Introduction
A Tale of Two Cities is perhaps Dickens's most famous work with over 200 million copies sold. It is a contrast between London and Paris set before and during the French Revolution. The book begins as follows:
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."
The book then traces all these conflicting ambiguities in the lives of several characters living parallel lives in London and Paris.
Our lives may not be recounted as a tale of two cities with all the glamor of London and Paris, but it can be recounted as the tale of two races. I don't mean race as in the "red and yellow, black and white" as the hymn says, but races as in the race of Adam and the race of Christ. All of humanity is part of the race of Adam. Those who have been changed by the Holy Spirit and have placed their faith in Jesus for their salvation are also part of the race of Christ.
I. The Sentence of Death Is upon All Who Adam Represents, 21a, 22a
A. When God created Adam, he created him as the representative of all those who would descend from him.
1. God made a treaty with Adam (called in theology the Covenant of Works).
2. God gave everything to Adam on one condition: don't eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
a. If he didn't eat of the fruit, after a period of probation God would have granted Adam eternal life without the possibility of losing it.
b. If he did eat of the fruit, God would bring death upon Adam, both physical and spiritual – Adam and all who descended from him would be separated from God.
3. Well, you know the story. Adam willfully ate the fruit.
a. At that very moment, he became a sinner.
b. He was very aware of his new condition and he hid from God.
c. The process of physical death had begun, but spiritual death was immediate.
4. As our passage says, that death is ours because Adam represented us – parallel in Romans.
Rom. 5:12, 18-19 – Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.
5. This idea of representation is present in other places in the Bible – one example is Abraham's giving tithe to Melchizedek as Levi doing the same.
Heb. 7:4-5 – Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham…
6. This idea of representation is also present in ancient and modern theories of government.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Preamble to the U.S. Constitution
a. You don't have to be present in order for something to be binding on you.
b. A representative can bind you to the terms of an agreement.
1) You can't opt out of the constitution and remain a U.S. citizen just because you weren't there in 1789.
2) And you can't opt out of receiving the consequences of Adam's sin and remain a human just because you weren't there.
7. Therefore, Adam is the federal head, that is, the covenant head of all humanity.
a. His sin is our sin.
1) The guilt of it – that's why babies die even if they haven't committed sins of their own.
2) The pollution of it – the sinful nature that makes us sinner that we receive from our parents.
b. His death is our death.
1) Physical and spiritual death.
2) That's why death is not normal, because it was not part of the creative design, but the result of sin.
B. We know what physical death means, but what does spiritual death means?
1. It means separation from God as Father and Creator.
a. This is pictured by the immediate break in fellowship after Adam sinned.
b. The sinner no longer has access to God.
1) He does not hear his prayer with the intent of answering them.
2) He does not receive their worship.
3) Even the most mundane and good activities are unacceptable to God.
Pro. 21:4 – A haughty look, a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked are sin.
2. It also means that the sinner will not and cannot reach out to God on his own apart from the regenerating work of the Spirit in his life.
a. The Bible pictures humanity as totally unable to come to God.
Eph. 2:1-6 – And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…
Rom. 8:8 – So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
b. Not only unable, but unwilling.
Rom. 3:11 – There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.
Rom. 5:10 – For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
c. The best picture of this idea is Ezekiel's sermon to the dry bones in chpt. 37.
C. So we are all part of this race that stands condemned before God without hope or life.
1. Is there a way out?
2. Yes, a recreation into another race.
II. The Gift of Life to All Who Christ Represents, 21b, 22b.
A. In comes Christ, who is the second and final Adam (Man, we could say he is THE Man).
B. Christ came to recreate a race for himself.
1. All whom Adam represented died in him – humanity.
2. All whom Christ represented are made alive in him – the elect, or more practically those who come to faith in him.
C. How does that work?
1. We saw earlier that God required Adam to keep his law (at that time represented by not eating the fruit) and he failed.
2. So, in order for humanity to have any hope, another one of the same kind (another human) would have to represent them before God in doing what Adam did not do.
3. The problem is that any human born naturally is tainted with sin and because of that from the moment of conception is guilty of breaking God's law.
4. How could a human be fully human and yet free of sin? The virgin conception!
D. Christ is fully human, yet without sin.
Heb. 4:15 – For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all pointstempted as we are, yet without sin.
E. There is more to how this works!
1. Jesus Christ was born to live the perfect life that Adam wasn't able to live.
a. In every aspect of life, he obeyed every element, every detail of the law of God.
b. It is ironic that in obeying the law of God perfectly, he was often accused of disobeying that very law – Sabbath issues for example.
