Mm-hmm Good afternoon, it is afternoon, Thursday afternoon, and we're live streaming the next Roman study, which I think is number 74, if I've got that right. So we're in Romans 5, and in this extremely important section, verses 12 through 21, addresses the origin of sin, Death explains why the world is the way that it is, and most importantly, by the Apostle Paul pointing to how we all sinned when Adam sinned, and died as a result, so also the same principle effects our salvation in Christ. And so that's the important topic we're looking at today. So let's pray, and then we'll start. Father, we ask your blessing now as we come to this important passage of your word, and we pray that you would help us to understand it. We pray that we would all be encouraged, our faith would be strengthened as we see your great wisdom in sending us a second and last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. by whom we are reckoned righteous before you, and so we give you thanks for this, and we do so in Christ's name, amen. All right, well, let's read this section again, and as we do, remember that Paul makes a statement in verse 12, and then as the ESV, remember we talked about this last time, as the ESV puts a little dash here or whatever at the end of verse 12, they do so to indicate the fact that Paul pauses his statement there, which he's making a comparison, right, between the first Adam and the last Adam, Adam and Christ, but he makes that statement and then he pauses to explain it. in a kind of a parentheses, remember, and that explanation extends from verse 13 down to verse 17. Now the only catch here is that the ESV should have put another hyphen right there at the end of 17, and you remember we looked at the King James Version, which actually did a better job there, come down to verse 12, remember? Starting at verse 13, it put a parenthesis, then at the end of verse 17, it put the other side of the parenthesis. So, that's helpful and that's really how it reads, but we'll read the ESV here and so, follow along here. Therefore, since we have been, oh, I'm sorry, I'm wrong verse, we're down to verse 12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin, and there you would say, in the same way, but that's not going to happen until verse 18. Now he explains, 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 the one trespass brought about condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reign 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, alright, picks it up again, as, here's the as, the other part of the comparison, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men, and so on. Well, we won't, we'll stop right there, go back to verse 12 and take a look at this. So, As we as we saw in verse 12 we have this just as Therefore just as you know, it's like in the same way as sin came into the world. And so we know that we're dealing With a with a comparison here that Paul is setting up and you can remember that Here's this good statement from Lloyd-Jones. Here's an overview statement of Paul's main point. The great truth taught here is that our relationship to Adam was the same in essence and principle as our relationship now to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's what Paul is trying to tell us here and explaining to us. That's why he's going back then to Adam. And we mentioned last time, this is how God deals with humanity, with mankind. He says, I'm going to have one man, Adam, represent everybody. And I'm gonna put him in like the most perfect circumstances. Everything is gonna be loaded for his success. He doesn't even have, he's not even a fallen man, he's created in innocence. And so, and here he is in paradise, literally, in Eden. And so, and the same then with Eve. So God loads the case here, you know, in Adam's favor, and yet he sinned, right? And so sin then comes into the world. So just a good overview statement here, paragraph once again, just so we remember, talking about then this parentheses from verses 13 to 17. Paul begins the parentheses in verse 13. We can follow it as far as verse 14. This is an explanation of what Paul has just been saying. That is, sin passed upon all men because all sinned. That's what needs to be explained. And so he says, for until the law, right, For until the law, sin was in the world. But sin's not imputed where there's no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that is to come. So verses 13 and 14 are, as we've said, an explanation of this statement. So death spread to all men because all sin. And we'll get into the details of that in a closer look later in verses 13 to 14. And so that's the overview, but remember for right now, the main thing, keep the main thing the main thing, that's what Paul is teaching us here is, Our relationship to Adam was the same in principle as our new relationship to the last Adam, as Paul calls him in 1 Corinthians. That's how we're saved. You see it then? People, of course, initially, you say, well, this is absolutely unfair of God. How can God hold me responsible for what Adam did? Well, the reason he does is because he has appointed a, remember the term, federal head. Federal means overall, representing