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Romans 5:12-21 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

• 0:00
  Either in Adam or in Christ. There's not an option.
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  We are all in Adam by physical birth, but we are only in Christ by new spiritual birth.
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  !
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  Secondly, how are they similar? Really quickly, they're both inaugurators.
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  They inaugurated, both of them opened or ushered in a different era of the human race.
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  Alright, so they both inaugurated.
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  Question number two.
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  How did Adam's fall affect mankind?
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  Alright, very clearly spelled out in verses 12 through 14.
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  For sake of time, I might not read it all again, but we see this clearly how his fall into sin affected mankind.
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  Now remember, in the story, it was Eve who initially sinned.
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  But who is held accountable for that sin? Adam.
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  Because he was the covenantal head. He was the leader.
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  He didn't look after his wife in this case.
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  So he is held responsible.
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  Right?
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  So if we look at the first part of verse 12, we see the phrase that sin came into the world.
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  Alright?
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  So that implies that there was a time in creation when all was as it should have been.
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  Before Genesis 3.
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  Before Genesis 3.
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  When death, destruction, hardship, disease, starvation, war, strife, conflict, disorder.
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  All those things were absent before sin entered the world.
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  We cannot imagine what that is like.
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  Because we only have known a world that has been destroyed by sin.
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  Unimaginable.
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  Unimaginable.
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  But God created it all and it was good.
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  So, the first part of that, sin came into the world through, so the agent of, that was Adam.
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  Through one man.
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  So, very interesting note here.
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  I mean, Paul in the first century is considering Adam a real person.
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  He is not a mythological figure.
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  Not a legend.
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  He is like a real person.
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  And Paul is referring to him and saying that he was absolutely, Genesis 1 and 2.
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  He was absolutely the first man that God created in his image.
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  He formed him from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
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  Gave him dominion over all creation, over all other lower creatures.
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  Placed in the garden of Eden to take care of it and to enjoy its fruits.
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  Then, as an extra step of God's love for him and care for him, he gave him a wife, Eve, who is the mother of all life, to be with him as a helper.
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  Right?
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  So, such wonderful gifts.
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  They were to live, Adam and Eve and their descendants were to live in relationship with God, reflecting his glory in his character and all that we do.
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  We were to multiply his image throughout the earth, like sub-regions of God.
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  All that's there in Genesis 1 and 2.
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  But yet, despite the honor given to man to bear the image of God, we read, Ecclesiastes 7, 29, God made man upright.
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  But they have sought out many devices, many schemes.
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  That's where the term sin comes in.
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  It means missing the mark or the purpose for which God intended for us as his image bearers.
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  We fall short of that.
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  Massively short of that.
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  If you look throughout our text, it says that Adam's offense is labeled a trespass.
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  We all know what that is.
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  It's a premeditated, deliberate crossing of the line.
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  He knew he shouldn't have, and he did anyway.
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  So, it was a step against God's good authority over him.
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  Verse 15, by the transgression of the one, many died.
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  Verse 16, judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation.
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  Verse 17, by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one.
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  Verse 18, through one transgression that resulted in condemnation to all men.
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  Verse 19, through one man's disobedience, many were made sinners.
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  So, you see that just repeated that it draws back to this first offense of Adam.
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  So, sin entered the world through Adam.
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  Then it says, and death through sin.
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  So, this clearly contradicts the idea that death would have never happened.
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  Well, excuse me, that death would have happened anyway, even if sin hadn't entered the world.
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  They would have eventually just died of old age.
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  But like, no, clearly, it is the sentence of death that's implied here as a consequence of sinning against God.
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  But in Eden, following God's great generosity, remember, he warned, he warned Adam, like, you can do all this.
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  All this is yours.
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  There's one thing that you cannot do.
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  It says that he commanded them, you may surely eat of any tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.
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  For in the day that you eat, you will surely die.
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  All right?
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  So, according to verse 16 here in Romans, death is God's judgment for and against our sin.
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  Clearly, death is not an accident.
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  It's not just a natural thing.
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  It wasn't meant to be this way.
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  Physical death is called the first death in the scripture.
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  We all will physically die.
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  All of us, at some point or another, our bodies will pass away because of sin.
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  Even if we are in Christ, even if we're Christians, we're going to face death.
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  I would say, more importantly, is spiritual death.
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  This is Ephesians 2.
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  It talks about how we are dead in our trespasses, right?
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  We don't have to read much further after Genesis 3.
