January 23 – LD 4, Day 2: It is Our Fault That We Cannot Keep
the Law
by Prof Herman Hanko
Read: Romans 3:1-19, Romans 5:12-21.
Our teacher is now going
to tell us why God is not unjust in insisting we keep the law, even though we
are unable to do it.
The reason is that it is
our own fault that we cannot keep the law. We are to be blamed for this
inability. You will recall that I used the figure of a builder who contracted
to build a house for someone, but needed the money before he started to build.
But, given the money, he squandered it on a round-the-world cruise with his
wife. So, on his return, he was not able to build the house; but the one who
gave him the money had the perfect right to demand of him that he do it, even
if he could not.
But why is our sin our
own fault? Here too, our teacher has an important lesson for us to learn, taken
right from the Scripture. Our sin is our fault, because God created us good –
in Adam. And so we sinned by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. We committed this act of disobedience, and God punishes us with death for
our sin.
But how did we eat of the
tree when we were not even born? We ate of the tree in Adam, for we were in
Adam when Adam sinned; and it is as if we ourselves truly disobeyed.
There are different names
given to Adam because we were in him: Federal Head, Legal Head, Representative Head. Whatever name is used, it all means
that Adam’s sin is the sin of all those who came from Adam – the whole human
race.
This is the teaching of
Scripture. Read Romans 5:12 -14 once again: Wherefore, as by one man sin
entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for
that all have sinned . . . . Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the
figure of him that was to come.”
This is a
difficult doctrine, not to understand, but to confess. Almost no one in our day
believes it any more. But we must remember that if we deny that we sinned in
Adam, then we deny too that we are saved in Christ. Adam “was the figure of him
that was to come” (Rom. 5:14).