More on Justification by Faith and Adam

"Do not think that the doctrine of justification by grace, based on the imputation of the obedience of Christ through faith apart from works, is a mere concoction of a western European worldview that got off the ground with the guilty conscience of a monk named Martin Luther. That's not true. It can't be true, because it is the historical remedy in the person of Jesus Christ for the historical damage in the person of everybody's first ancestor.

The doctrine of justification by grace through faith cannot be replaced by a redemptive analogy. If Paul had merely said for example, "Sin is like drowning in the ocean, and salvation is like being pulled out of the water into a boat by a strong man," then you might go to a people group somewhere far from oceans and boats and say, "Sin is like sinking in quicksand and salvation is like being pulled onto a firm rock by a strong man." That's fine. But you can't do that with this doctrine of justification - not now, not after Romans 5:12-21.

Why not? Because now Paul has connected it with Adam. And Adam is the historical ancestor of every people group on the face of the earth. This is not a myth; it's not an analogy; it's not an illustration. It is historical fact. Adam, the first human being, sinned and in him all human beings sinned, and all died and all are condemned. And the remedy for that is another historical Person - the God-man, Jesus Christ, who came in space and time to undo what Adam did. He trusted and obeyed God perfectly, so that all who are in him by faith have that obedience imputed to them and become right with God forever." - John Piper

Romans 5 and the significance of Adam

When asked about the importance of the fact that Adam was the literal and historical person that the Bible claims he is, as opposed to being symbolic, and how it relates to our salvation (commenting specifically on Romans 5:12-21), John Piper said this:

“I think that the whole structure of Paul’s arguments falls to the ground, and since he is not creating arguments out of nothing, but rooting them in reality which is past and future, that is relating to sin and our future salvation, our salvation would evaporate. That may sound like a lot to hang on the historicity of Adam, but Romans 5 documents our problem as people who have sinned in Adam and it documents our rescue as One who explicitly modeled His teaching to reverse the error that Adam committed and the misery, the fall, that has come upon us. So if you put stock in the inspired word of God as not just creating arguments out of nothing, but as being rooted in history and therefore able to relate to future real-life history, namely our lives, I would say the denial of the historical person of Adam is a gospel-threatening denial.”¹

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¹ “Adam, Christ, and Justification” by John Piper (Desiring God Radio broadcast 9/12/2006)