2. Jesus Christ, in living a perfect life of obedience to the law of God, was earn the righteousness that Adam didn't and that humanity so desperately needs.
a. When God changes a person heart and that person comes to faith in Jesus Christ, God declares that that perfect obedience of Christ is now this person's who has been recreated into Christ's race.
b. This means that God treats the person as if that person had never sinned.
c. In theology, this is called the imputation of Christ's active obedience.
F. There is even more to how this works.
1. There is the issue of justice.
a. Real sins were committed against God.
b. It would be contrary to the divine nature to allow for injustice to take place.
c. So the real sins of the people that belonged to Christ must be dealt with.
d. The debt incurred by the sinners has to be paid somehow.
2. That is why Christ died the terrible death on the cross.
a. On the cross, he stood as the representative of all people who had come to faith in the Messiah or who would come to faith in Christ.
b. On the cross, he offered himself to receive the punishment that the sins of his people deserved in their place.
1) It means that he was a substitute.
2) He took their place, our place.
2 Cor. 5:21 – For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
1 Pt. 3:18 – For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit…
"Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood.
Hallelujah! What a Savior!" Philip Bliss
3. Therefore, the greatest transaction of all of life happens when God changes a sinner's heart and he/she comes to faith in Jesus Christ.
a. At that moment God declares that the benefit of everything good Jesus did belongs to the redeemed, recreated sinner, and the guilt of every sin he committed belong to Christ.
b. And when God brought Jesus back to life on that glorious Sunday, he confirmed that he had accepted the sacrifice of Jesus in the place of the redeemed sinners.
G. Adam is the federal head of all humanity; Jesus is the federal head of all who believe.
1. I've people complaining about Adam's federal headship because they weren't there.
2. But I've heard anyone complain that they weren't crucified as well and that it isn't fair.
H. There is a little more to the story: these two federal heads have many parallels between them, but at the end the work of Christ was much greater than the damage done by Adam.
III. The Greater Magnitude of the Work of Christ.
Rom. 5:15-17 – But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resultedin condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resultedin justification. For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
A. What Christ has done for his people is of a greater abundance than what Adam did in sinning.
"What Christ has done for us is not just to exchange death's kingdom for the much more gentle kingdom of life, while leaving us in the position of subjects. Instead, he delivers us from the rule of death so radically as to enable us to change places with it and rule over it, or reign in life. We become kings, sharing the kingship of Christ, with even death under our feet now, and one day to be destroyed." Stott on Rom. 5:17
B. The power of the grace of God in Jesus Christ is greater than the power of sin.
Rom 6:11, 14 – Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
"In our view of ultimate reality, who is occupying the throne today? Are we still living in the Old Testament, with the whole scene dominated by Adam, as if he remained unchallenged and Christ had never come? Or are we authentic New Testament Christians, whose vision is filled with Christ crucified, risen and reigning? Is guilt still reigning, and death? Or is grace reigning, and life?" Stott on Rom. 5:12-21
C. Not only that, the extent of the grace of God in Jesus Christ is greater than the power of sin.
1. We live in a rough time for Christianity in the historical Western world.
a. We don't see a lot of conversions.
b. We see the church capitulating to the world.
2. So, we tend to think that what it is today in the U.S. and Europe is what has been in the past and will be in the future.
3. But the reign of grace is much more powerful than the reign of sin and when it is all said and done there will be many more members of the race of Christ than of the race of Adam.
a. We see this truth in the promises made to Abraham, the father of ALL faithful – descendants more numerous than the dust of the earth, the stars in the sky, and the grains of sand on the beach.
b. We see this truth also in the vision of glory in the book of Revelation where multitudes without number are worshiping the Lamb.
4. So, we must stop being defeatist and start calling the nations to Christ because the reign of grace is abundantly more powerful than the reign of sin.
Conclusion
These are the only two races that exist: Adam's and Christ's. The race of Christ is destiny to life. The race of Adam is dead already and destiny to more death. The Christian still dies, to be sure. But he dies with the promise of the resurrection. The unbeliever lives and dies with just one promise: more death waits for him at the last day. He body and soul will be reunited, but the Bible doesn't call that a resurrection or life. It is called a second death because of the utter separation from God's grace and love and the impossibility of reconciliation with him.
The one who has been redeemed by Christ will live. The sting of death removed and the grave destroyed.
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