Oftentimes as you are involved in talking to others around you about God, the response is, well, I really can't believe in God because how could a God who's good make such an evil world full of death and misery? And that's a very important question. It's a question that they only ask in the narrowness of their conception of God and of why there is sin and misery in the world. Genesis tells us that God made all things very good, all excellent and glorious, all full of peace, joy, and light. So what happened? Well, children, the boys and girls who lived a long time ago, and perhaps some of you who use McGuffey's reader, know the answer to that question. To introduce the alphabet, little poems were given, and A was, as in Adam's fall, we send all. As in Adam's fall, we send all. That simple rhyme is the answer to the very profound question, why is there sin and misery in this world around us? It was because of the fall of the first parents in the Garden of Eden. And Paul now turns his attention here in Romans chapter 5 verse 12 to discuss this fall of Adam. But he does so in order to illuminate for us the nature of God's moral government as well as the nature of God's salvation. Let me remind you where we are and what's going on. in these first five chapters in Romans, as Paul introduces the gospel, he brings us under the condemnation of God, we're under the wrath of God, and he spells that out quite thoroughly and eloquently, both for Jew and Gentile. Doesn't go into why at that point, simply the reality. They were all born under the wrath of God. And that's to bring him into the great truth of justification received by faith alone. And in that justification, God constitutes us righteous, declares us innocent, and pardons all of our sins. After laying out the doctrine in chapter 4, Paul goes on to prove that doctrine from Old Testament scripture and experience. And then in chapter 5, he begins to deal with some of the consequences of this great truth of God, peace we have with God, and he directs us to three grounds of exaltation. They were to glory in the justification that is ours, the peace with God. But we're also to glory in our tribulations, because they're designed by God to work in us proven character, and in them God Himself is pouring love into our hearts, and He deals with that love that God demonstrated to us through the perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And He comes to the final commandment that we then exalt in the glory of our salvation, For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exalt in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. He's moved from justification on the basis of propitiation, the wrath-bearing, curse-bearing death of Christ, to this concept of reconciliation, that God has laid down His weapons against His people. Notice the connection between verse 12 and what Paul has just done, because it begins with a connective, and as I've often said to you, pay attention to these little words in Scripture. They're all there to lead us a sense by a leash through the truth of God's Word. And so what's Paul doing here with therefore or wherefore? Well, he's in a sense developing a second track, but more thoroughly he's explaining to us now the nature of God's moral government, answering this question of sin and misery in the world. And what is this all about? Well, These verses open the window on that answer to that question. As we approach them, we can be like a backup and say, let's climb up on our tower now and hear what God himself has to say to us. Because in these verses, Paul, not content to stay with the fall, uses the fall to show us the beauty of God's moral government in our salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 12 is this statement of the truth, and you notice in your Bible perhaps a slash or a parenthesis, and this begins a very long complex parenthesis, verses 13 and 14 are the first parenthesis, and then inside that, verses 15 through 17 are a further parenthesis. You'll notice that we have a condition, so to speak, As in verse 12, through one man's sin entered the world, we don't get to the conclusion of that until verse 18. So then, because of that, so then, this is the result, and that's our free justification. He finishes that in verse 19, and the last two verses he shows us the importance of God's law as it's been given to us through Moses. Now this morning we want to look at verses 12 through 14. I want to show you here that God, through one man, brought sin into the world, that through a greater person, he might redeem mankind from the guilt of that sin. By one man, God brought sin into the world, that through a greater person, he might redeem mankind, or his people, from that guilt of sin. So this morning we'll look at three things as we consider these three verses. are going to look at the declaration of the guilt of mankind, the demonstration of the guilt of mankind, and a deduction from the principle of the guilt of mankind. Boys and girls, you got that? Declaration, demonstration, deduction. Well, verse 12, we have a declaration. Therefore, remember, I've just shown you how this relates. Now, what's going on? How can we be reconciled through Christ? Well, he goes back to the fall. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Now in this declaration, we have four steps. And the first step is then that through one man, sin entered into the world. And who is this one man? This one man is Father Adam. Notice here how Paul takes very seriously the first three chapters of Genesis. This is absolute history for him, not just because of the integrity of Scripture, but because of the necessity of understanding the entire work of God's redemption. And so he points back to Adam in the garden. He points back to the covenant that God made with Adam in the garden in chapter two. where God placed man in the garden, and He says to him, in verses 16 and 17, the Lord God commanded the man saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you shall surely die. And so this is the background of what Paul is saying when he tells us that through one man sin entered into the world. We read of that fall in Genesis chapter 3. Yes, Eve sinned, but Adam was the head, and Adam deliberately rebelled against God as he ate that fruit. And it was through Adam then that sin entered the world. Now, the second step is what happens—or happened—because sin entered the world, death through sin. That's what God promises in Genesis chapter 2, we just read that. We read the reality of it here in Genesis chapter 3, physical death. It's focused on there, both in the miseries of this life, the miseries of childbirth, the miseries of farming and making your economic existence now with great difficulty, and that culmination, that end thing, boys and girls, that you were taken from dust and to dust you shall return. As I read that, I thought about our cemetery and about the bodies of those that we love, how that has been fulfilled in them. That's what he means that death entered the world. Now, of course, with that physical death, we know as well as we read in Genesis chapter three, that spiritual death entered the world, that which our catechism calls the miseries of this life, the pains and miseries, the pains of death and and eternal damnation. And so we have separation from God. That's death. We have corruption. That's death. We have eternal judgment. That's death. But physical death is the shouting reminder of the reality of what God swore would happen, that Adam would die and death would enter the world. And so sin entered the world through Adam, step one. Step two, that with sin, death then, through sin, entered the world. It's the punishment of sin, that's what that means, death through sin. Step three, death spread to all men. So death now, the punishment of the sin of Adam, becomes the reality of the existence of every person, with those remarkable exceptions of Enoch or Elijah. All people die throughout the history of the human race to show that sin has entered the world, death through sin. But why do all people die? Why do all people suffer this punishment of sin? Well, the fourth step is, because all sinned. And notice carefully, and pointed out the tense of this when we were in chapter three, the necessity of faith for all have sinned and are falling short of the glory of God, that have sinned, the same tense that we have here, this is talking about a simple completed act in the past. It's not talking about all are sinning, that's true, but that's not what Paul is saying. No, Paul has said that all sinned in the past. Now, how did you sin in the past? Boys and girls, how did you sin 6,000 years ago? You sinned in Father Adam. That's what the Savior, or what Paul is declaring here. That Adam sinned. Through Adam's sin, the punishment of sin came into the world. And because the punishment of sin came into the world, all men die. Why? This is the punishment of sin, because all have sinned. Here he takes us back to the reality of the first covenant that God made with the human race and Adam, as our shorted catechism answers the question, all mankind follow in Adam's first transgression. The covenant being made with Adam Not only for himself, but for his posterity. All mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, send in him, there's that past tense, fell with him in his first transgression. Now, in our text here, and summarized by the catechism, we are taught about the moral government of God. And the first lesson that we learn about the moral government of God is that God governs through covenant heads. That's nothing strange to us who live in a republic. We know that our elected officials act on our behalf. If this morning our president declared war on Russia, we would be at war with Russia, whether we agree with his policies or not. because he would act as our covenant head. That's how God governs in the family, but it's particularly how God has governed morally in the human race. And so God made this first covenant with Adam, a glorious covenant. Adam's in a perfect environment. Adam has all the wonderful means of God's grace. And God says, Adam, want you to obey me, consent your will to my will, and if you do so, you and the entire race, whoever will come forth from you, shall be perfect." Now Adam could do that because he's the physical head of the human race, but he's the God-appointed covenant