We're going to begin with two
messages entitled, Death in Adam, Life in Christ. Over in the book
of 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 22, the Bible tells us that as
in Adam, all died. As in, but in Christ, all shall
be made alive. Now, who are the all there? Well,
all whom Adam represented, all whom Christ represented. And
so we're gonna begin here with verse 12. 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, or literally,
that would read, for all sinned. All sinned. when Adam sinned. If you were to take a course
on Christian philosophy, which I'm not suggesting that you do,
but if you were to do that, you would probably study a segment
of Christian philosophy called the Christian worldview. And
obviously what that means is how true Christians from the
Bible are to view the world. The first point of a Christian
worldview is obviously in beginning God created the heavens and the
earth, the creator God. And God created man and created
woman and set them on earth. That's the first point of a Christian
worldview. God is our creator, God is our
authority, God is sovereign, God is in control. That's how
we look at this thing of the world. That's how we survive
knowing what we know. Somebody said, well, how do atheists
survive? Well, they survive by denying
God and counting themselves that they're not really going to be
held accountable at a judgment. So we know that God is in control. God is our judge. And we are
accountable to him. Now we're accountable to one
another, but we're not each other's judges as far as the sentence
of whether or not we attain eternal life or eternal death. God is
the supreme judge. He's the supreme law giver. And
man knows that by his conscience, but he can go about denying it,
but that's a Christian worldview. Now the second point of a Christian
worldview is right here in verse 12. Wherefore, as by one man, who
is the one man there? Well, obviously that's Adam,
the first man. God created Adam. Man breathed
into him the breath of life. We're not the product of evolution. We didn't crawl up out of the
primordial ooze and begin to walk on our hind legs. That's
not, that is so foolish of an idea. God created Adam. But the thing about it is, now
here's, if you continue with the Christian worldview, it's
not just that God created Adam. God created Adam and appointed
him to be the representative, or the federal head, as some
of the old theologians used to say. of the whole human family,
the whole human race. Paul shows here by inspiration
of the Holy Spirit that the whole human race is in a state of sin
and death because of our fall in Adam. And what he's doing
here is he's describing what he had pointed out, like for
example, in verse six, look at verse six. For when we were yet
without strength, without ability, what is that? Ability to save
ourselves. Ability to make ourselves righteous. Ability to satisfy God's justice. and even ability to know, believe,
submit to, and love the things of God, the things that glorify
God. For when we were yet without
strength, well how did we get that way? We fell in Adam, that's
what he's saying. And then he described it in verse
eight, look at verse eight. When we were, while we were yet
sinners, God commended his love toward us in that while we were
yet sinners, well how did we become sinners? Now, there are a lot of people,
the federal view, that's what we're talking about. You know
what federal view is? You know what federal government
is? You send representatives to represent you in Washington,
and I know, we can make jokes about that, they're not doing
a very good job, obviously. But the federal view is simply
this, Adam is the federal head, the representative of the whole
human race. God appointed him to be so, so
that when he fell, we fell. Now the Bible says that we're
all sinners. I was talking to a fellow yesterday
who believes the gospel, or it was Friday, who believes the
gospel, a brother in Christ up in Kentucky. And he was talking
about a daughter of his who's going to a church where they
don't preach the gospel. And he kept telling her, he said,
why don't you come to where I go and hear the gospel? And she
said, I get tired of being called a sinner. Well, let me tell you
something. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save who? Sinners. That's what we are. What's a sinner? One who sins.
Now, how do we get into this mess? There's a lot of people
who deny the federal view because it's basically a proclamation
in their own pride to say, I stand on my own two feet. It's not
fair for God to hold me accountable for what Adam did. So I want
to stand on my own two feet. And so they say, well, we don't
become sinners until we commit our first sin at some point in
time, as we grow, or where we make our first sinful choice.
Well, that's okay if you want to believe that, but let me tell
you something, it's not in the Bible. It's not what God's word
teaches. So understand, if you take that
position, you are going against God's Word, because God says,
wherefore, for this reason, as by one man sin entered into the
world, and death by sin, now what kind of death is he talking
about? All kinds of death. He's talking about physical death. The law was laid down to Adam
in Genesis chapter two. He said, you can eat of all the
trees of the garden except one. the tree of good and evil, which
represents God's authority to set the standard of what's right
and what's wrong. Man said, I want to set my own
authority. That's what false religion's all about. It's man
taking sides with Adam against God, with Satan against God,
saying I'll set my own standard of what's right and what's wrong,
what's good and what's evil. But God says he does it, he's
the authority. And then look at verse 10, he
says, for if when we were enemies, how did we become enemies of
God? Well, anyone who doesn't know,
love, believe, submit to that which glorifies and honors God
is considered in the scripture an enemy of God. Now, you may
be a religious enemy. You remember over in Romans chapter
10 when it talks about the Jews who followed after righteousness,
but they didn't attain it because they sought it by works. They're
ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish
their own righteousness. Now these were people who thought
they were serving and honoring and worshiping and following
God. They were enemies of God. These
were people who looked outwardly righteous and religious and sincere
to men. These are people who the natural
man looks at and says, well, that's a good person. Or even
that's a saved person. But God says they're not because
he laid down the law and he says that, look, righteousness can
only be found in the glorious person and finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And outside of him, there's none
righteous, no, not one. There's none good, no, not one.
