The influence of Jonathan Edward’s (1703-1758) sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” is legendary. It has been called the most well-known sermon in American history. Edward’s influence, however, was greater with his family. Jonathan and Sarah had eleven children. For one hour before dinner, Edwards would gather his children together and help them with schoolwork and talk about their day. Edwards wrote, “Every house should be a little church.”
In 1900, American pastor and educator Albert Edwards Winship contrasted Edwards with an atheist, Max Jukes (1720-?). Winship in his book Jukes and Edwards: A Study in Education and Heredity” juxtaposed the posterity of the two men.
Of the 540 studied descendants of Max Jukes
• 310 died as paupers
• 150 were convicted criminals
• 7 were murderers
• 100 were alcoholics
• 190 female prostitutes
Of the 1394 studied descendants of Jonathan Edwards, there were
• 3 U.S. Senators
• 3 governors
• 3 mayors
• 30 judges
• 13 college presidents
• 65 professors
• 100 missionaries, pastors, and theologians
• 1 U.S. Vice-President
The influence of one life can be staggering either positively or negatively. My dad impacted my life negatively. He was an alcoholic. Dad slept in Sunday mornings while mom got us four brothers ready for church. Mom’s influence, thankfully, was positive and helped override dad’s impact.
There is an intentional contrast in Scripture between two men who influenced many times more people than Jukes and Edwards. These two men are the first Adam and Christ whom Paul called the last Adam.
In 1 Corinthians 15:22, Paul began this contrast: “For in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” You are either in the family of Adam, under his influence, and you are going to die, or you are in the family of Christ under his sway, and you are going live with him forever.
In 1 Corinthians 15:45, Paul referred specifically to the first Adam and the last Adam. Each Adam is the head of a race of people. The first Adam, the first man, is the head of all sinners. The last Adam is the head of all believers.
In 1 Corinthians 15:47, Paul called Adam “the first man” and Christ “the second man.” Adam, the first man is the cause of every person being born a sinner. As a man, Adam disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. Christ, as “the second man” undid what Adam the first man did in the Fall. As a man, Christ obeyed God and died on the cross for our sins.
Paul continued this CONTRASTS in Romans 5:12-21
The contrast between the first Adam and the last Adam is between two choices and acts not their entire lives. Romans 5:12 refers to the first Adam choosing to disobey God’s command not to eat the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. The Last Adam chose to obey God and give his life a ransom for many on the cross.
Let’s stop and think of not only the influence of one life but also the consequence of one choice. In John 1:11-12, we find such a consequence. Jesus came to his people and they rejected him. But many others received him. Every person has this decision to make when confronted with the gospel: receive or reject Christ as Savior. The consequences of that choice are eternal.
In Romans 5:15-19, Paul highlights three contrasts between the one act of the first Adam in the garden in disobeying God and the one act of the last Adam on the cross dying for the sins of the world.[1]
The One Act of Obedience of the Last Adam
1. Produced “much more” in Romans 5:15
A. The one act of disobedience of the first Adam affected “many” to be dead which means “all” as in 5:12.
B. The one act of obedience of the last Adam restored “much more” than Adam lost.
Christ gives “grace,” “the gift,” and “has abounded unto many.” In 5:20, Paul restated this truth with a superlative: “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” The influence of Max Jukes was great. The influence of Jonathan Edwards was greater because Christ was with Edwards just as Christ is with you and me to give us influence. Max Juke produced his bad influence in the energy of the flesh. We have the abundance of grace to help us. We can intervene in the lives of others under the sinful grip of the first Adam and break the cycle of negative influence with the power of the last Adam. Who do you know trapped under the influence of the first Adam? Our church is ministering to children in our community whose homes are deeply under the negative power of the first Adam. Their homes are heartbreaking. These children live in homes of gross immorality and no concept of the gospel. We are giving them the gospel to move them out of the first Adam to the abundant grace they can have in the last Adam. The one act of obedience of the last Adam not only produced “much more” but also procured justification in contrast to the first Adam’s condemnation.
