Episode Transcript
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Through twenty one. This wonderful passage, and here's how I'd like for us
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to proceed this morning. I'm going
to again read the entire passage virtus versus
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twelve through twenty one. Then we're
going to take a look at verses eighteen
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through twenty one. We haven't looked
at them yet. Now I want to
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conclude with just some general observations of
the entire passage and then just give you
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a couple of key principles that I'd
like for you to take away from the
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passage take home with you. Fair
enough. Okay, here we go.
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Add Romans five versus twelve through twenty
one. Please stand as I read this
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text this morning. This is God's
holy word, it's an arrant, it's
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infallible. So let's attend to what
Paul says to us here. Romans twelve
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through twenty one. Therefore, just
as sin came into the world through one
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man and death through sin, and
so sin spread to all men, because
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all sin, for sin indeed was
in the world before the law was given.
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But sin is not counted where there
is no law. Yet death reign
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from Adam to Moses, even over
those who sinning was not like the transgression
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of Adam, who was a type
of the one who was to come.
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But the free gift does not like
the trespass, for if many died through
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one man's trespass, much more have
the grace of God and the Free Gift,
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by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.
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And the free gift is not like
the result of that one man's sin.
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For the judgment following one trespass brought
condemnation, but the free gift,
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following many trespasses brought justification. If, because of one man's trespass, death
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reigned through that one man, much
more will those who receive the abundance of
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grace and the Free Gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one man,
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Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one
trespass led to condemnation for all men,
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so one act of righteousness leads to
justification and life for all men. For
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as by the one man's disobedience the
many were made sinners, so by the
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one man's obedience the many will be
made righteous. Now the law came in
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to increase the trespass. But where
sin increased, grace abounded, all the
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more so that his sin reigned in
death, grace also might reign through righteousness,
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leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Let's pray ask
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God to bless her the preaching this
morning. Oh God, would you now
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let your word come to us in
great power be received in love, with
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a tentive, reverent, open and
obedient minds. We thank you for this
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word for us this morning. It
is, indeed it's, the bread of
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life. To US belong to taste
that bread this morning. So give us
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ears to hear. It hurts to
apply it to our lives. In Jesus
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name, men, please be seated. Well, it's one thousand nine hundred
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and seventy six and, believe it
or not, I was a new major
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in the army. I was being
reassigned to headquarters US Army Europe of some
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in Heidelberg, Germany, and it
was there that Caroley and I and our
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two boys, we had our first
experience and what is called Stairwell living.
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I see a couple army and air
force folks out there that know what stairwell
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living is. For the benefit of
everybody, let me just briefly explain what
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I'm talking about. When I talk
about stairwell living. Here's the picture.
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When we arrived, we were assigned
quarters, and it's a long building,
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four stories high, with three entrances
in the front, one at each end
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of the building and one in the
very middle, and there were lots of
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these buildings grouped together in a housing
area called Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg,
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Germany. Now there were two apartments
on each floor of the stairwell and as
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the stairs went up four stories at
meant, you do the math, there
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were eight families living in each stairwell, with a total of twenty four families
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living in each building. And there
were many, many, many, many
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buildings. So you can imagine that
at times. At times living got a
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little close, you know, with
all the kids, pets, toys,
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bicycles, cars, campers, motorcycles
parked outside and and people were coming and
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going at all hours of the day
because they all had different duty assignments.
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Fact is pretty much as zoo.
The apartments were small and cramped, the
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walls were paper thin and you could
literally hear everything going on around you.
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I want elaborate, well, maybe
a little bit, just to make my
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point this morning. Okay, I
recall quite vividly that there was a warrant
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officer and his family. I forgotten
his name. I asked Curley this morning
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when I could not remember his name. But this warrant officer and he his
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family. They lived above us in
the stairwell and he usually worked quite late
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and he would come in you get
ready for bed. He'd take off one
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combat boot and he drop it on
the floor with a thud and I always
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waited for the thud of that other
boot hitting the ground, hitting the floor.
