So this time we want to turn to Romans chapter 5. Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulations work with patience, and patience, experience, and experience, hope. and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commandeth 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 all have sinned. For unto 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. But not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense 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. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift. For the gift was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they would receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign unto righteousness, unto eternal life by Christ Jesus our Lord. This morning's text is going to be verse 17, for if by one man's offense 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. Great Pastor, let's pray. Father in heaven, we come before you as we seek to understand your word. Father, I pray that you would please open our hearts to receive it this morning. Pray for your spirit to stir us up, give us the understanding that no man can to help us to see things from an eternal perspective, to see things as you have, as you have told them, the Lord, that we would receive them and be changed by them. Father, I pray for utterance, I pray that you would sustain me, and I pray that you would just allow your work very much for Jesus. So I don't know if while JP was reading that, started getting it and then you're kind of getting confused and you started getting into the arguments and you're like, whoa, this is thick. This is like tough sledding. And it really, really is. And so for us to think through just one verse and kind of picking it up closer to the end of the chapter is like coming on a bus when it's getting near to the end of the route and you've missed most of the stops. And so you don't really know what came before. So I will kind of highlight some things, but I hope that as we think on this we can rejoice in our stop this morning over 17 as it relates to the entire passage so the phrase I'll first deal with here is for if by one man's offense death reigned by one I just want to stop there first and think about what that means so many people will say to Christians well I can't believe that Bible stuff Especially that talking snake in the garden. That's just way beyond. Come on. That's just stupid. And what's amazing about that statement and that doubt is that as soon as we discount the account of Genesis and the talking snake, and the fall into sin. The entire fabric of history and our understanding of where we are today starts to fall apart with it. It's like pulling on the string of a cloth and the entire cloth unravels. And we unravel suffering and death. We also unravel the idea of redemption. So it's very important that we understand Genesis 5 is real history. And Romans 5, or Genesis 1, sorry, and 2. And Romans 5 gives its stamp of approval on the historicity of the creation and of the account of the fall into sin. Now think about it. The first thing it says here, it talks about an offense. The Greek word there, peripetoma, it actually means a falling aside would be a literal translation of the two parts. Falling aside is a trespass. It's falling outside the bounds of the law. So, it's amazing because what we see from that is from the very beginning, there was a law. It was already there in Genesis 1. And so when Adam and Eve sinned, they fell aside from that law. Now some people in their belligerence will say, well, why do bad things happen to good people? How could God be good if there's so much tragedy? How on earth can we find meaning in such a dark world of pain? These are questions we see and hear. I hear them regularly on the podcasts I listen to. But what we see in these objections is that these people are actually appealing to a law the same law which they're actually denying at the same time. You see the categories bad things, good people demand the standard of goodness and that's the very standard they refuse to acknowledge. A good God means we infer a good standard. Finding meaning in this world means we find a measure that has purpose to it. So in short, even the most ardent atheists ultimately appeals to an internal law that at the same time he is suppressing. And so I think that's a tremendous thing to remember that as we approach the world out there, we are dealing with people that aren't ignorant. No, they are suppressing. They're deliberately suppressing the truth that is within them, and that is testified in all of creation. So at the core, when Adam and Eve fell, there was a falling aside of the law of God, the commandment of God's standard. You see, there is no higher court than God Himself God, children, God is the standard. He is the law. We never come to grips with this. We will never come to grips with reality. I want you to think about that. If we don't come to grips with the fact that God is the standard, you're not going to come to grips with reality. It's quite an amazing thought. The holiness of God is not compromising, it cannot be bargained. Every sin that we commit, from the littlest thought of selfishness you had this morning, to the most heinous acts of abortion and murder, are all an affront to God. They are all worthy, each one of them, even that little thought of selfishness, is worthy of infinite death. Pain, misery, hardship, they are not from the beginning. God made this world good. They came because of a trespass, and they are the result of the law of God being violated. And that's why this passage says, if by one man's offense this happened, if one trespass, one falling aside of the law of God is taking fruit, it's it. If that caused this world to fall into sin, how much more are the daily trespasses that this world is amassing every day? Think about it. Every minute, more trespasses, more sin is being heaped against everybody's rap sheets when they sin and when they pile up their antagonism towards God. Now, as every child knows, When you sin against mom and dad's laws, when you do what mom and dad said you can't do, it means there's going to be punishment. Right? Yeah. Because that's the right thing to do. That's justice. It's justice. And so it is at this point that most people say, OK, good. I get that stuff. I understand you sin. There's got to be punishment. But why