The universal reign of death is
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  the proof of a universal guilt that exists before any of our
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  personal actions. And the sources bring up a
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  really heart wrenching but powerful piece of evidence here,
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  infant mortality. It's the most difficult argument
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  to talk about, but it is the most conclusive.
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  An infant hasn't committed any personal sins.
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  They haven't lied or cheated or stolen.
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  And yet, tragically, some infants die.
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  If death is only the payment for sins you personally commit, then
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  an infant's death makes no sense.
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  It makes no sense at all. The only biblical answer is that
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  they are born into a state of sin.
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  They inherit the guilt and the corrupted nature from Adam.
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  It proves that we are condemned not just for what we do, but for
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  who we are as members of Adam's race.
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  Wow, that really dismantles any idea that we're born neutral.
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  It does, and it helps us understand the purpose of the
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  Law of Moses. The sources describe the Law as
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  being like a magnifying glass. Or like turning on the lights in
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  a dirty room. That's a great image.
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  The disease of sin was already there, was already killing
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  everyone. The law came along to diagnose
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  it clearly to make sin show up as specific transgression.
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  It didn't create the problem, it just revealed how bad the
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  problem truly was. OK.
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  Let's get a little technical for a moment.
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  The mechanics of this How exactly does Adam's Guild get
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  transferred to me? The sources really zoom in on a
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  few words at the end of verse 12 because all sinned.
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  Right, and in the original Greek, that verb sinned is in
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  what's called the aorist tense. And that's significant because?
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  Because the aorist tense in Greek typically points to a
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  singular completed action in the past.
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  It's a snapshot, not a continuous video.
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  So he's not saying death spread to all men because we all keep
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  on sending individually, no. That would be a different tense.
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  The grammar points to a single event.
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  A better translation to get the sense of it would be because all
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  sinned when Adam sinned. We were all participants in that
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  one event. Legally speaking, yes.
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  The older theologians use the phrase that we were in his
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  loins. It's the idea of Seminole
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  presence. When Adam, our representative,
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  stood before that tree, the entire human wants he
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  represented stood there with him.
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  His choice was our choice. This is the doctrine of
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  immediate imputation. It is, the Westminster
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  Confession says. It's so clearly the guilt of
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  this sin was imputed, and the same death and sin and corrupted
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  nature conveyed to all their posterity.
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  So notice there are two things conveyed there, guilt and a
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  corrupted nature. The sources break this down into
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  a legal problem and a moral problem.
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  Yes, and it's a critical distinction.
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  The legal problem is our guilt. That's our standing before God,
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  the judge. We are declared guilty,
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  condemned. The moral problem is our
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  corruption. That's the inner sickness of our
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  nature, what we call depravity. We get both from Adam.
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  We get both. We inherit a guilty verdict and
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  a sinful heart, which leads to that famous theological summary.
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  We sin because we are sinners. We are not sinners merely
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  because we sin. The condition comes before the
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  actions. Right.
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  An apple tree isn't an apple tree because it produces apples.
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  It produces apples because it's an apple tree.
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  We produce sinful actions because we have a sinful nature.
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  OK, that is that is profoundly bad news.
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  I mean to say we're born legally condemned and morally broken.
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  We're born in a burning building, as one source put it,
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  with a nature that loves the smell of the smoke.
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  It is devastating. It's meant to be.
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  But remember Paul's strategy. We have to be crushed by the
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  disease, but then we can truly celebrate the cure.
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  So let's turn the corner. Let's get to the cure segment 5.
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  The much more. This is where the whole passage
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  explodes with light. In verses 15 through 19, Paul
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  finally comes back and finish, which is the sentence he started
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  back in verse 12, he completes the comparison between Adam and
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  the second Adam, Jesus Christ. But it's not a one for one
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  comparison, is it? The sources say it's
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  asymmetrical. It is Paul keeps using this
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  phrase much more in verse 15. If many died through one man's
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  trespass, much more have the grace of God abounded for many.
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  So Grace doesn't just put things back to how they were.
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  No, it doesn't. Just clean up Adam's mess and
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  hit the reset button. It's super abounds.
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  It overflows. Adam's sin brought the reign of
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  death, but Christ's work brings what Paul calls the reign of
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  life. The status we gain in Christ is
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  actually far more glorious and secure than the status Adam
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  lost. How is it more secure?
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  Well, Adam in the garden was innocent, but he was also
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  mutable. He had the ability to fall, and
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  he did. The believer in Christ is
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  justified and united to a head who has already been tested, has
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  already obeyed, and can never fall.
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  Our position is eternally secure in Him in a way Adam's never
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  was. Paul keeps contrasting the
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  trespass with the gift. One trespass from Adam led to
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  condemnation for everyone in his family.
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  And one act of righteousness from Christ links to
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  justification for everyone in his family.
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  Now that word all or many gets tricky.
