When a covenant child is baptized in the church, we celebrate. We celebrate the growth of the church; we make promises to pray for the child as he or she is raised in the fear of God; and we witness a cleansing that points to their need for a savior.

But why does a baby need a savior? What did that baby do to transgress the law of God—especially if he or she is days or weeks old? Part of our our theology is the baby is a sinner in need of a savior. Before actual sin is a reality in a baby’s life, the transmission of guilt, or original sin, is a reality with which each person must come to terms. It all connects to our father Adam.

Public Personhood

Adam was a public person. Romans 5:12 points out that “just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” All have sinned in Adam. In the Covenant of Works (See WLC 20), Adam represented all mankind, and upon the condition of “personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience,” he was required to obtain the promise of eternal life for himself and his descendants. Louis Berkhof said, “If [Adam] sinned, he would become subject to corruption and to punishment, but the sin would be only his own, and could not be placed to the account of his descendants.” Although this is true that I am not biblically responsible for my father’s sin, Adam was a public person. We are in Adam. In the words of the New England Primer from 1690, “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.”

Like begets like. Sin begets sin.

Posterity’s Problem

In Adam, we had a covenant that included our representation because he was a federal head. He represented you in the covenant. Romans 5 goes on to say in verse 14, “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.” Humanity’s problem comes from the fount of Adam’s guilt, and each time a child is brought into this world, he is in the image of his father Adam (as well as the image of God).

Like begets like. Sin begets sin.

Our nature was changed when Adam sinned. Humanity went from primitive integrity to entire depravity (see Thomas Boston’s Human Nature in its Four-Fold State). Humanity went from posse peccare (able to sin) to non posse non peccare (not able not to sin). We fell. Did you read that? We. We fell.

Protected Progeny

Of course, this change in human nature was with the exception of the Lord Jesus. We are all born as sinners, except the one who did not come by “ordinary generation.” Our Catechism, in precise theological language, protects the Lord Jesus from having a fallen nature and being a part of a fallen humanity. When the Holy Spirit conceived the Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of the virgin, He was protected from the fallen human nature that was imputed on all of mankind. He assumed a perfect nature so that He could redeem us perfectly.

Perpetuated Punishment

The Catechism goes on to conclude that humanity “sinned with [Adam] and fell with him in that first transgression.” That brings guilt; “for the wages of sin is death,” we are told in the Scriptures. In God’s mercy, the Lord Jesus Christ came to take the obligations of the covenant, to bear sin, and to redeem a people. Jesus is also a public person representing His people.

The argument of Romans 5 that we have been tracing through this catechism question concludes, “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (vv. 18–19).

Give Him the glory that the whole of humanity’s story is not bound up in Question 22, where Adam was a public person bringing posterity into a problem leading to perpetual punishment. There is a protected progeny—the Lord Jesus Christ—whose obedience brought a free gift for all who would put their trust in Him.