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often called the shortest complete
story in English, goes like this. For sale, baby shoes never worn. For sale, baby shoes never worn. Attributed to Ernest Hemingway,
no one knows for sure whether he really wrote that. The story
goes that he was challenged to write a story in six words. And he had the other writers
around the table ante up that he could do that. And this is
the story that he wrote down on a napkin. It captures a beginning
and an end. It captures loss, death, sorrow,
longing, hope, wanting something to end, searching for peace. All of that in six little words. And yet it's representative so
much of humanity, is it not? For humanity goes around and
has, for millennia, gone around and asked basic questions like,
who am I? Why do I exist? What's my ultimate
end? Is there a God? Is there something
greater than man in the universe? And philosophers have debated
those questions forever. Storytellers can capture them
in six words. And yet there's a great truth
in us as believers of what we understand and what the Bible
teaches. And we have answers for those questions. We have
answers for people who want to know, who am I? Why do I exist? What's my end result? Is there
a God? And the scriptures speak clearly
to those. The passage that we have before
us this morning is going to dive into some of these deep questions.
In the autumn of 2002, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City,
the curators came in one morning and found a priceless 15th century
marble statue of Adam toppled and in just multiple pieces on
the ground. At first they suspected vandalism,
but they realized that it wasn't vandalism. In the words of one
of the curators, he said, the statue buckled of its own accord. A statue of Adam buckled. of its own accord. Well, I will
agree that in the garden, Adam buckled of his own accord. What
that curator also said was it will take a great deal of time
and skill, but the pieces can be restored. If we think about
Adam in the garden, we need a lot more than just time and skill
to repair what was broken in the sin of Adam. And praise be
to God, we have a God who is ultimately skilled, ultimately
wise, ultimately powerful, with no greater force in the universe
than him. No greater power, no greater
authority, and no greater love for his people. And so the pieces
have been restored in Christ. And as we approach this text
of scripture, we need to understand its implications. Romans 5 chapter
chapter 5 verses 12 through 21 are some of the most difficult
passages in all of Scripture to track through to understand
to understand their meaning. They're probably the second most
important passage. They comprise the second most
important passage in Romans outside of Romans chapter 3 verses 21
through 26. But they are intricately tied
to Romans chapter 3 verses 21 through 26. So we'll spend the
next three weeks looking at these at these verses and we will jump
back and forth between the three sections. Because we will see
teaching in these verses the implication of these teachers
of these verses. We understand the nature of man
in these verses. We understand how God provided
justification by faith. We understand the doctrine of
imputation, which is central to the doctrine of justification,
which, if we get wrong, we get the gospel wrong. Clear and simple. Get imputation wrong, you'll
get the gospel wrong. Paul deals with that in these
texts, in these verses. We understand headship. You say,
I read this passage. I don't see headship in this.
This is the passage that teaches the headship of Adam and the
headship of Christ. Because when God looks at humanity,
one way of saying what he sees is this. He either sees Adam
and his family or Christ and his family. All of us are in
one of those two. Paul unfolds this for us, this
representative or federal or covenantal headship. We understand
better about sin. Why it exists in the world, in
humanity, in creation, and what its effects are. We will understand
the nature and the scope of salvation. We've looked at this already
in Romans, but in this passage, he's going to give us more of
the nature of what happened when you, if you're a believer, were
justified by faith and its scope. To whom is it applied? All of that. Verses 12 through
21 and three sermons. Are you praying for me. So here's what I need us to do.
