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.