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You know, I'm not sure,
but the expression waiting for the other
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shoot to drop may have originated from
stairwell living in the US army in Heidelberg,
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Germany. Well, that's an illustration
and it perhaps it's a clumsy way,
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but I think it does illustrate what's
happening here in this passage. You
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know, we have all been waiting
for Paul to drop the other shoe ever
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since we took up this passage way
back in verse twelve. Well, he
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finally drops the other shoe in the
verses that we come to today, in
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verses eighteen through twenty one. So
let's take a look. Now in verse
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twelve, Paul Begins This great section
with a contrast. He he says,
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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. That's the
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first shoe and Paul drops the first
shoe here. He says that sin came
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into our world through one man,
through Adam, and each of us has
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been declared a center because of Adams
original sin. His sin has been imputed
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to us. But just when we
were expecting the second half of that contrast,
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expecting Paul to drop this other shoe, he breaks off his thought and
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it's indicated, as we've talked about
many times, by that little dash at
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the end of verse twelve. And
everything we've been studying since then, in
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verses thirteen through seventeen, is basically
been a digression. It's been a parenthesis,
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it's been sort of an interlude and
it's only when we get the verse
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eighteen that Paul Drops the second shoe
and we get the full impact the contrast
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which Paul started way back in verse
twelve. So Paul backs up a little
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bit, he restates in slightly different
words what he said in Verse Twelve and
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then he finally completes the second part
of the contrast. Therefore, as one
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trespass led the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads the
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justification and life for all men.
That's it. There it is. That's
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the contrast between Adam and Christ.
Finally, Paul Drops this other shoe and
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then, just in case we've fallen
asleep and missed the second combat boot drop
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into the floor during that long interview
interlude, Paul drops it again in verse
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nineteen, adding for as by the
one man's disobedience the many were made centers,
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so by the one man's obedience to
many will be made righteous. Want
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to there's a great list of contrasts
that are implied in those verses. Adam
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versus Christ, the one trespass of
Adam versus the obedience of Christ, death
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versus life, condemnation versus justification.
One shoe dropping, then, in contrast
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to that, Paul drops the other
one, and all of them are summarized
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in verses twelve and I think eighteen
and nineteen. So I want to think
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that warrant, officer, for it
probably wasn't the best illustration, but it's
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the best one I could come up
with. All right. So, but
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I want you to take the point
here. If you sit here today and
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you are still in Adam, Paul
says, you stand and condemned before God
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and you face eternal death. But
if you're in Christ, if you're in
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the second atom, then you are
justified and you have eternal life. What
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a great contrast that is. One
you, another shoe. So take the
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point all right. I want to
make sure before we go on that we
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understand just what Paul means here when
he uses this word justifications, an important
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word. Paul uses it throughout this
passage. So what does he mean when
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he talks about being justified, talking
about justification? Well, first of all,
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justification is a declaration. It's an
act of God's grace by which he
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declares sinners to be in a right
standing before him so far as his so
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far as his justice is concerned.
You See, you and I are not
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just in ourselves, we're not righteous
in ourselves. We're sinners. So the
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only way by which we can be
declared to be in a right standing before
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God is on the basis of the
death of Jesus Christ for our sins and
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by the application of Christ righteousness to
us by God's grace. This grace is
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received through the channel of saved,
of human faith, but it's nevertheless utterly
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of grace. It's apart from anything
that you and I can earn or deserve.
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You know, in fact we need
to say this. Our faith is
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itself a gift of God. Paul
makes this very point in his letter to
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the Christians at Ephesus. He tells
them, for by grace you've been saved
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through faith, and this is not
of your own doing. It's the Gift
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of God, it's not the result
of works. So that no one can
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boast, dear ones, this is
the way that God saves sinners. It's
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the only one to go wrong at
this point. Not to understand and to
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apply it, I think, puts
a person's salvation in question. You know,
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there's no place here for boasting,
there's no place here for our merit,
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there's no place here for our works. We don't do anything in our
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justification. It's all of God.
You know, John says the same thing
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in the marvelous verse over in Chapter
Six, verse sixty three, he makes
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this same point. He says it's
the spirit who gives life. The flesh
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counts for nothing. You know,
Martin Luther who understood justification so well and
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who fought for it's for so long, he wrote in the margin of his
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Bible, right next to the phrase
the flesh counts for nothing, this little
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comment he said, and that's not
a little something luther saw. took him
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a long time, but he eventually
saw that the flesh counts for nothing.