Many times when people listen to sermons that group can be
divided into some form of two different groups. One group says
quit telling me all that theological stuff just tell me what it says
and how I'm supposed to apply it. Right. There's another group
who says feed me. The application will come. I
just want the knowledge. Both of those. is where we need
to be. We need to be growing in our notes, not for knowledge
sake, because otherwise we're what? Just clanging cymbals and
crashing gongs. But we also need to be growing
in our applications. So those of us who are more tempted
to just want all the knowledge, and boy is there knowledge in
this text. Is there deep thinking in this
text? It's a glorious passage of language
that's in this text. But I don't want you to fail
to apply it and see that it has meaning for us. And those of
you who are on the other side who are just much less enamored
with theology, I want you to fall in love with theology a
little more the next three weeks, because if you don't, you're
going to be looking at your watch because this passage is thick
and deep and we need to dive into it. Are we ready? Romans,
chapter five, beginning in verse 12. Let's stand. We'll read all
of it. Twelve through twenty one, just as we did the first
eleven verses. This is another one passage of scripture that
we want to keep together. So beginning Romans 5 verse 12
therefore. You know there could just be
a sermon on therefore right in this verse therefore just as
sin came into the world through one man and death through sin
and so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed
was in the world before the law was given but sin is not counted
where there is no law yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even
over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of
Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free
gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one
man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free
gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for
many. And the free gift is not like
the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following
one trespass brought condemnation but the free gift following many
trespass trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass
death reigns through that one man much more will those who
receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ therefore. As one trespass led to condemnation
for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life
for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience
the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the
many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase
the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
so that as sin reigned in death, Grace also might reign through
righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. That ends the reading of the
word of the Lord. You may be seated. Before I even read the outline,
I want you to just look at that word, therefore. And I hope when
you see the word, therefore, you know, as cliche as it sounds,
you look and figure out what it's there for. Because when
Paul or any other Scripture writer uses it, he's using it to tie
thoughts together. He's either basing what follows
on what is preceded, or he's about to say something that he
wants us to understand as he expounds upon it. So the therefore
here... Maybe it would give you some pause to try to figure out,
OK, what does this have to do with these glorious verses of
the effects of justification in Chapter 5 verses 1 through
11? How do they fit together? What on earth is Paul doing saying
therefore? Is he just like out of habit?
Is that something he says out of habit and we're supposed to
ignore it? When Paul says therefore here, he has just talked to us
about the implications of justification. He's told us those implications.
He talks about us having peace with God. You just go back and
look at the beginning of chapter five and you can see that because
we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. We have obtained access into
this grace in which we stand. We have hope for the future day
of judgment. We have the ability now to endure
trials, endure suffering so that that suffering produces endurance
and that endurance in turn produces proven character so that our
hope is proven to us. We also have the grounds of that
hope in verses six through seven because we learned that while
we were still weak, while we were still sinners, while we
were ungodly, Christ, God, died for us so that he would provide
for us everything that we need. And we learned about what that
was in Romans chapter 3 in the middle of that verse 21 through
26. Then he returns and continues to give us more effects of justification
that we are reconciled with God and we have been once enemies
and now we're not with God. So he's been telling us all about
justification. Therefore, Paul says, I want
to explain to you how. What happened when you were justified
that is that powerful in your life. Why did you need justification? To those kinds of questions is
where Paul turns with the therefore. So I told you everyone is a sinner.
First three chapters. I told you that God has provided
for two and a half chapters. God has provided salvation through
Christ, the propitiation for your sin, so that God was both
the just one and the justifier. I told you all of that. I've
given Abraham as an example. And then I told you some of the
benefits of justification by faith. But I want to go deeper
with you here. I want I want to explain to you in full what
went on when you were justified with regard to your sin. So we're
going to look at the first three verses today. We'll look at the
next three verses 15 through 17 next week, and we'll finish
up the following week on the first of the first Sunday in
March with 18 through 21. So here's what we find in Romans
12 through 14. Paul reveals to us four facts
about sin, four facts about sin. We could parse this up in different
ways, but I think he's trying to teach us sin, where it came
from, what it's about, why it affects us, why we keep setting
up. And he's going to have a flow
of thought that's going to explain to us imputation of righteousness. So the first thing he says is
Adam's sin resulted in death for all mankind. And verse 12
can be split up nice and evenly into four different sections
that we'll deal with as the four parts of this first point. Adam's
sin resulted in death for all mankind. First, he says, death
entered the world through Adam. Look at the first part. Therefore,
verse 12, just as... No, let's just stop there. Just
as. When we're thinking of a flow
of thought, we're expecting something to follow this. Just as this,
so also this. That's the expectation. It's
definitely the expectation when you see it in scripture. I wish
our English versions brought up the so also even better. So
we're looking. He's going to make a statement
just as this show this. They're connected statements.
