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Justification
Part 2 - Adam’s Justification
Review - Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 33
Q. What is justification?
A. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
Romans 5:12-21
Federal Representation
Did you know we do not live in a pure democracy. In a pure democracy every decision has to be voted on every time by everybody. The government of the U.S. is a democratic federal government. That word “federal” comes from the Latin word that means covenant, meaning, in this case, our government is representative. We elect officials to vote and make decisions on policies hopefully as our representatives. So if they are successful we are successful. If they fail we fail. In Romans 5 Paul says that in this life we have federal representation; a covenant mediator, where one man represents others before God for good or for bad. And, it is the case that one person has changed the destiny of all people who have ever lived. It does not matter when you lived or where; whatever your ethnicity, whatever your language, whether you are male or female, whatever your country, whatever your government; whether or not you believe it - one person has already represented you and has changed your and everyone else’s identity, reality, and destiny. Specifically in Romans 5:12, Paul talks about Adam as a very real, very historical Adam. But Adam was not just any real, historical person; he was the first person and the federal representative of all mankind before God. Called to represent us for good, Adam failed as our representative and through Adam sin and death came into the world and death spread to all mankind.
Eating the Forbidden Fruit
What did Adam do that was so wrong? Everyone knows: Adam ate the forbidden fruit. This is where a lot of people have a lot of problems: “I’m going to die and go to hell because Adam took a bite of an apple?” The well meaning response Christians usually offer is, “Well, that’s how holy God is; just one little sin and everybody is doomed.” But, that is a wholly inadequate response. Back to the question: what did Adam do that was so wrong?
God gave Adam a task. Genesis 2:15: God put Adam in the garden “to work it and keep it”, that is, to work and guard the garden. That word “keep” is better translated as it is everywhere else in the Old Testament as “guard”. But what does that mean, “guard” the garden? Next verse, v.16, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” Do you see Adam’s task? The “guarding” and the “do not eat of this particular tree” have everything to do with each other.
Guard the Garden
Guard it from whom? You guard things against an enemy. Therefore Adam should be expecting an enemy to intrude into God’s holy sanctuary of the garden of Eden, and Adam’s task is to guard the garden from that enemy. The enemy indeed shows up, that serpent, snake who is the devil himself (Revelation 12:9). And, standing right next to that tree with the prohibited fruit, in Genesis 3:1 the serpent “said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” … ‘You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”
Do Not Eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
This tree has a negative aspect: Adam and Eve could not eat its fruit. It was forbidden. Not because it was intrinsically evil; it is not “a bad tree.” It was forbidden because God said it was forbidden. This is a test of Adam’s love and obedience. BUT, this tree had a positive aspect too: Adam and Eve were to perform a God like task in relation to it. What was that task? The devil shows up blaspheming God’s name, calling into question God’s goodness and his trustworthiness. Adam, this earthly creature, thus finds himself involved in an apparent war in heaven between God and the devil. Adam’s task as guardian and king of Eden is to render a judgment and declare the devil to be evil and God to be good and to condemn the trespass of this blasphemer in God’s holy place and kick him out of Eden.
If Adam had faithfully completed his task of guarding the garden BY NOT eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as God had commanded him THEN he would have:
1) rightly judged between good and evil
2) with the tree of knowledge of good and evil standing undefiled
3) and he would have earned a righteous judgment for himself.
But… that is not what Adam did.
Objection: “The Fall was Eve’s fault, not Adam’s”
At this point many raise the objection: “I thought Eve sinned first because she ate the fruit first and then gave it to Adam? So didn’t sin and death really enter the world through Eve?”
There is a problem with this problem. Genesis is clear and Romans is clear that Adam was the federal, covenantal representative of all mankind, not Eve. Adam’s failure to guard that garden and not eat of that tree began by just standing there letting Eve be tempted and seduced by the devil. Then the whole trial and test culminated in Adam eating too.