Romans 10, four, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believe. So without Christ, what are we?
We're enemies of God. How do we get that way? By one
man, sin entered into the world. What did Adam do? He took sides
with Satan and his wife, Eve, against God. He wanted to be as gods. That
means he wanted to set his own standard. He wanted to make the
rules. That's what false churches are doing all the time. We want
to make our own rules. That's why they don't like the
Bible. Or they say, well, we believe parts of it. I'm going
to talk about this later on in the message on holiness. You
know, there's denominations who call themselves Christians right
now who are arguing and debating and trying to vote on whether
or not to accept homosexuals into the church as brethren and
sisters in Christ, and even into their clergy. Well, what does
the Bible say? Well, the Bible says no. That
homosexuality is evil. It's against God. Now look, that
doesn't mean that that's the unpardonable sin. We're all sinners. Somebody asked me one time, well,
what would you do if a homosexual came into the church and sat
down? I said, I'd preach the gospel to him just like I do
all us other sinners. But I wouldn't condone it. I
wouldn't call him brother or sister because of what the Bible
says. God set that standard. I didn't
do that. So this is the issue now. All
of this, how do we get into this mess? Because Adam fell. That's the Christian worldview.
This is the biblical doctrine of man. What is man? Sinful man, rebellious man. This
is the biblical doctrine of sin. What is it to sin? It's to come
short of the glory of God. It's to miss the mark. It's to
break the law. That's what it is. all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God and Adam all die. So what
he's saying here is that the whole human race was brought
into a state of sin and death through Adam. Now there are,
as I mentioned before, there are some who teach that we really
don't become sinners until we make our first sinful choice
or commit our first sin. That's not the biblical view
of sin. The Bible says that we're estranged from the womb, that
we go astray, we're shapen in iniquity. David said, in sin
did my mother conceive me. He's not talking about the sex
act there. He's not talking about the adultery. of Bathsheba or
anything like that. He's simply talking about that
as we are naturally born, we're born void of spiritual life. We're spiritually dead in trespasses
and sin. When we're born, it's not that
God picks up a vial of sin and shoots it into us or anything
like that. Sin is not a substance like that.
Spiritual death is the absence of spiritual life. And what that
means is that naturally speaking, we have no capacity to love and
to believe and to serve God as he reveals himself, to know and
believe and love the things that glorify God, especially in salvation. And that's why in 1 Corinthians
2 and verse 14 it says, the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're spiritually
discerned. The Bible tells us that we don't
have spiritual eyes, spiritual ears. The heart, remember the
heart is, what is it, Jeremiah 17? I was preaching on that on
TV this morning. The heart is deceptive, it's
deceitful above all things. Who can know it? The mind, the
affections, the will. The natural sinfulness and spiritual
death and depravity of all people by nature is seen in the fact
that we neither know nor want or desire the things that glorify
God. It cannot be seen in human religion
the highest that it can reach. That won't in itself expose it,
except as we see when we preach the gospel. The Bible says that
the preaching of the cross, for example, is foolishness to them
that believe not. That's spiritual death. That's
spiritual depravity. That's why Christ said we must
be born again. We can't see, we don't have spiritual
eyes to see the kingdom of God. That's why he says that which
is born of flesh is flesh, and it can't be anything else. But
that which is born of the spirit is spirit. We must be born again.
Now, look at verse, and literally now understand that verse 12
now, when it says, and so death passed upon all men, Literally
in the original language it would read for that all sinned I sinned
with Adam sinned I didn't sin personally when Adam sinned,
but I sinned through a representative Now people who don't like the
federal view and Don't accept that as the Christian worldview.
I've got news for you then you don't know and believe the federal
view of Christ in life, life abiding in Christ. You see, because
we fell in a representative, that's why it's only, that's
why it's possible that we are saved through a representative
who is Jesus Christ, and he'll talk about that in a minute.
But let's look at verse 13. Now he begins in a parenthesis
here that goes all the way down to verse 17. We won't get through
all this today, but look at verse 13. He says, for until the law,
sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is
no law. Now, why did he put this there?
