Turn to Romans chapter 5. The latter portion of this chapter,
starting in verse 12, deals primarily with two men. The first, Adam, And the second
Adam, as it says over in 1 Corinthians 15, the first Adam was of the
earth, earthy. The second Adam is the Lord from
heaven. When it comes right down to it,
God has dealt with this world in two men. He's dealt with this
world in two men. the first Adam, and the second
Adam. It's called representation. We know what that is. We know
it's someone who represents us. In Washington, Congress and the
Senate, they're supposed to represent us. And here we have two representatives. And theologically, they're called
federal heads. Adam being the federal head of
the whole human race, and Christ the federal head of that whole
heavenly race, all those whom he saves. He's the federal head. And Paul, after dealing with,
from the very first chapter till now, he dealt with sin He dealt
with, there's none good, no, not one, Jew and Gentile. And that the only way we are
saved is by grace through faith in Christ. And by faith through
grace in Christ, we are justified, we are cleared of all charges.
There's nothing against us in Christ. And here, in this verse, verse
12, Paul begins to tell us how we became ungodly and how we
are made righteous. We became, we will see this,
we became sinners through no effort of our own. We were born
sinners. In sin, David said, did my mother
conceive me? I was born in sin and shapen
in iniquity. And we become righteous through
no effort of our own. We are made righteous by the
obedience of one. We were made sinners by the disobedience
of one. Adam, the name Adam in Hebrew
means humanity. So in Adam, all humanity sinned. In Adam, all humanity died. That's how we became sinners. That's how we got into such a terrible condition,
is through one man's offense. Now, unless someone wants to
throw rocks at that one man, and blame Adam, I see the wisdom
of God in this. Because if Adam hadn't have fallen,
I would be subject to falling. I'd be subject to it because
that command, do not eat of that tree, would still be there. It
would still be there. And it would be hanging over
my head. So God in wisdom put all men in one man. So that in
salvation, all whom He saves, He saves by the obedience of
one man. That's the wisdom of God. He
allowed us to fall in one, and He saves us in one. That's the wisdom of God. In
verse 12, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world,
That's how sin came into the world. Adam was the door through
which sin entered into the world, into humanity. That's what he's
talking about. This is representation. As I
said, God sees all men under two heads, Adam and Christ. And Paul is going to make a comparison
here between these two men, these two Adams. We know that over
in 1 Corinthians 15, it says this, that the first man, Adam,
was made a living soul. It says the second Adam, a quickening
spirit, a life-giving spirit. It says the first Adam was of
the earth earthy, and the second Adam is the Lord from heaven,
the Lord God Jehovah from heaven. The first Adam made us sinners.
The second Adam makes us righteous. The first Adam, death came to
us. Death in Adam. I wrote out beside
verse 12, Adam, sin, and death. That's what's associated with
Adam. But the second Adam is life, eternal life. The life of God is talking here
about the quality of life when we talk about eternal life. Eternal
life is to know God. It's the quality of life. We
have in Christ, we have life, we have forgiveness, we have
acceptance, we have righteousness. Listen, we have so much more
in Christ than we ever lost in Adam. and that we ever had in
Adam. We have much more, much more
in the Lord Jesus Christ. The only comparison between the
two is their headship. After that, everything's in reverse.
It's in reverse. We'll see this as we go along.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, by Adam's
one transgression, God said, Adam, don't eat of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat of it, you shall
surely die. And Adam disobeyed God. And when he did that, sin came
in and death came in right up on the heels of sin. And Adam
died spiritually. He died. And then 900 some years
later, he died physically. But spiritual death happened
first. And now, when we are born into
this world, we come into this world just like our father Adam.
That's the only thing Adam could pass on to us is sin. The only
thing he could pass on to us is his nature. If you go back
and read in Genesis, The first boy was born, the first
son was born to Adam. It said he begat a son after
his likeness. Just like him. What's that old
saying? The apple doesn't fall far from
the tree. It didn't. It was just like him. Just like him. When Adam fell,
sin came in and death came in. We were not crippled in the fall.
You know, like Mephibosheth, when he was a young child, his
mother fell, anyway, he fell, and he became crippled. That's
how he became crippled. He became crippled by a fall.
But I'm telling you, the fall of Adam didn't cripple us. It
killed us. Death, spiritual death. We lost the way to God. We lost the truth of God. And we lost the life of God.