on earth do we pay for Adam's sin? Adam, I understand, he disobeyed, but why is his sin transferred to us all? Why should we suffer the consequences for his transgression? And the answer to that simply is, because the Bible tells us so. There's really not much more to it than understanding that's what God says it is. Some way, we were united to Adam in some mysterious way. He was our corporate head. We don't understand it, but that's what the Bible tells us. We don't get the nuances. So we can't think any differently. We can't challenge that because the eternal God said so. It means that in some way, Adam was on a probation. Attesting that had he have passed this testing it would have resulted in a better Position for all mankind, but he failed so in this way Mysteriously we were united to Adam now. I'm gonna talk more about that later, but that's huge But look what the text says for if by one man's offense death reigns You see that word reign It's giving to death the role of a king of a monarch And we are its subjects. We are under its rule. Last week, Monday morning at 7, my alarm went off and the news went. The first thing I heard was, it was a tragic weekend on Alberta highways. 14 people died last weekend. It was a lot. One weekend, death ruled again. It doesn't matter whether it's an infant, that has never even come out of the womb, or whether it's a 90-year-old great-grandmother, death rules over everybody. Medicine and the greatest advances in the medical field cannot end this rule and the power of death. We are in a culture, more than ever before, that wants to stick their heads in the sand regarding death and avoid thinking about it. and avoid how immense this death is, how indiscriminate this death is, how final this death is, how it is an enemy that rules over fallen humanity. Now maybe that's you. Maybe we can say, well, they're sticking their head in the sand, they're avoiding the topic, are you avoiding the topic? I think particularly young people, you guys are, you got life in front of you and we don't think about these things. Do you live as though you have unlimited time? Do you think that it's smart to ignore the very thing that one day is going to rob you of all your money, of your family, of your home, of your career, of your education, and leave your body in the grave. Do you think it's good to ignore that? The Bible doesn't ignore it. The Bible deals with it. And not only are we going to die, it gets even scarier. We will rise one day and we will stand before God and give an account for every sin we have ever, ever committed. Every affront to the glory of God. The Bible says this, it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that, the judgment. In fact, the very point of this passage, and this verse in particular, that it is, that it all happened by the One. So great is the holiness of God that one transgression brought this reign of death. Can you imagine how great is the accumulated sin of everybody in their lives? So in some, Robert Haldane said it well in his commentary, he says, the empire of death then extends over infants and all men on account of the one man. Instead of dying for their actual sins, death is to all men the penalty of the first sin. Now the good news, the other side of the verse. Much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in the life by one jesus christ Now the first thing I want to just pick up here is again this by one we had by one in adam Everybody fell by one in jesus christ another single act is the other side of the ledger. The contrast is stark and it is marked with superabundant riches of the work of Christ. Notice how it says it, by one Jesus Christ. If we were united to Adam, It's huge, because it means there is possibility of a union to another, to Jesus Christ. You see, the attack on saying, well, I don't want to have this idea of union with Adam, that's not fair, that's not right. If every man were to rise and fall on their own sins, we would all be dead, and we would all have to rise on our own goodness as well. No union with Adam also means no possibility of union with Christ. You get that? One sin plummeted this world into death. One act of righteousness And our union to that gives hope. So union and federal union to either Adam the first or the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, is a tremendous thing. And I'm going to show you as we go through this verse that it is amazing grace that God has given us this union. So the first thing we want to look at is Paul's words, the abundance of grace. Our participation in Christ is a participation in an abundant grace. Now, the thing to see is that the grace we have in Jesus Christ isn't just equal to the loss we had in Adam. That is the entire point of this passage. The devastation we see in tornadoes, in death, in cancer, in wars, in famine, in earthquakes, I don't care what evil you think of, and in our own sin, aren't equal to the other side of the ledger. It's not like minus a thousand in Adam and plus a thousand in Jesus Christ put you back at zero. That's not what the verse says. It says grace super exceeds. It's abundantly over the loss. In Adam we got what we deserved. We fell with him. In Christ we received what we didn't deserve. In Adam We lost innocence. In Christ, we receive storehouses of grace. Abundant bins full of grace pouring out. It's like this. It's like you take a criminal. He's done a heinous act. He's killed somebody and burned the house down, took the stuff, done a whole bunch of terrible things. He's caught. And he's hauled in front of the judge, and the judge accuses him, and he's found guilty. But somebody else stands up and says, I'll take his punishment. So this man goes and takes his punishment, 25 years of jail time. So he's free. That's mercy. The thing is, that's not all. That's not it. This criminal isn't just restored to freedom. He's not just allowed to walk outside again. No, He's given a place in the house of the King. He's given a banquet every day. He's given a daily audience with the King of Kings. And so much more. So much more. We're not just reconciled. We've been given abundant grace that exceeds the crime. Look at that and just run with me through this chapter. We're going to just see this verse 9 much more than verse 10 for if when we were enemies we were reconciled much more verse 15 But as not as the offense so also is the free