If you would, open your Bibles
with me to Romans chapter five. Romans chapter five. It is such
a delight for me and Janet to be able to be here with you.
I was thinking this morning, what
a, besides an awesome responsibility, what an awesome blessing it is
to have the opportunity to preach Christ. Every week, what an awesome
blessing that is. I pray the Lord will bless us
this morning and enable us to see and leave here trusting our
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, every message that we preach
is vital. Every message is. If it's not
our matter of life and death, we ought not preach it, should
we, Mark? If it's not life and death, we ought not preach it.
Those questions, we just heard some. Those questions are matters
of life and death. I hope you'll pay very close
attention to the message this morning. Because we can't have
any understanding of anything spiritual, any spiritual truth,
until we understand how is it we became sinners. And what is
the only way a sinner can be made righteous? That's what our
text teaches us this morning. There's only one way that we
are made sinners, and there's only one way any sinner can be
made righteous. It's through a representative.
When God looks at the whole human race, he just sees two men. God
only sees two representative men, and he sees the whole rest
of the race in one of those two men, in one of those two representatives. And God says that all of us have
done exactly what our representative did. Every son and daughter of
Adam was made a sinner when Adam sinned against God because he
was our representative. And everyone who was in Christ
was made righteous when the Lord Jesus obeyed God's law perfectly. We were made righteous because
of what our Christ, our representative did. Now that's so simple. It is impossible to misunderstand. The gospel's never difficult
to understand. The problem is we don't have
a heart to believe it. And I pray this morning that
the Lord will give us a heart to believe this gospel. I've
entitled the message The Gospel of Representation. Let's begin
reading in Romans 5, verse 11. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. Now Paul tells us somebody's
received the atonement. Somebody has been reconciled
to God. And that begs the question, why
do I need to be reconciled to God? Somebody's been reconciled. Why do I need to be reconciled
to God? What happened that caused it
that I need to be reconciled to God? Well, it's because of
what Adam, our representative, did to us. In the garden, God
created Adam upright. He put him in a perfect garden.
Adam was upright, but he lost his uprightness. Adam had a righteous
standing before God, but Adam lost that righteous standing.
Adam was the friend of God. Every evening, he walked in the
garden with God, and he lost that friendship through what
he did. And when Adam lost those things, he's the representative
man. Everyone who would ever descend
from Adam's loins, and that's all of us, we lost them too. That's how we became sinners
who need an atonement. Verse 12, wherefore is by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin. And so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. And when God
put Adam in the garden of Edom, he said, Adam, you need freely
of all the trees in the garden, except the fruit of one tree.
Adam, do not eat of the tree, or the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. In the day you eat thereof, you
shall surely die. Dying thou shalt die. You'll die spiritually. Now there
is just one law for Adam. There's just one rule. Don't
eat of the fruit of that one tree. That's simple, isn't it? Straightforward. And in no time
at all, Adam ate that fruit. And the moment he did, he died
spiritually, that very moment. And because he died spiritually,
about 900 years later, he died physically. Sin and death entered
into the world because of what Adam did. When Adam sinned against
God, he brought sin and death into this world. He brought it
on, this is what Lindsay said, on the whole creation. When you
see animals and plants die, it's because of this one sin. But
more than that, people usually have some understanding. We are
so self-centered, self-righteous, we can understand death and the
rest of the world because of what Adam did. But let's get
right down to where the rubber meets the road. Sin and death
entered into us, into our heart, because of what Adam did. Adam's
sin brought sin and death into us, into everybody he represented. You see, we became sinners through
what Adam, our representative, did. Adam's guilt was imputed,
charged to every one of us. We became guilty when Adam became
guilty. Adam's guilt is our guilt. Adam's
guilt is my guilt. Even though we were not there
to eat of that fruit personally, Adam's guilt is our guilt. We
became guilty because of what Adam, our representative, did.
But Adam's guilt was also imparted to us. Adam's guilt was put into
us. When we were conceived, we received
Adam's sinful nature. That's what David meant when
he said, behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin that my
mother conceived me. He didn't mean his mother did
anything wrong in conceiving him. He meant that the only nature
his father had to pass on to him was a sin nature that he
got from Adam. Adam's sin is imparted into us
so that we are what Adam is. That's how we became sinners.
