I can surely see how Adam and Christ are compared, albeit as opposites...one brought in death, the other brought in life.
That's the point. Paul used what is called a "contrastive parallelism", which started in
verse 12, "just as through one man, sin entered the world". The contrastive nature of the parallelism is clear in
vs 15, "But the gift is not like the trespass. What Christ “gives” contrasts with what Adam did, his “trespass”... and in vs 16, "
"The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned"
(the same principle, expanded)
But how exactly is Adam the "figure" of Him to come?
I think I covered that thoroughly enough in post# 1154, but in addition to this chapter,
1 Cor 15 confirms that Adam is a type of Christ:
“But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:20–22)
“So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual
is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:45–47)
Rom 5:14 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.
Two last quick comments about this verse.
First, the translated word order is extremely clear that Adam is the type. "of
Adam's transgression who is the figure of
Him who was to come.
Second, in Greek, word order is irrelevant. Each word is conjugated in such a way that any greek reader or translator can easily see who the subjects are of which verbs they are looking at, regardless of word order. For example, in
Rom 5:14, "Adam" is written in the predicate nominative tense, meaning Adam is the predicate of a clause and which is related to the subject of the same clause in a qualitative sense. In other words, "Adam" is
the subject of the verb "
is a type of Him".
The fact that Adam foreshadows Jesus is clear, Biblically, theologically, and linguistically.