gift look at the middle there much more the grace of god verse 15 again hath abounded Verse 17, we're looking at much more the grace, the superabundance of grace. Verse 20, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. So much more we have in Jesus Christ. You see, this is amazing because it means that the justice and the wrath of God and His power on sin and His power to triumph They're the backdrop. They're the backdrop of the display. The main point isn't justice, isn't wrath, isn't power, but grace. God's glory in grace is the point of all of creation. Listen to Ephesians 1, verse 5 and 6. This is about God having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. There you go, eternal sovereignty. Then it says this, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted into being. To the praise of the glory of his grace. That's the picture. The backdrop is dark. The backdrop is wrath and justice. But on the foreground, the main thing we must see in the gospel and in creation and in everything is to the praise of the glory of His grace. Oh, that our hearts would soar in the abundance of His grace, that we'd rise up on wings as eagles. Is your understanding of grace this rich? Is this the grace you know, so rich, so free? Or have you been guilty of presenting this grace of God to unbelievers and to each other as a mere equalizer, something that makes the ledger back to zero? Or do you rejoice to others about the overflowing, boundless, superabundant, limitless grace of God? Now, you may have come here this morning in a sullen mood. Maybe you're discouraged this morning. The only place that you can find joy in overflowing storehouses is in the grace of God. Don't settle for substitutes. Don't surrender to the fleeting pleasures of this world as we are so prone to do. Just repent of these pitiful exchanges. Put yourself in the scriptures and see grace lavished, poured out, expressed, explained, and brought to us in the Lord Jesus Christ. So look what it says next here, it says, and of the gift of righteousness. Well, righteousness, who knows what righteousness is? What's righteousness? Well, righteousness simply stated is that quality or state and characteristic of being right. That's that simple. And the Bible says God is righteous. perfectly righteousness. God is the definition. So you could say, what's righteousness? God. Or, always right. It's the same thing. And as we saw that Adam, in his perfect innocence, and by that one sin, he violated God's righteous commandment and caused this reign of death, that was just. That was the right thing for God to do. When his standard was breached, the right thing was punishment. We saw that. And we saw that God's grace super exceeds this. But then the question we ought to ask ourselves rightly is, how on earth could grace just wipe away sin? How can grace do that and God not at the same time violate who He is? Remember, God is right. So if God is right and we sinned, is infinite punishment in the middle. How can God be absolutely righteous and punish sin and at the same time be kind? That question is the question we pose when we evangelize to people because that question is at the center of the gospel. How can God be both loving and merciful and just at the same time? Now Paul ties this together in verse 15 when he also talks about the gift. Because notice where we're looking, it says, and of the gift of righteousness And in verse 15, look at that, it says, but not as the offense, so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of one, many be dead, much more by the grace of God, there's our grace, and the gift by grace, you see those words? Which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many. So grace gives something. The gift by grace. Now what is grace giving so that it won't violate the justice of God? At the core of the gospel, turn with me please to Romans 3, 23, where it says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Being justified there's our first expression of the word justice being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation that means appeasing his wrath appeasing his justice to declare His righteousness, you get, there's the word righteousness again, for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say, at this time that His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus Christ. That last phrase, that's the answer, that He might be just. He'd never violate who He is. God will never compromise justice. And yet He is the justifier, the making writer. How? Through Jesus Christ. In His blood, the eternal price against our sin was paid. And we know this. But I want you to rejoice in this. This is the gift of grace. All of the abundance we looked at comes and is given because Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died and stands in the gap and is the just one who was given to justify us and to make us right with God in Him. So never lose sight of the gospel because it is our union with Jesus Christ that gives us all this. It's this word of gift. You know what a gift is? You pay for a gift. Children, when you get a birthday gift, do you open up your piggy bank, smash it open and pay the person who gives you the gift? Is that what a gift is? No. It's free. Justified freely. You don't have to pay for it. You could never pay for it. John Calvin says this, he says, the sinner received into communion with Christ is reconciled to God by His grace. While cleansed by His blood, he obtains forgiveness of sins and clothed with Christ's righteousness. There it is, we clothe ourselves, we're dressed in righteousness as if it were his own. He stands confident before the heavenly judgment seat. That's why we're in this world. It's that great a gift. And I want you to see that that is so much more than the loss in Adam. Adam lost innocence and brought this world into sin. But we are not as bad as we could be. Yes, we sin. But the Lord, by His grace, even now is sustaining us. But the righteousness we have in Jesus Christ, freely given, is so much more than the righteousness that Adam had. It is so much more than the righteousness of angels. This is the righteousness of God, imputed to us, given to us, accounted to us. There is no higher righteousness than God's righteousness. And our righteousness now, believer, is the righteousness of God Himself. It cannot be compared to anything else. Wow. That's