I want you to just know right off the bat that the just as
it starts there after the therefore in verse 12. We don't get the
so also until verse 18. Look down to verse 18. Therefore,
and he restates what he says in verse twelve, which we're
just getting into, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men,
so, so also, there is our so also, one act of righteousness
leads to justification and life for all men. There's what Paul
intends to tell us when he starts off in verse twelve. But just
so you have an understanding of the flow of the text that
we need to understand what he's doing. When he starts off in
verse 12, he tells us about sin and how sin and death, these
two pillars of destruction, enter into the world. At the end of
verse 12, he says, because I'll sin. So when he says, because
I'll sin, Paul realizes, I need to make a comment on that. Because
what if the people in the audience, especially those who are Jews,
are thinking about, wait a minute, I only sin if I disobey the law.
What happens before the law is given? verses thirteen and fourteen. There's his excursion into telling
us about sin and transgression and what happened with that between
the time of Adam and the giving of the law. Then if you look
at the end of verse fourteen, he says Adam, who was a type
of the one who was to come. Paul says, I want to make sure
you're clear on that. So versus fifteen, sixteen and seventeen
begin his typology. It begins in bringing the contrast
and comparison between Christ, Adam and Christ. So in verse
fifteen, sixteen and seventeen, he tells us how they're not alike.
You see that right there in your text. The free gift is not like
the trespass. The free gift is not like the
result of the one man's sin. So he's going to tell us how
they're not alike. Then in verse 18, he picks up his thought that
he originally started. We get the so also. And he tells
us how they're similar. Christ is much greater, but how
they are similar. And then he'll deal with the
law at the very end of that. So that's the flow of our text.
Gives us some kind of an understanding of what he's doing as we chop
this up into little pieces. So when he says in verse 12,
therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man. So
we see a contrast. You saw it all the way through
verses 12 through 21. One man, one, the one man, Jesus
Christ, one man, the one man, Jesus Christ. You can transfer
every time you see the word one man without the qualifier of
Jesus Christ or without the qualifier of the righteous works. You can
replace that with Adam. We're talking about Adam, the
first human created. That's who we're talking about
when we find the one man. So just as then came into the world
through one man. So we're taking to the garden.
Yes, we're taking to the garden. Adam is created. Eve is created. Given one command. Turn and let's
look at that. Genesis. Turn back to Genesis. Chapter
two. They're familiar text, but I
want you to see it once you see it with your own eyes. So you
know where we're coming from right from the beginning. Paul
is assuming the Accuracy of the creation account. He's assuming
that Adam and Eve were real people created by God as the scriptures
say. He's assuming that. So we look
at chapter two. Look at verse 15. Look at so
much here. But look at verse 15. The Lord
God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work
it and keep it. And the Lord commanded the man
saying, You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not
eat for in that day that you eat of it, you shall surely what? Die. There's what Paul is referring
to. The act of sin in the garden. Let's get our theology straight.
When we talk about Adam and Eve, we're talking about people who
were created by God in his image. And Adam and Eve were different
from all of their posterity in one major way. They have both
the ability to sin and the ability not to sin. You understand that? They have the ability to sin
and the ability not to sin. God set before them a covenant.
It's not called a covenant there. It is called a covenant in Hosea,
I think, chapter 7. So we have here this covenant,
often referred to as the covenant of works, where God says, this
is what I'm putting you in here. I am your God. You are my people.
That's all implied. Eat all the trees in the garden
you want, except for this one. If you eat there, you will what?
What did Adam do? There's another person in this
account, isn't there? There's Eve that's there. Eve
is the one who's actually tempted by the serpent. The serpent twists
God's words around, doesn't he? Oh, you old shirley toy. Come
on. And she takes of the fruit. She partakes of it. She gives
it to her husband. And yet in Romans chapter five, we don't
see death came into the world through one woman, do we? You
can see through one man. Adam was responsible for Eve. Adam was her head. What Eve did,
Adam was responsible for. Eve should have been stopped
by Adam. Or as I've heard it said, even
in our Sunday school class somebody brought up, Adam was supposed
to be tending the garden, have that snake get in there. Would
that lie? Responsibility lies with Adam because he is the head
of Eve. So when we look at Chapter 5
of Romans, if you're not back there, go back there. Verse 12.