Well, this obviously, the issue that had arisen in most of these
New Testament churches in this day had to do with some facet
or some perversion or some misuse by Jewish professors of the law
of Moses. Romans chapter 9 again, they
were trying to keep the law. What law were they trying to
keep? The law of Sinai. The law of Mount Sinai. And so
what he's showing here is that look, it's obvious that sin and
death were in the world before the law was given on Mount Sinai.
In other words, this thing of sin and death didn't begin with
the giving of the law of Moses. It was here before. Sin was in
the world before the law was given through Moses. And there
was law in the world before the law of Moses. There was law.
As I said in Genesis chapter two, God laid down the law to
Adam. In the day that you eat thereof,
you shall surely die, or literally dying, thou shalt die, which
means physical death, it means spiritual death, And ultimately
it means eternal death without Christ. Eternal separation from
God. And then the Bible tells us that
God gave man a conscience over in Romans chapter two, it says
that the Gentiles, you remember in Romans chapter nine, before
he went to the Jews who were trying to keep the law, they
sought righteousness but by the law, he mentions that the Gentiles
who had not the law, Well, what law didn't they have? Well, they
didn't have the Law of Moses. That's what he's talking about
there. But they did have a law. They had the Law of Conscience.
If you go back and study history during the times before the Law
of Moses, and even the Jewish history during that time of the
Old Covenant, you'll find that Gentile societies had laws by
which they governed themselves. They had jail houses. They had
death penalties. Well, where did that come from?
Not Sinai, it came from the conscience that God gives every man. Now,
what we have to understand is that even the conscience of man
naturally has fallen. He knows the difference between
right and wrong in society, but he doesn't know the difference
between right and wrong when it comes to a right relationship
with God. Do you understand that? You go
to the most remote people living on an island somewhere, they've
got laws, but they don't know the gospel. The gospel is a revelation
from God to his people. What does it take for me to stay
out of jail? Well, I knew that before I was
saved, how about you? What does it take for me to get
along in society? and be a good citizen. I knew
that before I was saved. But now what does it take to
put away my sins? What does it take to justify
me before God? What does it take to make me
right with God? I didn't know that until I heard
the gospel. You see what I'm saying? But Paul's point here
is that there was a law given by which God held men accountable,
people accountable before Sinai, and he said the proof of it is
that sin can't be charged where there's no law. Sin's not imputed. You see, if we have a lawless
society, think about it, if it was anarchy, a lawless society,
I think that's what some of these people want in Washington. A
lawless society. There is no standard. There is no rule that we go by. It's just everybody for themselves.
Think about what kind of a society we would have. You know, during
barbarian times, it was pretty close to that kind of thing,
wasn't it? But we have laws. And that's
proof that before Sinai, there was law. God had given law. And
because sin could not be charged, where there is no law. And let
me tell you something, if sin is not charged, there's no death. Turn over to 1 Corinthians 15,
I'll show you that. Look over at 1 Corinthians 15. You know what he's talking about
here, he's talking about the resurrection of God's people because Christ
was raised from the dead. If you look over in 1 Corinthians
15, and look at verse 55. He said up before that, death
is swallowed up in victory, talking about the death of Christ, where
he conquered death, sin and death. And he says in verse 55, O death,
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Now look at verse 56. The sting of death is sin. Why do people die? Physically. Well, this body is dead because
of sin. And if sin is charged, there'll be another death. There'll
be a second death, which is eternal death. That's why only hope is
stated in Romans 4 there. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth righteousness without works. God said that when he
spoke through David. Blessed is the man to whom God
imputeth not iniquity. And so he says in verse 56, the
sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. In
other words, the power of sin to bring death and condemn is
because of the law. The law demands it. Where sin
is charged, the law demands death. Where righteousness is charged,
the law demands life. Now where are we gonna find righteousness? Well, walking on, except Jesus
as my personal savior. No. We're gonna find righteousness
in Christ and Him alone. Nowhere else. Well, go back now
to our text. Look at verse 14. He says, nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses. Now that's how we know that he's
talking about the law of Moses. That's why he's making this point.
