The Doctor: It’s Not Fair!

[W]e must not begin to question our relationship to the world’s first man, Adam, because every time you put the question I will make you ask the same question about our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.  If you say to me, ‘Is it fair that the sin of Adam should be imputed to me?’ I will reply by asking, ‘Is it fair that the righteousness of Christ should be imputed to you?’  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 4, p. 219

2 thoughts on “The Doctor: It’s Not Fair!”

  1. I’m having a really hard time reconciling the idea that Adam’s sin is imputed to us with Ezekiel 18. Any thoughts?

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    1. Here is my run at it:

      1. Adam and Christ are in a unique position as the only representational heads of the humanity. God has assigned this to no one else. To look for imputation in Ezekiel is then incorrect since the fathers here were not federal heads representing their sons.

      2. Although we inherit Adam’s quilt we are primarily held responsible for our own sins. We have a conscience that convicts us of this quilt and we repress it and sin against the work of the law written on our hearts.

      3. There is a sense in which we are judged for the sins of our fathers.

      Exodus 20:5 – You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

      Exodus 34:6-7 – The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

      Deuteronomy 5:9 – You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,

      Numbers 14:18 – ‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’

      As I read these scriptures and try to place them in their context and interpret the according the analogy of faith I believe that earthly fathers deeply influence their sons, such that they are the “generation of those who hate him”. In this way the fathers condemn their sons. If my biological father functions in this way it makes sense that Adam would do so in a greater more profound way.

      Although here a question may arise, since no one at this day perishes who does not partly bear the fault of another, namely, of Adam, by whose fall and revolt the whole human race actually perished. Since therefore Adam, by his fall, brought destruction upon us, it follows that we perish through the fault of another. Since this question will be treated again in its own place, it will now be sufficient to say, in three words, that although we perish through he fault of another, yet the fault of each individual is joined with it. We are not condemned in Adam as if we were innocent in ourselves, but we have contracted pollution from his sin; and so it has come to pass that each must bear the punishment of his own crime… – Calvin

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