The Fall in Genesis 3
That said, Adam’s transgression is so much more than one sin, than one bite of a forbidden fruit. This is a test of Adam’s love and obedience. The devil shows up blaspheming God’s name, calling into question God’s goodness and his trustworthiness. As king and guardian of the garden Adam is supposed to be on the lookout for an enemy and when this one shows up at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Adam is supposed to declare the devil to be evil and God to be good and to condemn the trespass of this blasphemer in God’s holy place and kick him out of Eden. If he had, God would have declared this first Adam righteous for this one act of obedience and Adam would have merited eternal glory for himself and for all those he represented. That must be the case because that is exactly what Jesus, the second Adam, did.
Adam knows everything is on the line when this enemy invades. Adam knows he is supposed to worship God. He knows he is supposed to subdue the earth and fill it with God-worshipers. He knows if he passes this one test at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil he will earn eternal life and glory which have been promised him in the 7th day sabbath of God and the Tree of Life. He knows he will earn this reward not just for himself - if he passes this test of obedience in the garden he will earn heaven for everyone because he represents everyone for good. Or bad. Adam knows the penalty if he fails here in this one test - death for himself and everyone.
What did Adam do that was so wrong? It is not just taking a bite of fruit. His transgression is breaking the covenant of creation with God. Adam chooses himself over God; Adam chooses himself over all those he represents. When Adam sinned he brought into the world what had never been in the world = sin and death; death death, this is condemnation death, forever death, hell. That thing that people hate most about themselves, that struggle, that flaw that cannot be overcome, that thing of sin - it is now in mankind. And that thing that mankind most fears, that thing of death - it has held dominion over the world of mankind ever since.
Objection: “The Fall was Adam’s fault, not mine”
At this point many raise the objection: “I don’t like this. I didn’t sin. Adam sinned. Not my fault. I wasn’t there.”
There is a problem with the problem. You were there, “in Adam.” Romans 5:12, “Death spread to all men because all sinned” (Paul means all sinned “IN ADAM”). To make that point Paul then trails off for a couple verses in Romans 5:13 and 14 to say, let me be super clear in what I’m saying, even though it doesn’t seem like super clear verses. “13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given…” (= that is, sin was in the world before the Mosaic Law was given)
“… but sin is not counted where there is no law.” (= that is, sin was in the world before the Mosaic Law was given BUT sin is not counted to God’s people when God’s people are not under a Covenant of Works; sin is not counted to God’s people under a covenant of grace)
“14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.” (= that is, God’s people between Adam and Moses were not under the Law, they were under a covenant of grace which is a different kind of covenant. In a covenant of grace sins are treated differently, namely they are forgiven. AND YET, death reigned from Adam to Moses?!?!? Yes, the reign of sin and death was experienced in the temporal existence of those in the covenant community after the Fall. Death reigns even over the community of the covenant of grace since the Fall. Even God’s covenant of grace people are bound to die. So Christ comes to save a perishing people.
BIG QUESTION: Where does those people’s guilt and condemnation come from? Paul argues they were also “IN ADAM.” Adam represented them and because Adam was counted a sinner and counted guilty so were all people, even those in the covenant community of grace, and so they also died because of Adam. Everyone born to Adam and Eve were born dead in sin at birth, spiritually, and they died physically too. God did not show up after Adam sinned and say, “Ok, well you failed and you gotta leave the garden but when your kids are born bring them to the garden and I’ll give them the same test and see how they do.” Adam was the one representative and he failed so everyone failed in him. And thus even though we are saved by grace and will live forever, in this life God’s people still experience the effects of Adam’s sin; even God’s people are under assault by sin and death. This is called original sin, inherited guilt, inherited depravity. We are sinners NOT because we each sin. We sin because we are sinners.
Objection: “Then why, how did Adam sin?”
The objection is raised: If Adam did not suffer from original sin then what induced him to sin? If God created him good how could something good choose sin?
It is a problem and we do not know the answer fully. Surely free will is a part of the answer. The fact that Adam was tempted from the outside by the devil serpent rather than from internal temptation deriving from original sin is part of the answer. But ultimately the answer to the problem is a mystery. Gerhardus Vos in his Reformed Dogmatics admits, “We are unable to explain how a cause can exist in the holy nature of Adam that turned him to sin. We must pronounce the origin of the first sin in Adam an unsolvable problem.”1
Objection: “You can’t earn heaven, Adam couldn’t earn heaven”
Some object to the idea that Adam, God’s creature, could have done something to earn the reward of heaven. “The thought that a man can earn heaven is diabolical; it’s arrogance. Man can’t do anything that would be meritorious before God and be a way earning heaven.” Other critics argue, “Man may be able to merit a little something from God but not heaven! There is an incredible disproportion between the reward God gives and the service man renders. Man simply doesn’thave the significance on the scale of being that he could do anything that would merit eternal life.”
There is a problem with the problem: If Adam is not high enough up on the scale of being so that anything positive he would do would have the value of deserving eternal life - that means Adam also does not have the significance to do anything by way of disobedience that would merit eternal death. If the consequences of his actions do not add up to anything eternal then he did not deserve eternal death and if he did not deserve eternal death and God sends his Son into the world to suffer eternal death in order save his people then God is not a just God. God would be imposing on Adam (and Christ) more punishment than his (and our) rebellion deserve. The problem with the problem is if you think Adam’s arrangement with God is unfair then you cannot reconcile the Second Adam’s arrangement with God (which will talk about more in part 3).
Vos answers the question: “Is it necessary for God’s righteousness to reward goodness? No, Scripture teaches that all reward is not ex condigno, according to worthiness, or ex congruo, in proportion to, but only ex pacto, from a free agreement that God has established with the creature.”2
1 Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, Volume One: Theology Proper, translated by Richard Gaffin, Jr.
(Lexham Press, Grand Rapids 2014), 88.
2 Ibid, 31.
What IF?
God the Father’s Covenant of Works with Adam
In the beginning when God created Adam their relationship was one based on love and justice. This was not something nebulous like an understood gentlemen’s agreement. God and Adam got along based on love and justice from the very beginning of Adam’s existence because God created Adam in that relationship, in that legally binding relationship of covenant.
Another way to say this, there is no pre-covenantal situation for Adam in the garden of Eden. There is no “order of nature” that Adam adheres to and then, at some point later on, God decides to make a covenant with Adam. No, when God creates the world it is a covenantal creation. When God brings creation into existence he brings it into a covenantal arrangement. There is nothing before the covenant. And God’s covenant with Adam at creation is eschatological from the beginning. That is, from the very beginning what is envisaged at creation is the consummation. Ultimate heavenly glory is not some second thought on God’s part following the Fall. From the beginning, it was God’s intention to bring his people into heavenly paradise with him; to bring his people up to the 7th day of his sabbath glory to join with him in his heavenly rest. That is the consummation. That is God’s purpose from the very beginning. That was the goal of the covenant that he set up with Adam. The goal was always heaven, consummation, the glorified state of things.
And, the principle of inheriting that eternal glory from the beginning was on the basis of Adam’s work of obedience. Another way to say that is that this is a covenant governed by a principle of justice, NOT GRACE. And so it is rightly called a Covenant of Works = God’s Covenant of Works with Adam. This was NOT a Covenant of Grace. The principle of inheritance of the blessing is: “Do this… and you will live.” There is reward based on merit. That is simple justice. You get what you deserve. Adam’s promised inheritance is heaven. The principle of inheritance, the basis on which Adam gets that inheritance is works, not grace.
Before the Fall, Did Adam Need to be Justified?
Only sinners need to be justified, right? Wrong! It is imperative that we expand our definition of "justification" beyond merely the forgiveness of sins. Even before the entrance of sin into the world Adam needed to be justified. He needed a judicial declaration granting him the right to eternal life.