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  Verse 18 says Christ's act of righteousness leads to
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  justification and life for all men.
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  That sounds like universalism, like everyone gets saved no
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  matter what. It does if you pull it out of
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  context. But the rest of Romans and the
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  rest of the Bible makes it clear that faith is the instrument
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  that unites us to Christ. That all here has to be
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  understood covenantally. It means all within their
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  respective groups. Exactly.
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  Adam's one act of disobedience effects all who are naturally
• 19:17
  born into His headship, which is every human being.
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  Christ's one act of obedience effects all who are spiritually
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  born into his headship, which is all believers.
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  It's a universal effect, but it's universal within the
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  boundaries of the group represented by the head.
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  So it's not saying every single person will be saved, but that
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  Christ is the one and only head for every person who is saved.
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  That's it. There are only two teams, 2
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  humanities, and the all refers to everyone on their respective
• 19:43
  team. Let's drill down on this idea of
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  justification. The sources talk about forensic
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  justification. That word forensic means legal
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  right. Yes, it means it has to do with
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  a courtroom and this whole passage is drenched in legal
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  language. Judgment, condemnation,
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  justification, verdict. Justification is a legal
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  declaration made by the judge. So it's not a process of slowly
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  making me a better person. No, and that's a huge
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  distinction, especially in contrast with the Roman Catholic
• 20:12
  view, which sees justification as a process of infusion, of
• 20:16
  making someone inherently righteous.
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  So this is different. Very different in the Protestant
• 20:21
  Reformed view. We are not justified because God
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  makes us good. We are justified because God
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  declares us righteous. He bangs the gavel and issues a
• 20:29
  verdict of not guilty and perfectly righteous not based on
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  us, but based on Christ. It's an alien righteousness.
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  And verse 19 is the nail in the coffin for any self
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  righteousness. By the one man's obedience, the
• 20:41
  many will be made righteous. This gets us to double
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  imputation. We talked about Adam's sin being
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  imputed or credited to us. Right.
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  But in salvation there's a great exchange.
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  First, our sins are imputed to Christ on the cross.
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  He takes on our liability, our guilt.
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  That's penal substitution. He pays our debt.
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  He pays our debt, but that only gets us back to zero.
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  It makes us innocent, but not righteous.
• 21:04
  To enter heaven, you need a record of perfect obedience.
• 21:08
  And we don't have. That we don't.
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  So the second part of the exchange is that Christ's
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  perfect obedience is imputed to us.
• 21:15
  His obedience? You mean his whole life of
• 21:18
  perfectly keeping God's law? His entire life.
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  Theologians divide it into his passive and active obedience.
• 21:25
  His passive obedience was his suffering, the penalty for sin,
• 21:29
  his death. His active obedience was his
• 21:32
  actively fulfilling all the positive requirements of the law
• 21:35
  throughout his life. So he didn't just die in our
• 21:37
  place, he lived in our place. That's the part of it.
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  He lived the life we should have lived and died the death we
• 21:42
  should have died. The sources draw that beautiful
• 21:44
  parallel between the two gardens.
• 21:46
  Adam in the Garden of Eden and Christ in the Garden of
• 21:48
  Gethsemane. Adam, in a perfect garden,
• 21:51
  reached out to grasp at equality with God and disobeyed.
• 21:55
  While Christ, who is truly equal with God, didn't grasp at it,
• 21:58
  but humbled himself in the agony of Gethsemane and said, not my
• 22:02
  will, but yours be done. Adam failed in a paradise and
• 22:06
  turned it into a wilderness. Christ obeyed in a wilderness to
• 22:11
  turn our wasteland back into a paradise.
• 22:13
  He didn't just reverse the curse, He achieved the reward
• 22:17
  that Adam failed to secure. He's the true champion and
• 22:21
  because he's our representative, when he won, we won.
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  That is the essence of federal headship.
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  OK, this is amazing theology, but let's bring it home.
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  Why does this matter for the person listening to this right
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  now, driving their car or washing the dishes?
• 22:35
  What are the practical implications?
• 22:37
  Well, the first one, and it's big one, is assurance of
• 22:39
  salvation. The sources talk about the Weary
• 22:42
  St. I think we all feel like that
• 22:43
  sometimes. You're trying to follow Christ,
• 22:46
  but you keep stumbling, you keep sinning, you look at your own
• 22:48
  heart and it's a mess. And if you're salvation, you're
• 22:51
  right. Standing with God depended on
• 22:52
  your own performance. You could never have any real
• 22:55
  assurance. You'd always be on a spiritual
• 22:56
  treadmill wondering, am I good enough today?
• 23:00
  Did I sin too much this week? Because that moral corruption we
• 23:03
  talked about is still there, fighting against us.
