The Representative. Romans 5:12-14 V.12. Comparing the disobedience of Adam with the obedience of Christ shows emphatically the universal significance of the redemptive and saving work of Christ. All the sins of humanity were initiated in Adam. The only way of justification for humanity is new life through Christ. Sin has brought physical death, the separation of each one of us from God because of disobedience to God. The final outcome of sin is eternal death. We all have been born with a sinful nature, and the fruit of this is death.
People who lived before the written law was given by Moses were sinners and did sinful things, but their sins were not counted against them in the same sense as Adam’s sin because they were not breaking specific commands. “Thou shalt not eat of it” was a specific command to Adam. The finger of God wrote the first laws on two tablets of stone. When they were broken under the direction of God, Moses wrote them again as specific commandments. Death reigned over people before that because they had sinned against the light they had of creation and conscience. Adam, as the human race representative, brought universal sin upon humanity because he sinned against a specific law. That brought corporate guilt similar to the effect of a leader’s action affecting a nation or an assembly of believers. Our Lord Jesus Christ, by His sacrificial work on our behalf, is our representative, bringing salvation free to all people who will receive Him.
V.13. Sin was not “imputed,” charged to one’s account, as in a ledger, because before the written law was given to Moses, there was no law to obey or disobey. Creation and conscience made everyone responsible for believing in God based on their knowledge. Sin is in humanity as a race of people and in each individual. We have the power to make individual decisions as to what we believe and in whom we believe. Sin has made a deep divide between what God intended us to be and what we are.
The results of being justified by faith connects us with the risen Lord Jesus Christ and has dealt with our sins in a legal and just way. Now in these verses a new view of our salvation is the teaching that is presented. This is not dealing with sins as the "transgression of the law," but goes back before the law was given to when God's definition of sin was the refusal to be controlled - self-will (anomia). The representative of all humanity, Adam, our federal head, was made guilty of sin by his act of self-will. So, by his act, as our representative, we acted. We didn't have to wait to be born to get a sinful nature. Death takes place even in the womb.
The sin-principle that has passed upon all humanity is that same self-will, and the condemnation because of it is a fact, a foregone conclusion. This is a legal act because of mans' choice. We are not justified only because the sins we have committed are dealt with, and we are forgiven of breaking the law. There is a more basic fundamental problem that has to be dealt with – death on account of sin.
Every physical death happens because of one man's sin. When he acted in self-will, all came under the condemnation of that sin because Adam was our federal head (representative). That has happened, and we have nothing to do about it. We cannot help being who we are, and we cannot avoid physical death unless those who are saved are caught to meet the Lord in the air at the Rapture. The death principle is that all have sinned because of one man's act, not our own acts.
V.14. So why did people die without written law? It is because God has given us the ability to make decisions. Death comes because of Adam's sin. That is why infants die physically in their innocence. Sin is not imputed to them because they are innocent of the law, even of the inherent nature of self-will. However, it works in their hearts, and the conscience will eventually accuse or excuse them. When the law written in the heart is trampled on by self-will, the consequence of spiritual death is laid on them. Physical death is the result of Adam's sin. Spiritual death is the result of our own sins, even if they don't resemble the sin of Adam. We are individuals who have free will to make choices. Physical death reigned as king in sovereignty because of Adam's sin. Yet Adam is stated to be a type of the One who was to come.
Condemnation has come by one, Adam, and so physical death awaits us all. Justification by faith has come from one person, and our spiritual life depends on Him, who came "full of grace and truth." In this teaching of the two representatives, we can understand the principle of sin that brought physical death to all. But we can also understand there was One who was to come and has come. Even Adam knew about Him. He would bring the truth of spiritual life to us when, as our representative Man, we would be raised with Him, and in Him, we would be made alive. When one has been justified by faith in Christ, he or she is no longer connected with the first Adam in whom we were born but with Christ, who lives forevermore. Because He lives, we live also. Adam is a pattern that represents all created humanity. The Lord Jesus Christ is the representative of the new spiritual humanity.