Romans 5:18-19 | “Jesus the New and Better Adam”

Jesus Died for Our Sins

Jesus’ death on the cross was for our sins and for our sin.  What do I mean?  Jesus’ death takes away all our sins.  “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.  This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14).  Every single thing we’ve done to dishonor or disobey God, “the record of our debt,” was taken away from us and put on Jesus on the cross.  Jesus died to take away all our sins.  All of them.  Every single one.  Those who’ve put their trust in Christ have been forgiven of all their sins.  The bill has been paid.  All our wrongs are now overlooked for those in Christ.

Jesus Died for Our Sin

What if I told you that this wasn’t the best part about what Jesus did for us on the cross?  What if Jesus’ death addressed an even deeper problem than our sins?  What if all the bad things we’ve done actually isn’t the most fundamental problem we have?  What if our sins are a result of something deeper and darker that lives and grows inside us? 

The Bible teaches that we sin because we are sinners, that our sins are a result of our nature.  Not the other way around.  Our sins don’t make us sinners.  We are sinners, therefore we sin.  Psalm 51:5, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (cf. Eph. 2:1-3). Our very nature, the core of who we are, the center of our personality and character and will, is infected and overrun by the disease of sin.

This is a hard teaching of Scripture.  But our everyday experience confirms this truth.  How do children learn how to lie or be selfish or disobey their parents or hit their siblings?  Who teaches them those things?  Why do you lock your car and your house?  Not because you believe in the inherent goodness of mankind!  Why has there never been anyone who’s ever lived who’s been able to conquer selfishness or pride or lust or greed?  Why do all people everywhere struggle with the same things?  Because we all have a sinful nature.  Made in God’s image, dead in sin.

All Sinned in Adam

How did this situation come about?  Paul tells us in Romans 5:12 and 18.  Verse 12 says that death has spread to all people “because all sinned.”  Verse 18 says that “one trespass led to condemnation for all men.”  What is this referring to?  Or verse 12, when it says, “sin came into the world through one man”?

It’s referring to Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-8).  When Adam, the very first person God created, disobeyed God and ate the fruit, sin entered the world.  But not in some generic sense.  It was real and it was personal.  Adam and Eve were immediately filled with guilt and shame.  They realized they were naked and tried to cover themselves.  They hid from God when he came to visit them.  Sin fractured their lives and their relationship with God. 

And just as God promised, their sin led to death.  In grace, God didn’t kill them immediately.  But death came nonetheless. 

Original Sin

Back in Romans 5, Paul says that sin came in through Adam, and death through sin, and that this death has spread to all people “because all sinned” (v. 12).  It also says that Adam’s sin “led to condemnation for all men” (v. 18). 

Paul’s logic here is simple.  Adam sinned.  We’re all the descendants of Adam – we’re all the sons of a sinner.  A man can only produce someone like himself.  Therefore, we’re all sinners by nature.  Theologians call this “original sin.”  Not referring to the first, or original, sin ever committed, but to the condition that’s a result of Adam’s sin.  Just as high blood pressure can be a result of a bad heart condition, so our sins are a result of our condition of sin.   

Martin Luther says it this way, “Original (sin) enters into us; we do not commit it, but we suffer it.”  He goes on to describe original sin as the loss of our “outward and inward perfections…our inclination toward all that is evil, our aversion against that which is good, our antipathy against (spiritual) light and wisdom, our love for error and darkness, our flight from and our loathing of good works, and our seeking after that which is sinful.” 

Original sin is why we can say “no one is perfect” but mean it in a much more profound sense.  At the Fall, we lost our perfection.  We not only make mistakes, but are fundamentally flawed.  Our inclinations, our leanings and bent, is toward the bad, not the good.  Why do you think we tend to see people in a negative instead of a positive light?  We’re inclined away from the good, “loathing” spiritually good things.  Why do we usually not want to read our Bibles or pray or go to church?  Is it because those things are bad or because in a mysterious way we prefer to avoid things we know that are good for us?  If given the opportunity to serve ourselves or someone else, we usually serve ourselves, or serve others hoping to benefit from it in some way.  We seek after things we know are contrary to God’s will.  Like a dog that goes back to its vomit, we go back again and again to things we know are disgusting.

Why?  “We were brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did our mother conceive us” (Ps. 51:5).  Original sin is why all the bad things we’ve done isn’t the biggest problem we have.  Sins aren’t our biggest problem.  Sin is.  We don’t just need new friends, we need a new self.  We don’t just need to make better choices, we need new inclinations.  We don’t just need a new start, we need a new nature.  We don’t just need to be forgiven, we need to be made new.  We need our sins and our sin removed. 

Jesus and Adam

And this is exactly what Jesus has done for us in the gospel.  On the cross, Jesus removed our sins and purchased us a new nature.  Look again at the rest of Romans 5:18-19.  Paul’s argument is simple.  Just as Adam’s act of sin led us into condemnation, so Jesus’ act of obedience leads us into life.  Adam’s disobedience made us sinners, Jesus’ obedience makes us righteous. 

Those who belong to Adam carry what is Adam’s, namely, guilt and shame and condemnation.  Those who belong to Christ carry what is Christ’s, namely, justification and righteousness and life.  Jesus’ obedience overturns and undoes the consequences of Adam’s disobedience.  Adam failed his test in the Garden of Eden, and we died.  Jesus passed his test in the Garden of Gethsemane, and we live. 

The world and all of humanity was forever changed for the worse in the Garden of Eden when our first parents decided to doubt God’s goodness and disobey God’s word.  But the condemnation that came out of that Garden was conquered in another garden.  John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was crucified and buried in a garden,  “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid” (Jn. 19:41).  Jesus was killed and buried in a garden.  This means that he was also resurrected in a garden. 

Scripture is telling us that, through Jesus, through “one act of righteousness” and “one man’s obedience,” God has reversed what happened in Adam’s sin.  As we often sing, “Jesus is the true and better Adam, come to save the hell-bound man.”  He took our disobediences and our condemnation and gave us his obedience and his life.  Jesus is the new Adam who came to make anyone who trusts in him a new person.