2. Produced “justification” in Romans 5:16
A. The one act of disobedience by the first Adam brought condemnation. One act brought judgment.
B. “But” the one act of obedience by the last Adam brought “justification” to us who committed “many offenses.”
God did not just forgive one of our sins at salvation, but “many” or all of our sins. What the last Adam did was again much more. At salvation, we were not restored to the pre-fall innocence of Adam with the capacity of falling and becoming sinful. At salvation, because of the last Adam’s one act of obedience on the cross, we were justified never to be condemned again. Paul reminds us again of this result in Romans 8:1: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” All around us are those living under the condemnation of the first Adam. That dark cloud looms over their heads. Let’s take the gospel and enable them to experience God’s justification provided in the last Adam. The one act of obedience of Jesus dying on the cross also produced the reign of life in contrast to the first Adam’s reign of death.
3. Produced “the reign of life” in Romans 5:17
A. Because of the first Adam’s one act of disobedience death reigned. This is illustrated in Genesis five. Reading Genesis five is like walking through a cemetery and reading the headstones with the date of the person’s birth and also when “he died.” Genesis five is the family tree of Adam to Noah and the time of the flood. About each of the descendants of Adam, it is said “and he died.”
About Adam, Genesis 5:5 states “and he died.”
About Adam’s son Seth, Genesis 5:8 declares “and he died.”
About Seth’s son Enos, Genesis 5:11 notes “and he died.”
About Enos’s son Cainan, Genesis 5:14 states “and he died.”
About Cainan’s son, Mahalaleel Genesis 5:17 declares “and he died.”
About Mahalaleel’s son, Jared Genesis 5:20 announces “and he died.”
George Bernard Shaw was well known for observing, “The statistics on death are quite impressive: one out of one people dies!” Adam produced what Paul called the reign of death.
B. Christ breaks the reign of death with the reign of life illustrated by the one exception of Enoch in Genesis. Enoch in Genesis 5:21-24 did not die. Genesis 5:24 notes that “Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” Enoch’s son, Methuselah may have one day asked his mom, “Where is dad?” “Oh, he was here just a minute ago.” “Where is he now?” “O yea, he went for a walk!” Enoch went for a walk and God brought him home to himself. There is a little sometimes overlooked detail noted in Genesis 5:22 that is not said about any other descendant of Adam: “Enoch walked with God after he gave birth to Methuselah.” The birth of Enoch’s son, Methuselah awakened in Enoch his fatherly responsibilities and Enoch started walking with God.
Becky and I visited Wayne and Janice repeatedly to witness and invite them to church. But they never responded until Jennifer was born. Then they started attending church. In a Father’s Day service at church at the invitation, Wayne handed his baby girl to Janice, came forward, and trusted Christ. Janice then handed Jennifer to her mother, came forward, and trusted Christ. The impact of a child should move us to walk with God.
Elijah did not die.
Enoch did not die.
Nor will the last generation of believers die at the coming of Christ.
Even if we pass before the Rapture, for the believer for whom the reign of death has been broken by the last Adam, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8).
Paul ends with a COMPARISON between the first Adam and the last Adam
Paul contrasts the one act of disobedience of the first Adam with the one act of obedience of the last Adam. In Romans 5:19, Paul draws a comparison. Notice there is no longer '“but” or “not” (Romans 5:15-16) but “as.” There is a similarity between the two acts of the first Adam and the last Adam. Irenaeus made this comparison.
Irenaeus, second-century Bishop of Lyons, the "father of Christian theology" battled Docetism which denied the humanity of Christ:
"Vain indeed are those who allege that He appeared in mere seeming. For these things were not done in appearance only, but in actual reality. But if He did appear as a man when He was not a man," there was no "degree of truth in Him, for He was not that which He seemed to be."[2]
The Apostle John designated these as antichrists when they denied that Christ was come in the flesh (1 John 4:2-3). Irenaeus stressed what Christ did as a man to undo what Adam did as a man.
