much more through the grace of
God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ,
hath abounded to many. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the free gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation. But the free gift is of many
offenses unto justification. For if by one man's offense death
reigned by one much more, they which have received, they received
the abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness shall
reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, Even so,
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
under justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience
many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many
be made righteous." Now, I've entitled this message, The
Illustration of reconciliation. The illustration of reconciliation. Now before this, the Apostle,
having set forth the cause of justification, we know the cause
of justification is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
That's the grounds of all justification. And Paul says the way it is received
is by faith. You that believe. You are justified. That's his conclusion in chapter
5, verse 1. Therefore, be justified by faith. And then he announces the blessings. We have peace with God. We have
access to God. We have hope of the glory of
God, the eternal glory of God, which is what? Our salvation.
And he said, not only do we do this, we rejoice in these things,
but tribulation, because tribulation has a purpose even. I thought
of this again as I'm going through this. Everyone has tribulation,
the lost and the saved. When we suffer, we don't suffer
anything in this body that the lost don't suffer. What's the
difference? Our suffering has purpose. Their
suffering It has to no good end for them. But our suffering has
a purpose. It causes the love of God to
be stirred abroad in our hearts. It gives us hope. It causes us
to experience the grace of God. And so then the Apostle, in the
midst of our afflictions, he commends us to the love of God. In that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died. for us. And so, therefore, our hope is
this, in our suffering, that nothing that happens to us, nothing
that happens to us, nothing we think, nothing we feel, nothing
we do, can have any way remove us from God's love. Why? Because He died for us while
we were enemies. Now much more, now, being justified,
being friends of God, being at peace with God, we shall be saved
by His resurrection, by His life, the Apostle says. And therefore
we are sure, we are sure of the eternal, immutable reconciliation
of God. Look at that in verse 10 again.
He said, When we were enemies, we were what? Reconciled. Now,
when were you reconciled? You were reconciled when you
were enemies. By the blood of Christ, you were reconciled.
By the death of His Son, much more being now, right now, reconciled. You shall be saved by His life,
and not only so, but we join God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen, by whom we have now received the reconciliation, the atonement, the reconciliation. And this
is the idea of what's going to follow, is this idea of reconciliation. He is going to show us by an
illustration how we were reconciled. If we weren't reconciled by our
works, we're reconciled by the death of Christ. How is that
possible? How can the death of another
reconcile us? That doesn't happen in any other
thing we experience in this life. In other words, if you're found
guilty of a crime and I go to jail and pay the price for you,
I die in the electric chair for you. Does that remove your guilt? No, you're still guilty. But
in this way, God justified us through Jesus Christ by removing
our guilt. Now how is that? How'd that happen? He's going to explain how, and
I'm going to give you, this is the whole purpose of this, through
a representative. God deals with every man through
a representative. God will either deal with you
through Adam or Christ, a representative. Now, in this matter of reconciliation,
we think of the word reconciliation, two things must be true. There
must first be a hostility, a separation. Nobody's going to be reconciled
if they're already together. So the idea of reconciliation, we
must see first that there is a division, a separation that
has been made, a hostility between two parties. And the second part
of reconciliation is a cessation of hostility. In order to be
reconciled, these two had to be true. We first had to be separated. And then, when we are reconciled,
what? We are brought together. The hostility has ceased. This is the second part of reconciliation. So now, I do pray that God would
take our hearts and minds to lay hold of this reconciliation. How are you reconciled to God? You received it by faith. But
to understand how the apostle will use an illustration of Adam
and Christ. He's going to show us first how
the division was made. That's in verse 12. Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
so death passed upon all men." Adam is the cause, the root cause
of all sin. He is the root cause of all separation
with God. And secondly, we're going to
see how we were reconciled. Well, the same way you were made
a sinner, you're going to see this, the same way you were made
a sinner, is the same way you're going to be made righteous through
a representative man. You're going to see, you were
made a sinner by Adam. And if you're ever going to be
righteous, you're going to be made righteous by another representative,
Jesus Christ. That's the only way. And so first, let's see the division
caused by Adam. Verse 12, read it again with
me. As by one man sin entered the world. Let's break it apart.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world. This is an
undisputed truth. There was sin before the fall
of Adam. Wasn't there? Satan is the father
of all sin. He is a liar from the beginning,
our Lord says. Satan and his angels fell even
before Adam was made. And yet the world in which Adam
lived was without sin, was without death. Adam himself was created
in perfection without sin. And though Satan being the father
of sin, he by no means could contaminate either Adam or the
world with his sin. Therefore, sin came into the
world only by one man, Adam. You remember the law of God that
was given to Adam, he said, Now, Edith, now think of the grace
of God in this. We always think of the negative.