Consider Adam as he was before the Fall: innocent and without sin. And yet, he did not yet possess eternal life. True, he had not yet incurred the punishment that God had threatened in Genesis 2:17, "In the day that you eat of the tree you will surely die.” He was not yet mortal in the sense that we are mortal, i.e., destined to die. But on the other hand, he was not yet immortal either. He was still able to die – and this is clearly demonstrated by the fact that he did. And if he could die, then he did not have eternal life. Thus Adam had to earn heaven. And, it remains true to this day - you have to earn heaven. That is the deal. That is the deal God set up. His deal.
Heaven has to be earned. You have to work for it and get it as a reward. God himself did it that way in the story of creation. The other way you can tell the story of creation is the story of God’s works. He performed his kingdom works as he created his kingdom into existence over the 6 days. As he performed his work day by day he pronounced a word of judgment on his works, “And he saw that it was good.” And so day by day he pronounced a word of approbation. And because he had performed the work and he pronounced it good and approved of it he earned the reward of the Sabbath 7th day. That is the pattern of eschatology. That is the basic structure of history. The basic structure of history is not flat; it is not cyclical as the pagans thought. The creation history from the beginning has intended to be a thrust toward consummation and heaven via a process of earning it through probationary works which of course God in his covenant assigned. This is the pattern God gave Adam to follow. God earned his Sabbath rest by fulfilling the works and received his own verdict of approbation. That is the pattern that he repeats on earth with his image bearer. God is an eschatological God moving to consummation. Man, therefore, does the same and he too must earn it and merit it by his works.
So what if Adam had been successful in the garden?3
After man’s successful PROBATION (that would be his works) then proceeds the conferring of the blessings of the covenant in two stages. Heaven itself is the second stage. GLORIFICATION would not happen at once. If Adam and Eve pass the PROBATION you have to remember that part of their general assignment was to fill the earth, populate it, and subdue it. And the fact is they can’t procreate and populate the earth if God GLORIFIED them right away because when our bodies are GLORIFIED Jesus tells the Sadducees we are like the angels in heaven and you’re not given in marriage anymore (Matthew 22:23ff). They couldn’t be GLORIFIED at once because then they wouldn’t be able to fulfill this general cultural mandate that had also been given to them in this covenant. So they must continue with their earthly bodies. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15 that we have these earthly bodies, like Adam, and then we have the likeness of the man from heaven afterwards. So following the test in the garden at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil there would have been a period of history when Adam and Eve were no longer able to fall because they have passed their PROBATION and they would have been beyond that particular point; they would have been beyond PROBATION.
And that verdict would have been declared to them. There would have been the word of APPROBATION. APPROBATION is the word of JUSTIFICATION. Even in our best discussions of JUSTIFICATION they don’t have in them everything that they should have in them because they don’t seem to have in them this thought of APPROBATION. They don’t seem to get beyond pardon - that you have actually accomplished the work that earns heaven for you. APPROBATION would have been the first thing that happened to Adam and Eve after they successfully passed their PROBATION.
What else would have happened to them immediately afterwards? In order to be in heaven with God forever you can’t be in a condition such as Adam and Eve were in the beginning of posse peccare et non posse peccare (able to sin and not able to sin). If God can’t take you to heaven and guarantee heaven to you forever, then you’re in a condition where you might become a devil and so before that can take place you have to be CONFIRMED in righteousness. The Holy Spirit who created you in the beginning now has to do a new work in you and he would have done it for Adam and Eve if they had passed the PROBATION. If Adam had done it, the Holy Spirit would have CONFIRMED them so they could no longer sin. They would have been CONFIRMED in spiritual righteousness. Those two things, APPROBATION and CONFIRMATION, would have happened to them and within that context they would have fulfilled the commission of extending the kingdom of God globally by populating the earth and subduing it.
