Though [men] are made for a relationship with God and are intended to be integrated persons, they are in reality divided beings who have generally lost sight of their way [Acts 17.27-30; Ro 3.9-18; 7.15-24]. ... Paul asserts that people are so "enslaved" by their baser inclinations that they are no longer "free" to properly know or pursue their real potential and destiny. This takes place in three main ways:
1) They find themselves under an inner compulsion to "sin," [Ro 6.17, 20; 7.14, 25] and to put their confidence in "works" and the "flesh" [Gal 3.10; Ro 2.17ff; 3.20; Phil 3.3ff]. That is to say, they are overly preoccupied with their own concerns and aspirations and regard their own heritage or traditions as the ground of their future expectations.
2) They are hampered, if Jews, from responding rightly to the moral regulations in the Mosaic law (Ro 2.23; 7.7-12) or, if Gentiles, to those moral demands of God inscribed upon their wills (1.32). This can take two forms. If they rebel against the revealed or implanted "law" of God, they drift into an amoral and unnatural way of life (Ro 1.24ff). If they focus all their energies on the Law, it deceives them and becomes merely another channel for their self-centered natures (Ro 10.1-3).
3) They are in bondage to certain realities outside themselves, whether supernatural "powers" that they allow to influence and affect their lives [Gal 4.3; Col 2.8; Eph 6.12]; the "god of this world" - Satan himself - by whom they are misled and manipulated (2 Co 4.4; Ep 2.2); or "death" that experienced spiritually now and physically later ultimately brings all their aspirations, relationships, and achievements to an end [Ro 1.32; 6.13, 16, 21, 23; 7.5; Ep 2.2]. Thus people are not as "free" as they would like to think, but are "in bondage" to baser inclinations, moral obligations, and alien forces. These largely shape their characters and dominate their lives.
Although all are constrained in these various ways, this does not mean that they are completely unfree. Paul allows that up to a point people are able to know the truth about God and do what is right [Ac 17.28; Ro 1.19-21; 2.14-15; cf. Phil 4.8], just as those in authority over them are able to govern society in a morally responsible fashion (Ro 13.1ff). But their capacity to do these things is limited [1 Co 11.32-33; Ro 1.21-23]. So it is that every person - beginning with "the first man," whose failure allowed sin to begin to exert its power in human affairs, required law to contain sin, and gave death its abnormal significance - experiences a solidarity with their fellows in "Adam." However, a second community has now come into existence through the achievement of that other person, whom Paul terms "the second Man." Through his obedience the trend initiated by the first member of the human race has been reversed (Ro 5.12ff). Although the full impact of sin fell upon him, it gained no control over him and was defeated (2 Co 5.21; Ro 8.3). Although he experienced the condemnation meted out to the lawless, his behavior transcended the law and terminated it (Gal 3.13; Ro 10.4). Although death unjustly made its claim upon him, he triumphed over it and the alien powers as well (Ro 1.4; Col 2.15). Since he did this not for his own sake but for the sake of all people as their representative [2 Co 5.14ff; Ro 6.3ff; Col 3.3], he is the foundation of a new community, humanity, or creation [1 Co 15.20ff; 2 Co 4.6; 5.17; Col 3.10; Ep 2.14-15].
[W]e see how closely Paul's understanding of freedom, or salvation, is bound up with his idea of community. He does not view salvation as simply a transaction between the individual and God. Prior to their encounter with Christ people belong to a community, however much their actions incline them to pursue their own (or their immediate circle's) self-interest. And it is into a new community that their reconciliation with God in Christ brings them, however much they experience that event as an individual affair. Correlatively, the salvation effected by Christ follows from his being not just an individual but a corporate personality, the "second" and "last" Adam (or, as it has been so strikingly expressed, "Adam - at last!"). This means not only that Christ's actions impinge upon the lives of others and are decisive for them but ... that his very life enters into them, enabling theirs to enter into his.
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