Let's turn to Romans 5. Our text is verses 18 through
21. Romans 5, 18 through 21. Now,
today we're going to wrap up our study in chapter 5 here. And the design of Paul here in
chapter 5, since verse 12, has been to show us how man has come
into the condition that he's in. That man is sinful. That man is spiritually dead. That man can't do anything to
please God. He's showing us why it is that
we can't please God by the works of the law or any other law. Why can't we just come to God
and worship Him as we feel in our hearts and the way we think
that God should be worshipped? Why isn't God pleased or moved
with our works of righteousness? And that's what Paul has been
showing us here since verse 12. And we also see one other thing,
or rather how he shows us, is he gives us a comparison. He
shows us Adam, the first Adam, and he shows us Christ, the second
Adam. And he first shows us how they
are alike, that is, both men are the head. Both men are representing
those who are of their seed, those who descend or come from
them. But, He also shows us more greatly
how that Christ is so much more, what we gain in Christ, we that
are represented by Him, He shows us how much more we gain in Christ
than what we lost in Adam. Now it's important for us to
see this. It's important for us to see
and understand that God first sees all men, every one of us,
in Adam. We all were represented in Adam,
and he's making this known to us, that Adam is our head and
representative. all that were in Adam, that's
every one of us who descended from his seed are represented
in Adam first by his seed. So that when you read verse 12
in Romans 5, 12, because 18 follows verse 12 very nicely, alright,
when you read that you see every one of us is a sinner. We're
all sinners in Adam. We all died in Adam. And because Adam sinned and we
were in Adam, when God imputed sin to Adam, that is when God
called Adam and counted Adam what he was, sin, He called and
counted us exactly what Adam is, sin, because we were in Adam,
and we all descend from Adam. So we're all sinners in Adam
from the very, very start. So verse 12 says, Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. What? I wasn't there. Yes, you
were. And I was too. Every one of us
in Adam's loins. So everything Adam did, we inherited. And we did. We are what he is. And so when God imputed sin to
him, it was imputed to us. This is important for us. This
can't be understated. We need to understand this, who
believe, who confess our hope in Christ. We are only confessing
our hope in Him because He's shown us. We that confess Him
in truth, He's shown us. You and me, we're sinners. And because we are sinners and
dead in Adam, we can't work righteousness. Even if we have the law, even
if we have the perfection of the law before us and we study
it diligently day and night, we can't work righteousness.
Because what Adam is, that's what we are. Adam disobeyed God,
we disobeyed God. And we're dead in our trespasses
and sins. And so it's important because
If we think that we yet have spiritual life, if we think that
there's some kind of divine light, some kind of spark in us that
we can work some righteousness or earn God's favor, well, we're
deceived, we're holding on to a lie, and we're not going to
hear the gospel. Why do we need to hear that?
That doesn't sound right. I can just work hard and save
myself. I can do something to earn God's
favor. And if that's what we believe,
well then we're no different than all the other idolaters
in the world who think that by their works, by their thoughts,
their beliefs, what they do or don't do, that that's what God
is pleased with and that that's what God is looking for. And
so he's showing us, hold up, every one of you descended from
Adam, and Adam died because he's a sinner. And you were in Adam,
and you descended from Adam. So you and I, every one of us,
are sinners in Adam. So Paul said in Colossians 2.13,
he said, you being dead in your sins. He's telling us we were
all dead in our trespasses and sins. When he says that, He's
saying, you're dead to the things of God. You have no spiritual
life in you. You can't do anything to earn
God's favor, or to change his mind, or to move him in compassion
toward you. There's nothing that you or I
can do. And so, this is why, suddenly,
every time that he speaks of grace in the scriptures, that
the Lord uses the apostles and speaks of grace to us, It catches
our attention. It should catch our attention
because he's saying it's not by works that you do, but it's
by God's kindness, his favor, the love that he shows his people
in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what matters. And we see
every one of us as men are passive in this. We're passive in salvation,
meaning that God isn't waiting for us to do something. He's
not, setting up things and doing, you know, making it a little
better, throwing us some bones and some little favors to try
and woo us to Him. And He's not waiting for us to
believe before He can do something. Rather, all things necessary
for our salvation, He freely gives, which is grace, unmerited
favor, in His Son, Jesus Christ. So, everything that we do that
God that God has purpose to do in His people, and in and among
His people, He does. It shall be done because it's
by His power, by His will, by His grace, and so everything
in us that we do is wrought in us, worked in us, by our gracious
God who freely bestows His grace upon us in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's by His power and by His
Spirit. And so, because He's provided
salvation in His Son, God is just to forgive us. He's just. He's not just picking out some
to save even though we're sinners. No, He's chosen us in Christ. And Christ paid the debt of righteousness
that we owe. He put away the sin of His people
in the sacrifice of Himself as their substitute. And so God,
the sins put away, so God is just to forgive. And God is pleased
now to gather us in Christ. All right, now that's what this
passage of Romans 5, that's what it's declaring to us. I know
it's kind of, you know, when you read it, when I read it,
it uses phrases and words, things and ways that are a little foreign
to me. I don't really understand them
readily, but that's what he's saying. That's exactly what he's,
making known to us. We're dead in Adam. We can't
save ourselves. He's freely provided everything
in his Son, Jesus Christ. All right, so our title is The
Righteousness of One. The Righteousness of One. And we'll have just two divisions.
