Are You In Adam or Christ? - Tim Conway

It is true that all have sinned

and fall short of the glory of God.

It's true that Paul has been arguing

that there is none good - no not one.

Not by nature.

When a person is saved,

Jesus makes them His workmanship.

He makes them

those who are zealous of good works.

Saved people are capable of good.

But in a lost state, man is bad.

Man is under the condemnation
and the wrath of God.

But you know what?

In these verses before us
(Romans 5:12-21)

what the apostle does is he says

man has even a more basic problem

than even his own sin.

He is condemned because of Adam's sin;

because of the sin or the trespass

or the offense of the one man,

we are under condemnation.

And we are under the sentence of death.

Brethren, I know, right away,

you start talking this way

and immediately somebody wants to say -

I mean, what do you say

when somebody says,

"You're guilty because of his sin."

Unfair.

Let me ask you this.

What do we say to this?

"You are righteous because
of that man's righteousness."

I don't hear anybody say, "unfair."

But I'll tell you this,

God deals with men

according to their head.

There are two most important men

in all the history of mankind.

It is Adam and it is Christ.

And Christ, by the way, is called

the second man and the last Adam.

You know why?

Because He is the representative

of all those in Him

and Adam is the representative

of all those in him.

And if you're in Adam, you die.

If you're in Christ, you live.

If you're in Adam, you are condemned.

If you're in Christ, you are justified.

Brethren, this is the reality.

Man at the basic level,

his greatest problem

is that he is identified with Adam.

And you've got to get out
of that family tree, folks.

You've got to get into another family.

You've got to leave that head behind

and come under a new Head.

And the way to do that is by faith

in what Jesus Christ
accomplished on that cross.

And brethren, the thing about this

is when you go back there

and you can see in your mind -

and I'll tell you this was
such a stumbling block

for the Jew -

that their Messiah went to that cross.

And it was utter foolishness

to the Greek and to the Roman.

They said what can a dead Jew do for us?

But I'll tell you, brethren,

we have to understand what happened

on that cross

there outside of
Jerusalem 2,000 years ago.

What happened on that cross -

just this week, I was looking at footage

of Indians and Chinese.

Massive countries of just lostness

throughout Asia,

looking at the vast, teeming multitudes,

faces of people.

And brethren, when you trace their lineage

and our lineage,

the lineage of the Jews, all of us,

the Chinese,

that Hindu bowing down

to his multitude of gods.

You know what? You trace our lineage back

and you know where it all goes?

We're all related.

Not very long ago, brethren,

you can trace your heritage.

You've got parents and
you've got grandparents.

And they had grandparents
and they had parents.

And you can trace them back

and ultimately we all
share the same blood.

We can all hang our heads and say,

"Adam, Adam, what have you done?"

From what Adam did,

he took a fruit.

He took the forbidden fruit.

He took the fruit from the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil

which God had told him not to eat of,

and He said, "In the day you eat thereof

you shall surely die."

And the thing we need to
understand about that

is when God was speaking,

what the apostle tells us

is when those words were spoken,

they weren't spoken
simply for Adam's sake.

That those words were spoken

representative of the entire human race.

When they were spoken to Adam,

Adam represented every one of us.

And that condemnation
promised for taking it

would go upon all of his posterity,

all of his children,
all of his grandchildren.

Brethren, if we're connected with him,

we're in trouble.

And the beauty of what Christ
went to the cross to do

is to undo what Adam did

and it applies to all of us.

That's why the writer of Romans

keeps saying over and over and over,

it's not just to the Jew,
it's to the Greek too.

There's no partiality.

Brethren, the fact is

all men have the same problem.

It's all the same everywhere.

Sometimes we think about -

I don't know if you guys
are even up on this,

but I can remember one
of the missionary trips

that I took and how they talk about

in the seminaries today,

they talk all about this syncretism.

If you don't know
what that is, that's fine,

but it's basically this idea

that you go into other cultures

and you try to work their
cultural peculiarities

into the Gospel message

and into your ministry.

And obviously, we've got
to be culturally sensitive

when we go in, but I'm
telling you, brethren,

there is no place when it
comes to the Gospel message

to try to distort any of this

or make it suitable to certain cultures

or certain societies

or certain countries.

Brethren, you know what, ultimately,

I can remember hearing
a message on missions -

again from our same
missionary out of China -

and he was saying basically man's problem

is essentially the same no
matter where you go.

They may look different.

Their eye shapes may be different.

The Chinese have a certain
eye shape or skin color.

Or you go down to Africa,
or you go wherever,

but man's problem is ultimately the same.

He's bound up with a connection

and a heritage that lies in Adam,

and he is under condemnation

and he faces the wrath of God.

That's why our Gospel -

we don't need to be ashamed of it,

and it's the same in
every country we go into

because man's need is
the same everywhere.

Man is depraved. Man is corrupt.

Man lacks the righteousness that he needs

to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.

He doesn't have it.

He doesn't possess it.

And he in his own power can't get it.

The righteousness of God is revealed

and man needs it

because of his identity with Adam.

He's in Adam and he's in trouble.

And that is the reality
that we're seeing here.

It applies to all men.

You saw that there. All men.

One offense.

And it says condemnation came upon all.

It is not a small thing.

What Adam did in the garden

condemned all mankind.

And Christ came to rescue

those who are in Adam.

He came to rescue us out of it.

And the thing is, I know,

I know we have a problem

in our culture

identifying with how we can be responsible

for our father's sin.

But you know, in Scripture,

I don't know how Middle Easterner's think.

They obviously think different.

Some of these concepts

are more readily understandable

or conceivable to them.

Like, you know how Scripture says

"that Levi yet being in
the loins of Abraham..."

It's like, what?

We don't even think that way.

You know when it was said

Abraham gave tithes to Melchizedek.

So the writer of Hebrews reasons,

well, because Levi would
later come down line

like four generations,

it's really like saying that Levi

gave tithes to Melchizedek.

We're like what?

How can you say Levi did it

when Abraham did it

and Levi wasn't even born yet?

You see, but that's the way the
Middle Eastern mind thinks

because there's a reality there

you and I have a hard time grasping.

I have a feeling for the Jewish mindset,

they don't have near the problem

handling that reality

that because of Adam's sin,

condemnation comes upon us.

To us, that seems like injustice.

But brethren, let me remind you,

we're talking types here.

Adam is a type of Christ.

And if the universal federal headship

of Adam doesn't work,

if it falls apart,

then so too does Christ's justification

of all those who are in Him.

So, before you get too hostile

about thinking what?

I'm guilty and condemned for Adam's sin?

Just remember two things.

You have enough of your own sin

to run you deep into hell

before you get overly concerned

about the imputation of Adam's sin to you.

But the second thing is,

be grateful that God
deals with man that way.

Because since He does,

if you're in Christ,

then He deals with you

under the federal headship of Christ,

which means everything Christ deserves,

you get.

Don't complain because
everything Adam deserves,

you get, being in him.

Just get out of Adam and into Christ.

And you do that by trusting

what Christ did on that cross.

Look to Him in faith.

Don't complain. Don't argue.

Be glad.

And see in it the way of your salvation.