• 23:05
  It is, but this doctrine shows us that our assurance is stable
• 23:09
  because it's not anchored in US. It's anchored outside of us in
• 23:13
  the perfect finished work of our representative Jesus Christ.
• 23:17
  So when my conscience accuses me, when Satan accuses me and
• 23:20
  says look at you, you're a Sinner, the answer isn't no, I'm
• 23:23
  not. I'm doing OK.
• 23:24
  That's a losing battle every time.
• 23:26
  The answer is you're right, I am.
• 23:27
  But look at my head. Look at my representative.
• 23:30
  My standing before God is not based on my performance, it's
• 23:33
  based entirely on His. That's a rock to stand on.
• 23:37
  What about evangelism? How does this change how we
• 23:39
  share our faith? It changes everything.
• 23:41
  The gospel is not just tips for a better life or five steps to
• 23:44
  fix your marriage. It's.
• 23:45
  Not self help. No, it is a radical call to
• 23:48
  change heads. It's a summons to transfer your
• 23:51
  citizenship from one Kingdom to another.
• 23:53
  I love that image. Transferring citizenship.
• 23:55
  You were born by nature into the Kingdom of death under the reign
• 23:58
  of Adam. The gospel is the good news that
• 24:00
  there is another king, another Kingdom, and you are invited to
• 24:04
  defect, to come across the border and pledge allegiance to
• 24:08
  Christ and enter the Kingdom of life.
• 24:10
  That source metaphor was so stark.
• 24:12
  You're born in a burning building.
• 24:14
  You don't need to redecorate the room or try to be a better
• 24:16
  person inside the burning building.
• 24:18
  You need to get out. That's the urgency of it.
• 24:20
  And what about suffering and death?
• 24:23
  We started there with that 100% mortality rate.
• 24:25
  This doctrine helps us face it honestly.
• 24:27
  We don't have to pretend death is a good thing or a natural
• 24:30
  part of the plan. It's an enemy.
• 24:32
  It's the consequence of sin. We can hate it.
• 24:34
  But it's power is broken. It's legal power is gone.
• 24:37
  The sting of death is sin, and Christ has dealt with sin.
• 24:41
  So for the believer, death is no longer a prison door, but a
• 24:44
  portal into the presence of our King.
• 24:47
  We can grieve, but we grieve with a solid hope.
• 24:51
  And lastly, how should this shape our worship, our Sunday
• 24:53
  mornings? It should be woven into our
• 24:55
  liturgy. We should sing hymns that are
• 24:57
  full of this theology, songs about penal substitution,
• 25:01
  imputation, our union with Christ.
• 25:03
  The sources mention hymns like Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted
• 25:07
  or and can it be? Yes, and can it be?
• 25:11
  Has that incredible line? Second, Adam from above,
• 25:14
  reinstate us in thy love. We need to sing that kind of
• 25:17
  robust truth, not just sentimental songs about how we
• 25:20
  feel. And the sacraments take on a new
• 25:22
  light, too. Absolutely.
• 25:23
  Think about the Lord's Supper. It's the great counter meal to
• 25:26
  the fall. Adam ate from the forbidden tree
• 25:29
  and brought death to his family. We come to the Lord's Table and
• 25:32
  eat the bread of life, testifying that we belong to a
• 25:34
  new family, a new head who brings us life.
• 25:37
  And even our corporate confession of sin.
• 25:40
  It shouldn't just be about the specific things we did wrong
• 25:42
  this week. It should be a confession of our
• 25:44
  nature, as David prayed in Psalm 50.
• 25:47
  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my
• 25:50
  mother conceive me. We confess we are broken at the
• 25:53
  very root so that we can give all the more glory to the God
• 25:56
  who has redeemed us at the root. This has been a true deep dive
• 26:00
  from the despair of the graveyard to the victory of
• 26:02
  Christ's obedience. From total ruin in the first
• 26:05
  Adam to glorious redemption in the second.
• 26:07
  So to bring this all together, the final choice.
• 26:09
  At the end of the day, all of human history boils down to
• 26:13
  these two men, Adam and Christ. Everything else is just a
• 26:17
  detail. The world is constantly telling
• 26:20
  you to fix yourself, to improve yourself, to be your own
• 26:22
  representative before God and the world.
• 26:24
  But the gospel says you can't, and you don't have to.
• 26:28
  You are already represented. The only question is by whom.
• 26:32
  The gospel is an offer to receive a new a perfect, a
• 26:36
  triumphant representative. So that's the final thought we
• 26:39
  want to leave you with. It's a simple question, but
• 26:41
  everything hangs on it. There are only two spiritual
• 26:43
  addresses in the entire universe.
• 26:45
  You're either living in Adam or you're living in Christ.
• 26:49
  Which man represent you right now?
• 26:51
  That's the only question that matters.
• 26:53
  Thanks for joining us and thinking through these things
• 26:55
  with us on Reformed Thinking.