all. Federal head. And so when Adam sinned, We all sin, and that's how God ends. Now, object to that and refuse that principle of Adam being our federal head. If you throw that out, you also throw out our salvation in Christ, because God ordains, and well then, I'm going to send my son as a second Adam. In fact, he's going to be the last Adam because he's not going to fail. Satan will come to him. Now get this. See this, how this works? The first Adam failed in perfection, a perfect environment, right? And then Satan comes, the serpent comes, Adam and Eve sin. The second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, right off the bat as he begins his public ministry, what happens? Satan comes to him. You have the temptation. And where did the temptation happen? It happened in the wilderness after he hadn't had anything to eat or drink for 40 days, right? He's out there. I mean, here is Here is a circumstance that's loaded in favor of the devil this time around. But the last Adam will always be the last Adam because he succeeded. And his victory, his righteousness, his obedience to God becomes our victory because we are in him, represented by him. You see, in that sense, it's not fair. that Jesus had to suffer for my sin. That's not fair. And it's not fair then, if you want to say this, that he goes to the cross for my sin. And so if you want, but anybody that wants to say, well, that's not fair that I have to be held accountable for what Adam did. Well, if you're going to be consistent, it's not fair either. that Christ's righteousness, His perfect obedience, and His death on the cross is all... It's not fair that He be cursed, right? For my sin. No. But... He did it. He did it because God set his love upon us and he sent Christ. But this is how God deals with man. That's what the Bible says. And so we don't come up with, well, I think that God should deal with man differently. Well, we don't do that. We are the creature. We don't answer back then to the creator. All right, so let's look at a couple things here in verse 12. Extremely important verse. We got a couple of things here. We've got sin coming into the world, and we've got death spreading to all men, right? And we'll look at that more closely later, not today, but we'll look at it. I think I've mentioned this already, but we'll have more to say about it. Two universal principles here, universal principles that really no one can deny. No person, non-Christian, pagan, whatever, they can't deny this. There is sin in the world. They want to call it sin, but something is wrong. Something is wrong with everybody. Everybody, right? It's called sin. There's wars. There's murders. There's coveting. There's all kinds of, we're seeing it getting uncovered now more and more, but there's all kinds of corruption and wickedness in those that are supposed to be leading us in our country, right? All this stuff that's going on, you name it. And then, not only is there that universal thing, the universal thing that I mean, even the pagan person, the unbeliever, he'll say, well, hey, nobody's perfect. Oh, really? Well, isn't that interesting? You're saying that as if it's an excuse. But why is it that nobody's perfect? What you're saying is everybody does wrong at one time or another. Why is that? The answer is given here in verse 12. And then there's another universal thing in the world. Death. Death. Whenever I have been called on to speak or preach, preside, whatever you want to call it, at a funeral service, I consistently, I do this. I begin talking by saying, now let's think about why we're here today. Why are we here? Well, death has struck. Our friend, loved one, whatever, has died. That's what has happened, and that's why we're here. Now, why is that? Where did death come from? And so those are the things that we, you know, the question that the world doesn't want to face up to. But Romans 5.12 answers the question, right? It says, sin came into the world through one man. That's what's wrong with, that's what happened. That's how sin invaded, it came in, it's a trespasser, it doesn't belong here, right? Came in and threw one man, and that one man represented us all so that, and so perfectly, so that all of us sinned when Adam sinned, everybody. That's where sin came from. And that's where death came from because the wages of sin is death in God's economy. And so death spread to all men. Why? Because everybody sinned. Death didn't just happen to Adam. came upon all of us. Now, here's some great paragraphs from Lloyd-Jones, and there's my old volume here from Zondervan Publishing, Romans, chapter on exposition of chapter five on assurance. So, but listen to this then. And he gives a great, he gives a great illustration here somewhere. Anyway, Alright, anyone concerned about the problem of life and the world as it is today is confronted by two undeniable facts. Now, so you see Romans 12 becomes a verse that we all ought to tuck away, have it memorized and keep it handy because it really is a powerful condensed launching pad for talking to someone about Christ, right? I mean, this is where you begin, right? With an explanation of things that really, they're obvious to