Theology for Everybody: RomansSample

Best News Ever: Find Your Hope

Some of the greatest false myths we believe are that we are good, independent, and free people who are the captains of our own fates and masters of our own destinies. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Everything started with Adam. According to the overarching story of the Bible, Adam is an actual, historical person, the first to exist. He is the father of all humanity, including you and me. Adam committed the original human sin (though Satan and his demons preceded Adam with the first overall sin). Genesis 3 tells how Adam and his wife, Eve, ate fruit from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God had warned Adam, “For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

Adam’s sin brought about the original human death. God is the living God. When you separate yourself from the source of life, death comes about. This death is threefold:

-Spiritual death: We are instantly separated from God.

-Physical death: We are separated from our bodies.

-Eternal death: We are forever separated from God and spend eternity in hell.

What does one man's decision a long time ago have to do with us? Everything. The doctrine of federal headship comes from the Latin word for covenant. A covenant is the Bible’s language to explain a relationship that binds people together. We tend to think of ourselves solely and exclusively in categories as individuals, but we’re not. God sees us as part of a collective, as families, and as groups. Each covenant has a head, and the head’s responsibility is to ensure the people of the covenant are cared for, and the terms of the covenant are kept. Adam is the head of the human race, or the federal head, in the same way that Jesus is the head of the Church, and the husband is the head of the family.

Adam’s name means “mankind,” and as the head of humanity, his sin implicated every other human. When the enemy, Satan, showed up as a serpent in the Garden of Eden, he had a conversation with Eve to undermine and subvert the authority structure of the family. Eve was deceived, and she ate the forbidden fruit. Then she gave some to her husband, “who was with her” (Genesis 3:6). Adam did not make the decision, even though he was also present; he sat there and did nothing. Eve’s sin was one of commission, but Adam’s sin was one of omission. He didn’t step up, so she tried to lead the family, and as a result, Satan undermined the entire authority structure of the family. There’s been nothing but death, devastation, and destruction every day since. (Continued on Day 112 ...)

Today’s Reflection

Why is it important to recognize that there are three types of death?