“For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (Romans 5:19)
Adam famously disobeyed God’s one rule not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are all descendants of Adam, and like our ultimate father we all continue to disobey God. The Bible calls that sin.
Yet, God sent Jesus as a second Adam, a new humanity. In contrast to Adam, Jesus obeyed. Now, we have a choice of which humanity we want to belong to. The disobedient one founded by Adam or the obedient one launched by Christ, through whom we can be made righteous in God’s sight.
Adam and Christ
Artificial Intelligence – The Image of Man
Artificial Intelligence is here. In many ways it seems increasingly human like. It can relate to us almost like another human, write essays, songs, music, create art and even movies. It seems increasingly human like. Does its coming mean that this is going to be one of the most pivotal or epochal moments for humanity? Will it change or even replace humanity?
Artificial Intelligence is made to mimic humans. It is trained on masses of human output, so that it can produce similar output itself. As such AI offers a kind of copy or image of humanity.
But what happens, if you take an image of the image. If you take a photo of a photo, then the second photo is not as close a representation as the first. Keep doing it and the image becomes degraded.
Some scientists did a similar thing with AI. Rather than using human output, they trained an AI on AI output. If AI is a copy of humanity, then this AI was a copy of the copy. Then they trained another AI on the output of the copy of the copy. The more they did this, the more the AI produced total gobbledygook. The further the copy goes from the original the more degraded it becomes. AI needs humanity, to be able to imitate humanity. It can’t ultimately replace humanity.
Image of God
Right at the beginning of the Bible, it says that humans were made in the image of God. In some way, we mirror what God is like, without being fully God ourselves.
If that is what it is to be human, then we remain more fully human the more connected with God we are. The more distant from God we become, the more degraded becomes the image of God in us and the less human we become.
Two Epochal Moments for Humanity
What has all this to do with Romans 5? In Romans, Paul is presenting the good news about Jesus Christ as truly good news for the whole of humanity. And in this section of Romans he is comparing two different versions of this humanity. Each is rooted in an epochal moment in history, a moment where humanity was changed for ever on a more fundamental level than Artificial Intelligence will ever do, because these two events effected our connection with God and so our ability to truly live in the image of God.
So, what were these two crucial moments?
Adam’s Trespass or Disobedience: Humanity Degraded
The first, was Adam’s choice to disobey God. In Genesis, Adam is presented as the first man, with Eve as the first woman alongside him. They were the ones created in God’s image. The Bible sees all of us as ultimately descended from Adam and so in some way we inherit Adam’s likeness in ourselves. We too are in God’s image, like them. But we also inherit the big choice that they made.
You may find it hard to accept that we are all descended from one man. But, in 2004, some mathematicians put together a mathematical model to answer the question as to who was the most recent common ancestor of all people alive today. The results suggested that this person lived no earlier than 1400BC and possibly as recently as AD55. Now, our most recent common ancestor, is not our only common ancestor, there would have been lots of people living 1,000s of years ago, that are ancestors of everyone living today. It’s not a big step to believe that one of these was the Adam, that the Bible talks about.
So, what was the big choice that Adam made? In Genesis we are told, that Adam was put in the Garden of Eden and given access to the fruit of all the trees including the tree of life. There was just one rule. He was not allowed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This probably represents the choice to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, rather than to defer to what God says. Adam, having this one rule, however, at the prompting of the devil decided to disobey the commandment and eat the fruit.
The result was to distance himself from the God, that he was made to be in the image of. It lead to the ultimate degradation of humanity, from which the rest of the sins of the world flow.
As Adam’s descendants we too share in the same attitude of disobedience to God, thinking we can decide for ourselves what is right and wrong rather than defer to God. So, we true degrade the image of God in us, that we were created to be. We lose the ultimate meaning of our humanity. We become sinners and as a result of our sin, we die spiritually and physically. In our sin we come under God’s judgement, his condemnation.
This is what Paul is saying again and again in Romans 5. Just look at the start of verse 19:
“For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners…” (Romans 5:19)
For Paul, the moment Adam chose to disobey God, was the moment humanity lost its calling to be made in the image of God, it was plunged into a world full of sin, condemnation and death. Separated from their maker, humanity was deeply degraded.
