The conclusion of Romans 5:19 is beginning to dawn upon us. We are sinners. We are members of a race of people who are constitutionally other than what God intended them to be. By the Fall, a fundamental change took place in the character of Adam whereby he became a sinner, one constitutionally unable to please God; and the family likeness which we all share is no merely superficial one, but extends to our inward character also. We have been “constituted sinners.” How did this come about? “By the disobedience of one,” says the apostle. Let me try to illustrate this by a simple analogy.
My name is Nee. It is a fairly common Chinese name. How did I come by it? I did not choose it. I did not go through the list of possible Chinese names and select this one. That my name is Nee is in fact not my doing at all, and moreover, nothing I can do can alter it. I am a Nee because my father was a Nee, and my father was a Nee because my grandfather was a Nee. If I act like a Nee, I am a Nee, and if I act unlike a Nee, I am still a Nee. If I become president of
the Chinese Republic, I am a Nee, or if I become a beggar in the street, I am still a Nee. Nothing I do, or refrain from doing, will make me other than a Nee.
We are sinners, not because of ourselves but because of Adam. It is not because I individually have sinned that I am a sinner, but because I was in Adam when he sinned. Because by birth I come of Adam, therefore I am a part of him. What is more, I can do nothing to alter this. I cannot, by improving my behavior, make myself other than a part of Adam, and so a sinner.
In China I was once talking in this strain and remarked, “We have all sinned in Adam.” A man said, “I don’t understand,” so I sought to explain.
“All Chinese trace their descent from Huang-ti,” I said. “Over four thousand years ago he had a war with Si-iu. His enemy was very strong, but nevertheless Huang-ti overcame and slew him. After this Huang-ti founded the Chinese nation. Four thousand years ago therefore, our nation was founded by Huang-ti. Now, what would have happened if Huang-ti had not killed his enemy, but had been himself killed instead? Where would you be now?”
“There would be no me at all,” he answered.
“Oh, no! Huang-ti can die his death, and you can live your life.”
“Impossible!” he cried. “If he had died, then I could never have lived, for I have derived my life from him.”
Do you see the oneness of human life? Our life comes from Adam. If your great-grandfather had died at the age of three, where would you be? You would have died in him! Your experience is bound up with his. And in just the same way, the experience of every one of us is bound up with
that of Adam. None can say, “I have not been in Eden,” for potentially we all were there when Adam yielded to the serpent’s words.
So we are all involved in Adam’s sin. By being born “in Adam,” we receive from him all that he became as a result of his sin—that is to say, the Adam-nature which is the nature of a sinner. We derive our existence from him; and because his life became a sinful life, a sinful nature, therefore the nature which we derive from him is also sinful. So, as we have said, the trouble is in our heredity, not in our behavior. Unless we can change our parentage, there is no deliverance for us.
But it is in this very direction that we shall find the solution of our problem, for that is exactly how God has dealt with it.
In Romans 5:12–21 we are not only told something about Adam; we are told also something about the Lord Jesus. “As through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous.” In Adam we receive everything that is of Adam; in Christ we receive everything that is of Christ.
The terms “in Adam” and “in Christ” are too little understood by Christians, and at the risk of repetition, I wish again to emphasize by means of an illustration the hereditary and racial significance of the term “in Christ.” This illustration is to be found in the letter to the Hebrews.
Do you remember that in the earlier part of that letter the writer is trying to show that Melchizedek is greater than Levi? You recall that the point to be proved is that the priesthood of Christ is greater than the priesthood of Aaron, who
was of the tribe of Levi. Now in order to prove that, he has first to prove that the priesthood of Melchizedek is greater than the priesthood of Levi, for the simple reason that the priesthood of Christ is “after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb. 7:14–17), while that of Aaron is, of course, after the order of Levi. If the writer can demonstrate to us that in the eyes of God Melchizedek is greater than Levi, then he has made his point. That is the issue, and he proves it in a remarkable way.
