Wesley Corpus

(Verse 18.) Now, this is a legal term, and shows that death is not only a natural but a penal evil, and comes upon infants as guilty and condemned;--not for their own actual sins, for they had none; but for the sin of Adam, their legal head, their appointed representative.” (Page 179.) “In the eighteenth verse the expression is very strong: “By the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to con demnation. All the children of Adam, young and old, are condemned for his one offence. But farther:-- “4. In the original it is not, “By the offence of one;” but, “By one offence.’ By the single offence of Adam, when he stood as the head of all his offspring, and brought sin and death upon them by his disobedience; as in the following verse: ‘By one man’s disobedience many were made, or constituted, ‘sin ners; that is, became liable to guilt and death. And so, in the sixteenth verse, one single offence is represented as con demning through Adam, and stands in opposition to the ‘many offences’ which are pardoned through Christ. “5. There is a yet farther proof in this chapter, that Adam conveyed sin and death to his posterity, not merely as a natural parent, but as a common head and representative of all his off spring. As Adam and Christ are here said to be the two springs of sin and righteousness, of death and life to mankind, so the one is represented as a “type’ and ‘figure’ of the other. In this very respect Adam was a ‘figure or type of Christ.’ (Verse 14.) And for this very reason Christ is called ‘the Second Man, the last Adam.” (Cor. xv. 45-47.) As one was the spring of life, so the other was the spring of death, to all his seed or offspring.” (Page 181.) “Now, Christ is a spring of life, not only as he conveys sanc tification or holiness to his seed, but as he procures for them justification and eternal life by his personal obedience. And so Adam is a spring of death, not only as he conveys an unholy nature to his seed, to all men, but as he brings condemnation to eternal death upon them, by his personal disobedience.