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It's not ninety nine percent grace and
one percent flesh. Ninety nine percent grace,
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one percent merit. It's a hundred
percent grace. You and I do
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not have any startup capital available to
cause God to save us. We're justified
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by His grace alone. And you
see, if you understand that and believe
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that you're utterly helpless except for the
grace of God to save you from Your
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prison of sin, then you stand
justified before him and you are indeed blessed
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beyond anything that you can ask or
anything that you can imagine. You know,
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there's a lot more I could let
me just conclude this section about justification.
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I want to read. It's always
kind of dangerous to read something,
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but I want to read something by
this by the noted Dutch Reformed Theologian Herman
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Bavink. It's a little long but
it's so on point. It's important to
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read this. Bavink was a professor
of theology at the Free University of Amsterdam
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in the early nineteen hundreds, and
this is how he concludes his chapter on
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justification. He wrote a classic,
a four volume work called reformed dogmatics,
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and this is how he concludes his
chapter on justification. You know, I
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might also say that the Free University
of Amsterdam was found by Abraham Kuyper,
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and one of the graduates of that
university that you may know is Dr RC
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sproull. But I want you to
listen carefully to how baving describes those whom
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God declared to be just because of
their faith in his son Jesus Christ.
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It's so interesting. His argument is
totally from scripture. Listen to this quote
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and I really want you to be
encouraged by it, particularly during this time
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that we find ourselves in. And
this is this is what he said.
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I'm quoting baving said, when we
stand in a right relationship with God,
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we also come to stand in a
right relationship over against the world. The
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Redemption in Christ is a redemption from
the guilt and punishment of sins, but
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it's a redemption, also from the
world which can so confine and oppress us.
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We know that the father loved the
world and that Christ gained the victory
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over the world. The world can
therefore still oppress it press us, but
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it cannot rob us of our good
courage. As children of the heavenly father.
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The Believers are not anxious about what
they shall eat, what they shall
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drink and what they shall be clothed, for he knows that they have need
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of all those things. They do
not gather treasures upon earth, but have
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their treasure in heaven, where neither
moth nor rust corrupts and where thieves do
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not break through. Nor still as
unknown, they are nevertheless known as dying.
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They live as chastened, they are
not killed, as sorrowful, yet
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always rejoicing, as having nothing and
yet possessing all things. They do not
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torment themselves with the taste, not
touch, not attitude, but regard every
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creature of God is good and accept
it with gratitude. They remain and they
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work in the same calling in which
they are called. Are Not bond servants
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of men, but of Christ alone. They see in the trials which fall
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to them not a punishment but a
chastisement and a token of God's love.
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They are free over against all creatures, because nothing can separate them from the
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love of God, which is in
Christ, Jesus, their Lord. Indeed,
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all things work together for good to
those who love God and are called
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according to his superb called according to
his purpose, the believer, who is
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justified in Christ, is the freest
creature in the world, at least so
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it ought to be. In quote. That's all from I can provide you
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all the scriptures that he refers to
here if you want them, if you
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want to see me after the sermon. That's all from the Bible. So
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thank you, Herman Bathing, for
reminding us all during this time of stress
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that we're going through. I think
it's enough set about justification, about who
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we are in Christ. So we
come to these two verses at the very
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end of this passage very quickly,
versus twenty and twenty one. Verse Twenty
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begins by mentioning The law. So
I'm going to back up a moment to
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the moment to what Paul has already
said in Romans about the law of God.
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He said a couple of important things
already. First, he's pointed out
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that the law was not given as
a way by which you and I can
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be justified. You know, if
you turn back a few pages, that
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text from Romans Chapter Three Versus Nineteen
and twenty that we read earlier about God's
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law. Let me read it again. It's very good. Romans three in
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nineteen and twenty. This is what
Paul has already said about the law.