We lost all that. We lost the Garden of Eden. We
lost a perfect universe, a perfect world, a perfect earth. We lost
all that. This is why we have storms and
this is why we have the weather we have, why we have thorns. I was bird hunting the other
day with my dog. And I've got, I have got scratches on my legs
from going through those briars. And my thought when I, first
time I got scratched, and that stuck me. I thought, Adam? I
did, that was my first thought. My first thought was, Adam? This
is why we got thorns. But I tell you what, you can
say John, or you can put your name there. That's why we have
them, because we would sin too. It's just God's wisdom. He let
it all happen in one man. But we lost it all, and we died
spiritually under God, and then eventually we all die. That's the one thing we can't
escape. Someone said there's two things you can't escape,
death and taxes. Well, you can escape taxes. If
you want to go to jail, you can go to jail. Or you can put a
backpack on and go to Alaska, get way back there, some place
where you can't be found forever, and you're not paying taxes.
But I tell you what, no matter how far back you go, I'll tell
you what's going to find you. Death. They'll find you fossilized
somewhere, but you'll die. Death. You can't get away from
death. Why? Because of sin. Sin. You know, one of the day's problems
in the pulpit is that preachers don't know, they don't understand
what happened in the garden. Someone said this, I don't remember
who I heard first say it, but if you go wrong on the fall,
you go wrong on it all. And this is why today's preaching
is so bad because they don't understand what happened in the
fall. Spiritual death. Spiritual death. Christ said, you will not come
to me that you might have life. There's nothing about God that
attracts us. We are attracted to darkness.
We are attracted to sin. We are not attracted to God. Because we're spiritually dead.
Our thoughts of God, until He saves us, until He saves us by
His grace, our thoughts of God are wrong. the wrong. Not until the Lord saves us and
reveals Himself to us do we have a right understanding of God.
And I'll tell you this, you'll never have a right understanding
of sin until you have a right understanding of God. A right
understanding of sin comes from a right understanding of who
God is. Until you see something of God's holiness, God's perfection,
you cannot see the evil in the darkness of sin. Until you understand
who God is, you will call, and I will call, sin mistakes. Well, that was a mistake. No, it wasn't. It's sin. It's
not a mistake. It's sin. It's not a blemish
in my character. It's sin. That's what it is. But until we understand something
of who God is, until He gives us life, we can't understand
the evil of sin and the contamination of sin. We can't do it. The sentence of death passed
upon all men. When God said, the day you eat
thereof, you shall die. When He ate of it, He ate of
it representing not just Himself, He represented humanity. The
whole of humanity goes back to one man. Adam. You know, all
of us are related. We're all cousins, every one
of us. We all go back to Adam. One man. Adam sinned against God and he
died. It says there in verse 12, "...Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Now
listen, all have sinned in Adam. We've got to go back to original
sin. This is speaking here of original sin. We were made guilty
and we were made sinners in our father Adam. Someone told me some time ago,
this is before I came here, I went to a funeral home and someone
I knew was there. And they was talking to me and
my dad was standing there. And she said, you can't deny
him. This lady said, you can't deny him. He looks just like
you. He looks just like you. We look just like Adam. We look
just like Adam. You say, but I don't, I don't,
you know, and I know there are some who don't want to be guilty
because of something that he did because of somebody representing
me because he sinned. I'll tell you what, you identified
yourself with Adam when you sinned. If you don't want to be identified
with Adam, don't sin. Every time you and I sin, we identify ourselves
with Adam every time. So Adam, listen, Adam sinned
against God and he died. And when he fell, sin was not
only imputed to us, charged to us, but a sinful nature was imparted
to us. David said, I was conceived in
sin. The seed that I was conceived
with was sinful. It was sinful. It says in Psalm
58.3, that we go astray from the womb speaking lies. You don't
have to teach, you don't have to teach your children, because
my dad didn't have to teach me, how to lie. You don't have to
teach, you don't have to teach a child at all how to be bad. You don't have to teach them
how not to share. Share this with your brothers
and sisters. No. You don't want to, automatically as a child,
you really don't want to share. I mean, it comes in early, doesn't
it? It just shows up early. You don't have to teach them
anything, you have to teach them manners. You have to teach them
manners, teach them to be respectful. Why do you have to teach them
that? S-I-N. Because our nature is totally
against everything that is right. It is. I mean genuinely right. It's against it. Now, to keep in line with this,
we're going to go from verse 12 over to verse 18, because
that parenthesis we'll come back to later. Here in verse 18, Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, Judgment
came upon all men by one man's disobedience. Even so, now here comes the comparison. Even so, by the righteousness
of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of
life. By the disobedience of one man, Adam. Can you imagine after Adam fell? Now we don't know by the scriptures
if God saved them. I think he did. I believe he
did. He shed the blood of an animal and covered their nakedness
with the skins of an animal. God shed the first blood. and
he covered them, and I believe that he taught his children about
the Lord, and that's how Abel knew how to offer the sacrifice.