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  And there's this repeated phrase that didn't exist.
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  It records that this man lived or this woman lived and they died.
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  And they died.
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  It's a repetitive phrase for emphasizing.
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  And you and I will also pass away.
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  We will eventually die ourselves.
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  Right?
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  But have you ever wondered, like, why death?
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  Like, why is death God's chosen consequence for our sin?
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  Don Carson, pastor, scholar.
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  He said, why death?
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  Death is God's limit on creatures whose sin is they want to be God's.
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  So it's God's way of telling us that we are mortal.
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  We are not sovereign.
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  We are not omnipotent.
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  We will pass away.
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  It's him putting a limit to the arrogance of man.
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  So death is something that man has freely and willingly brought on himself.
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  Right?
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  So some may think, some, like, that just seems so unfair.
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  Like, why did Adam screw it up for the rest of us?
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  You've heard people say that.
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  Like, why do I have to answer for that?
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  For that disobedience?
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  Well, the quick answer is, like, yeah, you will have to answer for it.
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  But for starters, if God put every one of us in that same place, we probably would do the same thing he did.
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  And for us to kind of think otherwise is pretty arrogant.
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  Adam was sinless, placed in the perfect situation.
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  But even more importantly, by condemning the whole human race through one man, now Christ is able to save the whole human race through one man.
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  Right?
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  Like, we have a representative.
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  So if you want to be your own Adam, good luck.
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  Because then you will have to be your own savior in return.
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  And if I ask you the question, have you still sinned?
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  Well, what are you going to do about that?
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  Right?
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  So Christ now can represent us.
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  Even because Adam represented us in the disobedience.
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  So there's a lot there.
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  But moving on to the next part of this section.
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  Notice that he says, death spread to all men because all have sinned.
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  He's already made a strong case for all of us being under the reign of sin.
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  Chapter one, chapter two, parts of chapter three.
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  It's sin against all humanity.
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  The great tragedy of creation is that you and I and everyone else that was created in God's image,
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  we forfeited that right by rebelling against our creator and following our own ways.
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  Look at verse 12.
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  It says, sadly, right, that Adam's action of sin set a pattern for the rest of humanity.
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  Namely, that sin leads to death.
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  So this is not referring to a particular sin per se.
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  It's really just aiming at all people now have a prependency, a predisposition, a pull towards sin.
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  We all have that.
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  We are sinners by nature, it says here.
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  Tragically, Adam passed to all his descendants, both you and me, this inerrant, sinful nature that was initially brought into the world at the beginning.
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  So mankind is a single entity, right?
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  Even though we may chop it up into subgroups, as a whole, we are one entity, right?
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  So Adam represented the entire human race that descended from him, no matter how many subgroups there are.
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  And so therefore, when Adam sinned, all mankind sinned, because the first sin he committed transformed our inner nature.
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  You can feel it every day, this prependency just to rebel against God.
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  There's this, even if you don't want to admit it, there's this mysterious connection to us and to Adam.
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  This prependency to be weak, to fail, to do harm to ourselves and to others around us.
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  It's there.
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  And then it says, sin entered the world, right?
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  Not long after you read this in Genesis 3, in Genesis chapter 6, it talks about how we're all been defiled by this.
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  It says, the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart were only evil continually.
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  That's Genesis 6, 5.
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  So all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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  That's the reality of the world that we live in, the curse that we see and feel every day.
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  So are you aware of the realm of death?
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  Is it heavy to you when you think about such things?
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  And you may wonder how this even came about, right?
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  But one question that Paul anticipates and we're about to see is like, was this true even before the law of Moses came?
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  Before mankind actually had a written law where God told us what was good and evil?
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  And the answer is, you know, yes.
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  If you look in verses 13 through 14, there's one point that's clear.
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  In the time between Adam and the Mosaic law, all people still suffered and died as a result of Adam's sin and disobedience.
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  For sin, you see it?
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  For sin indeed was in the world before the law.
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  So the coming of the law didn't change that reality at all, right?
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  Now, not because we had broken some specific law, right?
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  But because there's that same desire for us to sin against God.
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  It always existed even before the law came.
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  And the result of that was people died.
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  That's the evidence.
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  People still passed away.
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  Think about other parts in the scripture before Moses.
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  The Tower of Babel, judgment.
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  The Flood, judgment.
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  Sodom and Gomorrah, judgment.
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  All that came before there was a written law.
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  So it doesn't mean that people are guiltless without the law.