Christ’s Gift and Obedience: Humanity Renewed
In contrast to Adam’s disobedience, Paul presents Christ’s obedience. What is he referring to? Jesus’ death on the cross. The cross was many things, even in the verses earlier in chapter 5, Paul has talked about how through the cross, we are justified and reconciled with God, more than that the cross was the greatest demonstration of God’s love to us.
But, the cross was also an act of obedience. Jesus, was in a way a new Adam, a reset for humanity. Jesus as the eternal Son of God came in the flesh, to share in our humanity, but also to offer a reset to our humanity, to be the human who truly was in the image of God.
This challenge reached its climax in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus who knew that the cross was coming the very next day, knelt down to pray, longing that he might somehow avoid the pain and suffering it would entail. But in the end he prayed to God, “Not my will, but yours be done.” Whereas Adam chose to reject God’s will in disobedience, Jesus despite the enormous personal cost chose to embrace God’s will in obedience.
But, Paul, says in so doing, he opened up a new possibility for humanity. He offered a way back to God, a chance to embrace our original calling to live in the image of God. A chance to be justified by God rather than condemned. A return to life, true life and eternal life.
Jesus’ death, then was the other epochal moment in human history. It created a new humanity, free from the results of Adam’s original choice.
As it says in verse 19:
“For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
Our Choice:
So, we now have a choice. Do we want the degraded humanity of Adam or the renewed humanity of Christ?
In Romans 5, Paul lays out the results of being part of these two humanities:
Adam’s by Descent: Condemnation and Death
As people descended from death, we all inherit the degraded humanity of Adam. We are all sinners. And this has consequences: condemnation and death.
As it says in verse 12:
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned–” (Romans 5:12)
And in verse 18:
“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men,” (Romans 5:18a)
The condemnation spoken of here is the just judgement of God on our sin.
In the news this week, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Suspicion is not the same as condemnation, but the police will try and see if there is a case for him to answer and if there is, then he will be taken to court where the case will be put, and if he is found guilty he will be condemned and there will be a punishment.
Andrew, had a position of great privilege and responsibility. He was meant to use it to represent the UK and advance its prospects, not for his own benefit and to satisfy his own lusts. However, he is under suspicion of doing just that and there is rightly an outcry against him and a demand that if guilty he face judgement and is stripped of his place in the line of succession and barred from a home in the royal grounds in Windsor.
As human beings, we are made in the image of God. As such we are given an office to represent God, but we have ignored God, and used our position simply to satisfy our own desires and lusts. This is our sin, and on the day of trial, God will condemn us and judge us for our behaviour. We will be cut off from him totally and barred from a place in his eternal home. This is the ultimate death.
We can choose to continue living in this way without God. But the good news is that in Christ, God has offered us a way back to true humanity.
Christ’s by Faith: Justification and Life
At the beginning of chapter 5, Paul says,
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” (Romans 5:1)
We are born as descendants of Adam, but if we put our faith in Jesus, we can become part of his renewed humanity. Adam’s disobedience was profound and had profound consequences, but the gift of Jesus’ obedience is more powerful than that of Adam’s disobedience:
“But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (Romans 5:15)
So, what do we gain as part of Christ’s new humanity:
“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” (Romans 5:18)
We receive justification. That is when it comes to God sitting in judgement on us, because we have chosen to belong to Christ, God sees not our sin, but Jesus’ sacrifice on behalf of our sin. And so we are justified, we are no longer under condemnation for our sin.
As a result we are reconciled with God, and we can enjoy the true life that he created us to have. A life that means we are welcomed into his eternal home, but more than that a life that means we are part of his family now, and can approach him as our Father. This is what it means to have peace with God.
As such we can come close to God and be made increasingly into the image of God, that we were originally created to be. We can live our true calling, we can discover our true humanity.
Conclusion:
Paul’s writings in Romans may feel a long way from talk about AI and our modern world. But, the rise of AI forces us to think once more about what it means to be truly human. Indeed, if we are going to make the most of AI and avoid its dangers, then we need to understand our humanity more deeply than ever.
The Bible tells us that Jesus is the only way to really regain our true humanity that was lost by Adam. Now more than ever is the time to come and put out faith in him and discover the life that only he can offer.
St. Luke's Church Ramsgate 