Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Adam’s Condemnation to Christ’s Justification: Assurance and Grace’s Reign (Romans 5:6–21)

Transcript

From Adam’s Condemnation to Christ’s Justification: Assurance and Grace’s Reign (Romans 5:6–21) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  This is the show where we take a stack of articles, commentaries
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  and theological essays and we we really try to get to the very
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  bottom of what is going on in the text.
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  That's right, we aren't here to give you a surface level skim.
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  We are here to get to the root of the matter.
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  That is the goal, and today we are tackling a subject that I
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  think is going to hit home for a specific kind of listener.
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  We often talk about the learner, the person who is technically
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  prepping for a meeting or, you know, catching up on reading,
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  but underneath it all they are just insanely curious.
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  But today I want to address the listener who feels the crushing
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  weight of trying to define themselves.
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  You know, I was reading through these notes and I got this
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  distinct sensation of exhaustion.
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  Just reading about the Modern Identity Project made me tired.
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  It feels like we wake up every morning with a blank name tag
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  and we have to frantically scribble something on it before
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  we leave the house. Yeah, that's a great.
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  Image I'm a manager, I'm a father, I'm a Democrat, I'm an
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  Enneagram 4 and if we don't write something fast enough, we
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  feel like we disappear. That is the perfect image.
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  The blank name tag problem, and the reason it's so exhausting,
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  is that the ink keeps fading. It does, you're right.
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  Successful career man on the tag.
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  But then you get laid off on Tuesday.
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  Now who are you? The tag is blank again.
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  Or or you write good mother, but then you lose your temper in the
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  grocery store. And the identity just dissolves.
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  It's gone. And the modern solution, or at
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  least what culture tells us, is to look inside, find your truth.
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  Look within. Look within.
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  We hear this in every movie, every song, every commencement
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  speech. Right.
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  Which is just terrible advice if you actually look inside.
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  Because what do you find? You find anxiety.
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  You find conflicting desires. One minute you want to be a St.
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  the next minute you want to scream at traffic.
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  If you build your identity on that internal weather report,
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  you are going to be seasick your whole life.
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  So this isn't just a theological issue for people in robes.
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  This is the guy having a panic attack in the bathroom before a
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  board meeting because he thinks his sales figures are his.
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  Precisely. It is the crisis of identity.
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  We are told that we are defined by our feelings, or by our past
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  trauma, or by our performance at work, or even by our political
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  tribe or our racial heritage. All these external or internal
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  shifting things the. Problem is that all of those
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  things are unstable ground. If you define yourself by your
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  feelings, what happens when your feelings change?
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  If you define yourself by your performance, what happens when
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  you fail? It leaves the soul absolutely
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  weary. It is exhausting because you
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  have to constantly remanufacture your identity every single
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  morning. It is all on you.
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  You're the sculptor in the statue, right?
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  And that is why we are looking at Romans chapter 5 verses 6
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  through 21 today, because the Apostle Paul is going to offer a
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  counter narrative that is completely different from what
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  the modern world offers. Totally different.
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  He is going to argue that you are not an isolated individual
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  defined by your psychological profile.
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  You are actually part of a massive corporate reality
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  defined by two men, Adam and Christ.
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  So the goal for this deep dive is to move us from that shaky
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  ground of subjective feelings to the rock of objective history.
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  And that is it. We are moving from how do I feel
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  to what's happened in history. OK, let's unpack this.
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  We are starting in Romans 5 right around verse 6, and the
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  first thing that jumps out from our source material is the
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  discussion about timing. The text says for a while we
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  were still weak at the right time.
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  Christ died for the ungodly. Now usually when I read that, I
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  kind of gloss over at the right time.
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  I assume it just means eventually.
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  But the commentaries are making a huge deal out of this.
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  Why is the timing so critical here?
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  It's massive. The Greek word Paul uses there
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  is Kairos. It doesn't just mean a time on
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  the clock like Kronos. It means the appointed time, the
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  critical moment. So not just anytime.
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  No, the time the argument here is that the cross wasn't an
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  accident. It wasn't Plan B because Plan A
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  failed. It was the specific appointed
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  moment in history that God had decided upon before the
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  foundation of the world. So God didn't look down, see
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  that we were struggling and think, oh, things are getting
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  out of hand, I better step in now.
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  No, no. Think about the historical
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  context for a second. You had the Pax Romana, the
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  Roman peace. Right, a period of relative
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  stability. Exactly.
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  You had a road system that allowed news to travel faster
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  than ever before in human history.
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  You had the Greek language, which was the universal language
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  of and philosophy, so the message can be understood
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  everywhere. A common language.
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  And you had the Jewish law, which had spent centuries
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  teaching people what sin was, creating a category for guilt.
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  The stage was perfectly set. God is a master of logistics.
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  That makes a lot of sense historically, but the verse
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  connects the timing to our condition and this is where the
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  text gets, well, insulting. It does.
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  Paul uses 2 words here that are absolute insults.
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  He calls us as the non and a Sablan.
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  He does not pull any punches. OK, I have the definitions here.
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  In our staff, aspinin usually translates to weak.
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  That doesn't sound too bad to me.
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  We all feel weak. Sometimes it sounds like we just
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  need a protein shake, maybe a Peloton class and a pep talk.
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  See, that is where the English translation really softens the
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  blow. In this context, Aspinin isn't
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  tired, it is paralyzed. Paralyzed.
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  Think of a trauma unit in a hospital.
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  You aren't asking the patient to help you with the surgery.
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  They are incapacitated. Paul is saying that morally we
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  are comatose. We have 0 ability to contribute
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  to our own rescue. It is a total moral inability
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  that's. Bleak.
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  We want to think we can at least meet God halfway.
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  That we can, you know, extend a hand.
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  But Paul is saying we can't even lift a finger.
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  We are flat on our backs, spiritual paraplegic.
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  But the second word is worse, right?
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  Asuman ungodly. To be honest, that sounds like a
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  church word. Like someone who swears too much
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  or watches R rated movies. And in our culture, that's what
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  it sounds like. But in the Roman mind and in the
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  Jewish mind, that word was shocking.
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  Acebiah was treason. It wasn't just I don't like the
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  gods, it was I am actively trying to overthrow the order of
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  the universe. It means active irreverence.
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  It means someone who is a traitor to the divine order.
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  So let me put those together. We are paralyzed, yet somehow in
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  our paralysis we are shaking our fists at the doctor trying to
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  save us. That is the paradoxical image,
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  helpless yet hostile. And that, at that exact moment
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  is when the text says Christ died.
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  Not when we got better. Not when we showed promise.
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  When we were at our absolute worst.
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  This really hammers home the reformed view of unconditional
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  election doesn't. It it underscores it heavily.
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  God did not foresee that we would have potential.
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  He looked down the corridor of time and say, well, no, that
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  guy's going to be pretty decent in a few years, so I'll save
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  him. Right, he'll come around.
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  No, he saw helplessness and hostility, and that is when he
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  decided to save. The motive for salvation is
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  entirely in God, not in the desirability of the Sinner.
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  Wow. That leads right into verse 7,
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  where Paul makes this interesting comparison about
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  human love versus God's love. He talks about dying for a
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  righteous person versus a good person.
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  I have to admit, I always thought righteous and good were
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  basically synonyms. A.
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  Lot of people do. What is the distinction he is
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  drawing there? It is a subtle but brilliant
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  observation of human nature. Paul says, essentially, that
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  human love has its limits. We might, in a very rare case,
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  die for a good person. OK.
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  Think of a benevolent benefactor, someone who is warm,
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  generous, maybe the grandfather figure who paid for your college
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  tuition and always has a kind word.
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  You might take a bullet for that guy because you love him.
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  There's an affection there. Right, that makes sense.
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  We sacrifice for people we have a deep affection for.
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  But then, he says, we would scarcely die for a righteous
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  person. That would be someone who
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  technically keeps all the rules. They pay their taxes on time.
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  They never break a law. They're scrupulously honest, but
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  they're cold. I see.
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  They're morally upright but not lovable, like a very strict IRS
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  auditor who's never made a single mistake in his life.
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  I see you respect the auditor, you might even admire his
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  precision. But you aren't jumping in front
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  of a bus for him. Correct.
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  So human love is attracted to the quality of the object.
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  We love people who are lovely, or at least people who are good
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  to us. But God's love isn't like that
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  at all. God's love is suey, generous.
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  It is one-of-a-kind. It is completely unique because
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  he doesn't die for the good person and she doesn't even die
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  for the righteous person. He's eyes for the bad person.
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  He dies for the profane, He dies for the rebel, He dies for the
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  Ace Bun, the traitor. That brings us to verse 8, which
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  is probably one of the most famous verses in the entire
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  Bible. God shows His love for us in
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  that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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  And I want to focus on that word shows.
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  In Greek it is sinister. It means to demonstrate, to
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  prove, or to exhibit. Like a billboard.
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  Yes, like a massive billboard on the side of the highway.
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  And the insight here is vital for anyone who struggles with
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  doubt or feelings of being unloved.
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  Which is everyone at some point. It is.
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  We tend to think of God's love as a private intuition, a
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  feeling. We close our eyes, we try to
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  empty our minds, and we wait for a warm whisper in our heart that
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  says I love you. And if we don't hear the
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  whisper, or if we are having a bad day and just feel numb, we
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  panic. We think God has left.
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  Us. We panic, but Paul says stop
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  looking for a whisper. Look at the Billboard.
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  God's Love is a public exhibition.
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  It is objective. It involves wood, nails, blood
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  and a Roman execution site. It is a historical fact that
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  happened in time and space. So the question isn't do I feel
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  loved right now? The question is, did Christ die?
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  That is the anchor. The cross is the objective proof
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  that stands regardless of your emotional fluctuation.
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  If the cross happened, the love is real.
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  You don't look inside your heart to find assurance.
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  You look outside yourself to history.
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  OK, so that establishes the foundation, this objective
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  demonstration of love. But then Paul moves into this
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  logic of assurance. He uses this phrase much more.
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  Since therefore, we have now been justified by his blood much
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  more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God?
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  How does this logic work? It sounds almost like a math
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  equation. It is a logical argument from
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  the greater to the lesser. The technical term is an A
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  fortiori argument. The logic goes like this.
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  Imagine you have a very difficult, almost impossible
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  task and a much easier task. If you have already accomplished
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  the impossible task, surely you could accomplish the easier one.
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  OK, So what is the hard thing in this scenario?
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  The hard thing, the impossible thing, is reconciling enemies
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  through the death of the sun. Think about it.
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  We were Hoskel. We were haters of God.
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  And yet God paid the ultimate price, the death of his own son
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  to bring us into a right legal standing.
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  That is the heavy lifting that is climbing Everest.
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  That is already done. And the easier thing.
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  The easier thing is saving friends from final wrath.
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  Now that we are reconciled, we are on God's side.
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  We are his children. So Paul's asking if God did the
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  most painful, difficult, costly thing to get you when you are an
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  enemy, do you really think He is going to let you drop now that
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  you are a friend? That is a powerful way to put
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  it. It is like saying I did the hard
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  part. Why would I fail at the easy
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  part? It would be illogical.
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  There's an analogy often used here that I find helpful.
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  If a man pays a massive ransom, say millions of dollars, to free
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  a slave from a hostile country, and he brings that slave out, is
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  he then going to let that slave starve to death on the ride
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  home? Of course not.
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  That would make the entire ransom payment a complete waste.
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  It would be irrational. Precisely.
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  And God is not wasteful. He doesn't pay the blood of his
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  Son only to lose the purchase. The logic is meant to give us
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  security. There's another distinction in
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  the section that I found fascinating in the notes.
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  It talks about being saved by his life.
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  Verse 10 says for I'll while we were enemies, we were reconciled
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  to God by the death of his Son. Much more now that we are
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  reconciled, shall we be saved by his life?
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  I've always focused on the death of Jesus.
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  What does it mean to be saved by his life?
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  This is crucial for understanding the mechanics of
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  our salvation. Yeah, We are justified by his
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  blood. That is the death.
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  That is the legal verdict in the courtroom, right?
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  The penalty isn't paid. The judge bangs the gavel and
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  says not guilty. That deals with our past sins.
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  OK. So the crime is.
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  Paid for but saved by his life refers to the present inner
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  recession of the risen Lord. Jesus didn't stay dead.
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  He is alive right now, seated at the right hand of the Father.
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  And what is he doing? He is advocating for us.
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  He is keeping us safe. So it's an ongoing action.
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  It's an ongoing action. This is the doctrine of union
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  with Christ. Because he lives, we are kept
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  safe. His life guarantees our person
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  is to the end. So we are just looking back at a
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  death 2000 years ago. We are looking up at a living
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  person who is actively involved in keeping us right now.
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  It is like having a defense attorney who never sleeps and
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  never loses a case. Yes, and that is why verse 11
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  says we have received reconciliation.
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  Notice the verb. We didn't manufacture it.
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  We didn't achieve it. We received it.
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  It is a status given to us. It's a gift.
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  It's a gift. And the result is that we exalt
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  or boast in God. We don't boast in our conversion
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  story. We don't boast in our moral
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  improvements. We boast that the war is over
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  because the king ended it. I love that the war is over.
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  But now the text takes a huge turn.
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  We get to verse 12 and Paul just zooms out.
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  He does. He stops talking about
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  individual salvation and starts talking about the history of the
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  entire human race. This is where we get into the
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  two atoms. And honestly, this is where a
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  lot of modern people get off the bus.
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  This is the pivot to history. And structurally, there's
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  something funny happening in the Greek text here.
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  Verse 12 starts a sentence just as sin came into the world
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  through one man. And then, well, then Paul breaks
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  off. He interrupts himself.
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  Wait, really? Like a typo in the Bible.
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  Not a typo, but an anacolathon. That is the technical term for a
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  broken sentence structure. It is like he gets so excited or
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  perhaps so intense about the comparison he is about to make
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  that he stops mid sentence to clarify something before he can
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  finish the thought. He has to lay some groundwork
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  first. He does.
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  He doesn't actually finish the comparison until verse 18.
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  So what is he so intense about? What is the concept he is trying
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  to get across that requires such a grammatical break?
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  Federal Headship. OK, define that for us, because
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  federal usually makes me think of the government, taxes, that
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  sort of thing. It is a similar concept.
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  Federal headship is the idea that Adam was not just the first
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  biological father of the human race.
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  He was our legal representative. He was our covenant head.
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  Nah, when he stood in the Garden of Eden, he wasn't standing
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  there as a private individual. He was standing there as the
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  representative of all humanity to come.
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  Like a diplomat or a king. Yes, when a king declares war,
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  the whole nation is at war. Even the cobbler who is sitting
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  at home making shoes is at war not because he declared it, but
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  because his representative declared it.
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  His legal status is determined by the head.
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  OK, this leads to what the notes call the scariest verse in the
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  Bible, verse 12. And so death spread to all men,
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  because all sinned. Yes, because all sinned.
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  Now, how you interpret that little phrase changes your
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  entire theology. It's a hinge point.
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  It's a huge hinge point. There's an old piracy called
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  Pelagianism which argues that this means we all sinned by
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  imitation. Basically, Adam set a bad
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  example and we all individually decided to copy him.
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  That feels more intuitive to us though, doesn't it?
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  I do my own sins. I'm responsible for my own
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  choices. It does.
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  It fits our individualistic mindset.
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  But our reform sources reject that vigorously.
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  The text isn't saying we copied Adam.
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  It is saying that when Adam sinned, we sinned.
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  We were in his loins, to use the biblical phrase.
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  We were involved in that act legally.
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  Yeah. The guilt of that one sin was
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  imputed or credited to our account immediately at that
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  moment. OK, I have to play the skeptic
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  here. I was waiting for this part.
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  This is where everyone says hold on, that is not fair.
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  Rightfully so, yeah. The logic is Adam sinned
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  thousands of years ago, and because of that, I am born
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  guilty. I didn't vote for Adam.
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  I wasn't there. Why am I on the hook for his
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  lunch break mistake? Yeah, it violates everything we
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  believe about individual responsibility.
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  It sounds UN American frankly. We are the culture of the
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  self-made man. This is pre ruined man.
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  It is UN American. It is deeply ancient.
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  But let's look at the alternative for a moment.
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  Paul is saying that humanity isn't a pile of marbles in a bag
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  where every marble is separate and distinct.
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  He is saying humanity is a tree. If the root gets poisoned, the
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  branch doesn't have a choice about whether it gets the
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  poison. The poison is in the SAP.
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  It's an organic connection. So it is organic, not just
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  legal. We are connected by nature.
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  It's both, but Paul offers proof, and the proof is death.
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  Specifically, he points to death in the time period from Adam to
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  the time of Moses. Why does that specific time
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  period matter so much? Because of the law, the 10
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  commandments hadn't been given yet at Sinai.
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  God hadn't written down Thou shalt not on stone tablets yet
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  for the nation of Israel, and yet people were still dying.
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  And the argument is, if there is no law to break, why is there a
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  penalty? Death is the penalty for sin.
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  Correct. The principle is that sin is not
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  imputed where there is no law. So if these people didn't have
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  the 10 commandments, why were they dying?
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  Paul answers in verse 14 they were dying because of the
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  transgression of Adam and it specifically mentions those
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  whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.
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  Who is there referring to? Theologically, that is widely
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  understood to refer to infants or those without the mental
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  capacity to understand obey a command.
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  Think about it. An infant has not committed a
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  conscious act of sin. They haven't robbed a bank.
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  They haven't lied. They haven't public.
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  Group in a specific command. And yet, tragically, infants
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  die. Why?
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  That is the heavy question. It is the hardest question.
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  It is the most devastating empirical proof of original sin.
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  They died not because of their own action, but because of
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  Adam's action. The Westminster Confession is
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  very clear on this. The guilt is imputed.
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  It is harsh, but it proves the mechanism.
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  We are connected. It is a dark proof, but you said
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  earlier there is a key take away for the skeptic here.
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  Why should I want this to be true?
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  Because right now I just want to reject it and say let me stand
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  on my own record. Do you really?
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  I mean really? Because if you are an
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  individual, then you have to stand on your own record.
• 18:35
  Perfect obedience, one slip up, 1 bad thought, one selfish act
• 18:40
  and you were done. No representative to take the
• 18:42
  fall for you. So my own record condemns me.
• 18:45
  Federal headship seems unfair when it dams us, but it is the
• 18:49
  only mechanism that allows Jesus to save us.
• 18:51
  Explain that connection. How does Adam's unfairness help
• 18:55
  me with Jesus? It is the symmetry.
• 18:58
  Paul calls Adam a type of the one to come.
• 19:01
  If you say I can't be represented by Adam's failure,
• 19:05
  you are automatically saying I can't be represented by Christ's
• 19:07
  victory. You can't have it both ways.
• 19:10
  If the bad stuff can't transfer from a representative to you,
• 19:14
  then the good stuff can't transfer either.
• 19:16
  You are stuck with your own resume.
• 19:17
  And my resume is lacking. It is worse than lacking.
• 19:20
  It is condemning. So the unfairness of Adam is
• 19:23
  actually the back door for the unfairness of grace.
• 19:26
  We are stuck in this corporate reality.
• 19:27
  The only question is which head are you connected?
• 19:30
  To this moves us into Section 4, the superiority of the second
• 19:34
  Adam Paul starts impairing them, but he makes it clear it is not
• 19:37
  an equal fight. It's not a one to one swap.
• 19:39
  No, it is an asymmetry of grace. Paul keeps using that phrase
• 19:43
  much more. Again, he wants to make sure we
• 19:45
  don't think this is a simple exchange.
• 19:47
  Like Adam created a debt of $100 and Jesus came and paid $100.
• 19:52
  It is more than that. It is infinitely more.
• 19:54
  The text says. The Grace super abounds.
• 19:58
  Think about the contrast he draws.
• 20:00
  Adam committed 1 trespass and it brought condemnation to many.
• 20:04
  Just one mistake. But Christ came after many
• 20:08
  trespasses. Right, because by the time
• 20:10
  Christ comes, history has piled up billions and billions of sins
• 20:14
  from everyone whoever lived. Exactly.
• 20:16
  Christ didn't just have to fix Adam's one mistake in the
• 20:19
  Garden. He had to absorb the mountainous
• 20:21
  accumulation of idolatry, murder, genocide, lying, and
• 20:25
  hatred that it accumulated for thousands of years.
• 20:28
  He absorbed it all and wiped it clean.
• 20:31
  The grace is greater than the sin.
• 20:33
  This brings up the doctrine of imputation again.
• 20:35
  Verse 19 says, For as by the one man's disobedience the many were
• 20:38
  made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be
• 20:41
  made righteous. And the Greek word there is
• 20:43
  Kathy Stalmi, I mean constituted or appointed.
• 20:46
  It confirms what we said earlier.
• 20:48
  We are legally appointed the status of righteous.
• 20:50
  And here's a critical distinction that our reform
• 20:52
  sources emphasize. This is alien righteousness.
• 20:55
  Estitia Eliana. Alien meaning foreign from
• 20:58
  outside of us. Yes, completely outside of us.
• 21:01
  It is not infused righteousness. That is the Roman Catholic view,
• 21:05
  where God puts grace into you like a substance and you
• 21:08
  gradually get better and better and eventually, hopefully,
• 21:11
  you're righteous enough to be saved.
• 21:13
  And the reformed view differs how?
• 21:15
  The Reformed view the biblical view of Paul is laying out is
• 21:18
  that it is a status granted immediately based on Christ's
• 21:22
  obedience. It is outside of you.
• 21:24
  It's like you're wearing Christ's robe.
• 21:26
  You haven't stitched it yourself.
• 21:28
  You were declared fully righteous in the eyes of the law
• 21:31
  the moment you believe, even if you are still struggling with
• 21:33
  sin in your daily life. The outline mentions active
• 21:36
  obedience and passive obedience. Can we break those down?
• 21:39
  Because usually when we talk about Jesus obeying, we just
• 21:41
  mean he didn't sin. It is more active than that.
• 21:44
  Passive obedience refers to Christ's passion, His suffering
• 21:48
  and death. He willingly received the
• 21:50
  penalty we owed. That clears the debt.
• 21:52
  That brings us back to 0. But zero isn't good enough.
• 21:56
  Even though if you just clear the dead, you are back to zero.
• 21:59
  You aren't righteous, you are just not guilty.
• 22:01
  You are a blank slate. You need a positive score to get
• 22:04
  into heaven. You need to have actually kept
• 22:06
  the law perfectly right. And none of us have that is act
• 22:10
  of obedience. Christ lived a perfect life.
• 22:12
  He didn't just avoid sinning. He loved God with all his heart,
• 22:16
  soul, mind and strength every single second of his life.
• 22:19
  He honored his parents perfectly.
• 22:21
  He never coveted. He earned the positive merit of
• 22:24
  a life fully lived for God. And that merit is credited to
• 22:27
  us. Both are his perfect life and
• 22:29
  his substitutionary death. Both are credited to the
• 22:32
  believer by faith. So when God looks at the
• 22:35
  believer, he doesn't just see a pardoned criminal, He sees a son
• 22:39
  who has kept the law perfectly. That is the beauty of
• 22:42
  imputation. You get the credit for the life
• 22:44
  Jesus lived. That leads to verse 17 where it
• 22:46
  says we reign in life. That's a powerful image.
• 22:49
  I love that image. We shift from being victims of
• 22:51
  death's reign, where death is the tyrant, to being kings.
• 22:54
  In life's reign, a believer is not just a survivor.
• 22:57
  We are seated royalty. We are reigning with Christ.
• 23:00
  So we have this massive system, Adam and Christ, federal
• 23:04
  headship, imputation. But then a natural question
• 23:08
  arises, If it is all about these two men, why do we have the
• 23:12
  Bible full of laws? Why did God give the 10
• 23:15
  commandments to Moses? What is the point of the law if
• 23:19
  it doesn't save us? That is exactly the question
• 23:21
  Paul answers in verse 20. He says the law came in
• 23:24
  alongside the Greek is Peri Sultan.
• 23:28
  It means it entered as a side character.
• 23:30
  It is not the hero of the story. It is a supporting actor.
• 23:33
  It is, and his purpose is shocking, the text says.
• 23:36
  It came in to increase the trespass.
• 23:38
  So increase it, you would think. The law is there to stop sin.
• 23:40
  We pass laws to stop crime. That's the whole point of laws.
• 23:44
  You would think, but practically and theologically, the law acts
• 23:48
  as a diagnostic tool. The outline uses the analogy of
• 23:52
  sunlight flooding a dusty room. I love this visual pitch for a
• 23:55
  dark attic. It looks clean enough, you can
• 23:56
  breathe fine. You think this is a great room,
• 23:58
  Then someone rips the curtains open at noon.
• 24:00
  And suddenly you see millions of particles of dust floating in
• 24:04
  the air. You're choking on it.
• 24:05
  Exactly. Now, did the sun create the
• 24:08
  dust? No.
• 24:09
  The dust was filling your lungs the whole time.
• 24:11
  You just couldn't see it. The sun just made the invisible
• 24:14
  reality undeniable. And that's the law.
• 24:16
  That is the law. You think you are a pretty good
• 24:18
  person until the law says do not and.
• 24:21
  Then you realize you have been jealous of your neighbor's Tesla
• 24:24
  for three years straight. Right.
• 24:26
  The law turns the light on. It changes sin, which is just
• 24:30
  this vague sense of being off into trespass, which is a
• 24:33
  concrete piece of evidence of your guilt.
• 24:36
  It forces you to stop saying I am not perfect and start
• 24:38
  admitting I am a law breaker. It strips the denial away.
• 24:42
  It does more than just show to it provokes.
• 24:45
  Think of it as a chemical catalyst.
• 24:47
  There's poison in the human heart.
• 24:48
  Rebellion. But it might lie dormant.
• 24:51
  When the law comes and says do not do this, the rebellious
• 24:54
  heart immediately wants to do it.
• 24:56
  It's the wet paint sign. It is as soon as you see the
• 24:59
  sign, do not touch. What is the one thing you want
• 25:02
  to do? Touch it just to see.
• 25:04
  So the law actually makes a sin more in a way.
• 25:07
  It draws out the poison so it can be seen and dealt with.
• 25:09
  It turns vague sin hamartia into specific trespass Proptuma.
• 25:15
  It is crossing a line. The law draws the line so that
• 25:18
  when we cross it, we know we are guilty.
• 25:20
  But then Paul drops this incredible promise right after
• 25:24
  where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
• 25:27
  Hyperparacute. That is the Greek word.
• 25:30
  It means to overflow beyond measure.
• 25:32
  It is a super abundance. The dynamic is this.
• 25:35
  The law creates a flood of guilt.
• 25:37
  It makes us realize we are drowning.
• 25:39
  But grace creates an ocean that swallows the flood.
• 25:42
  So the law drives us to the gospel.
• 25:43
  It's not the enemy of grace, it's the the servant of grace.
• 25:46
  Precisely. The law strips us of self
• 25:48
  righteousness. It makes us realize we can't
• 25:50
  clean ourselves up, so we have to flee to the second Adam.
• 25:53
  We run to Christ because we have nowhere else to go.
• 25:55
  And that leads us to the grand finale of the chapter, verse 21,
• 25:59
  the Reign of Grace. This is the clash of kingdoms
• 26:01
  Paul summarizes. All of human history is a battle
• 26:04
  between two rival dynasties. Kingdom 1 is sin, reigning and
• 26:07
  death. And death is described as a
• 26:09
  tyrant here, not a natural process.
• 26:11
  No, death is not the circle of life.
• 26:14
  It is not natural. It is an intruder.
• 26:16
  It is usurper. Every graveyard, every funeral
• 26:19
  is a monument to Adam's failure and the tyranny of sin.
• 26:22
  But then there is Kingdom 2. Kingdom 2 is Grace reigning, but
• 26:26
  notice how Grace reigns. This is so important.
• 26:29
  Grace doesn't reign by ignoring the rules.
• 26:32
  It doesn't rain by a judge saying, oh, never mind.
• 26:34
  I'm feeling generous today so I'll just let it slide.
• 26:36
  The text says it rains through righteousness.
• 26:38
  Through righteousness, God satisfied his own justice.
• 26:42
  He didn't wave a magic wand. He paid the debt.
• 26:45
  He executed the penalty on his Son.
• 26:47
  Salvation is God being faithful to His own character.
• 26:50
  He is just and the justifier of the one who has faith.
• 26:53
  And the destination of this rain is eternal life.
• 26:56
  Restored communion with God. It is not just existing forever,
• 26:59
  even the damn do that it is being back in the garden.
• 27:02
  But it is seeing his face and it is all mediated.
• 27:05
  Soul is Christus through Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 27:08
  So we have walked through this incredible passage.
• 27:11
  We have seen the objective love, the logic of assurance, the
• 27:15
  heavy reality of federal headship, and the triumph of the
• 27:18
  second Adam. As we wrap up, let's bring it
• 27:20
  back to the listener. What is the final verdict here?
• 27:23
  The final verdict is that there are only two addresses in the
• 27:26
  universe. You either live at the address
• 27:28
  of Adam or you live at the address of Christ.
• 27:31
  There's no middle ground. There is no third option.
• 27:33
  You cannot be an independent agent.
• 27:35
  So stop trying to define yourself by your own
• 27:37
  performance. Stop building your house on that
• 27:40
  shaky ground. Stop looking inward.
• 27:42
  Stop taking your spiritual temperature every hour to see if
• 27:45
  you are saved enough. If you are in Christ, the gavel
• 27:48
  has fallen. You are righteous.
• 27:50
  You're standing before God is as secure as Christ himself is.
• 27:54
  That is a liberating thought because if my standing depends
• 27:57
  on me, I am in deep trouble. But if it depends on him?
• 28:01
  Then it is rock solid. And here's the closing thought.
• 28:05
  I want to leave with the listener.
• 28:06
  Grace is often accused of being a soft pillow for laziness.
• 28:09
  People say if I am already saved I can do whatever I want.
• 28:11
  Right, the license to send argument.
• 28:13
  But Paul says grace is a rain, it is a king.
• 28:16
  Grace is a new master. It doesn't leave you alone.
• 28:19
  It liberates you to live a holy life because the crushing
• 28:22
  pressure of earning your salvation is gone.
• 28:25
  You don't obey to get saved. You obey because you are saved.
• 28:29
  The motivation is gratitude, not fear.
• 28:32
  So look away from yourself. Look to the king.
• 28:34
  Look to the king. That is where the assurance is.
• 28:37
  That is all for this deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 28:40
  We hope this moves you from the shaky ground of your feelings to
• 28:43
  the solid rock of history. Thanks for listening.