He tells us in Hebrews chapter 7 that one day Abraham, returning from the battle of the kings (Gen. 14), offered a tithe of his spoils to Melchizedek and received from him a blessing. Inasmuch as Abraham did so, Levi is therefore of less account than Melchizedek. Why? Because the fact that Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek means that Isaac “in Abraham” offered to Melchizedek. But if that is true, then Jacob also “in Abraham” offered to Melchizedek, which in turn means that Levi “in Abraham” offered to Melchizedek. It is evident that the lesser offers to the greater (Heb. 7:7). So Levi is less in standing than Melchizedek, and therefore the priesthood of Aaron is inferior to that of the Lord Jesus. Levi, at the time of the battle of the kings, was not yet even thought of. Yet he was “in the loins of his father” Abraham, and “so to say, through Abraham,” he offered (Heb. 7:9–10).
Now this is the exact meaning of “in Christ.” Abraham, as the head of the family of faith, includes the whole family in himself. When he offered to Melchizedek, the whole family offered in him to Melchizedek. They did not offer separately as individuals, but they were in him, and therefore in making his offering he included with himself all his seed.
So we are presented with a new possibility. In Adam all was lost. Through the disobedience of one man, we were all constituted sinners. By him sin entered and death through sin, and throughout the race sin has reigned unto death from that day on. But now a ray of light is cast upon the scene. Through the obedience of Another, we may be constituted righteous. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, and as sin reigned unto death, even so may grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom. 5:19–21). Our despair is in Adam; our hope is in Christ.
God clearly intends that this consideration should lead to our practical deliverance from sin. Paul makes this quite plain when he opens chapter 6 of his letter with the question “Shall we continue in sin?” His whole being recoils at the very suggestion. “God forbid!” he exclaims. How could a holy God be satisfied to have unholy, sin-fettered children? And so “how shall we any longer live therein?” (Rom. 6:1–2). God has surely therefore made adequate provision that we should be set free from sin’s dominion.
But here is our problem: We were born sinners; how then can we cut off our sinful heredity? Seeing that we were born in Adam, how can we get out of Adam? Let me say at once, the blood cannot take us out of Adam. There is only one way. Since we came in by birth, we must go out by death. To do away with our sinfulness, we must do away with our life. Bondage to sin came by birth; deliverance from sin comes by death. And it is just this way of escape that God has provided. Death is the secret of emancipation. “We . . . died to sin” (Rom. 6:2).
But how can we die? Some of us have tried very hard to get rid of this sinful life, but we have found it most tenacious. What is the way out? It is not by trying to kill ourselves, but by recognizing that
God has dealt with us in Christ.
This is summed up in the apostle’s next statement: “All we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death” (Rom. 6:3).
But if God has dealt with us “in Christ Jesus,” then we have got to be in Him for this to become effective, and that now seems just as big a problem. How are we to “get into” Christ? Here again God comes to our help. We have in fact no way of getting in; but what is more important, we need not try to get in, for we are in. What we could not do for ourselves, God has done for us.
He has put us into Christ
.
Let me remind you of First Corinthians 1:30. I think that is one of the best verses of the whole New Testament: “Ye are in Christ.” How? “Of him [that is, “of God”] are ye in Christ.” Praise God! It is not left to us either to devise a way of entry or to work it out. We need not plan how to get in. God has planned it; and He has not only planned it, but He has also performed it. “
Of him
are ye in Christ Jesus.” We are in; therefore we need not try to get in. It is a divine act, and it is accomplished.
Now if this is true, certain things follow. In the illustration from Hebrews 7 which we considered above, we saw that “in Abraham” all Israel—and therefore Levi who was not yet born—offered tithes to Melchizedek. They did not offer separately and individually, but they were in Abraham when he offered; and his offering included all his seed. This, then, is a true figure of ourselves as “in Christ.” When the Lord Jesus was on the cross, all of us died—not individually, for we had
not yet been born; but being in Him, we died in Him. “One died for all, therefore all died” (2 Cor. 5:14). When He was crucified, all of us were crucified there with Him.