Everybody thinks, well, why'd he put the tree, blah, blah,
blah. Do you realize Adam could eat any tree in that garden?
At that time, every tree in the whole world produced fruit. Every
tree. We went outside. Those little plants that's in
the front there, Sherry planted, that we don't even take care
of. They're wonderful. You just leave them out there,
and they take care of themselves. They bloom by themselves. There's
no fruit on there. But in that day, there was fruit
on every tree. And yet God says, I place one
tree here, and it's mine. Don't eat it. In the day thou
eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. That was the law given to
Adam. So when he ate, now I want you
to understand, he ate in full knowledge and rebellion against
God. Knowing fully the con... Eve,
we're going to see, she was deceived. But Adam was not deceived. That's what he's telling 1 Timothy
2 and verse 14. He said the woman being deceived,
but Adam was not deceived. Adam was not deceived. What happened
when he ate? Exactly what God said, he died.
He died. When sin entered into the heart
of Adam, it entered into the world. And the result of that
one sin, and you're gonna get this, by the end of the message,
I pray you get this, all the humanity was totally ruined by
one sin. That's it. It was one sin. And all humanity was ruined. It entered into the world and
death, listen, death fell on him. So what is meant by death?
Well, both things. physical and spiritual. Physical. At that moment, he began to die
physically. And we know this because he eventually
died. I think he was 900 and something
years old, but he died. He died. But at the moment he
ate, what was worse than physical death was spiritual. Spiritual
death. It's the most important thing. At that moment of his spiritual
death, Adam lost all desire to worship God. He lost all ability
within himself to worship God. He lost all knowledge of God. His focus was not on God, but
what? His nakedness. The scripture
says their eyes were open and they saw they were naked. What
was their focus now? Their guilt. Their shame was
their focus. God wasn't their focus. And you
could see how spiritually depraved they were at this time. I mean,
you've got to understand, He was made by God. God walked with
Him in the cool of the day, in the garden, spoke with Him face
to face as man with man. And at that moment, Adam believed
that if he sowed fig leaves that God wouldn't see. God wouldn't know anything is
wrong. And when he heard the voice of
God, he did not rejoice as he did before, but he ran into the
forest, he ran into the trees, knowing that his leaves were
not enough, he ran and tried to cover him in the canopy of
the garden. He thought that the leaves of
all those trees would cover him. And you know by his conduct,
when God came to him, and he couldn't run, You know what he
began to do? He blamed God. He said, the woman
you gave me, it's your fault. You see how depraved he became
in just a moment? And notice the apostle testifies
that his sin and his death was not isolated. He said, wherefore
as by one man's sin entered into the world and death by sin, that's
what happened to him. Listen, and so, Death passed
upon all men. When we read of the sin of Adam
in Genesis, I want you to see this. When Eve ate, what happened? Nothing. Nothing. Isn't that astounding? She was
deceived to eat. Yet we read nothing of her, you
know, Being what people think, the seductress, as though she
enticed Adam. No. She was deceived. She said,
look, it didn't do anything. That serpent was right. It didn't
do anything. You know why? She represented
no one, not even herself. Not even herself. Nothing happened
when Eve ate. But what happened when he ate?
