105. I. Legal Oneness Of The Race.
I. Legal Oneness Of The Race.
1. Federal Headship of Adam.—The theory is that God instituted a covenant with Adam whereby he was constituted federal head and representative of the race in the primitive probation. This federal headship constituted a moral or legal oneness of the race with Adam; so that the legal consequence of his conduct under the law of probation, and whether good or bad, might justly be reckoned to them. His obedience should thus be accounted to them as their obedience, or his transgression as their transgression. In this sense the probation and fall of Adam were the probation and fall of the race. Hence the guilt of his sin could be justly accounted to them.[518]
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2. Immediate Imputation of His Sin.—After the representative headship of Adam, there is still the question of the manner in which all men share his sin. It is not theirs intrinsically or immediately, as from an actual sharing in the sin, but becomes theirs by a judicial act of divine imputation. This imputation, however, carries over to them neither the act nor the demerit of Adam’s sin, but only its guilt as an amenability to punishment. It is proper to justify this statement from Calvinistic authorities. In this manner the doctrine will receive fuller explication. In the earlier Calvinian anthropology, largely realistic and often jumbling the two modes of Adamic guilt, the immediate imputation of the first sin to the human race was greatly lacking in clearness of treatment. In later times, and with a more thorough distinction of the two modes of guilt, this imputation has received very exact statement at the hand of masters in the representative school. “Adam was constituted by God the representative and federal head of his posterity, so that his trial or probation was virtually and in God’s estimation . . . the trial or probation of the human race; and that thus the transgression of Adam became, in a legal and judicial sense, and without any injustice to them, theirs, so that they were justly involved in its proper consequences.”[519] “In virtue of the union, federal and natural, between Adam and his posterity, his sin, although not their act, is so imputed to them that it is the judicial ground of the penalty threatened against him coming also upon them. This is the doctrine of immediate imputation.” “And when it is said that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, it is not meant that they committed his sin, or were the agents of his f act, nor is it meant that they are morally criminal for his transgression; but simply that in virtue of the union between him and his descendants his sin is the judicial ground of the condemnation of his race.”[520] When Dr. Hodge speaks of the federal and natural union of Adam and his posterity, respecting the natural he must be understood to express the historic view of the question rather than his own personal view. As a rigid representationist, he could not think the natural relation any part of the ground on which the guilt of Adam’s sin is imputed to the race. Something might be said for the congruity of appointing the natural head of the race its legal head; but there could be nothing more than such congruity. In this representative theory the federal headship is the sole ground of a responsible oneness of the race with Adam. The economy is purely a legal one; and the sharing in the sin of Adam is according to its legal character. In the above citations we have given what that sharing is, and in what mode it becomes actual. By a judicial act of immediate imputation God accounts the guilt of Adam’s sin to his posterity on the ground of their legal oneness with him.
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3. No Demerit from the Imputation.—The theory has this consequence, that no turpitude or demerit of sin is by such imputation carried over to the offspring of Adam. It is not pretended, not admitted even, that any thing more than the guilt of the first sin is imputed to them. The theory sharply discriminates the demerit of sin and the guilt of sin. The first is personal to the actual sinner, and is intrinsic to his own character; the second is simply amenability to punishment, and arises from the judicial treatment of sin. In the above citations it is denied that we have any part in the criminality of Adam’s sin. Such a view belongs to the realistic theory, from which this theory so widely and radically dissents. It is on the ground of this distinction between the personal demerit and the guilt of sin that Dr. Hodge maintains the possibility of such an imputation of sin to Christ as his doctrine of atonement requires. The transference of demerit by imputation is denied and declared impossible. “Moral character cannot be transferred.” The same principle is expressed in different places.[521] And the same principle is declared to rule the imputation of Adam’s sin to the race. This may be seen in connection with a passage above cited. Hence, when we say that there is no demerit of the race from the immediate imputation of Adam’s sin, we are thoroughly sustained by a fundamental principle of the representative theory, and also by its very best exposition. In another place we shall have use for the fact thus established.
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