Therefore, justice sin came into the world through one man. We
are understanding Paul's understanding of how sin entered the world.
And Adam is the head of Eve. That's why we talk about headship
here. When you read theologians, you'll see this referred to in
several different ways. One way is it's referred to as federal
headship. Do you think of the federal government? The federal government makes
decisions that affect the states. We know that very well here recently,
don't we, with some of the conversation going on. But it's the head of
a federation, the head of a group of people. That's where we get
the word federal from. It's also termed covenantal headship,
because Adam placed in the garden as the head of all human beings,
all humanity, to do what's right. And when he sinned, his sin had
an effect on all human beings. So he was our covenantal head.
Christ becomes our covenantal head when we're saved. We're
into a new people now. We have the physical realm that
Adam is the head of. We have the spiritual realm that
Christ is the head of. And God looks and is going to
see us all tied to one of those two heads. A better word for
this is representative headship. Because Adam was in the garden
as our representative. And right away, I can hear it.
Well, I didn't choose Adam to be my representative. I mean,
that's the natural response from people who vote and send people
to Washington to do our politics, right? I vote for them. Even
if I didn't vote for the person, I still cast my vote. I didn't
vote for Adam. Can I just dispel that for us
right now? You know who did put Adam there? God. God placed Adam
in the garden. and gave him that covenant. And
so we trust the Lord that Adam was our representative because
God placed him there. And if we say, well, now, wait a minute,
I've read this text, and if I was in the garden, I would have done
better. I'd have whipped Eve into shape in a heartbeat, man.
It wouldn't have been a problem for me. Lest we deceive ourselves, God
placed Adam there on our behalf. If we have any kind of notion
of fairness in this, I told you before that I had a good friend
when I was in the Navy band whose daughter was on a kick when she
was in elementary school saying, that's not fair. That's not fair.
That's not fair. He went to the dictionary in
his house, pulled up the page that had fair and fairness on
it, ripped it out, watered it up and threw it in the trash
and said, that word doesn't exist anymore. I think for us as Christians,
that's pretty good for us to do. Because when we walk around
talking about what's fair and what's not fair, most of the
time we're filtering it through our own grid, aren't we? Not
the grid of the sovereign, holy, wise God of the universe. And
let me tell you, if you don't think it's fair for the sin of
Adam to be yours because he's sinned, then you cannot think
it's fair for the righteousness of Christ to be yours. You can't
So, if you're ready to receive the righteousness of Christ,
if the scripture teaches that, and it does, then you must be
ready to receive the condemnation brought in Adam, and receive
them both from the hand of a sovereign God. So, this is what we're dealing
with here. We're dealing with one of the
things we're dealing with, headship. And he says, death entered the
world through Adam. So, when Adam sinned, death came
in. Look at the next section. Sin
entered the world through death. Verse 12, the second part of
it. Death enters through Adam. Sin... I said that wrong. Sin came into
the world through one man and death through sin. So he's building
this case. And if you think that this idea
of Adam's work affects us like that, as if we were there with
him, We need to realize it's not a new idea. I mean, we have
this in several different passages of scripture. We could just go
to a few. Remember Aitken and his sin? The nation of Israel
goes into battle, right? At Jericho. And God says, don't
take any spoils. Those are wholly unto me. One
man keeps spoils and listen to what the Bible says. Israel has
sinned. They have transgressed my covenant
that I commanded them. They have taken some of the devoted
things they have stolen and lied and put them among their own
belongings. Therefore, the people of Israel cannot stand before
their enemies. They turn their backs before
their enemies because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, God
says, unless you destroy the devoted things among you. So
come out of the Battle of Jericho, go into the Battle of Ai and
they lose. And when they're complaining
to God, I mean, they only sent 3,000 warriors off. They sent
the scouts. They said, this is easy. They all died. Then God
says this. You notice all the plural, they,
their, they have become, they have done. Joshua 7, 1. But the people of Israel broke
faith in regard to the devoted things, people of Israel, for
Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the
tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger
of the Lord burns against the people of Israel. So his sin
affected the entire people. And God says, you're going to
bring them together as a nation, and I'm going to separate them. I'm going
to separate them by tribe and by clans and by family, and I'm
going to get to the one who did this, and you're going to burn
him. You're going to stone him. You're going to put him to death.
the representative. Think of David and Goliath. Remember
David and Goliath? That wonderful story. Goliath
comes out and flexes these muscles. Big guy. Everybody's afraid of
him. So when Goliath comes out to the Philistines to challenge
Israel, here's what he said. He stood and shouted to the ranks
of Israel. Why have you come out to draw
for battle? Am I not a Philistine? And are you not servants of Saul?
Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he
is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your
servants. But if I prevail against him
and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.
The fates of the nation in the hand of one man. Goliath the
Philistine and David the Shepherd. We know the end of that story.
So this is not a new idea for us. This idea of someone else
being our representative. So Paul says, death entered the
world through Adam. Sin entered the world through
death. So follow the phrase in here. Adam sinned and death entered
the world because death comes in through sin. And then he goes
on in the third part. Death spread to all mankind.
You're seeing a pattern here. So when Adam sinned, death came
into the world. One sin. OK. One sin is what
we're talking about. The sin in the garden. Adam made
many other sins, but that sin is what we're talking about.
And when you think about the curse, the curse wasn't just
on Adam and Eve, was it? How many of you women have had
children? How many of you men have had to toil the ground with
sweat, get through thorns? We see the wonderful end of that
curse in Jesus being prophesied right there in Genesis chapter
3 that he would bruise the head even though his heel would be
bruised. So the effects of the curse go to all men, all men
and women. Death spread to all mankind it
says in the third part of verse 12. But the fourth part says
because all sinned. Now, right there, we need to
be so careful. So far, we're probably tracking with this.
We can see that when that sin came through Adam, through one
man, we can see that death came through sin, because when we're
talking about death, we're talking about both physical and spiritual
death. Yes, because physical death happened to Adam, right?
Wasn't intended. I mean, that wasn't what would
have happened if Adam and Eve would not have sinned. But because it may
have taken a lot longer for Adam than it will for you and I, but
death is in the world physically and death is in the world spiritually.
So when we say that death is coming to all men, we're talking
about physical death and we're talking about spiritual death
so that when we are born, we are born in sin. David can say in Psalm 51 that
his mother conceived him in sin and he was a sinner in his mother's
womb. So we are born into this pollution And we are, we sin
because we're sinners. We don't just all of a sudden
one day decide, oh, I haven't sinned all my life, so I haven't
been a sinner. And boom, we sin, we lose everything. We're born
into that sin. It's going to give us the more
clarification of that in a minute. Turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians
15. Let us look at a couple of passages before we tie into that
fourth section. First Corinthians 15, we're going
to start in verse 21. First Corinthians 15, 21. For as by a man came death, by
a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all
die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in
his own order, Christ, the first fruits, then at the coming, those
who belong to Christ. Turn over now, if you will, just
in that same chapter to verse forty four. You know, this whole chapter
is dealing with the resurrection, its reality and its effects.
In the verse forty four. Forty five verse forty five,
thus it is written. The first man, Adam, became a
living being. The last Adam became a life-giving
spirit, but it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural
and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth,
a man of dust. The second man is from heaven.
As was the man of dust, so also, listen, so also are those who
are of the dust. and as is the man of heaven,
so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne
the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image
of the man of heaven. There's a commentary on Romans
chapter five or vice versa. We can see that we all have a
lineage and every human being that born is born into Adam and
the effects of his sin and the pollution that that brought in.
