In Adam

This week's questions

Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression? The covenant being made with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity; all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression.

Question 16

Into what estate did the fall bring mankind? The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.

Question 17

Last week Questions 13 to 15 told how our first parents fell by eating the forbidden fruit. Question 16 asks why their fall is ours too, and Question 17 names where it left us, in two words that Questions 18 and 19 open one at a time next week.

One man, our head

The key to Question 16 is its first word, covenant. The covenant of life of Question 12 (week 7), which the Westminster Confession calls the covenant of works, was spoken to Adam in the first proof text (Genesis 2:16-17), but it was not made for him alone. The Larger Catechism says it was made with Adam "as a public person" Larger Catechism, Q. 22. It is much like an envoy's signature on a treaty, which binds his whole nation. The next proof text is Paul's:

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned.

Romans 5:12

Matthew Henry, an English minister, puts it plainly: "Adam sinning, his nature became guilty and corrupted, and so came to his children. Thus in him all have sinned" Matthew Henry. The Westminster Confession calls our first parents "the root of all mankind", and confesses that the guilt of their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity WCF 6.3.

‘By ordinary generation’ leaves one man out. Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, did not descend from Adam in the ordinary way, as Question 22 will teach (week 12). The last proof text sets the two men side by side:

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22

Later in that chapter Paul calls Christ the last Adam and the second man, from heaven (1 Corinthians 15:45-47); in Romans he calls Adam a tupos (τύπος), a pattern of the One to come (Romans 5:14). So the doctrine does not stop with Adam: "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). We learn how we fell in Adam in order to see how we are raised in Christ.

What passes from Adam, and how

The historic churches agree that Adam's fall reached the whole race; they explain differently what passes from him, and how. The Reformed confess that the guilt of Adam, our head, is imputed to us and a corrupt nature passed on. The Belgic Confession (1561), of the continental Reformed churches, calls original sin "a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary disease" Belgic Confession, Art. 15. Some Reformed theologians, following Augustine of Hippo (Augustine, doctor of grace), also spoke of all mankind as being in Adam as in its root.

The Catholic Church teaches that Adam lost the holiness and justice in which he was made, and that his sin passes to all; baptism remits the guilt of original sin, and concupiscence, the inclination to sin, remains but is not itself sin Council of Trent, Decree on Original Sin. The Orthodox speak of ‘ancestral sin’: what we inherit from Adam is death and corruption, not guilt John Romanides, The Ancestral Sin. Methodists and other Wesleyans preach original sin as firmly as anyone, that by nature we are wholly fallen John Wesley, Original Sin, and with it prevenient grace, a grace that goes before us, given to every person John Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation. The teaching of Pelagius, that Adam's sin passed to no one and left only a bad example, was condemned at the Council of Carthage in 418 Council of Carthage (418) and rejected by the church as a whole. Original sin and its effects, in the Christian Doctrine course, sets these views side by side; see also original sin.

Some parents meet this question and think of a child who died young. The Reformed Canons of Dort (1619) comfort them from God's word: the children of believers are holy by the covenant of grace, and "godly parents have no reason to doubt of the election and salvation of their children whom it pleaseth God to call out of this life in their infancy" Canons of Dort 1.17. What happens to children who die? takes up that tender question with care, and a pastor will gladly talk it through with you.

To ponder this week

If one man's disobedience could reach me, what does one Man's obedience mean for me this week? Read Romans 5:18-19 slowly, and notice the words ‘just as’ and ‘so also’ that join Adam and Christ. Learn Question 16 by heart, remembering that your failures are not the last word.

Practice