That's how we received a sin nature. Now that's Adam, the
first representative man. Adam did a mighty poor job of
representing his people, didn't he? Look what he did to us all. He made us all dead, guilty sinners. That's what Adam did by being
a representative man. Now, I understand that the natural
man thinks, well, that's not fair, that's just not fair. Well,
I'm gonna show you why, Lord willing, why this is both fair
and it's cause for rejoicing. The good news of the gospel is
this. Since we were made sinners by representation, then sinners
can be made righteous through another representative, through
a second representative man. Now I want to skip this parenthetical
phrase that goes from verse 13 to 17. We'll come back to that
in just a minute. Let's read this in context, verse 12. Wherefore
is by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.
And so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. All
have sinned, literally translated, that's all sinned in Adam, verse
18. 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. Now, since all men were made
guilty and put under the condemnation of the law because of what the
first representative did, sinners can now be made righteous by
what another representative did for everyone that he represented.
And this second representative is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's
the second Adam. Adam made everyone he represented
to be guilty. And that's everyone. That's every
son of Adam who ever lived. And Christ, he justified everyone
that he represented. He did the opposite of what Adam
did. He justified everybody he represented. And he gives them
this great undeserved gift of God's grace freely. You cannot earn it. You can't
do anything to get God to give it to you. If you're gonna receive
it, you're gonna receive it as a free gift of God's grace. God gives it freely to sinners.
Now our text says all men. Now this cannot mean that both
Adam and Christ the second Adam represented all men. It can't
mean that both represented every son of Adam. It can't mean that.
We know right now, we know from scripture that right now there
are people in hell. Well, those people could not
have been justified in Christ. There's no way. If they had no
sin, God never would have condemned them, would he? If Christ already
died for those people, if he was their representative and
Christ already died for them, the holy God would never have
demanded they die too, never. So this phrase, all men, can
only mean, the only possible meaning of it is, all men that
each one of these federal heads represented. Adam represented
all of his race. And that's everyone who would
ever come from Adam's loins with Adam's nature. And Christ represented
all of his race. That's everyone who would be
born again with his nature. That's all of God's elect, that's
who he represented. And he did what he came to do.
He saved all of his people from their sin. He made them righteous.
And he made them righteous the exact same way Adam made them
unrighteous, by representation. Verse 19. For as by one man's
disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall
many be made righteous. Now by Adam's single disobedience,
just one sin, Many were made sinners. Who are the many? Everyone
Adam represented, many. We were made guilty of sin and
we were given a sinful nature. How? By imputation, by representation. God says we did exactly what
Adam our representative did. Well, by Christ's perfect obedience
to the law, many were made righteous. Who are the many? It's everyone
that Christ represented. The obedience of Christ makes
his people not guilty. His obedience makes his people
holy and sinless. How? By imputation, by representation. God says we did exactly what
Christ our representative did. So when Christ did every thou
shout of the law, his people did too. And when Christ didn't
do, every thou shalt not of the law, his people didn't do them
either. Made not guilty, made sinless
and holy by representation. God's elect are made righteous,
even though they were not there personally to obey God. Now I hate, I hate, I hate this
phrase, just as if. I wish I could go back in time.
If I had a time machine, this is what I'd do. I'd go back and
find whoever made this, little cute definition of justified,
just as if I'd never sinned, and tell them, don't ever say
that publicly. Justified is not just as if I'd never sinned.
Justified is being made so that I have never sinned. But bear
with me for a moment. Every believer is just as innocent. Everyone that Christ represented
is just as innocent as if they were there personally to obey
God's law. because they were, they were
there personally to obey God's law. In Christ our representative. Just like we are just as guilty
as if we were there in the garden to disobey God and eat that fruit.
Because we were, we did take that fruit, we did disobey God
personally. In the person of Adam our representative. Now the key word here in verse
19 is made, made. This is the reality of representation. In Adam, we were made to be what
we really are, sinners. Adam didn't make it so that we
might someday sin. No, Adam made us real sinners,
didn't he? Real, guilty, vile rebels against
God. And in Christ, his people are
made to be what they really are, righteous. It's not that they
were given a righteous standing before God, like Adam had, that
we could lose. It's not that we'll be made righteous
someday, you know, in glory or something. No, right now, actually
made to be what we are, righteous, made just like Christ, our representative. That's what 2 Corinthians 5.21
is all about. For he hath made him sin for
us who knew no sin, that we might be made. the righteousness of
God in him, made what we really are because of Christ, our representative. Now you can't deny that's true,
can you? All of us were really made sinners because of what
Adam did to us. Surely, there's nobody here that
can deny sin. Can you deny you're a sinner?