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Now we know that whatever the law
says, it speaks to those who are
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under the law so that every mouth
may be stopped, the whole world may
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be held accountable to God, for
by the works of the law no human
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being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of
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Sin. That's pretty clear. He
says that the law tells us that what
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you should do. It tells you
what you should do, but it doesn't
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enable you to do it, it
cannot and it does not justify anybody,
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for by works to the law no
human being will be justified in his sight,
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in God's sight. So that's one
thing. He also tells us that
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the law wasn't even necessary to condemn
us. You know, when we looked
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at verse fourteen last Lord's Day,
we saw that man was a sinner long
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before the law came in. It
came in later through Moses at Mount Sinai.
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The law didn't make him a sinner. He was all already a center
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because of the sin of his first
father, Adam. Sin was imputed to
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him. So what's the purpose of
the law, you know, if it
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can't be saved by it, if
it's not even necessary to condemn this,
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what does it do? What good
is it? Well, Paul tells us
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here in these verses. He says
in the first part of Verse Twenty,
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the Law came in to increase the
trestpass. This is the effect of the
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law being added, of coming in. It doesn't justify, it doesn't provide
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a remedy for sin. In fact, Paul says, it's actual effect on
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man was that it allowed sin to
increase. Well, that seems a little
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odd to me. How we to
understand that? Well, one way in
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which the law increase in was by
increasing our knowledge of Sin. That's what
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Romans three hundred and twenty says that
we that we just read. So seems
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that one key purpose of the law
is to bring out the true nature and
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the magnitude of sin so that it
can be seen for what it really is.
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You know, before the law came
in, man man didn't in every
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instance clearly understand what sin was.
But when the law was added, it
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pointed it out to man that this
evil which he had thought little of,
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was actually an abomination to God.
You know, sort it's, let me
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put it this way, man's nature, and I think his character was sort
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of like a dark room didn't have
any light at it. He couldn't see
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how filthy his house was. When
a lamp was brought in or a window
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was opened or a door was open, he finds out to his dismay how
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bad conditions really are in his house. I don't know, maybe he had
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a premonition and everything wasn't as it
should be, something wasn't quite right,
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but he had no clue how bad
off he really was. You know,
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I think another way of saying this
is that the law turn sin into transgression.
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All wrong acts are sentral even without
the law, but they're really only
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seemed to be sin when they're exposed
as a transgression of God's law. For
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example, it's I spent a lot
of time in Germany and there I mean
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it's. It's always been crazy to
drive your car a hundred miles per hour
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on the Autubon in Germany, but
before speed laws were enacted, there was
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really no way to punish you.
But when the law was added, it
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turned your foolishness into transgression. It
turns your foolishness into a transpass, trespass
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of the law. The law doesn't
make a sinful, but it does display
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our sinfulness. It brings knowledge of
Sin to US and in the presence of
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this perfect, unattainable standard, I
think we see just how far we fall
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short of it. So the law
is designed to reveal our many trespasses so
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that we may be driven you out
of this selfrighteousness, to the Lord Jesus,
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and whom we have redemption through his
blood, the forgiveness of sin.
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The law teaches us we need Jesus
Christ. So Paul says that the law
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actually awoke sin. It allowed sin
to produce even more sinful desires. So
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there's another way that we can,
I think, understand this idea. You
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know, you think about it,
we all know how the knowledge of a
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law produces a desire in us to
break it. It's this whole it's this
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old idea that forbidden fruit is the
sweeter this may not resonate, but just
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much a two year old when he
tries to get into something and his parent
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issues the commandment, know what usually
happens? Well, usually the commandment acts
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just like a magnet which absolutely drives
him to touch the forbidden Obgy. And
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if there were it was no punishment
of or if there was no observing parent,
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he would touch it every single time. I think that's true. How
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many of us drive five miles per
hour over the posted speed limit just because
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the law says we can't do it
and there's not a state trooper in sight?
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You know, I don't know.
Someone told me the other day maybe
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this is true. Probably is.
He said that during prohibition in the United
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States the sale of alcoholic beverages actually
went up during that period because it was
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forbidden. Very interesting. You know, we could have a debate, Simmler,
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debate on the utility of, for
example, teaching sex education in our
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schools. That good or bad?