everybody. But man in his sin likes to shove it down in a corner and suppress it, as Paul says in Romans 1. But all right, anyone concerned about the problem of life and the world as it is today is confronted by two undeniable facts. First, there is the universality of sin, okay? Now, everybody has to admit that. They don't want to call it sin. He goes on, of course, all do not call it sin. But even so, they have to admit and to confess this. There is something which is spoiling and ruining life. They have to admit further that mankind at large, this is great now, seems to prefer to do that which is wrong rather than that which is right. That if you tell a child not to do a thing, He will want to do it immediately and will, as often as not, proceed to do it. The man of the world admits this frequently without your even asking him. He says gratuitously, oh of course, I'm not claiming that I'm a perfect saint. Well, he's granting thereby the universality of sin. There's no such thing as a perfect saint, he says. All right, well then sin is universal. And then secondly, the second fact is the universality of death. Every man who lives is born to die, as the poet said. The moment you breathe for the first time, you are moving towards death. And even babies, take a baby that might have been born, maybe that's a day old, and yet, This curse is upon that baby because that baby died and it aged only one day. The baby dies. Well, how is that? It's because all sinned. Mankind then is fallen. So, here's the question. Two questions that have to be dealt with by anyone who's honest. First of all, why is man wrong? Why is this? Why does he typically choose to do What is wrong? Okay, even you're even why is even? Tempted to do what is wrong? And the second thing is then second question is why is there why is there death now? To deal with the first question here, why is the world the way it is? Why is man? Typically spoiling and ruining light. Why why is there war what is wrong with? man. Even absolutely pagan nature worshiper type people, whether they really like it or not, and they don't intend to, are acknowledging this fundamental truth. Their solution is wrong. but they're acknowledging this fundamental truth when they look at what's going on with the physical world, creation and so forth. And so they'll point out, and they're not wrong on everything, that's for sure. They'll point out things like pollution, right? Pollution of the ocean and maybe when some corporation or somewhere is not careful in their mining practices or logging practices or whatever, right? Now, of course, they're... And what are they pointing to? We say, what's the problem? They'll say, man's the problem. Well, you're right. We absolutely agree, but here's the... But the solution is not to get rid of man, which is basically, ultimately, in their thinking, the creation would be better off without man, and so that's... But that solution, obviously, is self-destroying and is not really a solution. It's certainly unbiblical. Man was created as God's highest created being. So what is wrong with man? How do other people explain it this way? This is a typical one. All right, well, We believe that man is evolving, just like all of the organic creation is evolving. came up from the slime or out of the sea and crawled onto land as whatever kind of a creature. And after bajillions of years, you know, through mutation, you know, typical evolutionary stuff. And so here's man's problem. This is what he, this is what, this is why there's wars and these kinds of things in the world. It's because man has not evolved to the point of getting rid of all of the remnants of the beast that he used to be, right? The beast that he used to be. There's still a lot of this survival of the fittest battle going on, and man, he just has not evolved then, all right? Well, so here's how this works. Man, that scheme says, was not created perfect by any means. He's a beast. But he's getting better. He's getting better. Now one thing at that point we want to point out here is that reality doesn't really affirm that. So you want to maintain Man is getting better. He's evolving. You know, it doesn't look that way. Well, you've got to wait another billion years, you know. So anyway, but he was created imperfect, but he's evolving toward perfection, right? But what does the Bible say? The Bible says just the opposite, that man was created perfect. He was created perfect as a man. in Eden, and then he devolved. He sinned. He fell and is under God's judgment and the power of sin. That's what happened. You see, there's the contrast. But this evolutionary type thing, there's no such thing as sin. We don't like that particular, we don't like that word, you see. In fact, here's a couple of good statements here. The proponents of the evolutionary view heartily dislike the term sin. It's just that he's not developed sufficiently in his good and better qualities yet. You Christians, you Bible people, you need to get rid of this biblical idea of sin and guilt. That's not good, that's not a positive thing to think of. Man, they insist, is not really bad. What you should say about him is that he's not good. He hasn't arrived. We