Fesko: "Adam is the universal federal and covenantal head for the entire human race."

Rom 5 v 13- 14 (CSB)

13 In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.

"Paul proves his point regarding the imputation of Adam’s sin by surveying the landscape of redemptive history and dividing it into three sections:

Adam Adam ➔ Moses Moses ➔ Present day

It is easy to understand why Adam died and why people after the revelation of the Mosaic law died: They all transgressed expressly revealed commandments of God. God explicitly told Adam not to eat of the tree of knowledge lest God punish him with death. And Israel, like Adam in his state in the garden, received expressly revealed commands from God, who threatened them with death for violating them (e.g., Ex. 21:15–17). But what about the people who lived and died between Adam and Moses? On what basis did they die when God had not revealed His commands or laws to them as He did to Adam and Israel?

The answer comes from the doctrine of imputation. “Death reigned,” writes Paul, “from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam” (Rom. 5:14). The inhabitants of the Adam-Moses gap died even though they did not transgress expressly revealed commands of God like Adam did. But if they suffered the consequences of violating the law—namely, death—then God must somehow credit Adam’s first sin to all people.

God, therefore, punishes all people as if they disobeyed His revealed law even though they did not personally do so. In short, God imputes Adam’s guilt to all humanity. Adam is the universal federal and covenantal head for the entire human race."

J. V. Fesko, Romans, ed. Joel R. Beeke and Jon D. Payne, The Lectio Continua Expository Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2018), 135–136.

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