We'll first do a helpful review. We'll have a helpful review of
these things. And then we'll look at the takeaway
here as we close out chapter five. All right, so by way of
review, Adam is a type of Christ in one way, in the fact that
he is a head and representative of all his seed, of everyone
in him. So the first Adam was created
by God and placed in the Garden of Eden to tend the garden, and
he represented everyone yet in his loins, all his seed in him. The second Adam, who is Christ,
he was conceived in the virgin's womb by the power, the overshadowing
of the Holy Spirit, and he is the head and representative of
all his seed. That's why the scriptures speak
of us being born, not of corruptible seed, which is Adam's seed, but
being born again by the incorruptible seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, in Adam's seed, we died. We're sinners and we died. We're
spiritually dead and have no fellowship with God. In Christ,
we are alive. We are made alive and that fellowship
with God is restored in Him. And so, all that are Christ's
shall be brought by the Father to Christ to believe on Him.
As our Lord said, all that the Father giveth me shall come to
me. We that are his seed, we shall
come to the Son. We shall believe on him. Now that's where the likeness
and the similarity between the two Adams ends. That's where
it ends. So from here, Adam, at this point,
You can't say he's the opposite of Christ. He's just, he's not
Christ. He doesn't even amount to what
Christ did, because not only did Christ do the opposite of
what Adam did, but he did so much more. We've inherited so
much more in the Lord Jesus Christ, not just what we had in Adam,
not just that is restored. So in Adam, We lost. We lost life. We lost fellowship
with God. We have no knowledge of the things
of God. But all these things are restored
in Christ. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians 15 and look
at verse 45. 1 Corinthians 15.45 says, and so
it is written, the first man, Adam, was made a living soul. The last Adam, that's Christ,
was made a quickening spirit. So Adam is alive in himself. God made him alive and he has
fellowship with God. He knows the true and living
God. But that's it. He's just alive in himself. He
has no power to create life. in himself. God alone has power
to create life, and that's why Christ is called a quickening
spirit. Not only is he alive himself,
but he has the power and the authority to create life in his
people. He has the power to do that.
How be it, verse 46, that was not first which is spiritual,
but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. Right? First we're born in the
flesh, we come from Adam, we're natural, and so all we have is
the capacity that natural Adam has because we descended from
him. And Adam doesn't have the spirit. Adam has no fellowship
with God. So it is with us. When we are
born, we're natural. We're earthy, of the earth, just
like Adam. And we have no spirit or fellowship
with God. We have no capacity for that
in ourselves, not anything that we can work up in the flesh.
The first man is of the earth, earthy. The second man is the
Lord from heaven. So we see and understand the
reason why Christ could do this is he didn't descend from Adam's
corrupt seed. He's the Lord of heaven. He's
God and man, fully God as though we were not man, fully man as
though we were not God. He's the God-man, the Lord from
heaven. And so in Adam, we were made
sinners in him and died just like he did. We died spiritually,
we're spiritually dead, we come forth spiritually dead, and we
will all die. Everybody we know dies eventually.