We are all recipients of we are guilty. the effects of Christ,
those of us who repent of our sins and believe on him, his
effects, and we'll learn about this in the next week, his effects
not only just negated, but overturned, gives us life from death, gives
us justification where there was condemnation, gives us the
free gift of righteousness where there was the trespass. That's
all of our comparisons that are coming up. So, we get to this little pesky
phrase, because all sin. It's been abused, misinterpreted,
misunderstood for centuries. Because when we first look at
this, if you just look at that verse, if I took it out of context,
you go, okay. Sin came into the world through
Adam. Okay, got that. Death through sin. Okay. So,
death spread to all men because all sin. So, I don't die until
I what? Until I said, that's what that
seems to say if we rip it out of its context. But we never
rip verses out of its context, do we? We always keep it in the
context. So I want to just read. Follow
with me here as we go through the argument. And I want you
to see the contrast that's there. And I want you to see if you
find any room at all for people being righteous before they sin. Read with me verse 17 or verse
15. But the free gift is not like
the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much
more have the grace of God and the free guilt by the grace of
that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is
not like the result of one man's sin. For the judgment following
one trespass brought condemnation. But the free gift following many
trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's
trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will
those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of
righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore,
as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness
leads to justification in life for all men. For, as by the one
man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's
obedience the many will be made righteous. Do you see any room
for people who are righteous or not condemned at any time
in their human life? The context shows us that because
all sin means because all sinned in Adam. When Adam sinned, you
sinned. When Adam sinned and was condemned
and he brought death into the world, both physical and spiritual,
you died physically and spiritually. So that when you're born into
this world, you're dead spiritually and you're heading to death physically.
All because of Adam's sin. And you are guilty because of
Adam's sin. So we have here this idea that
theologians call original sin. And I don't want you to be confused
because original sin does not only refer to that one sin, Adam.
Original sin is the idea that the one sin Adam committed has
effects forever throughout all this age, throughout this history
of all people who were born in the flesh. They will be affected
by Adam's sin. So the doctrine of original sin
doesn't just refer to Adam's sin. It refers to its pollution
and its effects. And it touches every human being. We need to understand this. Because
if we don't understand it, we get so much wrong. We get so
much wrong if we think that we don't become guilty until we
sin. Because this text that we just
read all the way through this section proves to us in multiple
ways that we are condemned from the beginning. Now, there's lots
of questions to ask in that text, aren't there? I'm going to save
those for other sermons. But some of you are saying, oh, oh,
oh, There's a question to be answered
there, isn't it? Paul answers it. He guides us in the text.
We'll come to that when we get to it. And what's the difference
between all and many? Many here, all there? Good questions,
right? They're part of your homework
assignment, because I'm not going to answer those today. 12 through
13 and 14 says that we are all guilty and we are all sinners
because of the transgression of Adam. So Adam's sin resulted
in the death of all mankind. But secondly, we learn another
fact about sin. Sin has always been in the world even before
the law was given. Look at verse 13 of Romans 5. For sin indeed
was in the world before the law was given. One of those fancy
outlines again. You like how I outline so intelligently. But
sin is not counted where there is no law. Paul is saying, because
all sin, and he's given us kind of a commentary here, for sin
indeed was in the world before the law was given. I don't think
we would deny that, would we? Is there anyone in here that
thinks that sin was not in the world before the law was given?
Because all you have to do is go from Genesis 3 to Genesis
4 and we see the story of Cain, right? And what is God telling?
Before he kills his brother, he says, sin is crouching at
your door. You must master it or it will
master you. And Cain kills his brother, proving
that he didn't master it. A couple of chapters later, we
have the flood, right? Genesis 7, the Lord saw the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the
thought of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord
was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved
him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot
out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and
animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. For I am
sorry that I have made them think God was angry with him in Genesis
chapter seven, long before the law, Sodom and Gomorrah. The
evil of Sodom and Gomorrah. The angels come and there's all
the sin that happens there. And the angels say we are about
to destroy this place because the outcry against its people
has become great before the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy
it. Sin and judgment all before the
law. And we can go to multiple other
places. So I think scripture stands for us that we understand
Paul's point. Sin indeed was in the world before
the law was given. But sin is not counted where
there is no law. So what in the world does that
tell us? What do you mean it doesn't count? We're not guilty? We've
just shown that we're guilty, right? We've just shown that
there is guilt, there's punishment, there's condemnation for the
sin that was committed. We've already looked at this.
Turn back to chapter 2 of Romans. Chapter 2, verse 12. We've already
learned that God is conscious of sin. and the Jews and Gentiles
are sinners and that with or without the law they end up in
the same boat. Look at verse 12 of chapter 2.
