Transcript

So, for the first Sunday of Lent in year A, the Church chooses the Old Testament reading that describes the fall of Adam and Eve, the first sin that leads to sin and death in the world, and then it chooses the gospel of Jesus' temptations in the desert, where Christ is revealed as a new Adam who comes into the world to undo the effects of the fall.

With those two texts in mind, the church gives us today the second reading, which is Paul's famous text about original sin, in which he describes sin and death coming into the world through Adam, and then Christ coming into the world as a new Adam who is going to undo the effects of the fall.

So this is an extremely important text.

It's one of the most complicated and theologically rich passages in all of Paul's letters, which is saying a lot for the Apostle Paul.

We're going to try our best to do it justice by focusing on, in particular, how this passage lays the foundation for the church's doctrine of original sin.

which is extremely important, essential for understanding the gospel, according to Paul.

Think about it.

What is the gospel?

It's the good news of salvation.

Well, you can't really appreciate the good news of salvation if you don't appreciate the bad news of sin and damnation and sin and death.

And that's really what the church lays before us today on this first Sunday of Lent.

So let's read through the second reading for today.

It's from Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 19. This is Paul's great letter to the Romans, his most theologically sophisticated letter, and this is what he says.

Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned, sin indeed was in the world before the law was given.

But sin is not counted where there is no law.

Yet death reigns From Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass.

For as many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.

And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man's sin.

For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification.

If because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all men, So one man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men.

For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous."

I hope you can see that there's a lot going on there, that this is a very, very rich text.

So let's take a deep breath and then we'll walk through it and try to at least shed a little bit of light on this consequential text.

So the first point we want to highlight there, the first term that should leap out at you, is the word sin.

In Greek, the word is hamartia.

It literally means to miss the mark.

And it also can be used to describe a transgression of one of God's commandments or one of God's laws, right?

A failure to love God or to love neighbor.

Think about the Ten Commandments.

The first tablet of Ten Commandments is love of God, right?

not having other gods, not breaking the Sabbath, not taking his name in vain.

To break one of those is to fail in love of God, to miss the mark.

The second tablet of the Ten Commandments, honor your father and mother, don't commit adultery, don't kill, don't steal, don't bear false witness, don't covet.

These are sins against love of neighbor.

They miss the mark, the standard of love that God calls human beings to in the Decalogue, in the Ten Commandments.

So what Paul is saying here is interesting.

He's not talking so much about sin as a particular transgression, but more as a power, so that he says sin came into the world through one man.

Of course, here Paul is alluding to Genesis chapter 3 and the fall of Adam, which literally means man in Hebrew, the one man, the first man, the first parent of the human race.

So Paul here is reflecting the typical Jewish idea that God creates Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2 good.

In fact, he says they're very good.

He doesn't create them in a state of sin.

He doesn't create them in a state of death.

He creates them in a state of righteousness, of goodness, where there is not yet any sin.

And it's only when Adam violates the commandment against eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, that he brings sin, and through sin, death, into the world.

In Genesis chapter 3, after Adam eats of the fruit of the tree, what does God say?

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

So the punishment of death falls upon Adam, Eve, and their descendants.

So Paul here is just, in a sense, summarizing Genesis chapter 3. but he's describing the entry of sin into the world and through sin, death coming into the world.

Second point here that's interesting is when Paul describes death here, he's not just talking about physical death, the separation of the soul and the body and the decay of a human corpse.

He's actually personifying death itself as a kind of a king.

Notice what he says here.

After that fall, after sin comes into the world through Adam, and after death comes into the world through his sin, death spreads to all human beings, and it even says that death reigned from Adam to Moses.

And the Greek word there for reign is basileuo.

It's the same verb that's the root of the noun that Jesus talks about when he talks about the kingdom of God, the basileia of God.

So just as God reigns through his kingdom, so too Death reigns as king over humanity, over human beings, after the commission of that first sin by Adam.

You could say, in a sense, that Adam brings the kingdom of death into the world.

He gives death power over humanity.

And so, Paul says, death therefore reigns as king, all the way from Adam to Moses.

And this is interesting.

Even over those human beings, whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam.

So think here, for example, of Adam's children or his grandchildren, all human beings who were descended from the first parents.

They didn't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

They didn't break the explicit commandment of God not to partake.

Adam is the only one who commits an actual transgression, a violation of that initial command.

And yet, through his transgression, death is going to come and it's going to reign over those even who have never sinned at all.

For example, children who die in the womb, or children who die in infancy, or children who die before they've even reached the age of reason.

They're not actually even able to commit a transgression.

The Greek word there is parabasis.

It literally means to walk over the line, so to cross the line, to deliberately violate some law of God.

Well, obviously there are billions of human beings and billions of souls that have come into this world who died before they were ever able to commit a transgression like Adam did.

And yet, Paul says, death reigns over them.

That's their inheritance, so to speak, from their first parent, from Adam.

And that this Adam, number three, here's the key point, the Adam who brought sin and death into the world was a type of the one who was to come.

Now the Greek word here is tupos.

and it's the root word from which we get the theological term of typology, which if you watch any of my videos, you'll know the church does very frequently in the lectionary.

She will often look at how Old Testament types or prefigurations point forward to and are fulfilled in New Testament realities, whether it be persons or events, right?

This is called typology.

It's the science or the study of how the Old Testament prefigures the New and how the New Testament fulfills the Old.

And Paul here is one of the first proponents of an explicit typology in which the one man, Adam, prefigures and points forward to the one man, Christ, who is a kind of new Adam.

a new and greater Adam, right?

Paul doesn't use the exact language of new Adam.

He's going to call Christ the last Adam in another letter, 1 Corinthians 15. But he is definitely engaging in typology.

Adam and Christ are related to one another.

They parallel one another.

They're both similar and different.

And that typological connection helps you understand who Jesus is.

This is important.

and how he comes into the world to save humanity.

How exactly does Jesus save the whole human race?

Have you ever thought about that?

Why does this particular man, this Jew from Galilee, from Nazareth, from a little village in Nazareth, how does he, through his life and death, have the power to save every human being who has ever lived?

If you've grown up Christian, you just kind of assume, of course, yeah, Jesus has the power to save all of humanity.

Well, how exactly does that work?

Paul here gives us a clue by looking at the typology of Adam and Christ.

So, one helpful way to do this is to just set up a chart of the various parallels, similarities and dissimilarities, between Adam and Christ.

So, if you look at this So, there are parallels between the two.

On the one hand, Adam commits a trespass of sin that brings death and condemnation into the world.

On the other hand, Christ gives us the free gift of grace that brings life into the world and through his life gives justification or acquittal, forgiveness as opposed to condemnation.

Again, on the one hand, it's through Adam's disobedience, taking the fruit of the tree, that many, which literally means all here, it's just a multitude of people, were made sinners, hamartolo in Greek, in other words, people who missed the mark.

On the other hand, Christ, the new Adam, through one act of obedience, namely obedience to his Father and going to the cross, makes many people to be righteous, dikaios, or just.

So, what do these parallels show us?

They help us understand the reason, one reason, Jesus is able to save all humanity through his act of obedience, is because he is recapitulating the fall of Adam.

He is taking that up into himself through his words and his actions and above all through the cross, and he is undoing the effects of the fall.

And you can actually see this in the Gospel for this week in an anticipatory way.

because the Gospel describes Jesus going out into the desert and being tempted three times by the devil.

And unlike the first Adam who gives in to temptation, Christ, the new Adam in the desert, overcomes temptation.

He defeats the devil so that he can give humanity the power to do the same, to engage in the spiritual battle against Satan and to overcome.

and to obey rather than disobey.