So we're just like Adam there. But in Christ, we're made righteous
in him and he gives life. He gives us spiritual life so
that we know him and hear his words. We hear his voice and
we follow him. We're made alive to the things
of God. All right, so verse 12 says that
we lost everything. All right, that's why one man's
sin entered into the world and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men for that all have sinned. That fellowship with
God was severed from that day. And that's why we don't know
God. That's why we can't do things in this flesh, because there's
no spiritual life, and there's no spiritual knowledge, and no
understanding of how to worship God. Being dead spiritually,
we cannot please God. As he says, all that are in the
flesh cannot please God. And this is exactly what our
Lord was talking about. When he spoke to that woman at
the well, in John chapter four, verses 23 and 24, He told her,
the hour is coming, and now is. Here I am, the Lord of glory,
he says, in your very presence, even now, he who is light and
light stands before you. And the true worshipers, all
right, there's many worshipers, but they're idolaters, they're
dead. But the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. in spirit and in truth. restored, so that they can worship
Him in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship Him." In other words, this is the will of God, He's
telling us. The will of God is that we do
know Him and worship Him, being alive by the Spirit and therefore
able to worship Him in truth. In truth, not in the dead letter
works of man's religion. that we see all about us, that
we grew up practicing. We're delivered. He's delivering
his people from that. And he tells us, God is a spirit,
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. So, unless the Lord does this
work, because being made alive spiritually is his work, unless
he does that, we aren't going to know him. We're going to be
left in the dark. We're going to be shut up to
the things of God. And that's what Christ's death
restored. His death and His putting away
our sin by the sacrifice of Himself as the Lamb of God, shedding
His own blood to make atonement for our sins. When He purchased
us, He obtained that life. so that we that are in darkness
and dead to the things of God, He comes and opens the gates,
He shines the light and says, Prisoner, sinner, show yourself. And by His power and glory and
light and life, we are given life and we are raised up and
we come out of that dark prison and brought into the presence
of Almighty God to know Him, to serve Him. Alright, so that
now, in Christ, we have life and we have fellowship. Because
we're fellowshipping by the Spirit and in truth, because that's
what He works in His people. All our life is by and in Him
and all spiritual blessings, everything necessary that God
is pleased to give us, He blesses us freely with spiritual gifts
that We barely even understand. We have no understanding of it
in the flesh, but we understand it in the light that we have
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He does that. So all this was
explained and covered in the parenthetical verses, 13 through
17. I'll just read verse 17, which
says, for if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more
they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness
shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. So the righteousness
of Christ shall reign in us that new man, that new creation of
the Lord shall reign in his people, whereby we are brought to know
these things. We have a spirit and now know
how to worship him in spirit and in truth, in Christ. That's what it is, it's in Christ.
We come not boasting and looking to our own works of righteousness,
which we have done, but we come resting, believing our God that
he's provided it all in his Son, Jesus Christ. All right, so this
brings us to The takeaway, look at verse 18. Therefore, as by
the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation,
even so by the righteousness of one. the righteousness of
one, the free gift, the free gift of righteousness, came upon
all men, all that are in Christ, unto justification of life."
It's all restored by His righteousness, in His righteousness. We are
righteous by faith. in Christ. We believe. We believe
God. We're given that. He works that
in us by his power and authority, by everything he's provided for
us in Christ. So it's his righteousness that
is the free gift of God, which means that we have eternal life
with Him, in Him. We were dead in trespasses and
sins, but the free gift is eternal life in Jesus Christ. Alright, so that's what it is,
that we are born again, we are born of the Spirit, born of the
seed of Christ. just like you were born of your
parents' seed, of your father's seed, in your mother's womb,
so we are now brought forth by the seed of Christ our Father. He is our Lord. He is our God.
