Chapter 17. How We Come to Have an Interest in What Christ Has Done, Further Explained
Chapter 17.
How We Come to Have an Interest in What Christ Has Done, Further Explained We have shown in the previous chapter what Christ does for the continuation of this peace between God and us: that He is at the right hand of God, there making intercession for the saints continually. So, if there be anything that might (in its own nature) break the peace between God and us, this Mediator sits at the right hand of the Father, and there, by His intercession, He continually presents
Himself to remove any such hindrance and to maintain the peace between God and us, so that no breach may arise in the future. This,
I say, is what Christ undertakes to do, and this is a special work of His mediation: namely, His continual presence at the right hand of the Father, where He presents Himself to God to keep and maintain this peace, which He has established between the Father and us.
Again, if it be asked how we come to have an interest in what Christ does (which was the fourth point proposed in the twelfth chapter) in His satisfaction and in all that He undertakes:
The answer is this: Christ is made the Head of a second covenant.
For, just as the foundation of the breach between God and us was first established through Adam, who was the Head of the first covenant, in whom we all sinned and so became enemies to God, so Jesus Christ is made a second Adam and the Head of a second covenant. All those regarded as the posterity of the second Adam (for so it must be) are regarded as one in Him. As all who were of the posterity of the first Adam were considered as one person in him, resulting in the breach and enmity between God and all that one man's descendants, so all those who belong to the posterity of the
second Adam, whether already born of Him or to be born by a spiritual generation (which the Scripture terms "regeneration"), are viewed as one with Him.
Hence, in 1 Corinthians 15:47, the Apostle speaks of the first and second Adam as if there were only two men in the world, for indeed, there are no more in that sense, nor ever were. "The first man," says the Apostle, "is of the earth, earthly; the second man is the Lord from heaven, heavenly." Here is the first man and the second man. You may ask, are there only two men in the world? No, not in that sense; that is, there have never been but two men who represented all others, and under those two men, all other people in the world are represented before God. All the children of men who fell from God are represented in the first Adam, who was the Head of the first covenant, and they stand under that covenant. And all those whom
God intends to reconcile and glorify are represented before God in the second Adam, who is the Head of the second covenant.
It is true, if we speak properly, Cain was, in order, the second man in the world; but Christ is called the second man—that is, the Head of a second covenant, the second man with whom God entered into a covenant on behalf of other men, and in that sense, He alone is the second man. In the same sense, Adam is called the first man. Thus,
God is reconciled to the world in Christ. As the breach was made between God and humanity through the first Adam, so through the second Adam, reconciliation is made between God and humanity.
And as God imputes what the first Adam did to his descendants for condemnation, so He imputes what the second Adam did to the descendants of that second Adam for life and reconciliation. This is more extensively discussed in most of the fifth chapter of Romans, especially from the middle of the chapter to the end.