For all who have sinned without the law We already learned that
sin was there before the law, Paul's just restating what he's
already said, will also perish without the law, and all who
have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it
is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God,
but the doers of the law who will be justified. And who was
the doer of the law on all believers' parts? Christ himself. For when
Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do with the law
requires they are a law to themselves even though they do not have
the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their
hearts while their conscious also bears witness and their
conflicting thoughts accused or even accused excuse them on
that day when according to my gospel God judges the secrets
of men by Christ Jesus and we learned it to interpret those
verse we need to go down to verse 28. For no one is a Jew who is
merely one outwardly nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew
is one inwardly and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the
spirit, not of the letter. His praise is not from man, but
from God. So this concept isn't new for us. The concept that
there's sin before the law, but there's something different when
the law comes because the law excites sin in us. Paul's going
to tell us that later in this letter. It excites sin in us
and When Adam sinned, he was transgressing a direct given
law by God. Amen. That's sin. Look at verse
14. Sin has always been in the world
even before the law. But verse 14, sin caused death to reign
from the time of Adam on, including over those who lived over before
the law was given. Look at 14. Yet death reigned
from Adam to Moses. Mark that word reigned. It's
the overarching ruling principle of this world. We'll talk about
this much more as it comes through this text. Death reigned from
Adam to Moses. Moses was when the law was given,
even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression
of Adam. So if the law comes with Moses, maybe in one sense
there is not the transgression because the law is not the thou
shalt not and the thou shalt became codified when the law
was given. When Adam sinned, thou shalt
not. And thou shalt was clear to him.
So the spin between Adam and the law may have been different
in the sense that it was not a direct violation, but death still reigned. Paul's proving his point here
in a wonderfully well argued way. It was not like the transgression
of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. And that's
our fourth point. Sin required one who was to come
in order to escape the reign of death. So, Paul is setting
up the rest of the chapter. And he wants us to understand
most fully that death reigns for human beings. And through
death, sin. And that there's no one born
that is not guilty, that is not condemned already. Because Adam's
sin, there's another fancy word for us that we've covered a lot,
is imputed to us. It is counted toward us, or God
looks at Adam's sin and thinks of it as our own. So we need,
we've talked about this before, and we're going to talk about
it much greater in the couple of weeks to come. But we need to
remember these three great imputations. This is number one. Adam, when
he sinned, his sin, his guilt, his condemnation, the death that
was brought in through that sin, imputed to our account. We're
guilty. He's about to tell us that there's
a type of one that he is a type of one who is to come introduce
Christ to us. Right at the end of this text
and the end of this sermon, we get introduced to Christ. That's
why I've been trying to keep him front and center, that even
though our sin is there and it's great and we are under condemnation,
God has overturned that death sentence and he has provided
his son through his perfect righteousness to reverse the imputation. The imputation of Adam's sin
has been made to us. We're guilty. Then, when we repent
and believe on Jesus, the requirements for salvation, that sin is imputed
to Christ. He who knew no sin became sin
on our behalf so that we, those who believe, would be the righteousness
of God in Christ. But then we're not just left
neutral there. See, that's the dangerous part. If we were left
neutral before we could even finish the sentence, what would
all of us have done? sinned again, guilty, in need
of more justification, in need of another sacrifice. But no,
the third imputation is Christ's righteousness to us. Hallelujah. Because we're not just left,
we're not left with Adam's sin to us. We're not left for a moment
with sin of no responsibility for us. But no righteousness
in order to stand in front of God. We then have, and this is
what he's going to bring later in the text, we have the righteousness,
the free gift, not like the trespass. We have the righteousness of
God credited to our account. God looks at us and thinks of
us as righteous. So when we repent and believe,
we now do not have Adam as our head and the death and condemnation
and judgment that comes with it. We have Christ as our head
and the free gift of life and will reign forever with him.