He is the one that gives us life whereby now we've inherited,
and everything that God imputed to Christ, He's imputed to us. By anything we did? Nope. By
everything Christ did. By everything that he's earned
and obtained for us, that's what we've done in him by faith. He's our righteousness. Turn
to Ephesians 1, verse 7. Ephesians 1, verse 7. There in
Ephesians 1, Paul is declaring this and making this known to
us, these very things, these very truths, He says, Ephesians
1-7, in whom, in Christ, we have redemption. We're purchased through
the blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches
of His grace. But it doesn't stop there. God
didn't just put away our sins in Christ. We're not just simply
forgiven in Christ. But he goes on. Look at verse
8. Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence. God is continuing on in this
grace by making himself known. He's revealing himself to us
so that we are brought to know these things. Verse 9. having
made known unto us the mystery of his will according to his
good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself." So, in other words,
yeah, we didn't. We have nothing to boast of.
We didn't do this. This is all of God's will, of His purpose
and His design to save us because we couldn't do it. We died in
Adam. We're sinners and died in Adam. and there was no fellowship,
no understanding, no knowledge of the truth, no spiritual life
to know how to approach Him and just rest in Him. Rest. We were always laboring, laboring,
laboring, working hard to please God and never, never coming to
a knowledge of the truth, never satisfying God because it was
in our flesh. But now you see the grace of
God to just strip that away, to bring us to a knowledge that,
wait a minute, I really am dead. There's nothing I can do. And
yet here I am, sitting under the sound of the gospel, hearing
His praise and glory and rejoicing in what He's done for me. Not
looking to my works, not looking to me, but just resting. in Him. So in Adam, we lost that life,
we lost fellowship, but in Christ now, He put away our sins, He's
revealed Himself to us, and He's gathered us together in one body
as a church to come and to hear this, and to grow in Christ,
as that body, to grow in Him. And so that headship, you could
see, it's just like You know, if you hurt your finger, if you
break a finger, it's broken and your body feels pain and it's
uncomfortable. But your body lives. But if you
have a brain aneurysm and it explodes in your brain, you know,
you die. That's it. The whole body is
affected. And so in Adam, who was our head, he died. Well,
the whole body died in him. But in Christ, who's made alive,
and his power courses through his body, through his people,
we have fellowship with him, and we go walking in joy and
in that light and fellowship of God our Savior. Alright, and
so now in Christ, were delivered from that death, delivered from
darkness, delivered out of that prison, because in Adam we were
in bondage, in bondage to the law, unable to please God, unable
to do anything, just shut up to the things of God in complete
darkness, but now in Christ we're delivered out of that bondage
into his gracious, loving arms, in righteousness, whereby we
serve and know and worship our God. Listen to Colossians 1.13
where he says, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness
and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. So this faith whereby we believe
is all his work and it's all part of the translation out of
the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and the
kingdom of Jesus Christ. So that now we're citizens of
heaven. We're His body. We know Him and
have fellowship with Him. And we walk in that light. And so, yeah, we see that in
the flesh we're sinners. In the flesh we're weak. In the
flesh we can't do anything to please God. But in the Spirit,
by faith, we're comforted in the Gospel, resting in the Lord
Jesus Christ, trusting Him and serving Him, seeking to serve
Him and to know Him more and more and to grow in that grace
and that knowledge of what He's done for us. All right? Now, verse 19. Paul says in Romans
5 19 for as by one man's disobedience and that's why we're all disobedient
in the flesh many were made sinners so by the obedience by the righteousness
of one shall many be made righteous so the problem is in Adam we're
all sinners and don't even know how to worship him, and have
no desire or will. As Christ told the Pharisees,
and ye will not believe. You do not believe me. You won't
believe me. You don't want to believe me.
You want to go on in your dead religion. And so the Lord's showing
us that. It's by His grace. And we need Christ because without
His full and complete salvation, without Him doing all the work,
we're eternally lost. We're not gonna turn it around.
