But speaking of the non-Jewish Gentile aspect of Abraham, Paul in Romans 4 therein revealed foundational evidence of what eventually would be world-ruling Christian unity through faith in Jesus Christ. The whole paradigm was implemented, recorded, and kept extant for proper use by the Gentiles, per verses 22 to 25: "And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification." Consider too that since this faith for righteousness that is divinely categorized with Christianity was already credibly present in humanity at that last moment of its pre-Jewish Gentile "beginning," it logically follows that the human need for the Christianity that was its end must have originated not after in the Jewish era but before in the same epoch of Gentile "beginning." Paul in Romans 5 takes it, as Christ himself did, all the way back to the first man, who was a Gentile named Adam. Verses 8 to 14: "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come."
Therefore through the blood of Jesus Christ — his intentionally given death and glorious resurrection — we received a long-scheduled atonement for what at root was the original transgression of Gentile Adam in the first days of mankind. We received a means to individual reconciliation of the separation between God and all men that was universal from Adam until then — as both Jews and Gentiles were enemies of God after the original sin and only Christian "access by faith into this grace" (5:2) has afterwards successfully remedied this for anyone. Romans 5 verses 8 and 12 confirm that all were sinners in God's mind, although per verses 13 and 14 (also back in 4:15) He seems to have only counted/charged/imputed the sin against the Jews and that because they had been handed the Law of Moses. Was Christ then sent to only fix this somewhat more guilty sinfulness, only for them? Absolutely not, this chapter 5 of Romans, the words of Christ most famous in John 3:16, and the entire New Testament prove that Christ was sent to fulfill the need for all humanity and all sin whether it had been "imputed" or not. Even unimputed sin caused death. Here in Romans 5 as we have just read, Paul very specifically in verse 14 wrote that the "death which reigned from Adam to Moses" was "even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam" (NIV). This means that Gentiles too received death because of Adam and because, per verses 8 and 12 explicitly, Gentiles too were sinners, although per 13 they were not legally culpable. The Gentiles before Jesus were not held as strictly liable for their sin because God had not yet by-and-large reapproached them (or reproached them) in any direct way, as He had the Jews through the Mosaic Law. For this the Gentiles should ironically now give praise to God, as they were not chosen to be effectively cursed for everyone else's benefit. The Jews now stand as one of two interrelated historical prefaces to the New Covenant, and their lesser one tragically resolved itself in their choosing to continue to be enemies of God as they still were during and after Moses. Never for a moment were the Jews free from sin without Christ and therefore never for a moment were the Jews without Christ not enemies of God in terms of worthiness for salvation. For the Jewish people in general this is quite readily seen in their unfaithfulness in the Old Testament Scripture. How much more enemies of God now that they have rejected the only working and truly "of God" reconciliatory doctrine, that being faith in Jesus Christ which is Christianity and not Judaism? The world saw a fast example of just how much more in 70 A.D.