don't want to talk about the bad, it's just that he's developing and he just needs to get better. You see that in sociology, right? Here's nations like ours in the West and so forth, more developed nations. They figure, well, you know, here's these pagan ignorant type societies and so on. We'll go over there and give them the trappings of civilization and, you know, they'll develop and they'll see the light. It doesn't work, does it? It doesn't work. The most developed and civilized nations simply use their development, as you might say, and scientific discoveries. to slaughter each other at a greater rate than their predecessors, right? Well, what does this kind of a person, this non-Christian, oftentimes elitist when you're talking to him, what do they say about death? What do they say about that? Why is there this problem of death? You're going to die. I'm going to die. People die in bad ways, because every time death is bad, there's nothing good about it. Why all this tragedy and death and so forth in the world? How are they going to explain this? Well, you can kind of see this coming, right? It's a natural thing, right? It's part of the, what was that movie, Disney? The Lion King, right? The circle of life. It's the circle of life, you know? You die and your body deteriorates back to the dust and then at some point the dust will become the whole circle of life. Death is a natural thing, they will say. It's interesting that people like that, I mean, they're not being honest even with themselves. Then why are you afraid of it, right? it's so natural. This is how deluded sin makes a person. It's just the circle of life, you know? Okay, here's this illustration that Lloyd-Jones gave on this point. He says, It abides alone, but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." Now, of course, what Jesus was talking about there was his own death, right? That's what he... For us, that if he would die, he will rise again and bring forth much fruit. That's us. Okay, so... Well, yes, said the principal, I believe that verse. It's quite simple. And Lloyd-Jones says, well, I had introduced that verse in connection with the whole question of Christ's atonement on the cross, which I maintain was what our Lord was dealing with in this verse, talking about his own death and resurrection. No, no, no, said this guy. It isn't just, it isn't that. That's where you people with your legalistic minds keep imposing your ideas onto the beautiful, simple view of life, which was taken by Jesus. There's nothing more disgusting than one of these arrogant, so-called fake Christian academians, right? That you find all around. Oh, you people with your legal... What he means by that is, oh, you people that believe the Bible, right? Here he is, anyway. Don't you see, he said, Jesus is just illustrating this principle inherent in life. You put that seed into the ground. If it remains alive, it's of no further value. But if that seed dies and degenerates and decomposes, then a chemical process takes place that leads to the renewal of life. And out of that one seed, you will have many blades of grass or of corn. That's how it works. Nothing's lost. You say that when something dies that that's the end of it, but such is not the case. When trees and flowers and animals die, the decomposed matter to which they give rise is most valuable. It produces nitrogen, which is, after all, the basis of life and many other essential constituents. Death leads to life by liberating the nitrogen that's needed to form the molecules of new life. Death is just part, and here it is, of the cycle of life. Such was this man's contention. It amounted to this, that death is an essential part in the process and rhythm of life. And consequently, there was never a time when there was no death. In essence, this is a summary of the non-biblical view. And it certainly was unbiblical, right? What is natural? What's natural? Natural is the creation as God created it and pronounced it good before the fall. That's natural. What is unnatural? Unnatural is what we're living in. That's the world we've only known. Just as sin came into the world, and death through sin. That is the origin of this thing. And so here's the biblical view. Notice that in explaining this, Paul kind of personifies sin. Sin came into the world. Sin is active. Well, of course, the reason he's doing this is behind that is the devil. The devil came into Eden and he brought this temptation to sin along with him and by that introduced sin. But he's a trespasser. He has no right there. Sin has no right in this creation. And the results of sin are unnatural. Death is unnatural. So, you know, we really need to take on anybody that's pulling this. Well, it's just natural. Now, you see, we can expect the pagan, unbelieving world to talk like that. But what we don't expect to have happen is that professing Christians talk like that, but they do. And we need to call them on it when they do talk that way. So, for example, what are some examples we can give here? Death, I've found this, that when I've preached at funerals, in a church to people that profess, for the most part, to be Christians. And I start this way and I say, we're