We're not gonna do anything to improve our status before God. And man, the reason why Paul
labors here is because we've got to hear this. We've got to
know it's not by something that we do that moves God towards
us. It's not by our works of righteousness. Because as long as man thinks
that, He won't hear the truth. He'll keep trusting in something
he is doing and keep looking to earn God's favor in that way. And man, natural man doesn't
like that. He hates that message. He hates
it until God reveals it to him, all right? So someone may ask,
well then why was the law given? Why did God give the law? Because
I've heard before that God wouldn't give a law unless man could keep
it. That man's a liar. That's not
true because God gave the law and he tells us multiple times
in the law why he gave it. He says in verse 20, moreover
the law entered that the offense might abound. He's making it
known to us. He's breaking us down. He's revealing
to his people that by the law We see that we're sinners. We
see how we come up short so that we don't keep trusting in the
law and don't keep trying to work our own righteousness, but
we are driven to the arms of Christ, begging him for mercy
because the law was given to show us what sin is, to show
us the punishment of sin, which is death, and to just show us
how horrible and awful sin is, and how ruinous it is, and what
it worked in us, how corrupting it is in us. And so, we must
be brought to see that we're sinners who can't save ourselves
and really need the grace of God for everything. for everything. He's opening the hand so that
we stop looking to ourselves and trusting in ourselves. And that then opens us up to
hear the message of grace in Christ. The Lord does that so
that now we hear and we know. So it says there, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. What is this grace? Right? That's
what we're driven. What is this grace then? What
does it mean? Because I heard the word grace all the time and
yet still went back to laboring in my flesh trying to work righteousness. Even though I heard many truthful
things, but there was no knowledge of what they really meant. I
didn't know what grace meant at all. And now we know. having the Spirit descending
from Christ's seed, being born of His seed, now we're stripped
down and see, wow, I really am, I've got nothing. And the Lord
is showing us, so there's, the reason why there's so many that
hear this message and don't believe or don't hear it is because the
Lord is showing us what natural religion looks like, and how
a man can't save himself, and what true faith and holiness
is, what he works in his people, so that you have people of every
walk of life, of all different levels of education and wealth
and abilities, natural gifts and talents. Some don't hear
it, and they don't come to a knowledge of the truth. Some do hear it,
and they don't come to a knowledge of the truth. Some have so many
benefits afforded to them, and some have nothing afforded to
them. And yet, no man in every state will believe. except then
you see all those same people usually the worst of the worst
though who do hear it and believe so that it all is attributed
to God's grace and so in that final day when we stand before
God Man will be whining and complaining and saying, well, you know, this
is why and that's why, but there will be every single type of
person there who they refuse. They had, you know, everything
that you say, well, I didn't have this. Well, you can point
to one and say, well, there's one who had everything that you're
saying you didn't have and they don't believe. And yet here's
one who has exactly what you had and they do believe. So it's
all attributed to the glory of His grace and power and honor. All right, so that's how we,
you know, by the Spirit blessing us that we understand. All right,
now I gotta hurry up. Verse 21, that as sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness.
That is the righteousness of one unto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord. So if we are His, we're gonna
know. He's going to strip us down and
make us to know, I'm a sinner, Lord have mercy upon me. Lord,
I've heard of the grace that you show your people in Jesus
Christ. Lord, save me. Cleanse me with
his blood. Have mercy upon me, Lord. That's
what his people do. They flee to the arms of Christ.
They want to hear this. They want to hear this gracious
message and are so thankful to hear it. Though they're weak
and struggling in the flesh and think their faith is so weak,
but you that need it, He says, come, believe on me. And the
wicked, they hear it, they get distressed by it because they're
saying, wait a minute, what? You're saying my works, my righteousness,
my labor is worthless in God's sight? I don't believe that.
I don't want to hear that. So the wicked count themselves
out. They don't want to hear. They want to have their works
count for something, and they don't rest in Christ. But all
their best works, God says, are filthy, vile works, and I don't
accept them. I will not receive these things
because they're done in the flesh and they're corrupt and defiled
just like Adam's seed because that's what they're born of,
the flesh. So, I pray the Lord would bless your hearts and bless
you to hear His word and to be thankful. You that believe, rest
in Him and be thankful and walk in that knowledge of His grace
and mercy in His Son Jesus Christ for His people. I pray the Lord
will bless that to your hearts. All right, let's close in prayer.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Father, for the message of grace in your
Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we confess that we have
nothing of Adam, nothing in our flesh that we can look to and
boast in and bring to you to find any favor or mercy from
you. But Lord, you say that you've
provided everything in your Son, Jesus Christ. and that it's you
who makes alive your people, that gives us the spirit and
causes us to know you and to worship you in spirit and in
truth. Lord, we pray that you would bless us in the righteousness
of Jesus Christ, your Son, to the praise, honor, and glory
of your name. Amen.