Because God has associated us legally with Adam, our federal head, we are already judged as being dead when we were born. Being born dead, that is, without the life of God in us which He had given to man when He created him, we are doomed to die in our sins ( dead in sin Eph. 2:1-5) and must go to the place of death, hades, to await our final judgement in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14) when death and hades will be cast into the lake of fire which is the second death. Having no power to do right (righteous acts), we actually sin constantly in thought word and deed, because God is entirely left out. Therefore, we sin because we are born sinners (Wuest p.84) - we cannot do otherwise, but we are not condemned primarily for doing wrong, but because we were born into Adam’s family. The law is given in order that we may know ourselves to be sinners and to drive us to Christ.
Just as God had put Adam’s sin to our account, so when Christ, the last Adam, the second Man
(I Cor. 15:45) died, God put that death to our account as well. When Christ arose, it proved that He had triumphed over death. Sins power was broken and Christ, (along with all of those for whom He died), had died to sin therefore it could no longer have dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). Henceforth and forever, since Christ’s death was substitutionary and therefore reckoned by God to be for us and Christ’s justifying act on Calvary judicially (legally) settled the sin question. God now considers us, along with Him, to be dead to sin, since we have been chosen in Him before the foundation of the world ( Eph 1:4).
It is when we believe what God’s Word says that this becomes operative in our Christian experience.– This is what is meant to “walk by faith”. This is stressed by Paul in all his writings to the churches through use of the phrase, “in Christ “ (“in Christ Jesus” or “in Him” - about 80 times). This is our legal standing, otherwise called our position. And the theology that emphasizes this truth is often called positional teaching. There can be no doubt that it is clearly taught in the New Testament.