Many a time when preaching in the villages of China, one has to use very simple illustrations for deep divine truth. I remember once I took up a small book and put a piece of paper into it, and I said to those very simple folk, “Now look carefully. I take a piece of paper. It has an identity of its own quite separate from this book. Having no special purpose for it at the moment, I put it into the book. Now I do something with the book. I mail it to Shanghai. I do not mail the paper, but the paper has been put into the book. Then where is the paper? Can the book go to Shanghai and the paper remain here? Can the paper have a separate destiny from the book? No! Where the book goes, the paper goes. If I drop the book in the river, the paper goes too; if I quickly take it out again, I recover the paper also. Whatever experience the book goes through, the paper goes through with it, for it is still there in the book.”
“Of him are ye in Christ Jesus.” The Lord God Himself has put us in Christ, and in His dealing with Christ, God has dealt with the whole race. Our destiny is bound up with His. What He has gone through we have gone through, for to be “in Christ” is to have been identified with Him in both His death and resurrection. He was crucified—then what about us? Must we ask God to crucify us? Never! When Christ was crucified, we were crucified; His crucifixion is past, and therefore ours cannot be future.
I challenge you to find one text in the New Testament telling us that our crucifixion is in the future. All the references to it are in the Greek aorist, which is the “once-for-all” tense, the
“eternally past” tense (see Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20, 5:24, 6:14). Just as no man could ever commit suicide by crucifixion (for it were a physical impossibility to do so), so also, in spiritual terms, God does not require us to crucify ourselves. We were crucified when Christ was crucified, for God put us there in Him. That we have died in Christ is not merely a doctrinal position; it is an eternal and indisputable fact.
The Lord Jesus, when He died on the cross, shed His blood, thus giving His sinless life to atone for our sin and to satisfy the righteousness and holiness of God. To do so was the prerogative of the Son of God alone. No man could have a share in that. The Scripture has never told us that we shed our blood with Christ. In His atoning work before God, He acted alone; no other could have a part. But the Lord did not die only to shed His blood; He died that we might die. He died as our Representative. In His death He included
you and me
.
We often use the terms “substitution” and “identification” to describe these two aspects of the death of Christ. Now many a time the use of the word “identification” is good. But identification would suggest that the thing begins from our side: that I try to identify myself with the Lord. I agree that the word is true, but it should be used later on. It is better to begin with the fact that the Lord included me in His death. It is the “inclusive” death of the Lord which puts me in a position to identify myself, not that I identify myself in order to be included. It is God’s inclusion of me in Christ that matters. It is something God has done. For that reason
those two New Testament words “in Christ” are always very dear to my heart.
The death of the Lord Jesus is inclusive. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus is alike inclusive. We have looked at the first chapter of First Corinthians to establish the fact that we are “in Christ Jesus.” Now we will go to the end of the same letter to see something more of what this means. In First Corinthians 15:45 and 47 two remarkable names or titles are used of the Lord Jesus. He is spoken of there as “the last Adam” and He is spoken of too as “the second man.” Scripture does not refer to Him as the second Adam, but as “the last Adam”; nor does it refer to Him as the last Man, but as “the second man.” The distinction is to be noted, for it enshrines a truth of great value.
As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity; as the second Man, He is the Head of a new race. So we have here two unions, the one relating to His death and the other to His resurrection. In the first place his union with the race as “the last Adam” began historically at Bethlehem and ended at the cross and the tomb. In it He gathered up into Himself all that was in Adam and took it to judgment and death. In the second place our union with Him as “the second man” begins in resurrection and ends in eternity—which is to say, it never ends—for having in His death done away with the first man in whom God’s purpose was frustrated, He rose again as Head of a new race of men in whom that purpose will at length be fully realized.