The Jewish tragedy aside, the greater historical preface to the New Covenant is that which focuses primarily on the Gentiles, which was passed down unknowingly for that purpose by Jewish writers in our same Old Testament, and is supplemented by the classically-great historians and philosophers of Greece and Rome among other Gentile peoples. Moses or whoever wrote the book of Genesis included the account of the first man, Adam, and this is what Paul in Romans 5 gleans from to understand how death and sin were present worldwide from the beginning of mankind and therefore why Christ has now been revealed as the worldwide solution until the end of mankind. Very importantly, it should be realized that Adam here is being spoken of entirely for an act which had, in some sense, the most far-reachingly horrible consequences of all-time. Yet in 5 verse 14 he is most honorably called "the figure of him that was to come" (KJV) or, as better worded in the ESV in this case, Adam is called "a type of the one who was to come" (ESV). In the remainder of Chapter 5, Paul then explains how Adam's universally-damning sin was laying the groundwork, or in other words making provision, for Christ's universally-saving gift of grace. "For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many...For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Since Adam with his incomparably calamitous sin is honored as "a type" of Christ and as a provisional figure leading to Christ, we can without reservation assert that so was Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, whom Scripture itself calls God's servant (Jer. 25:9, 27:6, 43:10). He destroyed a Jewish Temple that had once been legitimate, but that would have had no place in the universal spiritual Christianity that Jesus would reveal in John 4. And how can we not side with and honor King Antiochus IV Epiphanes who, although in his misunderstanding was at times unimputedly blasphemous, was in his impactful life in direct opposition to the legalistic and murderously-xenophobic Jews? His defense of Hellenistic Jews who wanted to love their neighbors against Pharisee-preceding Jews who wanted to kill them for it was in line with the position Christ would have taken, and Christ and His true doctrine would have been intensely hated and persecuted by Antiochus' rival Judas Maccabaeus, who was and is accordingly also the rival of the true God. From the Gentile sources we naturally can ascertain more about the Gentile preface to Christ, and their Greek coincides with the Greek that God chose for the New Testament. When we read of Alexander the Great and others who unknowingly made worldwide provisions for what we now know was the more pertinent buildup of the two to the worldwide distribution of grace, we should not feel as if we are reading anything foreign as God is the controller of all world history. How much more is Gentile history now easily seen to have been eternally relevant to the coming of Christ now that, over two thousand years, millions of Greeks and billions of Gentiles have entered into the eternal Christian Kingdom? Gentile history began with Gentile Adam, and he should be honored as should other Gentile "types" of Christ as they successively and successfully provisioned for Christianity despite their human flaws, of which none is better known than the sin of Adam.
Jewish history, as broadly stated as is reasonably possible, began with the physical circumcision which Paul and Christianity reject as worthless next to faith in Jesus Christ. Jewish history after was defined by the Mosaic Law, also in its whole a worthless thing next to faith in Jesus Christ. As inferior as this condition was, the lasting revolution was when the people corrupted the Mosaic Law through their scribes, which operated as Hasidim then Pharisees and now as rabbis. Always sinners, but exceptionally for a while possessing a Before Christ Law that was "from God" albeit not "of God," the Second Temple era is where that very definition of the Jewish people, in their legal essence, became horrifically degenerated. They went from being understandably insufficient for the practically impossible task of keeping the Mosaic Law, to an inexcusable active national opposition to everything that was true in God's nature. From the illegitimate Hasmonean era that Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers' armies murdered into existence, they most intensely hated not only the rest of His creation but also any of their own racial compatriots who would not likewise hate all other races. To us it is inexcusable, but they made their excuse in the Law, placing procedure ahead of the First Commandment love for God not to mention the socially-baseline commandment "thou shalt not kill." When Jesus Christ revealed the eternal truth of God to be prioritization of that First Commandment love for God over all lesser legality, and secondly of the Christian Second Commandment love for all other men and women of all races regardless of law or any other factor, these truths were the polar opposite of the falsehood that the Jewish people and the Jewish law had in practice become. Naturally free-grace faith-based world-loving Christianity — such as it was in God's mind since before Adam, was when revealed by Christ, is today, and forever will be — would not find itself to be a continuation of Jewish people and Jewish law. The Old Testament in light of what happened therefore became a contrarian preface in terms of its transmission of the history of the Jewish people and Jewish law. We find in the Gospels, Acts, and Paul's Epistles not an exhortation to follow Jewishness but an exhortation to break free from all inferior law and from all physical race, especially from the Jewish law and race as historically played out and as lingers today. Although there are in the Old Testament some Jewish individuals who serve as shining examples, and even briefly the people when David and certain Davidic kings steered them correctly, the recorded Jewish thoughts, actions, and way of living are generally not what Christians should follow because they are Scripture-demonstrably inferior if not opposite to the different Christian way even on their best day. As their current day is a direct continuation of the scribal Second Temple era — significantly worse than a society operating on Mosaic Law! — there is no question that we should completely reject Judaization and should deprecate the Jewish people and the Jewish law in our Christian education for Christianization and the Christian people and the Christian law of faith and grace. The Christian should understand Jewishness but as the contrarian indicator that it is, and not as a guide for living or an idea worthy of allegiance.