Now listen to what the scripture says, and both their eyes were
opened. Why? Because he represented her. And when he died, that death
passed to her. She died. So in Adam's sin, he died, but
not only he, but Eve and then his sons, Cain, And Abel, the
first we read of, they both were sinners, weren't they? You can
see Cain's sin, but you know what? Abel was a sinner, you
know why? Because he knew he needed an
offering. He knew he was a sinner and needed an offering. And we are sure that all men
will physically die, except for some. Some men will not physically
die. We have already some instances
of men that have not died. There will come a day when the
Lord Jesus Christ returns. Wouldn't that be just now? Now would be a great time. Now
would be a great time for Him to come. And if He does, we would
all who are believers, we would not see physical death. But one
thing that no man escapes is spiritual death. Death passed upon all men. Every child that is born in its
mother's womb, now you pay attention, is spiritually dead already. Spiritually dead already. The scriptures declare that as
soon as we are born, what do we do? We speak lies. Scripture
says man comes forth from the womb speaking lies. Why? Nobody
teach you to lie. Now why is that? Because you
were already born dead. All men have from birth in no
ability, none whatsoever, to please God. This is how ruined
the state of man is. How corrupt is a decaying body. It's dead. It can do nothing. Spiritually, that's how we are
toward God. We can do nothing. This is what
men hate. They don't like it. This doctrine is despised and
hated by false religion. They're offended by this verse
and they'll do all sorts of gymnastics to try to disprove it. I mean,
you should. Don't do it. Don't read them.
Because it's a waste of time to read men how they try to twist
this scripture to not say what it says. All false religion begins with
the premise that man has some life, has some ability. Surely God has given us a free
will. No. Scriptures deny that. Oh, you have a will, alright.
But it's bound and not free. It's about as free as a dead
fish on a stream. It's only going to flow one way.
You're only going to flow one way. Sin. Because we are dead. But here is the root of man's
separation. Here is the root of our separation,
that by sin and death of Adam, all men were born in sin, dead
in sin. We all, like Adam, lost our will
and ability to please God. All who try to come to God by
their works or by their religious deeds shall fail, because we
are dead. Everything we do, is contaminated
with sin. This is the truth. In Adam all
die. That's 1 Corinthians 15, 22 and
in another place. In Adam all die. Now the question comes, how can
God justly pronounce sentence of death upon a person in the
womb. How could He justly do that,
seeing that the person has no ability to do good or evil? How could God justly pronounce
sentence upon a person who themselves have not committed anything? Notice the next phrase in your
text. Now that word for means also
in whom. In whom? All have sinned. God justly pronounces death upon
the baby and the mother's womb simply because of this. He did
sin. He did sin in His Father He sinned. It sets forth the premise of
what we call a federal headship. Adam was a federal head. He was a representative man of
all his race. And by his one sin, death came
on him and death came on everyone else because in him, all sin. Some will still object to this. Babies are innocent. You see
a mother hold a baby and you tell her that baby is born dead
in sin. You want to fight? You'll have
a fight on your hands. It don't matter. It's still true.
It's still true. If a baby is born innocent without
sin, then listen to this, they would never be sick or die. Death is a result of sin. Physical
death, we just stated that. And so if they came into the
world with no sin, then they should never be sick. They should
never experience pain or suffering. But we know that's not true,
because Adam represented all of us This death passed to all
of us, and we are all made partakers
of His sin. Look at verse 18 real quick. He says, Therefore, by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men, to condemnation. Do you
now see the separation, the cause of our separation? Division has
been made. Everyone has by this one man,
our Father, died. And the word death has the idea
of separation, doesn't it? When someone dies, they are separated
from us. When we physically die, we're
separated from our family, our friends, but more than this,
when we spiritually die, we were separated from God. We were separated
from God. Scripture tells us that our sin
hath separated us from God. Now this is to the natural man
offensive and to the religious self-righteous man an abomination
to say these things. In fact, their rejection of this
only proves the point. It only proves the point. because
they still believe they have something to offer God. Why do
men reject this? The text is plain, isn't it?
Haven't I just explained, broke it down very plainly? It's simple. Nobody can misunderstand this.
Adam sinned. He died. And his death wasn't
isolated. His death passed upon everyone.