head of the human race. And so, as in Adam's fall, we sin all. That's this first point, this declaration of the fall of mankind in Adam. Well that leads us then to the demonstration of the Declaration in verses 13 and 14, and as I mentioned you'll notice my Bible has a slash, perhaps your Bible has a parenthesis. But verses 13 and 14 are the first part of the parenthesis. Now he'll lengthen that parenthesis, as I mentioned, in 15 through 17. But here he, in a sense, says, all right, what's going on? And here is where he now, by three steps, demonstrates this doctrine that he has just stated. For until the law, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned, in the likeness of the offense of Adam. Well, the first step here then in verse 13, that until law, and by this he says before the Mosaic law, so for 2,000 years, between creation and God's revealing of the moral law at Mount Sinai, for those 2,000 years, he says that sin was in the world. It was imputed, it was reckoned, even when there was no law. And that's a reality, two things. In the first place, very few people knew of God's revealed will, small minority of people, coming down to a great declension in Noah and his family, again coming down to another declension in Abraham and his family. And the rest of mankind knew nothing of the moral will of God outside of that to be passed on by oral tradition or by the witness of their own conscience. But the important thing he points out here is the universality of sin or the guilt of sin. Sin was in the world. Now how do we know that? Well, the second thing is, nevertheless, even though there was no law, death reigned from Adam until Moses. Now here's this proof. So we saw in the Declaration that death was the punishment of sin. We see that in Adam, he deliberately disobeyed God. But now Paul is saying, I want you to understand that when I say all sin, that the entirety of the human race now is guilty of sin. How do we know that? Because of death and misery that's in the world. If death is the punishment of sin, And for these 2,000 years before the giving of the Law of Moses, and you think about this, the Law of Moses was not the declaration of the grounds of the guilt, as we'll see, of those who lived, but it was the means, the light by which God would show us his own moral character, our depravity, to bring us under condemnation, as we see in Romans chapter 3, verses 19 and 20. and to drive us into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this is why he takes the mosaic law, plus the great importance it had in the life of Judaism, as well as in the world now God made clear his will. But Paul says we know that all are guilty because everybody died. Now they lived a lot longer than we do, but death was inevitable. As the very degeneration in our bodies took place, we see the perfection of Adam before the fall. If a man can live a thousand years, how robust and gloriously healthy he was. But as this punishment begins to eat away and the lifespan becomes shorter and shorter until finally it's 70 or 80 years, but death has reigned. And notice that word reign. Paul will deal with that word later. Death reigns in the world. Death exercises dominion over you this morning. If you're not a Christian, death reigns. Now he comes to the third step. Why? Here he has to answer the question, on what basis was guilt measured out? That's what he's getting at when he says that sin is not imputed where there is no law. This is not the meaning of our word impute that we've seen already, to be reckoned to someone's account through another. Now this is being recorded in the Book of Esaias, in the jury record, in the court annals, that everybody is now written down as guilty because everybody dies. And so why? Why? Well, it's because it comes to those who did not sin in the likeness of the offense of Adam. Now, what's he getting at here? Well, Adam's offense was a deliberate transgression of the law of God. Now, there are those that think that what God did was quite unfair. You know, to let this one man represent me. Well, stop and think about that for a moment. He was perfect. He could have obeyed perfectly. He lived in the most glorious environment. Everything around him was designed to enable him to stand in this position as your representative and to obey. Now we're talking about God's moral government. What is the option? What is the alternative then to that? Every one of us throughout now these six millennia would have stood individually before God with no hope of of everlasting life, you could have lived 2,000 years in sin and you'd have been brought into God's judgment. And if Adam, perfect and glorious Adam, in perfect environment, couldn't stand, why do you think you could? Are you that arrogant? To think that at some point the test would come to you and you would prevail? But you see, it wouldn't be a test. It'd be every day of your life for those thousand years that you lived, every temptation, every time, one slip, and you're eternally dead. And so this was a glorious thing that God did, but what he's proving here is when he says that sin is reckoned to those who did not sin according to the offense of Adam, the offense of Adam was