The new covenant of grace is a covenant of relationship. Spiritual death through Adam made this covenant of grace necessary. Spiritual life through Christ makes intimacy with God possible. Every human who has ever existed inherited a sinful, fallen, earthly life from Adam: "by man came death." Every person who has ever put their faith in Christ has received from Him a righteous, risen, heavenly life: "by Man [that is, Jesus] also came the resurrection of the dead."

Adam began with a measure of intimacy with his Creator. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being…Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it" (Genesis 2:7, 15). In the garden, Adam served the Lord and had fellowship with Him, when He would walk "in the garden in the cool of the day" (Genesis 3:8).

Adam could partake freely of all that was in the garden, except for one tree. "Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17). For Adam, as for all of his race, "the wages of sin [was] death" (Romans 6:23). The day that Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate of the forbidden fruit, they died spiritually. "And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden" (Genesis 3:8). Whereas they had enjoyed a degree of intimacy with the Lord, they now fled from His presence. Ever after, the natural children of Adam would begin their existence "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1).

The only remedy for the spiritually dead human family would be a relationship with a new "family head." "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many" (Romans 5:12, 15). There are only two families to which human beings can belong: Adam's or Christ's. There are only two family heads to which anyone can be related: Adam or Christ. Adam passed along spiritual death to his offspring. Christ gives to His family life eternal, life abundant—all by His glorious grace.