6  J I M TAY L O R able. However, it is the cross and the free gift it established that makes both views possible. When Adam sinned, the death sentence that was declared against the whole human family was immediately nailed to the cross of Jesus, and it was there that one Man paid in full for what his broth- er had done. Adam and Jesus were brothers because they both had the same Father. The first son of God, Adam (Luke 3:38), committed a trespass that condemned everything his Father had made. The second Son of God, the only begotten Son of God who is called Jesus, died on a cross to pay for the devastation that his brother’s trespass had caused. Therefore, the death sentence that was declared against the entire human family was immediately taken away and nailed to the cross of Jesus the very day the tres- pass was committed. It was the very same day that Adam sinned that Jesus paid in full with his cross to have his brother’s trespass annulled. Jesus died on the cross in about 33 AD. But the cross and all of its power to forgive sinners and bestow eternal life was an established fact in the mind of God before the foundation of the world (1 Peter 1:17–21). The price, or the “ransom” (Mat- thew 20:28) that God paid to accomplish that is so valuable and so precious that it is far beyond description. That is just the way God does things. That is why not one little baby or any other per- son—that is, except Jesus—were ever held accountable and were forced to face death for Adam’s trespass. Without Jesus and his cross, it would all have been an entirely different story.