T H E P O W E R O F T H E C R O S S  15 ticipation or knowledge, all living creatures stood condemned by Adam’s sin, and without our participation or knowledge, Jesus took that condemnation upon himself, and he paid for it in full with his cross. It was one man’s unrighteous act of disobedience that threatened all men with death and made them all sinners. It was another Man’s righteous act of obedience that annulled Adam’s trespass and set all men free from its consequences, gave them eternal life, and made them all righteous. It was the power of the cross that accomplished all of that. One of the things we see when we read Romans 5:12–21 is how devastating Adam’s sin was to God’s entire creation, as well as to God. Before Adam’s trespass, sin and death did not exist in God’s perfect world. When Adam sinned, he caused both of those hor- rors to fall upon the whole creation, and his sin condemned the whole world, sentencing all living creatures in it to death. There was not a thing anyone could do to prevent that from happening (Hebrews 9:27). Therefore, Adam is the source of death, with all of its pain, sorrow, and hardships. Christ, on the other hand, is the source of justification and life, with all of its glory, joy, and blessings. Adam’s trespass was caused by self-indulgence, and it came with the power to kill and destroy. The free gift of Christ came as the result of one man’s self-sacrifice, and it had the power to annul the condemnation that Adam’s sin caused and establish eternal life. However, there was another problem apart from Adam’s tres- pass that Jesus’ cross annulled: the many sins that many men had committed themselves—“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). The death sentence that was passed on to all men because of Adam’s trespass was taken away immediately without any man having to do anything to make that happen. But the sins that a person commits himself, which are forgiven by the same sacrifice that took away Adam’s sin, are also forgiven by the conditions that God demanded must be obeyed in order to receive that forgiveness. Those conditions are belief