what I thought when I was thinking about this. What do you say? Wow. It's amazing. That's why we sing Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved the wretch. The next phrase I want to look at here says much more. It says, They which receive abundance, grace, and the gift of righteousness shall reign in love. This is amazing because this is the main point of the verse. Here's where we're getting to the heart of it. You see, in the first part The consequence of sin was that death reigned. Remember? Death becomes a monarch, killing everybody, taking hold of everybody in charge. So the natural contrast to death reigning would be what? Life reigning, right? That would be the natural contrast. But that's not what the text says. Because it wants to highlight again the much more. And so it doesn't say death reigned and now life reigns. No, it says they reign. You get that? It says they, which receive this grace, reign. That's amazing. The believers reign is the super abundant expression over top of the reign of death. So every time you see death, every time you see a funeral procession go by, you remember how terrible it is and how much of an enemy it is. And if you think of people that have passed in your own life, you know how terrible that is. But the reigning we have in Christ super exceeds this all. Listen to these verses. Jesus says in Matthew 25, 34. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, he says, come ye blessed of my father. inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6.3, Know ye not that ye shall judge angels? Revelation 3.21, To him that overcometh I will grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I overcame and am set down with my Father in His throne. Revelation later on says thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and has made us unto our God kings and priests we shall reign you think things are bad? we have bad weeks bad day this week and moping that. Might be going through a whole time of sickness. Might turn on the news and see nothing but thousands of refugees and dead people washed up on shores and scary stuff. You know what Paul says? We're the believer. This guy was stoned and shipwrecked. This guy had been forsaken by everybody in Asia, he says this, he says, for our light collection, our light collection, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far Exceeding an eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen Don't look here people people of God We have been given in the book this promise of reigning with our Christ. We don't look at the things that we see we don't Stop short. I see that in the world so much when I look at unbelievers. What do they look at? What can I do tomorrow? What am I gonna buy tomorrow? We're going to spend my money. What am I doing today? We have so much more to look forward to in heaven, in the eternal. We look not at the things which are seen which are temporal, but at the things which are not seen, because they last, they're eternal. So much more in Jesus Christ. And finally, one last point. Look at the word in the middle. Much more they which receive. They which receive. You see, What you heard this morning isn't automatic. And there's just a small group of people sitting here, but even for you guys, it's not automatic. It's not something you are born into. You get because you're sitting in church, or you get because your parents have it. You don't get it because you know your Bible well, you get it because you need to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not a fact, it's not an idea, it's not an emotional response, it's union to Jesus Christ. And that, dear people, demands choice for all of you. You must choose. You must receive Him. You must receive the gift. Just as when you are given a gift on your birthday and someone extends their hands out, you've got a choice. You can keep your hands in your pocket. You can extend your hand and receive the gift. Now what that means is very important. When you take your hands out of your pocket and you receive the gift of life in Jesus Christ, you're agreeing with Him about who you are. You know you don't deserve the gift. You know that you deserve nothing but hell and that you are without strength, that you are a sinner to the bone. But when you reach out your hand, you agree with God about His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know that in Him is justice and righteousness and forgiveness. That His blood covers all your sins and gives you life. And you know what? It is the Spirit. who then does the real work. It is the Holy Spirit who unites us to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, in fact, He baptizes us into His body, which is why the best thing you do after you've come to Christ is what? You get baptized. You give a visible expression to the body of Christ that you were united to the Lord Jesus Christ. And then when you're united to Christ, you get to partake of the Lord's table. Why? Because you take in the Lord Jesus Christ he becomes part of you you are so united to him as food and as wine Become part of your body. So his body and his blood becomes part of us. I Hope dear people If there's one thing you remember this morning, it is that we have so much more in the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives not only justification, that's what we looked at this morning. He gives us adoption into the family of God. He gives us eternal wisdom. He gives us sanctification, glorification, and storehouses more of grace that we get to discover into eternity. It will never end. Heaven will never be boring. because riches, abounding riches of the Lord Jesus Christ will be uncovered into eternity. All praise be to our Father. Have you received it? O Lord God, what a tremendous word you have given to us. What a good word in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His book and in storehouses of grace. Father, I pray that we would just Remember that everything we experience here is just momentary. Lord, that in heaven with you we will reign. Pray that that would sink in. Lord, if there's anybody here that doesn't know you, Lord, that you would not let them go, that you would allow the seed of the word brought this morning by just a broken vessel, just clay, that they would see the treasure, that they would see Jesus. Would you do that, Holy Spirit, and unite them to you? Jesus, amen.