Irenaeus compared the first Adam who disobediently ate the forbidden fruit from the tree to the last Adam who obediently died on the tree and restored all that the first Adam lost.
Irenaeus wrote: “So that as by means of a tree we were made debtors to God, [so also] by means of a tree we may obtain the remission of our debt .... [Irenaeus also made this comparison] For as we lost it by means of a tree, by means of a tree again was it made manifest to all, showing the height, the length, the breadth, the depth in itself.”[3]
The first Adam’s one act of disobedience was in reference to the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
The last Adam’s one act of obedience was in conjunction with a “tree” also.
There are two references to the “tree” in the New Testament on which Jesus died. Because of Adam’s sin, we were under the curse, “You shall surely die.”
a. Paul in Galatians 3:13 declared that on the tree Christ bore our curse. Christ the last Adam reversed the curse that the first Adam brought. The week before I was saved, each night when I went to bed with this thought haunting me, “What if I died during the night?” I knew I would be in hell. I was saved on Sunday evening. That night I slept with no fear of death. The last Adam had removed all anxiety.
b. Because of the first Adam’s one act of disobedience, we carry his sin nature in our bodies and are obligated to sin. Paul battling with the first Adam’s nature, cried out, “Sin dwells in me ... I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me .... Who shall deliver me from this body of death” (Rom 7:17, 19, 24). Because of the last Adam’s one act of obedience to die on the tree, we can live righteously. Peter declared this reality in 1 Peter 2:24: “Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, so we are dead to sin and can live in righteousness.” The last Adam empowers us to break any first Adam sin plaguing our lives and to rejoice with Paul “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).
The last Adam gives us more than the first Adam lost. The last Adam gives us justification to reverse the condemnation from the first Adam. The last Adam annuls the reign of death with the reign of life so that when we receive Christ as Savior we receive eternal life. Let’s end where we began, “For as in Adam all die. Even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor 15:22).
We had no choice to be born in the first Adam and to be under his sinful influence. We have a choice to be born again into the last Adam and enjoy much more of God’s grace in our lives today.
[1] The following translations of Romans 5:18 show the one act of Christ on the cross is Paul’s point, not the entire life of Christ. The one phrase from verse 18 has the following translations: ESV translates di henos dikaiomatos “so one act of righteousness.” The NET translates as “through the one righteous act.” The ASV translates “through one act of righteousness. The NIV translates “so one Man’s act of righteousness.” The one righteous act referred to is the death or sufferings of Christ on the cross for the sins of mankind. This is in contrast to the condemnation imputed to sinners “through one transgression” (NET) or the one act of disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden (Romans 5:19).
The one act of Christ teaches that it was not his sufferings in life that atoned but his suffering on the cross that was atoning as advocated by Charles Ryrie and Robert Lightner and called passive obedience.
Charles Ryrie: “The sufferings of Christ in His death have been labeled His passive obedience in classical Protestant theology. This passive obedience stands in contrast to Christ’s active obedience which refers to the obedience exhibited during His lifetime. . . . The sufferings of Christ’s life, though real, were not atoning. . . . Strictly speaking, then, only the sufferings on the cross were atoning. It was during the three hours of darkness when God laid on Christ the sins of the world that Atonement was being made” (Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology, Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor, 1999, 282).
Robert Lightner gave this Old Testament example, “To prove that the Paschal lamb was without blemish, it was confined from the tenth day of the month until the fourteenth (Ex. 12:3, 6 ). During this time, the lamb was not a sacrifice for sin, but this time was needed to demonstrate its qualifications as a sacrifice to be offered. Christ was the antitype of that Paschal lamb. His life of suffering with all that involved served to prove His eligibility as an offerer and as the offering for sin: (Robert Lightner, “The Saviour’s Sufferings in Life” in Bibliotheca Sacra, January 1970).
[2] Irenaeus, Against Heresy 5.1.2:1:527.
[3] Ibid., 5:17.3.