Well, we'll get into that some other
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time. But the point is,
knowledge of Sin has never present a prevented
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anybody from sinning. Instead, the
more you know about it, the more
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you're subject to the ten tation of
it. What does that say to it
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what a terrible, terrible thing sin
is. It's the law alone that shows
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us just how bad and pervasive it
really is. It convicts us of our
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sins. The law drives us to
Christ. It should be. But go
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on, look at the second part
of Verse Twenty. Before Sin Increased,
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grace abounded all the more. You
know that little phrase describe being grace,
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amazing grace. It stands out like
a tenfold beacon on a dark night,
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on a dangerous night. The dark
background is sin. This beacon flashes.
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But where sin increased, grace abounded
all the more. We talked about this
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last week, about how amazing grace
is God. God's grace is Boundiful,
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bountiful. It's invincible, it never
ends. It overflows with God's benefits.
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I think Dr d Martin Lloyd Jones, who was a pastor for many years
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and in London, says it best. He says grace always gives, or
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as sin always takes away. Grace
always gives, sin always takes away.
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Great, great quote sin. It's
interesting if you look at Verse Twenty One.
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Paul Persona Defy Sin. Here refers
to sin. There is sort of
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a tyrannical king. You know,
we could say king sin. Sin says
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the exact opposite. King Sin tells
us that he'll give us all with that
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we've ever wanted, all that grace, and that grace deprives us of all
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that, sin says. You know, look at these Christians and never have
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any fun. It's like they've been
eating for Simmons. Look at all the
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things he can't do and I think
all too often, like the prodigal son,
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we listen to that bad king,
we take our inheritance, we journey
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into a far country where we don't
have to listen to his voice or respond
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to what he says. And what
do we do there? We spend our
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assets, the scriptures say, on
while living, we waste our inheritance and
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when we come to the end of
our days it's all gone. Sin Is
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take it at all and we find, as the Prodigal did, that no
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one will give us anything. You
know, in the end, those who
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look to King Sin and ask for
his help, he laughs at and he
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reaches out to snatch away even life
itself. The Reign of King Sin Leads
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to death. But followed this the
other king that's personified dare in verse.
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Twenty one is grace, things will
be very different now. King Grace sees
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you staggering, he comes alongside to
help you and bear you up. Grace
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sees you destitute, pours the inexhaustible
riches of Christ and the father right into
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our laps. Grace sees US dying, he imparts eternal life, as verse
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twenty one promises us, and Romans
six twenty three. The wages of sin
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is death, but the gift of
God is eternal life. In Christ Jesus
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our Lord Gray says, what do
you need? Tell me, tell me
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anything at all, and grace provides
for that need in accord with God's perfect
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wisdom, is invincible power and his
unlimited supply. King Grace will lead US
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home. He will lead us not
to death but, as the verse says,
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to Eternal Life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Well, here endeth the
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lesson. We have completed three quick
studies in this remarkable passage and there's a
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whole lot more that we could said, we could have said, but let
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me just sum up and by a
way of doing that, let me just
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all of her two key principles which
are exemplified in this text, and I
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think they're important for us to take
away. There's more. Let me just
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give you two. I think the
first principle is is that God takes in
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seriously. You know, it's about
the Bible and in the world about this.
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Men and women are constantly trying to
minimize sin. We trivel we try
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to trivilize the consequences of sin,
but the Bible constantly emphasizes the seriousness of
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sin and this text, I think, dramatically illustrates that. Just just look
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here, look at the devastation that
one sin brought to the human race.
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Adam sin brought about his own death, but, dear ones, it had
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also condemned all of us to die. Who can say that sin is not
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serious? You know, most people
today, they wouldn't even call what's Adam
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did a sin. Look what Adam
did. It was nothing, just a
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little piccadilloh One the felony. It
was a misdemeanor. It was just like
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spitting on the sidewalk. He simply
ate the fruit of a tree. What's
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the big deal? Well, God
thought it was a big deal because he
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had told let him not to do
that. An Act which men would hardly
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even think of as sin today becomes
the cause of the downfall of man.
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Amazing. God does indeed take sin
very seriously, and I think the lesson
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is so much you and I.
So I think that's one important takeaway that
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we can take from Romans Five,
twelve through twenty one. God takes Sin
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Seriously. There's another principle to take
away, and we've talked about it before,
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but it's worth talking about it again. Our identity today is found either
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in one of two men. It's
found in Adam or it's found in Christ.
