When we start to run down the roots of removing Adam from the story, what we’re left with isn’t Christianity. I do think this is a hill to die on. If Adam isn’t my head, neither is Christ. Adam is real and Adam’s sin flows to all of us. That one man who knew God was tricked by a snake and brought ruin to everything. There was another man who faced a test in a garden (Mark 14), another man who battled a serpent (Hebrews 4), another man who stood with a woman in a garden at the start of a new creation (John 21). These two men: Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ define history.

Last week I argued that the Bible requires Adam to be the first human and the father of us all. I went through some scriptures that support this, especially Acts 17 and Romans 5.

I argued that the Bible says he is, but also that he has to be to be our federal head. Paul’s argument in Romans 5 (and 1 Corinthians 15) requires it.

To pick up the thread again, I want to argue the other way around: why is it a problem if Adam isn’t my federal head?

The Fall

If Adam is not my representative head, then my fall in Adam becomes a fiction. I’d be on the hook for my own sins, but not born into sin. In which case, presumably I can rescue myself if only I could obey? I pick up this thread below.

If I’ve still fallen in Adam despite not having any connection with him, then instead the fall seems to be applied to me by divine whim with no grounding in reality. It sounds unfair, though I’m wary of that argument as lots of things do that aren’t, but how can I trust my salvation if God is arbitrary and acts on a whim? God is sovereign over all but acts in accordance with his character and the rules of the cosmos. The cosmos is ordered, not wild. Salvation is logical and in accordance with the scriptures.

Instead, my salvation in Christ is real. God is not arbitrary. The fall is not a fiction: I am born with both inherited guilt and inherited pollution and I continue in my father Adam’s footsteps.

Original Sin

If we deny that all are born in Adam, it would, perhaps, be theoretically possible for me to have not sinned and attain righteousness myself. Why then do I need the cross? Perhaps I just need to be good.

This is a strain of what was condemned as Pelagianism in the early church. It doesn’t save but grows our pride. It’s thinking just like Adam’s in the garden. Perhaps I too could be like God. It ends up much the same way.

Instead, I desperately need rescue. I cannot do good without the Spirit as I am turned in on myself. I can be rescued through faith in Christ: his life is purchased for me and I can receive it. In fact, I can’t even fall myself, because all I have is gift.

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