a deliberate transgression. When babies die, have they deliberately transgressed the law of God? When the Hebrews lived for those 2,000 years before the law of Moses was given, did they deliberately transgress the law of God? Oh, they had the law in their hearts, and they had consciences, but were they, you see, Adam had this particular test, and because Adam failed the test, that's why sin is in the world reckoned to the account of every one of us. Are you tracing out God's moral government with me? that God determined to govern the world through this covenant head, Adam, in order to leave all of us, our mouths shut and accountable to God, who's glorious and holy and perfect. What Paul demonstrates here now about the Declaration is we say all sin is because all sin, we all are guilty. Sin came to mankind. We're guilty. We are guilty sinners in the sight of God. And this is what the catechism goes on then, two questions later, to answer. When does the sinfulness of that estate where unto men fell consist? The sinfulness of that estate where unto man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin. Now stop there for a moment. This is part of that government. Because Adam is our physical and covenant head. In that first transgression, you and I all then were guilty. That's why sin entered the world. You follow that? Thus the want of original righteousness, which Adam had, we would have had if he obeyed, but now we lack it. So we lost knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and we become totally depraved. So the corruption of his whole nature. which is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgressions which proceed from it. This is what we're talking about here in terms of God's moral government. That you today were born a sinner, born dead in sins and trespasses, not because of any deliberate rebellion you had, You're born in that condition because of Adam's deliberate rebellion. That was the appointment of God's moral government. Look down from your tower. Look through the window. Do you understand what the apostle is saying here? But then I want you to understand this is not his primary purpose. We must then look at the deduction. What's Paul really all about? This Paul who says, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. The language is quite remarkable at the end of verse 14, this offensive Adam who is a type of him who was to come. Now in what way could this rebellious Adam be a type of the Lord Jesus Christ? By God's moral government. God brought the entire race into sin, its guilt and condemnation and corruption through this representative in order to manifest now his glorious plan of bringing a redeemed race into perfect salvation through the greater person God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why Paul later in Corinthians will speak of this covenant, chapter 15, verse 22, as an Adam all dies, so also in Christ all we made alive, he's speaking of all those given to him, are verse 40, 44, 45, it's written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam, he's the perfect man, he is the last Adam. Why does Paul call him the last Adam? That's what he's going after here in verse 14. The one pattern, the one way which Adam was the pattern or the type or the example of Christ was that he was the covenant head through whom the whole race was brought into condemnation. So we would understand in God's moral government, he would then redeem a portion of mankind that was guilty through a greater covenant head, the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man who came in order to accomplish the salvation of all those, as we'll read here later in these verses or work them out in the coming weeks, all those given to him. That's indeed glorious. Again, in our catechism, verse 20, Did God leave all mankind to perish in this state of sin and misery? God, having out of His mere good pleasure from all eternity, left His Son to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the state of sin and misery and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer. As you stand on Habakkuk's tower this morning, I hope that in some way you've got some sense now of what God is doing in the world. He introduced us to his moral government, that as through one man, sin and condemnation came to all people, through the greater person, salvation and redemption have come to all those for whom he acted. But notice that this was an eternal plan. This covenant of grace of which we just read was not an afterthought. Not, oh my, said God, Adam's blown it, what am I gonna do now? No, this was God's purpose, God's moral, all of this is for God's glory to manifest two things, and that's mercy and justice. Because the God who is all of his attributes is both. he will only be most glorified in his wisdom when both are manifested and so in the fall and in leaving great host of men and women under the penalty of sin the condemnation of death in this life corruption and eternal damnation God's manifesting in his moral government through a covenant head justice None can impugn the justice of God. I trust you've seen that. If you want to go out there and try to live under God's conditions, you go ahead