Why? Because in him all sin. That's very clear. Why do men
hate this? Because they still, in their
depravity, believe they are important. They have something within themselves
that God wants or needs, something to contribute. And listen, that
only proves that you're depraved. It doesn't help your situation.
It only proves that you are depraved. How then does God reconcile us? How does this reconciliation
to God come to us who are sinners? And listen, I want you to understand
this. You were made sinners by Adam,
but I'll tell you this, you were born a willing participant. You didn't kick against it. You were made a sinner by Adam,
but have you kept yourself from sin? No. Therefore by this we are all
at odds. Now in verse 13 through 17 is
a parenthesis. I want you to see that it is
a parenthesis and he is going to go into great detail as to
how this is done. He is setting this up as proof that Jesus also is a representative
man. This is the second point, reconciliation. How does reconciliation come?
Well listen, this is the glorious point of this. It comes the same
way sin came. I think this is why it is totally
glorious. This is how sin was brought into
the world. This is how sin is distributed to all men by a representative. Paul is setting this up to say
this. Look, this is also how reconciliation comes. By the
total work of another. By Jesus Christ. He tells us
in verse 14, he says, Who is the figure of him that was to
come? See, He's telling you why sin
came in the world this way. Because this is how God determined
that righteousness should come. This is the way God is going
to reconcile us forever to Himself. Surely before His sin, Adam and
all his race were in unity and peace, but by His one sin, He
and His All were separated. We were at once become haters
of God, dead in our sins. Then comes the question of the
law, because this has always been, throughout this book so
far, we have been seeing him weave it in and out, throughout,
because this is always man's He said, yeah, well that was
true before the law. Now you're talking about Adam,
so that may have worked between Adam and Moses, but after Moses,
God gave us away. That's why Adriel deals with
that in verse 13. He said, for until the law, sin
was in the world. Isn't that right? There was no
law. Yet we had already proved this.
He said, but sin not imputed when there is no law. Now listen,
the law of God was written in their hearts, wasn't it? He already
dealt with that in chapter 1 and chapter 2. There was a law. Now it wasn't as perfect as the
law of Moses, but they sinned against what they already knew,
however small it was. He said, nevertheless, death
reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam, of Adam's transgression, who
was a figure of him that was to come. But not as the offense,
so also the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more by the grace of God through the
gift of grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ hath abounded
to many." He's saying this, that there was another representative.
This is the purpose. Now, this free gift, this free gift
that he's talking about that's done by Jesus Christ, Listen,
it's a gift of grace. Paul is making this point that
this is a gift of grace. None of Adam's race deserved
to be reconciled. But his reconciliation is a gift
of his grace, and he's going to show this, that the reconciliation
is much greater than the offense. Now as I think about this, Adam,
how many sins did it take to bring death into the world? One. But after that sin, how much
sin has been in the world? Now when God says he's going
to reconcile us, he's going to reconcile us both for the sin
of Adam and for the multitude of our own sins. See how much
greater the reconciliation is? The work of Christ now covers
not only that sin that started it, but all of the sin in between. It, he says, is much greater.
He said, not as it is, verse 16, not as it is by the one that
sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to
condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. See how much greater this one
is? When God's going to reconcile by this gift of Christ, it's
going to be so much greater than the offense. That's when he gets to the end
and he said, where sin hath abounded, grace did much more abound. Much more abound. And so in verse
18, he begins then the conclusion of all he says in the parenthesis. He says, therefore, By the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. Even so,
this is how men are reconciled, just the way they were made sinners,
is how they're made righteous. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men under justification of
life. And notice, it is here the universalist
will come and say, aha, see? I may agree with you that sin
came into the world over all men, the condemnation. But notice
that, he said, and justification came upon all men. So what they're
saying is the death of Christ justified everybody. But that's
not so. It is true condemnation came
upon all men by the offense of Adam, and the proof is what?
