Theological Term of the Week: Federal Headship
Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 3:30AM 
The position of Adam and Christ as God-appointed representatives of their descendants. Adam was the federal head of the whole human race, and he acted on their behalf in the fall, so in Adam, the whole human race is born under God’s judgment as guilty sinners. Christ is the federal head of all believers, and he acted on their behalf during his obedient life and substitutionary death, so God will judge all believers to be righteous in Christ.
- From scripture:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. 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. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For 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. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:12-21 ESV)
- From The London Baptist Confession 1689:
Chapter 6: Of the Fall of Man, Of Sin, And of the Punishment Thereof
2._____ Our first parents, by this sin, fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and we in them whereby death came upon all: all becoming dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.
3._____ They being the root, and by God’s appointment, standing in the room and stead of all mankind, the guilt of the sin was imputed, and corrupted nature conveyed, to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation, being now conceived in sin, and by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death, and all other miseries, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.
Learn more:
- Guy Waters: Federal Headship
- Ligonier Ministries: Our First Federal Head
- Simply Put Podcast: Federalism
- R. C. Sproul: Adam’s Fall and Mine
- Chris Gordon: Two Gardens, Two Adams, and the Forgiveness of Your Sins
- Michael Reeves: Christ Mended What Adam Broke (video)
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