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We talked about it. Both Adam
and Christ were appointed by God to
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be representatives for other men. God
appointed them to stand for others and both
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became heads of particular bodies of people. Each is the source of what can
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be called either the old humanity the
new humanity. We talked about that.
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The old humanity is the race as
it stands apart from Jesus Christ. The
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new humanity is all redeemed people who
have been saved by Jesus Christ. That's
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the only two groups people can belong
to. The entire human race is divided
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into those two humanities by virtue of
their relationship to these two representatives, and
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I think the question is, which
group are you in you know we come.
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I want to look at this principle
of our identity in either one of
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those two groups, Adam or Christ, another way. As as we close
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this morning. It's really interesting.
This passage in Romans five explains the words
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of our Lord Smoking spoken to Nicodemus
better than any other new testament text.
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Let me just kind of review that. Remember, Jesus said to Nicodemus in
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John Three. Three he said truly, truly, I say to you,
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unless one is born again, he
cannot see the Kingdom of God. Now
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remember, you go back and you
look in John Three. John Introduces Nicodemus
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as a Pharisee, he introduces him
as the ruler of the Jews, and
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Jesus says that he's a teacher of
Israel, another's. This guy was a
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heavy weight in the Jewish religious hierarchy
and with those credentials, Nicodemus, this
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renowned teacher, had to have known
about Adam. He had to have taught
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about at Adam, about his fall, about the downfall of the human race.
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But if he was like the rest
of the Pharisees, and he was,
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Nicodemus trusted in his physical descent from
Abraham and in his possession of the
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law, to save him. That's
what Pharisees believed. What a shock it
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must have been for Nicodemus, this
Pharisee, this teacher of Israel, when
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Jesus told him that entrance into God's
Kingdom of grace required a second birth.
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You know, yet that expression born
again. That should not have been a
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foreign thought to Nicodemus. It should
have caused him, as it does us,
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I think, the turn to think
in these terms in which Paul speaks
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of here in Romans five. How
was it that the human race fell into
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sin? How did each individual fall
under the curse? It was simply by
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being born. Birth made one a
son of Adam, and thus the center.
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We inherited Adam Sin. John says
that, Paul says it's clearly here
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in Romans five. And the solution
to the guilt of sin encountered by at
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birth was another birth, a second
birth by God's grace. To be saved,
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men have to exchange their identity with
Adam, by which they're condemned,
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to an identity with Christ, by
which they're justified, declared righteous, they
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are saved. So as birth was
the source of Man's sin. So another
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birth is the solution to man's sin. And all that passed right over Nicodemus's
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head. He was a Pharisee.
He never saw it. Why? Because
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he was still betting on his pedigree. He is betting on his pedigree with
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Abraham. He was betting on his
possession of the law to save him,
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just like a lot of people to
day, the dear ones. The Gospel
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is all about something different. Jesus
Christ came to Earth to offer men a
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cure for the curse which adam sin
brought upon mankind. You See, the
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Gospel confronts us with a choice.
Will we remain in Adam, subject to
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the penalty of death, or will
we accept God's gracious provision for a new
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identity in Christ? You see,
being born again. That's the Lord's way
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a speaking of that point in a
person's life when they acknowledge their own sin,
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their own guilt and the just sentence
upon them of death. It's ceasing
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to trust in who we are,
what we are ceasing to trust in our
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pedigree, whatever that is, and
clinging to WHO Jesus Christ is. Its
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finding our identity in Christ rather than
an Adam. It's turning from condemnation to
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justification, from death to life,
from Adam to Christ. And so I
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pressed the question to you this morning. Have you been born again? You
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see, it was necessary for Dick
Nicodemus, this famous religious leader, teacher,
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ruler of Israel. It's also necessary
for you, necessary for me.
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We you choose death or life.
We you choose sin or grace. Will
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you choose Adam or Christ? You
see, there's no more important decision that
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you'll ever make than that one.
None the salvation which God has offered in
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Jesus Christ. It's not automatic.
It must be received, and I would
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pray that you would receive it today. Let's pray
