April 2009 - Vol. 29

The New Adam: A Representative 
The question before us is: Who must someone be in order to die for the sins of others and have that death make any difference? Christ’s position as the new Adam gives us a first answer. He held a special position in the human race and that position allowed his death to have an effect that no one else’s could have. He acted as the representative of the human race – in a unique way.

A representative is someone who can act on behalf of others. Sometimes, a representative only represents an individual. A widow might give her son or daughter “the power of attorney” to act on her behalf and take care of her interests. A businessman might have an agent in another country to dispose of his assets in that country.

Agents also represent groups of people. In English–speaking countries, it is common to say that people who are affected by some governmental action should be represented in the deliberations that decide on that action. “No taxation without representation,” to use the historic phrase. They therefore are represented by someone in Parliament or Congress. Such representatives have some freedom of action, but they should genuinely represent the interests of those on whose behalf they are sent.

Representatives also function to symbolically represent groups of people. In the twentieth century, it became common to find the body of an unknown soldier who had died in war and to bury him with great honor in the “tomb of the unknown soldier.” He was chosen to be the symbolic representative of all such soldiers, chosen precisely because the only thing known about him was that he was a soldier who had given his life in war.

There is, however, a significantly different kind of representation: corporate or authoritative representation. The head of some corporate body, and only he, can represent it when it acts. If two warring nations decide to make peace, the presidents or their designated delegates sign the treaty. Average citizens off the streets, even citizens in high standing, would not be authorized to sign. They would not hold a position allowing them to represent the nation as a corporate entity.

Likewise, if one nation wanted to warn another nation that war was imminent unless something changed, the message would not be delivered to just any citizen of the other nation. Once again, the president would seek to communicate that message to the head of the other nation, or at least an appropriate official, in the expectation that the head of state would lead that nation in its response. Only an authorized leader can represent the nation as a corporate entity.

In a similar way, if a nation loses a war and has to pay reparations, the head of the nation – either personally or through a delegate – is responsible to see that it happens. He might not be the one who began the war. He might not even have taken part in the war in any active way. He might even have become the head after the defeat because he was opposed to the war from beginning to end. But if he is the head of the nation, he is responsible for the body he is the head of. He is therefore responsible for the fulfillment of the treaty obligations by that nation. Someone, in other words, can be morally or legally responsible as a representative for something he is not morally or legally responsible for as an individual. Christ was such a representative – of the human race, or at least the redeemed human race. But Christ’s representative role was unique and unrepeatable in human history. Perhaps the easiest way to understand it is to understand what it means to say he is the new Adam.

[This article is excerpted from the book Redeemer: Understanding the Meaning of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, copyright © 1992 by Stephen B. Clark, published by Servant Books.]