The last ten verses of Romans 5 are a new section of the letter. They deal with mankind’s union with Adam on the one hand, a union which has led to death and condemnation and with the believer’s union with the Lord Jesus Christ on the other. This latter union leads to life and righteousness. This is a difficult section of the letter, possibly the most difficult in the entire Bible. But it’s also very important. This union with Jesus makes possible the sequence of deliverances from sin, death, and the law, and the resulting spiritual victories that Paul will unfold in the next three chapters of Romans.

Because the union with Christ is difficult to understand and the treatment of it in Romans 5:12-21 is particularly mind-stretching, let’s look at this doctrine a bit before we actually get into the verses. There are two important points to keep in mind. First, the union of the believer with Christ is one of three great unions in Scripture. The first is the union of the persons of the Godhead in the trinity. The second union is that of the two natures of Christ in one person. The Lord Jesus Christ is one person. He is not a “multiple personality.” Nevertheless, He is also God and man, possessing two natures. The third union is of believers with Christ. Perhaps we are never going to understand these unions fully, but it is important to try to gain understanding. The second point to keep in mind as we study this doctrine is that the union of the believer with Christ is not a concept that was invented by Paul; rather, it was first taught by Jesus and then built upon by the apostle. True, Jesus didn’t use the term “mystical union.” But He taught it in other words and through analogies, which are frequent in Scripture, particularly in the latter portions of the New Testament.

We must understand the believer’s union with Christ to understand verses 12-21. But, in a parallel way, in order to understand how we are “in Christ” and what that means, we need to see how we were “in Adam,” which is where the passage starts. Adam is the “man” mentioned in verse 12. The passage starts with Adam and builds from him, showing, on the one hand, how the union of the race in Adam and the union of the believers in Christ are similar and how, on the other hand, they are also quite different, the results of the first being evil and the results of the second being good. Paul has been teaching that the work of justification, righteousness has been imputed to us. But people are reluctant to accept that truth. Therefore, to help them understand and believe in the principle of imputed righteousness, Paul shows that we have already been treated on the basis of this same principle “in Adam.”

What would you say are the most important events of human history? Listing the great moments of human history can go on almost indefinitely, and be quite interesting. But important as these events may have been, they pale before the two stupendous events that the apostle Paul cites in Romans 5: the fall of the race in Adam, and the redemption of the race by the Lord Jesus Christ. These are pivotal points of history, and they overwhelm all other events because of two things: (1) the significance of what Adam and Jesus did, though what they did and the results of what they did were quite different; and (2) the people affected. Paul summarizes the importance of these events in Romans 5:18. Whenever we link these two events together, we normally stress the contrast: Adam brought death, Jesus brought life. But we need to see that although the contrast is important, the ways that Adam and Jesus are similar are also important, perhaps even more so. This is because our understanding of salvation depends upon this similarity, which Paul points out by the phrase: “Adam, who was the pattern of the one to come” (v. 14).

So, what does “pattern” mean? This means that we are not looking for a perfect correspondence between Adam and Jesus Christ. What we are looking for are the important similarities. So we ask: “How can Adam be said rightly to represent Jesus Christ? How can sinful Adam typify the sinless Son of God?” There are four important parallels: (1) Both Adam and Jesus Christ were appointed by God to be representatives for other men. (2) Both Adam and Jesus Christ became heads of particular bodies of people, a race or descendants. (3) Both Adam and Jesus Christ had covenants made with them by God. (4) Both Adam and Jesus Christ passed on to others the effects of their disobedience or obedience.

In our next study we will explore the other side of the comparison between Adam and Christ, namely, the differences between them. But before we do, we need to remind ourselves of what the comparison itself, including both the similarities and the differences, teaches about Adam and the events that surround him in Genesis. The first point is that Adam was an actual historical character, every bit as real as ourselves. There has been a tendency in recent times to dismiss Adam (as well as many parts of the Book of Genesis) as mythology. If the story of Adam is a myth, then we are going to have to find a new definition for the world! For there was an historical Adam; his story is to be taken literally. The real proof of the historicity of Adam is the parallel the apostle Paul draws between the person of Adam and the person of Christ, which we have been studying. Jesus came into our history to undo the effects of Adam’s literal transgression. Therefore, Adam himself (and his deeds) must have been historical. You don’t need an historical atonement to undo a mythological fall or a mythological transgression. All you need is another myth. But if Christ needed to be real to save us, then Adam was real too. It is because Adam was real that Christ also had to be real to make atonement.

That brings us to the second thing the comparison between Adam and Jesus Christ teaches: that the fall of the human race was also historical. It was a real event. That’s important because it involves guilt before God – true guilt, not merely imagined guilt or a feeling of guilt. We were once right with God in Adam. But we rebelled. Now we are actually falling away from God as rapidly as our depraved powers and the downward-spiraling flow of our culture will take us. Romans 1 described this decline. If we are to be saved, it must be by another historical act. The Lord Jesus Christ, who entered history precisely for that reason, must perform it.

Romans 5:12-14 Reflection Questions:

The logic of “how much more” continues in Paul’s discussion of Adam and Jesus in verses 12-17. How is the work of the one man, Jesus, far beyond the effect of the sin of the one man, Adam?

Paul uses “reign” three times in verses 12-17. What are the distinctions between the types of “reign?” Who is reigning and what does that look like?