3 Much of what follows comes from lectures delivered at Amoskeag Presbyterian Church in the early 2000s by Old Testament scholar, Meredith G. Kline, particularly lecture
2 https://meredithkline.com/klines-works/mp3-files/
Until when? Until God said, “OK we got enough. We’ve reached the predestined fullness of all mankind. Now we can move beyond this first stage of conferral to this second stage. Now we can move beyond Spiritual CONFIRMATION to physical GLORIFICATION.” And that would have been the happy history of a PROBATION that was passed. It didn’t work out that way. Happily, however the Second Adam does it right so all these good things happen to us. If Adam had passed the PROBATION he would not yet be in the fully eschatological, ultimate state of being in heaven but he would be in a semi-eschatological state, comparable to but not exactly what you and and I are in. We are in a semi-eschatological state in that we are CONFIRMED in eternal life already but we’re not yet GLORIFIED. BUT unlike what would have been for Adam and Eve had they passed the PROBATION we are carrying on our lives with a history which does have all the effects of sin and fall around us.
Objection: “All covenants in the Bible are covenants of grace” Some object and argue that all covenants are fundamentally the same: “All covenants have demands and they all have promises. So all covenants are covenants of grace.”
There is a problem with the problem. YES all covenants have demands and promises BUT that does not tell you how you inherit the promised blessings. The point is - what role do works play in the covenant relationship?!?! Or another way to put it: what is the principle by which the promised blessings are inherited? Is it by works or by grace? Jesus gives us plenty of commands in the New Testament that are even harsher/harder than the Old Testament. Jesus says in Matthew 5: “The Old Testament says don’t murder. I say don’t even get angry with your brother. The Old Testament says don’t commit adultery. I say don’t even look at someone lustfully. The Old Testament says love your neighbor. I say love your neighbor and your enemy!”
The New Covenant has a law. There are demands in the New Covenant. What is the New Covenant Law? It is the crux and heart of the Old Testament Law carried over into the New Covenant. Matthew 22: love God and love your neighbor.
But that DOES NOT mean the New Covenant is a covenant of works. WE ARE NOT USING THE TERM “WORKS” IN THE SENSE OF - “ARE THERE ANY DEMANDS IN THE COVENANT?” We are using the term “WORKS” in the sense of the principle of inheritance. By what principle do you inherit the blessing? What function does your obedience to the commandments of God perform? Does your obedience to God’s commands perform the function of earning heaven? If YES, then that’s the work principle and you are under a Covenant of Works.
In this covenant before the Fall Adam does NOT receive the kingdom blessings but rather a curse if he forfeits God’s favor by disobedience. Under the gospel of the New Covenant of grace, we DO receive those blessings in spite of having forfeited them by our disobedience and sin. That is grace. Grace is the bestowing of blessings despite the fact they have been de-merited. That is a really big difference in our situations. We should not talk about grace before the Fall because Adam was not in sin or sinful before the Fall. He has not sinned or de-merited any blessing. There is no need for grace before the Fall. If Adam had obeyed he would have merited heaven. Simple.
What is the “payout” in seeing Adam’s Covenant of Works?
I was once asked, “What’s the payout for seeing a Covenant of Works in the garden before the Fall? What difference does it make to me?”
This is the payout: We all know this is true deep down—both Christians and non-Christians. We have this notion ingrained in us that we are worthy of God, worthy of heaven, worthy of a good afterlife; that we are good enough and that our life and good deeds should count for something. We have this covenant of works ingrained on our hearts that I can justify myself before God. This is because we are all born into the Covenant of Works with Adam because we all descend from Adam.
This is a point of contact for us with friends, family and strangers who do not believe - to say that only one person has done it. Only one person has merited heaven and glory through his life and that is Jesus. And when we look to him, our works and obedience, our good deeds are exposed as polluted, filthy, disgusting rags. We are sinners in desperate absolute need of an intercessor, someone to stand in our place and do it all for us.