The Dogmatician: Federal Headship in a Paragraph

When a father plunges his family into misery along with himself, or a king his people, or a philosopher his followers, or a boss his workers, we can go back behind these persons and to some extent find some explanation and satisfaction in the solidarity that prevails in humankind as a whole and in its various circles. But in the case of Adam and Christ, we cannot do this. They have the human race not behind them but before them; they do not spring from it but give rise to it; they are not sustained by it but themselves sustain it; they are not the product of humankind, but are, each in his own way, the beginning and root of it, the heads of all humanity. They are not explained by the law of solidarity but explain this law by their own existence. —Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics