Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Turn to Romans Chapter Five. Before
I read the text this morning, just
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to give us a little context.
I want to I want to refresh our
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memories about what Paul has told us
so far in his letter to the Christian
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Church in Rome. So let me
just quickly review that. In Romans One
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and two the apostle tells us what
our problem is. Our problem is sin.
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Our problem is estrangement from God.
We've rebelled against God or, as
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my seminary professor Dr RC sprole was
wont to say, we've been very,
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very bad and God is very,
very mad. In chapter three Paul Sets
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Forth God's solution to our problem.
He says the solution to our problem is
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justification by God's grace through faith in
Jesus Christ alone. And in those chapters
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he tells us about the atoning work
of Christ the importance of our trust in
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him alone as God's way of salvation. That's Paul's answer to our problem.
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In Chapter Four Paul defends that particular
view from scripture at and he does a
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very interesting thing. He shows that
it's not something that he thought up on
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his own, but that justification by
grace goes in Christ alone. It's actually
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an old testament idea. And so
in chapter four he does an interesting thing.
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He demonstrates justification by faith in the
Old Testament from stories about Abraham,
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stories about David. Now in chapter
five he begins to draw some implications from
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this glorious doctrine of justification. He
tells us at the beginning of the chapter
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that because we are justified by faith, we have peace with God, we've
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been reconciled to him and as a
result of that we have no fear of
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final judgment. We're secure in Christ
Daron's. That's a good thing. And
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then in our passage today, verse
twelve to the end of the chapter,
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Paul completes his account of justification by
speaking of the way centers are put right
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before God in Jesus Christ, and
he illustrates that one and only way of
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salvation very interesting way. He does
it, by comparing what Christ did for
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centers to what Adam did for or
what Adam did to the entire race at
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the very headwaters of human history,
way back in genesis three. In other
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words, there's a likeness, there's
a similarity between Adam and Jesus Christ,
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and that likeness is in the way
that what they did bears on other people.
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What they did bears on you and
me. So you see this short
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paragraph, versus twelve through twenty one. It's of a men's importance to a
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biblical understanding of reality. It's so
important that we're going to take a deep,
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deep dive into the details of these
ten verses for the next two Lords
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Days that I'm here for sermons.
So that means you have to tend all
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four worship services for the next two
weeks. So turn a few would to
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Romans Chapter Five, versus twelve through
twenty one. I'm going to read the
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entire paragraph. I'm sorry, I
will. Yeah, so I'm going to
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read the entire paragraph. Then we're
going to concentrate this morning on these,
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on the first three verses, verses
twelve through fourteen. So let's stand as
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I read God's infallible and arrant Holy
Word Romans Five, twelve through twenty one,
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and then we'll look at twelve through
fourteen. This is God's word.
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Therefore, just as sin came into
the world through one man and death through
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sin, and so death spread to
all men because all sin, for sin
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indeed was in the world before the
law was given. But sin is not
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counted where there is no law.
Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses,
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even over those whose sinning was not
like the transgression of Adam. It was
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a type of the one who was
to come. But the free gift is
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not like the trespass, for if
many died through one man's trespass, much
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more have the grace of God and
the Free Gift, by the grace of
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that one man, Jesus Christ,
abounded for many. And the free gift
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is not like the result of that
one man's sin. For the judgment following
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one trespass brought condemnation, but the
free gift, following many trespasses, brought
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justification. If, because of one
man's trespass, death reigned through that one
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man, much more will those who
receive the abundance of grace and the Free
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Gift of righteousness reign in life through
the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore,
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as one trespass led to condemnation for
all men, so one act of
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righteousness leads to justification and life for
all men. For as by the one
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man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the
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many will be made righteous. Now
the law came in to increase the trespass.
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But where sin increased, grace abounded, all the more so that as
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sin reigned in death, grace also
might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal
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life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Pretty please pray with me. Father,
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we thank you for this word and
a lot of ways, it's a
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difficult we pray that you would teach
us, by Your Holy Spirit, what
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you mean or as deep in,
as profound as Paul's words are here,
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he wrote them not to impress us
with his grasp of your ultimate truth.
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He wrote them to comfort us with
that truth and especially with the reality of
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your amazing, amazing grace. As
such, he meant to be understood.
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So, by Your Spirit, help
us to understand and to respond accordingly.
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This we ask earnestly in Jesus name. Men, please be seated. Okay,
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before before we explore the the nuts
and bolts of these versus, these
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difficult verses, I want to start
our study by saying something about what two
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very important concepts, two key concepts
that I think are central to this text.
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First, I want us to take
a quick look at the doctrine of
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Covenant Theology. And then I want
us to look at the doctor and a
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doctrine of our union with Christ.
I think those are embedded in this very
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important passage. Covenant Theology First,
and then look at the coven at the
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doctrine of our union with Christ.
Now, most of us of the reformed
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persuasion, I think, are familiar
with the Term Covenant Theology. It's a
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term banded about quite often our circles. Actually it's part of our DNA,
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but it's a term, I think, that's widely misunderstood. It's it's used
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by different people to mean different things. To some Covenant Theology Means Infant Baptism,
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to others it means this particular view
of the relationship of the Old Testament
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to the New Testament. But fundamentally
and originally, I think it means something
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else. You know, Bible Readers
hear the Term Covenant Theology and naturally suppose
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that we're talking about all those covenants
mentioned in the Bible, the Covenant with
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Noah, the Covenant with Abraham,
the Covenant with Israel at Cyani, the
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Covenant with King David and so on. You know, what else could the
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term refer to in fact, Covenant
Theology eventually does make a great deal of
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those covenants. But in fact those
biblical covenants are not really what Covenant Theology
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is about, at least in the
way the term is used by most reformed
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theologians. Fact, the covenants of
Covenant Theology are never called covenants anywhere in
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the Bible, and that just like
theologians to do something like that. What's
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more, they're very different in the
covenants the Lord made with Abraham or Israel
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or David. There are two covenants
in Covenant Theology, the Covenant God Made
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With Adam and the covenant he made
with his son Jesus Christ. And in
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each case the one man stands and
acts as a representative of a race of
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people. Now, that was never
true of Abraham. Abraham's faith didn't make
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all his descendants believe. Evers one
true of David. His faithfulness to his
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calling didn't make kings that descended from
him faithful as well. You know,
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neither of these men represented and acted
decisive before and in the stead of an
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entire community of people. You know, quite the contrary. We can read
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scripture and see that. But Adams
Fall meant the fall of every human being.
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His disobedience made all human beings who
would come from him to be guilty
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centers from their very birth. And
in a similar way, Christ righteousness,
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his death on the Cross, made
Christ people righteous before God, made Christ
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people reconciled to God. So the
consequences of the actions of these two men,
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the two atoms as Paul calls them, over in First Corinthians fifteen,
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the first atom and the last atom, will unfold as people come to life
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in the world. But there can
be no escaping the result achieved by each
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people's representative. I think it's interesting
that the English Puritan Thomas Goodman, he
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put this in a homey way in
the seventeen century and this is what he
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said. He said there are but
two men standing before God, Adam and
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Christ, and these two men have
all other human beings hanging from their belts.
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So it's this view, I think, no base supremely on this passage
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here in Romans five and also first
Corinthians fifteen, that all of a God's
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dealings with mankind are in terms of
these two representatives, the first in Adam,
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the second in Christ, in each
case the head acting on behalf and
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for the body, and I say
it's this view of the history of mankind
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that is properly designated covenant theology,
and the covenants of Biblical history. Noah,
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Abraham, Israel, David and so
on are then simply the historical outworking
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the progressive revelation of that salvation that
was accomplished by the Second Adam, Jesus
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Christ, and I think that's what
Paul lays out for so beautifully in this
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Short Passage Covenant Theology. So it's
highlighted in this passage. But the passes
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also highlights another important doctrine, and
that's the doctrine of a Christian's union with
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Christ faced. You know, if
someone were to ask you what are the
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most important events in human history,
what would you say? What are the
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most important events in human history?
Would you cite the discovery of fire?
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How about the invention of the wheel? Would you say the invention of the
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printing press? Or maybe the discovery
of atomic energy, the discovery of the
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computership? I don't know. You
know, all those events and discoveries are
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obviously important, but dear Wednesday pale
before the two incredible events that the Apostle
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Paul talks about in this passage.
The fall of the race in Adam and
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the redemption of the race by the
Lord Jesus Christ. These two events are
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the pivotal points of history, and
Paul summarizes their importance in verse eighteen here
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when he says, therefore, as
one trespass led to the condemnation for all
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men, so one act of righteousness
leads to justification and life for all men.
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In these ten short verses, Paul
deals with Mankind's union with Adam on
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the one hand, which leads to
death and condemnation, and with the Believers
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Union with Christ on the other,
which leads to life and righteousness. You
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know, I could note first that
the Union of the believer with Christ is
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one of three great unions in scripture. The first is the Union of the
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persons of the Godhead in the Trinity. You know, we Christians speak of
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one God, yet on the basis
of the revelation of God in scripture,
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we also believe that that that one
God exists in three persons, as the
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father and the son and the Holy
Spirit. The Second Union is that of
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the two natures of Christ in one
person. The Lord Jesus Christ is one
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person. He's not a multiple personality. Nevertheless, he's also one hundred percent
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God and he's one hundred percent man. He possesses two natures. He's the
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infinite God man, and we have
a similar situation in the case of the
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Union of Believers with Christ. You
know, we're probably never going to be
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able to understand that union fully,
but that's what the Bible teaches, so
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we have to believe it. You
know, the second in important point to
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keep in mind as we take a
look at this doctrine is that even though
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Jesus never uses the term mystical union, he taught the doctrine in other ways,
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mainly through analogies. Just a couple
of examples. You remember in John
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Fifteen, Jesus says that he's the
vine. Is followers are only branches and
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they can bear no fruit unless they
remain in the vine. We also see
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this mystical union in Jesus Teaching on
the Lord's Supper. The sacrament clearly symbolizes
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our participation in the life of Christ. In other places, Jesus spoke of
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himself as a solid foundation for a
building, a successful life. He taught
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that he was the cornerstone and which
the whole building, meaning us, the
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church, is held together. But
I think by far the greatest of all
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illustrations of the Union of the believer
with Christ is marriage, in which a
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man and a woman are joined to
form one flesh, one family. Christ
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says that this union of a man
and a woman is as a profound mystery,
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but it illustrates the Union of Christ
with his hurts. So Union with
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Christ. It's an important doctrine for
all of us to grasp and, I
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think, to understand more fully how
we're in Christ. We also need to
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see how we're in Adam, which
is where our text picks up here in
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verse twelve. So let's get down
to the nuts and bolts of these verses.
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So look there in verse twelve.
Adam is the one man mentioned here
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in verse twelve. Therefore, just
as sin came into the world through one
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man and death through sin, and
so death spread to all men because all
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sin. So the passage. The
passage starts here by showing, on the
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one hand, how the Union of
the race in Adam and the Union of
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Believers in Christ are similar and how, on the other hand, they're also
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very, very different, the results
of the first being evil, the results
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of the second being good. Now
Paul has been teaching in Romans for a
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couple of chapters that in God's work
of Justification, the righteousness of Christ has
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been imputed to us. It's been
credited to our account but unfortunately, cry
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to few of us, I think, are reluctant to accept that truth.
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They're for to help us understand and
to believe in this principle of imputed righteousness.
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Paul shows us that we've already been
treated on the basis of this same
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principle in Adam. Paul says here
that Adam Sin has been imputed to the
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entire race. We're going to see
that more clearly as we as we look
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at the flow of the passage.
We start with Verse Twelve, which teaches
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that sin followed by death came into
the world by Adam. That's pretty straightforward,
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I think. I think we can
see that. But I want you
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to notice something here. At the
end of verse twelve there's a Dash,
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or there should be a dash in
your Bible. It's not. It should
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be there. That indicates that Paul
Breaks off his thought at this point and
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he inserts here of parentheses, versus
thirteen and fourteen. Explain what Paul meant
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when he said at the end of
Verse Twelve, because all sin. Now
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we're going to come back to that. That's important. Versus fifteen and seventeen
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continue this little side bar and it's
not until verse eighteen that we again pick
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up Paul's thought which he began in
verse twelve. Now I point this out
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so we so we can just see
the full perilsm but sween Christ and Adam.
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So if you put verse twelve and
eighteen together, I think we get
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something like this. Paul says,
on the one hand, just to sin
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entered the world through one man and
death through sin. And in this way
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death came to all men because all
sin. That is just as the result
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of one trespass was condemnation for all
men, so also, on the other
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hand, the result of one act
of righteousness was justification that brings life for
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all men. You see the parallelism
there again, this teaches that there are
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two great acts in history. There's
the act of Adam, which brought condemnation
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and death, and then there's the
act of Jesus, which brought justification and
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life. Now go back to verse
twelve. We're going to we're going to
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get down into the weeds here.
This verse is important in that it assumes
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too great truth. You can see
it right there in the verse. It
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assumes the universality of sin and the
universality of death. Now, most sane
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people would agree with those two truth
you know. We hear comments all the
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time like no one is perfect,
the air is human and nothing is certain
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except death and taxes, you know. But there's a there's a huge Gulf
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among people and just what sin is
and why sin and death are universal.
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You know, the secular mind says
that there's no connection between sin and death
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at all. He says they're unrelated
issues because they can be explained naturally.
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As far as sin is concerned,
the secular says that sin is only an
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imperfection in human nature. He sees
all things as gradually evolving to more complex
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and more perfect forms. He argues
that sin means only that we're not yet
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where we hope to be and where
we're going to eventually be. That's how
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the world sees sin. It's no
big deal. Now, I think you
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see, there's a couple of things
wrong with that view. First, if
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sin is only an imperfection which will
be overcome, and I say it's not
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really correct to call it sin.
And if you can't call a thing sin,
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that eliminates the possibility of any meaningful
discussion about virtues such as honesty.
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If sin is only an imperfection soon
to be overcome as we evolve, then
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nobody can be said to be better
or worse than somebody else. Nothing that
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we ever do can ever be really
inherently wrong. But there's a second problem
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too. If sin is only an
imperfection to be eliminated in time, why
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has so much evil been around for
so long? If sin is only a
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little imperfection in our nature, why
hasn't that imperfection been eliminated long before now?
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You know, I asked you to
just look at the historical record.
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Honestly, is it even possible to
say that there's been such a thing as
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progress? Are we really better in
a moral sense today than our predecensors?
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I don't think we are. The
other inexcapable reality this first points out is
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death. You know how modern man
explains it. Moudern man explains death is
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something inherent in nature. Is Seth
itself. Death is just natural. He
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says, all living things eventually dies. What they do? Now, that's
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true. We all die, but
the problem is that none of us really
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believe that this is right. I
think we sense deep down that we were
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meant to be immortal. Now we
shouldn't die. Death is wrong, and
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so we get all these images of
life beyond death, Heaven, paradise,
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Nirvana, Mount Olympus others, images
found in every single one of the world's
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real civilizations and religions. You See, the Christian answer to the problem of
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the universality of death and sin is
that death is not natural, but that
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it's the punishment of God for Sin. Classic Christianity says, more over,
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that sin entered the world through the
one act of Adam, the first men,
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and that from Adam sin and its
consequences death passed to his descendants.
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Christianity holds that God appointed Adam as
our representative so that he would stand for
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all of us and we would be
accounted either just or sinful, on the
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basis of his obedience to or disobedience
of God's come in. You know,
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it's as if we were actually there
in the garden when Adam and Eve ate
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from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, and we ate with
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them. Now there's a theological term
for this view. It's called federalism,
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you know, because of the analogy, I don't know, to the way
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an ambassador might act on behalf of
his country. You know, when an
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ambassador science a document or takes some
action, he does so for each of
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the country's citizens and we're therefore bound
by what he does. So historical Christianity
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Interprets Paul's words here as saying that
because Adams sin, death came to all
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of us. We die not because
of our sin, as bad as it
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is, but because Adam sin is
imputed to us. It's also true that
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we inherit a sinful nature from Madam, but the point is that Paul's making
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that is not what condemns us.
What condemns us, what makes us subject
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to death, is the fact that
we've all sinned in Adam and that we're
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all held guilty as a result of
his sin. That's Paul's argument here,
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that he's making in these verses.
It's our union with Adam that accounts for
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all our trouble, but that's not
the end of the story. Praise God,
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it's our corresponding union with Christ that
accounts for our salvation. But is
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that the right interpretation of what Paul
is saying here in verse twelve. You
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know, he says at the end
of verse twelve that death spread to all
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men because all sinned. I don't
know. That sounds pretty much like we
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die not because of Adam's sin,
but we die because of our own sin.
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Which is it? Or does it
really matter if we die because of
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Adam sin or because of our own
sin? Does it really matter when you're
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dead? You did well, it
does matter. And Paul goes on in
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verses thirteen and fourteen to tell us
quiet matters, to tell us why this
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concept of federalism is the right interpretation
of verse twelve, and he makes three
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main arguments in proof of Adam being
our federal representative. So look at those
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verses thirteen and fourteen. They're a
little complicated, so hang in there with
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me. First, he says that
before the Mosaic Law was given, sin
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was in the world. Now there's
nothing, I think, very complicated about
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that. It's a fact that sin
came before the law, the law to
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income, until cyanide later, just
as Adam came before Moses. Second,
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he says that sin is not taken
into account or imputed or punies when there's
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no law. What Paul is saying
here is that where there's no law,
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then there's no law to break.
So until the mosaic law was given later
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and could exercise its role of defining
just what sin was, sin was not
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reckoned against sinners. Yet, and
this is Paul's crucial third point, people
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continued to die during this time,
from Adam to the time of Moses and
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the law. People continue to die, even those who didn't send by breaking
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a specific command, as Adam did. Now hear what Paul is saying.
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He's making a very, very specific
point. There were some who did flagrantly
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disobey God's Moral Law, which was
written in their hearts, and they were
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punished for this. Case in point
was the flood, the judgment of those
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who built the power of Babel,
the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. But
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Paul's point is that there were others
who didn't sin by disobey saying a direct
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command, as Adam did and as
the people of the flood did, Babil
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did, Sodom and Gomora did.
These others did not voluntarily and overtly violate
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and expressly revealed ordinance of God.
You know. I don't know, but
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it's almost like Paul was thinking of
people like infants or the mentally incapacitated,
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you know, people who are incapable
of voluntarily violating a direct command of God.
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Yet those people died. There are
infants who die, mentally incapacitated people
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die, you know, just like
the rest of us. And Paul asked
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why. Why does that happen?
Why did they die? How do you
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explain that? They didn't voluntarily violate
a direct command of God, yet they
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died just like those who did?
Why? And there's only one reason that
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Paul can think of. All died
because all sinned in and through Adam,
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the representative of the human race.
Everybody dies because of Adam's sin. Adam
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had been appointed by God to be
the representative of the race so that if
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he stood, we two would stand, and if he fell, we would
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fall with him. And Adam fell, as we know. So death passed
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upon every single one of us.
That's the explanation which Paul gives here of
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why all die. Okay, let's
get to the point here. I can
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just hear some of you already protesting. Hey, that's not fair. I
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wasn't there I wasn't in the garden
with Adam. I didn't ask Adam to
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be my representative. I want to
pick my own representative. I want to
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represent myself. If I'd been in
Adams Shoes, I would certainly have acted
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differently. Really, is that right? Well, I want to suggest that,
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far from being unfair, the federal
or representative way of dealing with us
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was actually the fairest and kindness of
all the ways God could have operated.
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You say it's not fair that you
want to represent yourself. Bad decision.
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Think about it. Adam faced only
one trifling temptation. He was not to
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eat of one simple tree. Besides, he didn't have a sinful nature.
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He had all his faculties, which
are undoubtedly superior to us. He lived
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in a perfect environment. That does
not describe me. For our part,
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were sinful, were weak. We
live in a world filled with all kinds
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of temptation. So I maintain unequivocally
that it was merciful. It was gracious
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of God to judge us in Adam
and not in ourselves. And then there's
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this one great fact that we cannot
miss. If God had chosen to judge
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us as each of us think we'd
like to be judged, that is,
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in and for ourselves, with no
relationship to any other person. Then we
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would all inevitably perish, because our
only hope of salvation is that we may
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also be judged in Christ, he
being our representative, just as we've been
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judged in our representative, Adam.
Because we've been judged in Adam, we
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can also be judged in Christ and
be acquitted. And, dear ones,
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that's precisely what happens for those who
are called by God and joined to Jesus
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Christ through the channel of saving faith. We don't deserve it, we can't
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earn it, but this is the
way grace works. Disgrace from beginning to
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end. Christ's righteous this is imputed
to us, just like Adam sin was
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imputed to us. Well, I've
got to stop. You know, it's
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interesting. Apart from the story of
the fall, it's remarkable how little is
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written in the Bible about in the
Bible about Adam. You ever noticed that
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he was created by God. He
was commanded to take dominion over creation.
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He fell for him the first blood
sacrifice was made. He had so several
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children. The first one was a
murderer, the second was the type of
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those who believe and follow Christ,
and the third was the progenitor of a
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race and fulfillment of the promises of
God. I was in it. Ros
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also recorded his age at death.
He was nine hundred thirty years old when
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he died. That's an instant.
That's an extremely meager biography, but too
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stupendous facts make Adam one of the
most famous names in history. He was
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the first man, he was the
first sinner, he dissipated his children's heritage
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and we've all been in spiritual poverty
ever since, you know. But as
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we look at him through the shadows
of time, I don't think we should
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judge in too harshly, because we
know that he did exactly what we would
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have done in his place. And
indeed, I think we can look rather
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kindly upon this man because through him, through Adam, we learn this marvelous
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principle of the one standing for the
many. At the Cross of Jesus Christ
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we see the other person, the
last Adam, also standing for the many,
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you know, as Adam stood for
many and brought death upon all of
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us, so our Lord Jesus Christ
stood from any he brings life to all
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who believe, and so I have
to pose the question. Can you,
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this morning, look to the Cross
and know that you're in Christ? Now,
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having been, having been defiled by
the stream that flows from Adam,
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you can find cleansing only by plunging
yourself into the stream that flows from the
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Lord, Jesus Christ, dying for
us as the head, the representative of
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the new race. Dear ones,
we have to be absolutely clear about all
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this. All of humanity is in
one of two persons this morning. They're
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either in Christ and, as a
result, are justified before God and have
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eternal life, or they're still in
Adam and, as a result, are
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unjustified before God and are condemned to
experience his eternal judgment. That's where people
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are. You can't have it both
ways. So where are you this morning?
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To whom do you belong? Are
you in Adam or are you in
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Christ? How can you know you're
in Christ? Well, I was thinking
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about that this week. It's sort
of like the vows you took when you
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got married. If you got if
you've been married. So I think you
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need to ask yourself, am I
married to Jesus? You are if you've
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taken the vow promising to take Jesus
to be your loving and faithful savior in
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plenty and in want enjoy and in
sorrow and sickness and in health, for
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this life and for eternity. And
if you're living for him, if you've
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taken that vow, then God has
pronounced the marriage and I can tell you
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on the authority of Scripture that what
God has joined together, no one,
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no one, no one, will
ever put a sounder to him. Be
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The glory. Let's pray