Of course you can't. That's what we were made in Adam.
Well, every believer is made righteous because of what Christ
did for us as our representative. You cannot deny that you're righteous
if the Lord Jesus Christ is your representative. Righteousness
in Christ is just as real as sin is in Adam because of representation. Now, I told you this matter of
representation, it's fair. And it is cause for rejoicing. Someone might say, well, I don't
like being made guilty in Adam. I don't like somebody else making
me guilty. I don't like having Adam as my
representative. He's a bad representative. I'd
rather stand on my own. Well, all right, let me ask you. How's that going? I mean, how
are you doing with that? Have you sinned and made your
own self? Suppose Adam wasn't your representative. Have you sinned and made your
own self guilty? Well, of course you have. None of us can deny
our sin. Well, if you made yourself guilty by what you did, then
you're gonna have to do something to pay for your sin. You personally
are gonna have to do something to pay for that sin. But we can't
do that because everything we do is sinful. Everything we'd
have to offer to God is sin. If a representative didn't make
you guilty, then another representative can't make you not guilty, can't
make you righteous, and you're on your own. That would be bad
news. But here's the good news. If
you're made guilty and add on your representative, then another
representative can come and make you not guilty. That's the good
news of the gospel. And that is exactly what Christ
did for his people. This is not a maybe thing. This
is not something that might happen. Christ did that for his people.
He made them not guilty. He made them righteous. And that
is cause for rejoicing. The gospel of representation
is the only way that a dead, guilty, stinking, rotten sinner
like you and me can be made righteous. It's through the obedience of
our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let's go back to this parenthetical
phrase. This is so good. In this parenthetical
phrase, Paul gives us two proofs. All men really did sin and become
guilty in that. And then he gives us reason to
rejoice in Christ our Savior. In verse 13, Romans 5. For until
the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where
there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that
was to come. Now, before God gave the law to Moses, sin was
in the world, wasn't it? It's obvious. One of the first
things we read about happening after the fall of Adam was Cain
killing his brother Abel. Why did a man, I don't know how
he killed him, I just always assumed he took a rock and beat
his brother's brains in. What would possess him to do
that? Cain became a sinner in Adam, his father. Adam's nature
was imparted into Cain. That's why he killed his brother.
Sin was in the world, it's obvious. And that was way before the Law
of Moses was given, wasn't it? So it's not breaking the Law
of Moses that makes anybody a sinner, is it? Cain never even knew about
the Law of Moses. We were made sinners, not when
we broke the Law of Moses, but when Adam disobeyed God. That's
what's called original sin. We all became sinners in Adam's
first sin. Not when we broke the Law of
Moses, but when Adam sinned. So here's the good news of the
gospel. There's rest in Christ. You can quit your work. If we
were not made sinners when we personally broke the law of Moses,
then we can't make ourselves righteous by trying to keep the
law of Moses either, can we? No, just quit trying to keep
the law of Moses. We didn't do anything to make
ourselves guilty, unrighteous, and we can't do anything to make
ourselves righteous either. We're made righteous, how? Through
the obedience of Christ, our representative. In the exact
same way, we were made unrighteous through Adam, our first representative. And this applies to all of us. This applies to everyone. And
Paul proves that here. All of us have sinned against
God in Adam. That's why we die. That's why
we die. Now, no one can die unless they've
sinned against God, right? The wages of sin is death. You
cannot die unless you've sinned. Now, God's holy. God is not going
to charge someone with sin if there's no law for them to break.
But here's Cain, here's Abel, here's Adam. God's not gonna
give the law of Moses for over 2,000 years The Law of Moses got nothing
to do with it, does it? Is that obvious to it? If no
one from Adam to Moses ever broke the Law of Moses, no one there
ever broke, they didn't read the Ten Commandments and break
them, why'd all those people die? Because they were made sinners
in Adam. They sinned against God in Adam. We all personally disobeyed God
and took that fruit and ate it, and Adam, our representative.