That's where we're heading in the text. But before we get to
know that, we have to understand fully the sin and the death. Because the death is real. You
know that some of you experiencing right now acquaintances of yours
who have died. Some of you will this week, this
month, this year. One of the things that we get
wrong sometimes. is that we think, and there's
truth to this, this is a double-edged sword. When believers approach
death, one side of us says, well, we need to rejoice because that
person's with Jesus. And that is a true statement,
is it not? It is a true statement that when a believer dies, they're
immediately with Jesus and we should rejoice because they're
not suffering anymore. But yet death is unnatural. The
world wants to tell us that death is natural. Well, you just need
to prepare for it. Death and taxes, you know how
it goes. Death is not natural. Adam brought death into the world
through his sin, and so it's OK for us to mourn. When Jesus
came to Lazarus and before he raised him from the dead, knowing
he was going to raise him from the dead, what did he do? He
wept. Not because Lazarus was dead,
he was going to raise him. He wept because of the consequences,
the sin. He went because in the world
that was not intended to have death, we now have death. He
went because he felt the full burden of why he came as a man
to live a perfect life and die a perfect death so that death
would be overturned and lose its sting. It's okay for us to
mourn death at the same time that we have joy in our hearts
for the person who's been freed from this life. Well, There's
a lot more in this text that we'll get to in the coming weeks. And your green sheet will lead
you through some questions that I think will be challenging. But I want
to also leave you with the whole overarching theme between Romans
5, 6, 7, and 8 of hope. This is why we have hope. We
have hope because of the imputation of our sin to Christ and Christ's
sin to us. Yeah, I said that wrong. I'm
trying to end quick and I shouldn't do that. We have hope because
our sin has been imputed to Christ and his righteousness has been
imputed to us. See, that's one of those things
that if somebody wanted to teach against this, they take that mistake
and use that soundbite. That would be the whole sermon,
wouldn't it? What I said wrong. That's why I don't do interviews.
I also want you to know that this
helps us understand human nature. Helps us understand human nature,
so when we witness the gospel, we understand what lost people
do and why they do it and why they need a savior. We're not
surprised that lost people doing lost people things. We're not
surprised with our children when they sin. We need to teach our
children the gospel because they are born sinners. We don't we
don't have this period of time where we don't have to teach
them the gospel because they're born sinners. It helps us understand
human nature. It answers these basic questions.
Who am I? Well, you're either in Adam or
in Christ. That's the essential answer to
that question. You're either in Adam and you're
bound up in the condemnation and the sin and the death that
come with Adam, or you're in Christ and you're passing through
this world, heading to the life that is perfectly worshipful
with God forever and ever. One of those makes this life
a lot more important than it should be, and the other one
makes the next life in its right place and lets us survive and
let us what? Endure our struggles, endure
our hardships so that our character is proven and confirms for us
that we have the righteousness of Christ. It also causes humility
in us, doesn't it? You didn't see any commands for
you to do anything through this text, did you? If you are in
Christ, it's his righteousness and nothing to do with you. Hallelujah. Because if it was up to you,
you would have lost it already. You know, I know that. Because
I would have done the same thing. We're still battling that sin
in our life. Well, let me just close with
this. For us to have hope on the day
of judgment, we need the imputation of the righteousness of Christ
because we had the unrighteousness, the sin of Adam imputed to our
account. There's no asterisk in the book
of life. There's no. Asterix with a footnote
that said, well, they almost made it. They were just an ounce of goodness
away from being here, so we're going to put their name in the
book. There's no asterisk that said this person, man, you want
to see righteousness, look at this person. The names in the
Lamb's Book of Life, those who will spend eternity with Jesus
are there for one reason, because the righteousness of Christ has
been imputed to them through their justification by faith.
And that changes everything for us. Let's pray. Father, thank
you for this text. This text that has so much meaning
for us that can be confusing and yet is overwhelming with
joy. Thank you, Father, that even while we take today and
look at sin and condemnation. And the effects of Adam's sin
to his posterity. And we just have hints of Jesus.
that this text is going to explode with the comparison of Adam and
Christ. So help us father as we go through
this week to have iron sharpen iron where we have questions
about this text for this disagreement right in this room father on
this on this very teaching of sin and how it is brought forth
and what Adam's sin had to do with us. I pray father that your
spirit would be alive among us for great conversation that points
our nose back to the text. Iron sharpening iron and your
iron and your spirit leading us into all truth. Father, I
pray that you would honor your word this week. Sharpen your
people, sanctify us, conform us into the image and likeness
of your son as we study these wonderful doctrines and what
you've accomplished in justification by faith. We ask this in Jesus
name. Amen.
In Christ vs. In Adam Part I
Series Romans
| Sermon ID | 217131733553 |
| Duration | 50:01 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Romans 5:12-14 |
| Language | English |
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