We all sinned. How do you know that the judgment
of God fell on all men? What's the proof? Because everyone
that's born sins. That's proof of condemnation. But what's proof of justification? Notice this. He said, even so,
by the righteousness of one, by the righteousness of Jesus
Christ, the free gift come upon all men unto what? Justification
of life. Justification of all life. Paul
is saying that all who are justified by faith, all who have life,
which is the proof of our being represented. Justification comes
upon all who have what? Life. Justification doesn't come
upon all those who don't have life. But justification comes unto
us who have life. And so he clarifies it in verse
19, look, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And so then the question this
morning to you, do you believe on the son of God? Are you convinced of your separation? Do you know your place in Adam? Have you seen that? Not for anyone
else. I knew this when I was lost,
that everyone was depraved. But when God saved me, I knew
this, I was depraved. I knew this, I was dead. Now, theologically, I knew everybody
was dead. But when God came to me and gave me life, the first
thing I knew is I was dead. That I could not reconcile myself
to God. I knew that. There was no way. Then behold, the God-man, Jesus
Christ, what he came to do is to provide reconciliation
for his people. He came by his obedience and
blood to obtain reconciliation. The free gift that is in Christ
is much greater in that Christ's blood cleanses us from all our
sins. All our sin. How great is that
blood? How magnificent and precious
is the blood of Christ as our representative man? When He died,
He died for all our sin. All of it. All of it. I have sins I don't even know
I've committed. They were all in there. They
were all covered. They were all cleansed. Can you count them this morning?
The sins you've committed just today, can you count them? Can
you number them? You can't. They're innumerable. Adam sinned once, and that brought
ruin to everybody. But how many times have I sinned?
And this is the glory of it, that just as I became a sinner
by Adam, I became righteous by Jesus Christ. Just as I died
in Adam, I also now live by Jesus Christ, a representative man. And his obedience, consider his
righteousness that he made for us as he walked in this world.
He was always honoring God, always obeying the law of God. That
was just natural for him to do. He wasn't doing it for Himself. Did He need to do that for Himself?
Those priests in the Old Testament, they needed to make an offering
for themselves, didn't they? Because they were sinners. But Christ
needed no offering for Himself. He needed no righteousness for
Himself. What was He doing? He was making our righteousness.
That's what He was doing. So when He honored God as our
representative, what were we doing? We were honoring God through
Him. That's what a federal head is. That's what a representative
is. Just as we were separated, alienated
from God by Adam, even so now are we made near by a representative
man. Now listen, what part did you
really have in either one of those? Now you're going, men
object, they don't like this idea that they had no part in
that, and they think, that's not fair! And yet they want to
have a part in what Christ is doing. No. I didn't have any
part in that, and I'm not going to have any part in this. You
see, I'm either damned or saved through a representative. And by His life and power, listen,
by His grace, I think it's amazing what he says in, I'm going to
read it again, in 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 9. Now consider this in the idea
of reconciliation. He's talking about God, he says,
who God hath saved us and called us, which is first. God saved us before he called
us. He finished it as our representative
before he called us. And then because he finished
it, then what did he do? He called us. I tell you about
J.D. a lot because that's just clear
in my head. It clears the day. He said, what
if I didn't come in that night? He was out there in the parking
lot. He was playing rock, paper, scissors with his brother to
see if he's going to come in. And you know what? He won. He won rock, paper, scissors. The only reason him and his brother
went into that church building that night to hear the gospel
is that he won rock, paper, scissors. And man, he was scared to death.