here because of death. And as soon as you begin, I mean, think of the irony of it. Maybe here's the casket right in front of everybody. We're here because of death. Well, that should be pretty obvious, but people want to deny it. And they actually, By minimizing it, they're kind of agreeing with this theological professor, right? That it's just, you know, it's not so bad. We're going to miss the person and everything, but, and what's the common line? They've gone to a better place. It doesn't matter how wickedly this person lived, right? They've gone to a better place and surely they're in heaven. But that kind of language really in lots of ways is agreeing. It's language that really underneath it is agreeing with The pagan view that death is a natural thing. He's gone to a better place. That's what we do. We go to a better place than you see. There's another way that death as a curse. That's what it is. Death is God's curse upon man for sin, right? And there's another way that we're seeing very much increasing. around this is that people want to turn a funeral service into a celebration. You know, there's the word, celebration. Now they'll say, we're going to celebrate the life and we're going to celebrate this. It's going to be a celebration, right? That kind of a thing. Rather than rather than facing up to the issue that this is not natural. There's nothing to celebrate here. It's fine to remember the loved one and so forth and kind of grieve together, but there's nothing to party on about. Nothing to hold a party about. What it is an occasion for is for us all to give serious thought to what death is, where it came from, and only then will people turn to the remedy. which is Christ, okay? That's only then. So those are some things to keep in mind. We see it here then in verse 12. Sin came into the world and it brought death with it. The devil came into the world. He didn't belong there. He was trespassing in Eden when he came there as the serpent. And he's been a trespasser, the god of this world. And he's getting thrown out, right? He's getting thrown out. I should have some kind of a mug made. Got a mug over here. I won't get into politics. My mug here. Well, you can't make an image of Jesus. You can't do that, but maybe we could have the devil in a garbage can and say, take out the garbage. God took out the trespasser, right? In Christ, that's what happened. And ultimately, that's what's gonna happen on that day of judgment then as well. And Satan knows it. So, okay, why is man as man is? Because sin came into the world. He's fallen. There's nothing natural about any of this. Why is there death in the world? Because sin, why do people die? Universally, everybody dies. Why? Because sin has come into the world. You notice it's interesting to think about some of the things that Roman Catholicism teaches, what the Roman Church has taught frequently. about death and immortality and so on. And some of this stuff is pretty weird, it's all unbiblical, but have you noticed, and I'm not an expert on this, but they've got people, alleged saints, you know, in Rome it's not every Christian is a saint, there's the hierarchy, and I'm sure you're aware of, so they'll have Saint so-and-so, Maybe the guy or the woman died 200 years ago or whatever, they've still got the dead body there on display. And it's like, oh, it's a miracle, just a miracle. It's not decomposing or anything like that. There again, I think that's just another denial of the fact, you know, if somebody did that and, oh, look at this, you know, look at, man, look how natural they look. Well, they look dead to me. They're dead. That's not natural. There's nothing natural about it. But those are all the kinds of lies that man in his sin wants to propose. So what have we got here? There was a time There was a time when sin was not in the world. And there was a time when there was no death in the world. Nobody died. And then the fall came, sin came in, and death came, and death came with it. So now, all men not only sinned, in Adam, but we all sin, right? Now, what is sin? Sin is, and it's part of man's nature. It's part of man's nature. We, even as Christians, we still have to battle with it, right? What is sin? The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines that, but... I'll read this sentence that Lloyd-Jones puts in here. Right? That's man. And that's what's wrong with the world. Because sin, that's what it is, and man is infected by it. He is a sinner by nature. Sin is an attitude, a mindset you might say, of rebellion and hatred to God, and a refusal to obey his holy law. Sin means that a new reigning principle has come into the life of man, and it means that we're in a fallen condition, all right? Sin, that great invader, and death following because death is the wages then of sin. Now, we're going to need to get into this idea of Well, the comparison that Paul is setting up here, and we'll get into it in more detail. You know, for example, in verse 13, why does Paul point out that there was sin in the world before the law? That is, before Moses. Let's say Moses lived about 1400 BC, right? And a little back up to Abraham. Let's say Abraham, about 2000 