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  Romans 2 verse 2 talks about how many people perished as judgment even before the law.
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  So that's just an argument that Paul anticipates.
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  Well, this happened.
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  Was this true before the Ten Commandments?
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  And the answer is yeah, it's still true.
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  All right.
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  So number three.
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  Number three.
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  What are the differences between Adam and Christ?
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  All right.
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  And again, I think just for the sake of time, I might not read all this again.
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  But this is verses 15 through 19.
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  We're just going to pull out some threads just to look at this.
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  So one way is different.
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  It is different in consequences.
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  Very clearly.
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  Verse 15.
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  Adam's offense or his trespass is contrasted with Christ's free gift.
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  That word free gift means something that's given out of gracious favor towards somebody.
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  It actually could be just translated grace gift.
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  So because of Adam's one trespass and disobedience, there was a verdict of condemnation and a sentence of death to all mankind.
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  That's like terrifying.
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  On the other hand, if you read Christ's obedience, obeying God perfectly, never sinning, even to the point of death on a cross, that all now reverses the effects of the fall.
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  Christ brings grace and not judgment, justification and not condemnation, which comes as a result of God's free gift.
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  That's what we see here.
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  When Paul has been explaining this since the beginning of his letter, note he repeats the phrase much more in that section twice.
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  Saying that the grace of God not only brings temporal physical life, but brings us something much greater, eternal, new, spiritual, abundant life in Christ.
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  Life with God forever.
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  Life with God forever.
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  Reversing the effects of the fall.
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  Sin separated us from God.
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  Christ has brought us reconciled back into relationship with God.
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  So one is the difference in the consequences.
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  Another difference between Adam and Christ is they had different starting points.
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  Look at verse 16.
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  Interesting.
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  The verdict of judgment and condemnation that affected all mankind came after one single trespass.
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  But God's free gift of salvation by grace came, you see that, following many trespasses.
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  So meaning after an unimaginable number of sins had been committed by all people, then God's grace came forward.
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  That's astounding.
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  It means that God is trying to highlight, put on display the beauty of his grace against this backdrop of so much sin after many trespasses.
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  So the one redemptive act of Christ was immeasurably greater than Adam's one act of condemnation.
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  Jesus overcame the flood of sin destroying the world and brought us grace and justification right standing before God forever.
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  So here's in verse 17.
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  He kind of pulls together a summary of these differences.
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  Kind of like, again, when you're making a legal case, you keep anticipating arguments and then you sum it all up.
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  And that's kind of what he does in verse 17.
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  He draws the threads together of verses 15 and 16.
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  He says, you know, whereas Adam's one trespass brought condemnation and death.
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  So if you think about that, that's the opposite of what Satan promised, right?
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  In Genesis 3, he said, if you disobey, you'll be like God.
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  So it brought the opposite.
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  It brought death.
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  God has brought through Jesus abundant grace, life and righteousness.
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  The striking difference here, I think that Paul highlights, is that where death reigned from Adam, it's not now that life reigns.
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  All right.
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  He says that people reign.
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  Verse 17, those who receive God's saving grace, who will reign in life.
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  So death ruled the entire human race by virtue of Adam's one sin.
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  But now Christians, those who have given their lives fully to Jesus, now we will be rulers alongside with Christ.
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  And death will not triumph over us.
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  We will have eternal life.
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  So that is a beautiful thing that Paul is giving us here.
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  Another reason to enforce the hope that he just talked about earlier in the chapter.
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  Like we can have hope of eternal life.
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  Hope of reigning with Christ.
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  And then in verses 18 through 19, again, you see this one man's actions affected all others as representatives.
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  All right.
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  All right.
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  Simply put.
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  Right.
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  One trespass of Adam as the head of the human race brought condemnation and guilt to all.
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  Similarly, Christ's one act of righteousness.
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  I think he's either referring to his death or his entire life of obedience, including his death.
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  One or the other.
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  It led to righteousness and life to all who belong to him.
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  You see the phrase, you know, all men.
• 18:01
  It's definitely not implying universalism because he's like gone against that pretty much the entire book and the rest of the New Testament.
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  But again, those who receive God's gift belong to Christ.
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  Verse chapter five, verse 11.
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  Only those who have faith in Christ will be justified and made right with God.
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  So look at the wording he uses.
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  As this happens, so now this will happen.
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  He shows that the focus is not on the size of that group, but on the method of either sin or righteousness being passed from Christ and Adam to their descendants.
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  Each representative.
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  Each representative.
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  First Corinthians 15 verse 21 says this, drawing all this together.
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  For as by by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection from the dead.
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  For just as Adam all died, so also in Christ all may be made alive.
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  All right.
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  So again, one man's actions affecting the other.
• 19:05
  And then lastly, last question.
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  Looking at the last two verses of this passage.
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  How does the law magnify Christ's reign of grace?
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  Verse 20 says,
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  Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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  So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
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  So what Paul has done here is he's taken all mankind and placed us in two different camps.
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  Like, not a third camp.
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  Either we are under the reign of Adam or we are under the reign of Christ.
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  The point here, he makes a point of the law.
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  Law did not change man standing under sin.
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  But it did help identify more activities and attitudes that were sinful.
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  Here's three.
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  We've kind of gone over this some in the past, but here's just three quick things that the law did.
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  The law defined what sin was.
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  It told us what sin was.
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  So, I mean, many years ago, my diagnosis of the lung disease I had, you know, it got named.
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  It got called, oh yeah, this is that disease.
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  Cystic fibrosis.
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  I still suffer from it before I knew what it was.
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  Right?
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  So it's like an example of we still suffered from sin, even though we didn't know it was, quote, called sin.
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  Number two, the law asserts that sin is wrong and dangerous, making the breaking of it all the more willful and shameful.
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  Right?
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  Number three, the law provokes sin.
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  It causes us to increase in the trespass.
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  But what he's saying here is that's true.
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  It also magnifies the grace of Christ.
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  It shows us that Christ is greater.
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  What he brought through his reign is much more.
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  Right?
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  Much more.
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  Far better than what Adam brought us.
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  All right?
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  So, if we magnify sin, we can magnify the grace of God.
• 21:17
  That's what he's saying here.
• 21:19
  The law came to do that.
• 21:21
  So, in conclusion, I just thought I would wrap it up with this.
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  In conclusion, you know, the scripture has a story of twos.
• 21:32
  To give credit where credit is due.
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  The first time I ever heard this, it was a guy named Sinclair Ferguson.
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  I won't take credit for this, but it ministered to me.
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  And I hope it does to you as well.
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  Well, this is a story of two men, two gardens, two trees, two tests, and two outcomes.
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  Right?
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  The two men are Adam and Christ, both representatives.
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  The two gardens are Eden and Gethsemane.
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  The two trees.
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  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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  And Eden.
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  Everything about it was pleasing to the eyes.
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  Everything about it drew you in.
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  It was attractive.
• 22:19
  Which is why Adam and Eve eventually went for it.
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  And then there's also the tree of Calvary, the cross.
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  And to Jesus, there was nothing attractive to it at all.
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  Like repulsed.
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  Gross.
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  Everything about his holy nature did not want to go to that tree.
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  Very different from the tree that Adam faced.
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  Right?
• 22:44
  Then each man faced two great tests.
• 22:48
  Adam was tempted to disobey God and throw off his authority and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
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  Jesus was tempted to flee the cross in Gethsemane.
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  If you remember, he prayed humbly like,
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  Lord, Father, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me.
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  And very clearly, there was not another way.
• 23:16
  Adam disobeyed God and ate of the tree, thus saying, my will be done, God, and not yours.
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  Christ obeyed God, denied his own desire, went to the tree and drank the full cup of God's wrath.
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  And his prayer was, not my will, Father, but yours be done.
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  So he went sacrificially.
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  He went and died on the tree of Calvary.
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  And then there's two outcomes.
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  Adam's sin and disobedience.
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  As we've said over and over in this passage, it brought condemnation, a reign of death into the world.
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  And many were made sinners and many died.
• 23:59
  Christ, by his perfect obedience and love for God, brought the grace of God to man.
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  And righteousness that we can now have to stand justified before God.
• 24:13
  He brought a reign of eternal life and salvation to all people who look to him for their sins to be forgiven.
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  So in Christ, we can have hope.
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  Whenever you're going to be exposed to death by yourself, a friend, a family member, in your line of work.
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  I know we have first responders in here.
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  We have soldiers in here.
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  You've seen it.
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  It's ugly.
• 24:41
  What has Christ done to reverse the effects of such terrible things?
• 24:47
  He has given us great hope.
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  So which man do we identify with today?
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  Adam or Christ?
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  Where do you stand?
• 24:57
  Living in the reign of death under Adam or the reign of life under Christ?
• 25:03
  So we have reason to hope.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.
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  Let's join in prayer together.