and try. But the great light falls on this eternal purpose of which the catechism speaks, that he chose us in Christ as the second Adam, as the covenant head. And here we see God's moral government now in the salvation of his people. It's only by this that he can redeem us from our sins and justify us and declare us not guilty. Oh, what glorious wisdom belongs to our God, who could do such remarkable things with such impunity and holiness and justice and the loving kindness of which we have read and sung. That our hearts then should leap with joy in this consideration. as we look down on God's moral government of the world. Do you understand it? In Adam's fall, we sinned all, but in Christ's perfect work, we are redeemed. Now this teaches us then, dear friends, of the necessity of what our Savior and the apostles call being born again. Being born again. Can you get yourself out of this mess? You're born dead in sins and trespasses, is what Paul says, under the wrath of God. Can you do anything to extricate yourself? Is there any avenue that you can go down in order to atone for your sins? No, everything you do is sinful. Jesus says that which is of flesh is flesh. If you're born naturally of a human mother and father, you're born dead in sins and trespasses, and you must be born again. You cannot even have a saving understanding the gospel unless you're born again and you certainly cannot enter into the kingdom of God unless you're born again and so this morning my dear friends knowing most of you I know that you're Christians but I want you to know and remember it's all because of God's sovereign grace because the Spirit came in a sovereign way granted you a new heart a new mind, a new will, new affections, set the Savior before you in all of his splendor as the God-man, he who is the suitable sacrifice because he's a man, the sufficient sacrifice because he's divine, and drew you lovingly into the arms of Christ. You didn't put yourself there. No. Dr. Kirchhoff and I were on the train. last week, and we were talking to a lady whose husband was an evangelical Baptist missionary. He'd been in Zurich for, I think she said 18 years. So she was saying, well, we're Calvinistic. We don't believe in four of the points, but we believe you can't lose your salvation. Now, as I've said to you, I rejoice that she's a sister in Christ, and I'm not gonna get into a discussion at that point with her. But you see the folly of that? If you put yourself into Christ, you had a will to do that, then you can surely fall away. It's only because of this unbreakable chain of which Paul writes in Romans chapter 8, that those whom he predestined he called, those whom he called he justified. Those whom he justified he glorified in the past tense, even though it hasn't happened for any of us. No. Our salvation is sure and certain because we've been born again, drawn lovingly into the arms of Christ. But friends, if any of you here this morning are not converted, this indeed is very bad news. Let it sink in. You're dead. You're under God's condemnation. You're under the headship of a lost Adam. and you're headed straight rushing into the pit of hell. And you can do nothing about it. Unless God comes and gives you a new heart. And you can't entice him to do that. So what are you to do? You cast yourself on his mercy. He didn't say try to figure it out. Don't try to reason it out. Don't try to harmonize it. He tells you to do one thing, call out for mercy. And you can do that with great confidence because God has never turned a deaf ear to that plea. And so this morning you see yourself still under the condemnation of Father Adam. Yes, you must be born again, but you don't try to figure out, have I been born again? No, you have a commandment. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, do that and do it now. You children, be sure you're doing that. Don't play games with God. Just because you're little and young, you're not innocent, are you? You know children have died. And we have children in this church who've died even in the womb, or right at birth. Why do they die? Well, it's not because they necessarily themselves were not elect, because they could have been, but they died because of this punishment of sin. And you too will die. That's very important. Whether you live to be as old as I am, or whether you die soon or whatever, But you know that you're trusting Jesus Christ as your savior, who has shown you greater mercy because he's placed you in a covenant household in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the name of our God. Amen. We thank you, Lord, for Habakkuk's watchtower. We've stood on it this morning, and through these few verses have gazed upon your moral government, the just condemnation that comes to all of us in Adam, and the glorious salvation that is ours in Christ Jesus. So we bless and praise you. Your holy name, O Lord, be exalted in our affections. And if there are those here today, children or adults who are yet under the condemnation of Adam, O Lord, have mercy on them. Draw them now by the strong, loving arms of your Holy Spirit into the strong, saving arms of Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray, amen.