BC. Now, it was through Moses that the law came. The law was given. So in Abraham's day, the law hadn't been given. Abraham was not under the Mosaic law. He wasn't under the law. Hadn't been given. Because Paul will say, until the law is given, your sin's not reckoned because of violation of the law because the law hasn't been given yet. And yet, he says, before Moses, everybody died. There was death. How come? You know, why is that? Well, sin was in the world before the law was given, okay? So what he's doing is he's explaining how it is, he's explaining his statement in verse 12, that death spread to all men because all sinned. In other words, and this is important, you don't really understand the gospel and our need for Christ if we don't understand this. People are not condemned and sent to hell because of sins, because they sinned through their life. They committed these sins and so forth. Now I think there's another aspect here, but we don't want to, Paul's not addressing that here, okay? Doesn't mean there's no consequences or anything. But what Paul is fundamentally saying is the reason people end up in hell... unless they're born again by faith in Christ, is because of Adam's sin. Adam's sin was our sin, alright? It's death spread to all men because all sinned, sinned. He doesn't say death spread to all men because, hey, everybody sins, you know? No, no. spread to all men because all sinned. And so that's why death was in the world before Moses and Mount Sinai and so forth. So think about this. Even if somebody lived a perfect life, they never broke any of the Ten Commandments. That idea is impossible. We know that because the law, you got to obey it even from your heart. The law is spiritual. But let's say somebody did. Without Christ, they're still going to end up in hell. Why? Because they're It's called total depravity. They're sinners by nature. And they are that way because Adam sinned and Adam, when Adam sinned, we all sinned. When Adam fell, then we all fell. One final thing here, I think I mentioned it last time, and that is we see here that the Apostle Paul treats Adam and the fall and the whole account of Eden, the early chapters of Genesis, as history, true reality, history, Adam as one man, all right, one man. He mentions Moses in the same breath here as Adam. And it's important to remember that you can't deny the historicity of Genesis, God's creation, Eden, Adam and Eve, the serpent, the fall, even on up to Noah and the flood. You can't deny the historicity of those events and those people without throwing Christ out. because his whole point here is that we are saved by one man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Is the one man a literal man? Yes. Well, we were condemned by one man's sin, and that man then, of course, is Adam. So clearly the apostle Paul taught this. and believed that the Lord Jesus did. And so, well, there it is. He'd do away with Adam. Oh, well, this is just, you know, Adam is not a real guy. He just represents all mankind. Well, okay, it represents all mankind. What does that mean? And what do you do then with Paul's comparison? I think you can see how ridiculous then that is. Well, we'll want to press on next time and look at some more details here in Paul's comparison and in his argument. I'd say just one more thing in conclusion, and it's this. Most professing Christians are ignorant of what we've just been talking about. Most professing Christians have this simplistic mindset, unbiblical mindset that, well, you know, if anybody ends up, you know, there's still some free will in people and some goodness in people and so some of them choose to believe in Christ and some of them don't and this kind of a thing. And if you talk to them about, well now wait a minute, what's all this in Romans 5 here about how when Adam sinned, We all sinned. Oh, that's not what that means. That's not, you know, you see it off, they go, or they'll stare at you with a blank look on their face. And a lot of the responsibility for that ignorance is that pastors do not systematically and thoroughly teach what the Bible says, right? They don't sit down and say, Let's seriously consider verse 12 here and let's think about these things. And so there's plenty of people that claim to be Christians that say, well, you know, I don't think that's the way this works. Well, how do you think it works with Jesus then? Well, Jesus, He, you know, He loved me. He saw some good in me, and He knew I was going to believe, and so He saved me. And they don't have the foggiest notion, and they don't have it because they don't want to. So, okay, well, let's pray. And Father, we thank You for these great truths from Your Word. Thank You for the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank You that that you sent the last Adam, another Adam, who would perfectly obey your law as no fallen man ever could, and who would go to the cross and have our sin laid upon him, and he had no sin of his own. So he was able to bear the curse for us. And so we give you thanks, pray that we would continue to grow and understand these things that we can really give you glory and praise for. And we pray this in Christ's name, amen.