He says, death reigned from Adam to Moses. People died. You say,
well, they lived longer. Okay, they did, but they still
died. What's the difference if it's
10 years or 10,000? Death is inevitable, you see. So he says, even over them that
had not sinned after the similitude or the likeness or the way of
Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to
come. Now there's a lot of different
views on this one. All right? If you study it and read it,
you'll find a lot of volumes written on this. And some people,
for example, they believe that it describes those who had only
the law of natural conscience, which is enough to hold them
accountable, but they had no direct or specific intervention
by revelation from God, from the law of God, as did Adam have
in the garden, and as the Israelites had on Mount Sinai. God, God
really intervened in human history by revelation even to the unbelieving
Jews through Moses. Gave them that law, the Ten Commandments. And some people believe that's
what it's talking about. In other words, they didn't sin like Adam. They only
had the law of conscience, that which was naturally in them,
and not like God spoke to Adam and God spoke to Moses. Others believe that this is speaking
of infants, those who died in infancy. that had not sinned
after that similitude of Adam. In other words, they're saying
that those infants did not engage themselves in a conscious, willful
rebellion as did Adam, all right? Now, understand that those who
believe the gospel who adhere to the infant theory, they're
not saying that infants are born innocent at all. We are all born
spiritually dead. And if the infants were innocent,
they wouldn't die, those who died in infancy. And they're
not saying that those who die in infancy, if they are saved,
that they're saved because of their innocence. No. Let me tell
you something about anybody who is saved, no matter what time
in their life they die, it's all by grace. It's all based
on the righteousness of another. Now, we can argue about how that
happens, who it happens to or what, and I'm not gonna go into
all that today. But I'm just telling you, those
are the two views of what I've read that seem to make any sense
at all. God has a people. But listen,
we who are sinners saved by grace, we're still gonna die physically,
but not eternally. Not eternally. But here's the
key to verse 14. He said, who is the figure of
him that cometh? What he's telling us here is that Adam was a type
of Christ. How was Adam a type of Christ?
Adam sinned against God. Did Christ sin against God? No.
Now whenever you deal in typology, you always gotta stay with the
context and you can't take it too far. Or as my former pastor
used to say, you can't make a type stand on all fours. You just
gotta take it as it lays. What's he talking about here?
He's talking about the whole human race dying and coming under
sin and death in Adam as a representative. And Adam was a type of Christ
as a representative. Because Christ, and he's gonna
make this case as we go on into this chapter, Christ is the representative
of all who are saved by the grace of God. So in other words, Adam
had a particular people that he represented. Who are they? The whole human family. How do
I know that that includes me? Because I was born spiritually
dead and I'm a sinner. There was a fellow one time arguing
with me about that, and he said, well, we're not, we weren't born
sinners. We are made sinners when we make
our first choice. And I asked him his question.
I said, well, let me, can you name one person in the history
of the human race who didn't sin and make the wrong choice?
No. He said, well, you could say
except Christ, but Christ is the God man. He was born, he's
the seed of woman. He was born of the Virgin Mary,
conceived by the Holy Spirit. I'm talking about all natural
born men. We all sin. Is there any of us
who would say we haven't sinned? There may be some fools out there
like that, but no, we've all sinned and come short of the
glory of God. Well, where did that begin? We fell in Adam.
That's why we were born spiritually dead. So Adam had a particular
people whom he represented. And that's the whole human family,
all sinners. But Christ also has a particular
people that he represented in his obedience unto death on the
cross. And who are they? Is that the
whole human family? No. How do you know? Because
the whole human family is not saved. The whole human family
is not born again. Who did Christ represent? Adam
was the type. Who does Christ represent? The
whole election of grace, he's gonna tell us. All whom God chose
before the foundation of the world and gave to him. Well,
look on, let me hurry. He says, in verse 15, he says,
but not as the offense, that's the offense of Adam, the sin
of Adam, so also is the free gift, that's the free gift of
salvation, spiritual life, In other words, there's a difference.
And what's he saying? For if through the offense of
one, many be dead, how many? All whom Adam represented. Much
more the grace of God. In other words, he's showing
here how the grace of God gives us much more, the grace of God
in Christ, gives us much more than what we lost in Adam. And
he says, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace,
what is the gift? It's the gift of righteousness,
it's the gift of salvation, which is by one man, that's Christ,
the God-man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. How many? All whom he represented. Who
are they? All who are brought by God to
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so here's the last verse
we'll deal with today. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift. In other words, he's saying the
gift is much more than we lost, for the judgment was by one to
condemnation, condemned to a state of death and sin and death, but
the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. The free
gift of God's grace in Christ is unto many unto justification. In Christ we're justified. Now
in Adam, there's the condemnation. It's condemned to sin and death
for all of us. It's condemned to eternal death
for all who are without Christ. You see that? And we'll say some
more about that as we go through the next verses. But in other
words, those who are in Christ are justified. That means we're
forgiven. That means we have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice. It's the imputed
righteousness of Christ. It's the merits of his obedience
unto death, of all who were given to him before the foundation
of the world. Though we fell in Adam into a state of sin and
death, we were always vessels of mercy, marked out for that
by God. in our representative Christ.
So yes, we were represented by Adam in sin and death, but we
were represented, one old theologian said this, he said, when we fell
in Adam, we didn't fall out of Christ. Now I'll capitalize on
that more in the next lesson. All right, okay.