I believe he learned it from Adam. Can you imagine when Adam
saw the first thing die? He knew it was because of him. when he saw all that, and he
lived 900 years, he saw his children, you know, Abel was murdered by
his brother Cain. Adam knew, I think he knew that
the very seed that was in Cain that caused him to murder came
from him. Can you imagine how devastating it was to be the
first one to brought all of this into the world, this perfect
creation? He walked with God in the garden. He walked and spoke with God
in the garden. And now he's kicked out of the
garden, his family's kicked out of the garden, everybody's kicked
out of the garden, and everything that happens now, the sin and
the stuff that started going on, he's the root of it. He's
the root of it. It had to be devastating. It
had to be devastating. By the offense of one, judgment
came upon all men to condemnation. No one, no one was able to escape
it. No one was able to escape the
condemnation of the law over sin. You've heard the old cliche,
the long arm of the law. No one could escape it. All whom Adam represented came
under condemnation. But aren't you glad it doesn't
end there? Even so, By the righteousness
of one, by the righteous obedience of Jesus Christ, the free gift
came upon all men unto justification of life. Even so, in the same
manner, by the obedience of the second Adam, by his obedience,
the free gift came upon all men. Now the words, all men, here,
listen. It doesn't mean every son of Adam. It can't mean that.
You have to interpret Scripture in the light of Scripture. It
can't mean that. It's all whom He represented. All whom He represented,
that's what He's talking about. In the same fashion that we were
in Adam and fell in Adam by representation, in the same fashion we are in
Christ and we are made righteous in Christ, we are raised in the
Lord Jesus Christ in the same fashion, representation. And
the free gift here is His righteousness. It's freely given to us. We don't
do anything to get the righteousness of Christ. God freely gives it
to us by His grace. It's by His grace. And brethren,
this is a righteousness that you and I cannot lose. Here's
the good news of it. In Adam, it was conditional.
In Adam, my standing was conditional. My standing in Christ, your standing
in Christ, is unconditional. It's not conditioned on me. It's
all on the shoulders of Jesus Christ. I can't lose it. I cannot mess up that righteousness. It's His righteousness. That's
why we call Him the Lord, our righteousness. It's His righteousness. And we can't mess that up. And
because we can't mess it up, All the blessings that we have
in Christ, which we can't even begin to imagine, are ours, they're
sure. All the promises of God in Christ
are yea and amen. They're not conditioned on me.
They're yea, they're yes. They're sure. They're sure. Now it says in verse 19, for
as by one man's disobedience Many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." You see,
by the disobedience, we were made something that we were not. We were made sin. And we were
made sin by one act of disobedience. Well, by the obedience of Christ,
we were made righteous. He represented us. We were put
in Christ before the world began. In Ephesians chapter 1, we were
chosen in Him and blessed with all heavenly blessings in Him
before the foundation of the world. This is God. You know, when it
comes right down to it, we can just look at this and say, salvations
of the Lord. Salvations of the Lord. He did it all. All to Him
I owe. We were made constituted sinners
in Adam, but righteous in the Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover,
it says here in verse 20, Moreover the law entered, that the offense
might abound, But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The
law entered 2,500 years later. It was about 2,500 years later
that the law was given. Why was the law given? If you
cannot have life by it, why was it given? That the offense might appear
to be what it is. that sin might appear exceedingly
sinful." The law is a reflection of God. God is the law. He's
the law. He's the law unto Himself. And
the law that He gave is a reflection of Him. And He never gave it. God did not give the law for
anyone to seek life by it. God gave the law that you and
I would understand the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and that we
would really understand that our sin is against God. David
said, "...Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this
evil in thy sight." That's why. The law entered that
the offense might abound, but listen, but where sin abounded,
now listen, where sin overflowed, you know, it's like sin, Adam's
sin was like a big boiling pot and it boiled over and it just
spread throughout the whole creation. Animals die. Animals didn't sin.
They didn't sin. But I'll tell you who did sin,
their king. God said, have dominion over
the fish of the sea, the fowl, have dominion over this earth. And when Adam sinned, it was
like a boiling pot, it just boiled over, and it affected everything
that had to do with Adam. So everything on this earth dies.
