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“All Mankind Fell in Adam’s Fall”
Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The hymn we just sang is one of only two hymns to be quoted in our Lutheran Confessions. In the Formula of Concord, concerning disputes over the doctrine of original sin, it is said: “Through the fall of Adam man’s nature and essence are entirely corrupt.” In the original German text of the Formula, the text of the opening stanza of this hymn is quoted verbatim. It states the reality that we are born in sin and bound to die.
All mankind fell in Adam’s fall;
One common sin infects us all.
From one to all the curse descends,
And over all God’s wrath impends.
Adam fell into sin when he tried to be like God instead of remaining in the image of God. This sin has come to us all. We fell with Adam, and we are as guilty as Adam with our own faults. It is no wonder that today’s Gospel expands on the 5th Commandment, “You shall not murder.” We might be tempted to think that we haven’t killed anyone. And yet, Jesus says: “Everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to the judgment.” And every Adam, like you and me, has had unrighteous anger; we have killed our brother through our anger, and we must repent!
Through all our powers corruption creeps
And us in dreadful bondage keeps;
In guilt we draw our infant breath
And reap its fruits of woe and death.
Corruption creeps through the talents and treasures we have been given, leading us to use them for our own glory. So sin brings “dreadful bondage,” a bondage to Satan and to hell. And, yes, even that cute little newborn, who is passed from doctor to nurse to be placed in a towel and rubbed somewhat vigorously to trigger the first breath of life—that is actually the infant breath of death. Each day draws us one day closer to the grave.
From hearts depraved to evil prone
Flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone;
God’s image lost, the darkened soul
Seeks not nor finds its heavenly goal.
As surely as the common cold leads to coughing and sneezing, so the disease of original sin leads to actual sins of thought, word, and deed. Our hearts are depraved. As we read in Genesis, just before the flood, “...Every intention of the thoughts of (man’s) heart was only evil continually.” From sinful hearts “flow thoughts and deeds of sin alone.”
Have you ever been told that a “real” Christian only prays from the heart and not from a book? Do you see why that might be a problem? When you look at your heart apart from Christ, you find nothing but corruption and death! By themselves, our hearts will offer us nothing more than darkness, death, and devil.
But Christ, the second Adam, came
To bear our sin and woe and shame,
To be our life, our light, our way,
Our only hope, our only stay.
Notice how this stanza and the stanzas that remain display the incomparable rich blessings of Christ. He is the second Adam. Adam’s sin brought death to all, but Christ brought life and light to all. St. Paul writes in Romans 5: “For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.” Adam was our death, our darkness, our lost way. Jesus, however, came to lift the curse and restore our life with God. His death crushed Adam’s curse of death and has brought life to us.
As by one man all mankind fell
And, born in sin was doomed to hell,
So by one Man, who took our place,
We all were justified by grace.
Jesus took our place before God the Father and gives us a special gift: his own righteousness. “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The scribes and Pharisees thought they were righteous through their works, but they were still stuck in Adam’s sin. The righteousness of Christ is a gift of grace, not earned by works. Everything Jesus is and does counts for us before God. He washes us clean in Holy Baptism, forgiving our sins so that we stand justified before God. And now, as a guarantee, He gives us His body to eat and his blood to drink ”for the forgiveness of sins.”
We thank you, Christ; new life is ours,
New light, new hope, new strength, new powers.
This grace our every way attend
Until we reach our journey’s end.
We thank God for his gifts and we rejoice that these gifts have no end. Several key words describes these gifts: life, light, hope, strength, power. They echo the original creation where God gave all of these gifts to mankind before the fall into sin. And now, through Christ, they are being restored in an even greater measure, though for now they are given in the midst of sin and death. And so we pray, “This grace our every way attend until we reach our journey’s end.” Here we express our yearning for the return of Jesus that has been promised to us, praying that we will live each day in repentance and faith, until God, by his grace, brings us to heaven and to the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. In the name of the Father and of the Son (†) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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