He said, what if I didn't win? Simply, there was no possibility
for him to lose. He was going to come into that
building. He was going to hear that message. And the Spirit
of God was going to quicken his soul that very night. and give
him faith to believe. Why? Because the reconciliation
had already been made. And because it was made, there
was no chance of him missing it. He saved us. Then he called us. And he don't even leave that
to chance. Look what he says. What kind of calling with an holy calling? A perfect calling. Now listen, I call men to repent
and to believe on Christ everywhere. God commanded everyone to repent
and believe on His Son. Now I say that and I mean that. Whosoever believeth shall be
saved. That's so. But that calling has
no power if it's just mine. If it is the Spirit of God, it
has power. It gets the job. I use that word
effectual. I want you to understand what
that means. Gets the job done. So when he called me, it got
the job done. I believed. And listen, not according to
our works. Isn't this the whole idea of a representative? To
be saved and made righteous not according to our works? that
we have nothing with which to contribute to the righteousness
of God made by Jesus Christ. We have nothing to add. Nothing. This causes anxiousness and fear
and all kinds of trouble to the religionist that he has nothing
to offer. For me, it causes rest. Gives
me rest. There's nothing left to do. I was saved by a representative
man, and that by the grace of God. Oh, then the joy of our
reconciliation. Because it comes by a representative
man, then we have this assurance. It can never fail. When you were
born dead, could that have failed? Is that possible that you escaped
that? No. Same way on the other side. Because
I am made righteous by Jesus Christ, it shall never fail that
I shall always be reconciled to God. That reconciliation never
failed. Why? It didn't have anything
to do with me. I didn't merit it. I didn't earn it. I can't
keep it. I can't maintain this relationship
between me and God. I can't maintain it. I sin constantly
and feel the guilt of it. And yet what is my hope? My hope
is this, that I'll be found in His righteousness and not mine.
That my sins are covered by His blood and not by my obedience
or service. Look back at your text real fast. Let's see, verse, let's read
verse 20. He says, moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound. What's the purpose of the law
then? Only to expose sin, never to help. Before the law, there
was still sin. There was still death. Death
reigned until Moses. But when Moses got here, did
that help? No. It only magnified what Adam
had done. It only magnified my sin. But where sin abounded, here's
the hope of a reconciliation by a federal head. Where sin
abounded, what? Grace did much more about. Isn't this true every day of
our lives? Every day of my life, a sin. Every day of my life,
I come to God and plead for mercy, plead for forgiveness. John says,
if we say we have no sin, we make him a liar, the truth's
not in us. But if we confess our sin, What? He is faithful,
faithful, and just. I ask for forgiveness and I just
don't feel it. What does that have to do with
it? He's faithful to forgive us our sins. Faithful. You're
not faithful. He's faithful to forgive us our
sins. And he's just to do it. Why? Because all of my forgiveness
is in a representative man. All the grounds for my forgiveness
is in him. And notice this last verse. That
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin hath reigned unto death. It's proof when every child is
born in this world that that's true. But what's more important
to us who believe is this, that His grace, through the righteousness
of another, shall reign through eternity. This gives us the hope
that we who are saved by grace are eternally secure. that nothing we do can contaminate
this grace. Now, why do I say it that way?
Because that's exactly what the apostle's meaning, because the
very next verse is going to talk about sin. He said, Shall we
sin that grace may abound? Well, if grace abounds so much,
then we could just go on and sin, right? That's what these
are the objectors are going to say. How shall you, who are dead to
sin, live any longer therein? So that's the next conclusion,
the objection that he's going to answer. But the point of this
is, if we were contaminated, we were separated by a representative. Listen, we're also reconciled
by a representative. We didn't have anything to do
with the one, and we definitely don't have anything to do with
the other. Are you reconciled? much more
now being reconciled. Are you reconciled? Then what's
the apostle's point? You shall be saved because he
lives. You shall be saved because he
lives. This is the hope of everyone who is represented by Jesus Christ.
Are you? The only hope you know, the only
way you know that, do you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith
is always the evidence of it, isn't it? Faith has nothing to
do with the reconciliation. My faith did not reconcile me.
My faith simply received the reconciliation. It didn't have
anything to do with it. That's good, because my faith waivers,
don't you? So if I look to my faith for reconciliation, I'm
going to be disappointed. But my faith is in the reconciliation
already made by my federal head. Hope the Lord will bless that
to you. Mold that over in your mind as you suffer, as you endure
the hardships of life, that this matter of reconciliation is secure
because it's done by another, by Jesus Christ, our Savior.
I pray God bless you. Let's stand and be dismissed
in prayer. Heavenly Father, dismiss us with
your own blessing and mercy. Even as it is in Jesus Christ
our Savior, by his blood and righteousness we plead that you
would take the message as you intended, for the blessing and
benefit of your people, for the encouragement and strength in
our troubles, in our afflictions, that Christ is all. I pray you
do this In his holy name, for his sake, amen.