Everything dies. Moreover, the law entered that
offense might abound, but where sin abounded, Oh, I mean, this
is the good news. Grace did much more abound. Grace
overpowered it. Grace overflowed it. I mean,
it's like this, it's like as exceeding sinful as sin is, grace
is that much more. Grace is far more exceeding.
The grace of God Can it be compared to the abounding of sin? The superabounding of grace is
just beyond our comprehension. God reconcile enemies. God love
enemies. God love those who spit in His
face. God reconcile those and make
righteous those who hate Him. That's superabounding. That's
superabounding grace. That's what makes grace amazing.
That's what makes it amazing. When you understand, when you
understand something of sin, and that's what you are, that's what makes grace amazing,
that it super abounds, it covers, it goes over. Where sin abounded, Grace did
much more bound. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, it's like this. Adam was the king. God made Adam
king over this earth. He said, have dominion over this.
Have dominion over the fishes, the fowl, and animals. You have
dominion. When he sinned, death took that
throne. Death reigns. Death reigns as
the king. Death sits on that throne instead
of Adam. But, the good news is our Lord
dethroned death. Our Lord has dethroned death.
Death received its death in the death of Christ. 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."
Sin takes hold and the end of its reign is death. Death. But here's the good news. Get
a hold of this. Get a hold of this. Because you and I are still
sinful. We're still sinful. Way more than we know. There's
sin in everything we do. There's sin in our most sincere
prayer. There's sin in it. But the grace
of God toward us reigns. Grace upon grace, it reigns.
You know how God's grace reigns on us, though we're still sinful? is through the righteousness
of Jesus Christ. That's how God continues grace
upon grace upon grace, is through the righteousness of that man,
Jesus Christ. That's why. It doesn't rain on
me because I straightened up. It rains on me because Jesus
Christ, the righteous one. That's why the grace of God,
that's why we're still here. We are here by the grace of God
that's reigning through the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Now, just briefly, let me jump
back real quick here to verse 13-17. It says, let's go back
here just a minute and I'll finish it. For until the law, that is
the law Moses was given, sin was in the world, but sin is
not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned
from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after
the likeness of Adam's transgressions." That's why infants die. That's
why they die. Because they're sinners. Death
reigns even though it reigns over those who have not disobeyed
a direct command like Adam did. And included in that statement
there is, and I think he's making reference here, is this is why
infants die. They die because of sin. They die because of their
connection to Adam. Adam is the root. They are in
Adam and they are born with a sinful nature. Now I have no doubt that the
Lord redeemed those who die in infancy and people who have mentally
handicapped. I have no doubt about that. But
he's saying here that the law, for until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there's no law. Well, there
is a law. First of all, God. Secondly, there's still that
law, don't eat. Now that just passed upon everybody. When Adam
did it, it passed upon everybody. But then there's the law written
on the conscience. The law is written on the heart of every
person born into this world. Like I said, you've got to teach
your children to have respect, to do right. But I tell you this,
when they do something wrong, they know it, don't they? They
know it. You can see it written on their
face. When they got in the cookie jar, you can see it on their
face. I mean, other than just the cookies on their face, you
can see it on their face, their expression. They know it's wrong.
It's written on the heart. But he says here in verse 14,
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them
that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression.
But not as the offense, so also as the free gift. And he's saying
here that it's in reverse now. It's in reverse. In one sense,
Adam's a type of Christ, but after that, it's in reverse. Let me go back here. In verse 15, "...but not as the
offense, so also as the free gift. For if through the offense
of one many are dead..." See, we were dead through one offense.
But now listen, what we have in Christ, the salvation we have
in Christ, the gift that we have in Christ is given to us, and
many offenses, all of our offenses, are gone. They're gone. Put away. Not as the offense,
so also is the free gift. For if through the offense of
one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to
condemnation, by one act of disobedience. But the free gift, it covers
all our offenses. Because I tell you what, I'm
guilty of sin, are you? I'm guilty of a lot of sin. All
those offenses are gone. Not just that one act that happened
in the garden, but all the offenses that we have committed since.
Gone. Gone. By how? By the act of the obedience
of one person, Jesus Christ. Christ confers on us. Much more
than we lost in the fall. Much more. Our standing is sure. Our blessings are sure. The promises
of God are sure. There is no command for me to
keep in order to be saved and to please God. Jesus Christ paid
it all. All to Him I owe. All of it. Christ pardons not one sin, but
all my sins. Christ justifies in such a way
that the believer is righteous and can never perish. That's good news. I think, listen,
representation to me, that's good news. I see the wisdom of
God in it. I see God's wisdom. We all died
in one, we all made a life in one. That's the wisdom of God.