Everyone who lived before Moses died because they were made sinners
in Adam. That's the first proof. We're
all made sinners in Adam. It's all the people who died
before the law of Moses was given. The law of Moses didn't have
anything to do with it. They broke a law. It was that one
rule, don't eat that fruit, and they all broke it in Adam. Now
here's a second proof. All of us became sinners in Adam. We all became guilty in Adam.
It's babies dying. Both before the law was given
and after the law was given. Now a baby has not had the opportunity
to willfully sin against God. They don't have that capacity.
They haven't done that yet. Then why do babies die? We have
a gen, I have a daughter, works in the NICU. And it's happened
a few times. She calls, she gets off work,
and she calls, and they had a baby die, and she's so upset. It's
just, all the nurses just get together, they eat chocolate,
and they just, you know, it's just, they cry, it's just, it's
a horrible, horrible day, horrible. That's so sad. Why did that baby
die? Because that baby was made guilty
and Adam, the same way you and I are, That baby has a sin nature
that it received from its daddy, even if it hasn't had the opportunity
to willfully act upon it yet. Now, only the guilty can die. Only the guilty can. Death reigns
over the entire human race in a bloody rule of terror because
we're all guilty. Death reigns over us so strongly
There's no escaping it. I mean, I don't care how far
science advances, they're never going to break the rule, the
reign of death over our race. We can't break it. We're guilty.
The guilty must die. That includes babies. Now, I
want you to listen to me for a minute. Like I said, I don't think there's
anything more sad than the death of a baby. And when that happens
every time, we know Adam's sin caused that. Oh, I feel sorry
for poor old Adam. Here he was in the garden, and
for 900 years after he left that garden, every single time Adam
saw something die, an animal, another human being, his own
son. How many things did he see die in 900 years? Every time he thought, I did
that. Even the death of babies. Now
scripture does not teach babies who die go to hell. As a matter
of fact, scripture teaches just the opposite of that. But babies
are not taken into glory because they're innocent. They're not
taken into glory because they're cute or we love them. Actually,
they are taken into glory because they're innocent. it's because
another paid for their sin. It's because another made them
righteous. Somebody else did that for them,
just like somebody else made them guilty. So here's where
Christ the second Adam, the second representative comes in. In this
darkest of hours, when we're talking about death, we're talking
about our loved ones dying, we're talking about babies dying, in
this darkest of hours, there's light and hope that springs up
from Christ the second representative man. Paul says that Adam was
a figure or a type of Christ. The him that is to come here
is Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ. Adam is a type of Christ, but
mostly, Adam is an anti-type of Christ. Adam is a figure of
Christ in this sense. He's a representative of his
people, just like Christ is the representative of his people.
But in every other way, Adam is an anti-type of Christ because
Adam accomplished for his people the exact opposite of what Christ
accomplished for his people. Adam brought in sin. Christ brought
in righteousness. Adam brought in death. Christ
brings in eternal life. Adam brought in separation from
God. Christ brings in reconciliation. Adam and Christ, they're both
ahead of a race, aren't they? But oh, they're two entirely
different races. Look here at verse 15. But not
as the offense, so also is the free gift. For 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. Now we first read this verse,
it might be hard for us today to understand what it's saying
because of the way it's written. But this is all it's saying.
You cannot compare the greatness of Christ to Adam. The two cannot be compared. You
can't compare the effect of the free gift of God's grace to the
effect of Adam's sin. The glory of Christ just can't
be compared to the shame of Adam. What Adam did to his people is
offensive. What Christ gives is glory. a
glorious gift of God's free grace. And Christ gives more than what
Adam took away. Paul goes on with that thought
in verse 16. And not as it was by 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, Adam just can't be compared
to Christ, the second representative man. Through just one sin, one
sin, Adam brought judgment and death upon everybody he represented. Everybody in Adam is judged,
and the only judgment that can be had is guilty, and the only
sentence for that judgment is eternal death. But Christ, the
second Adam comes, and he gives his people freedom from every
sin, not just one, every sin by justifying, making not guilty,
everybody he represents. And the sentence that they must
receive at God's bar of justice is eternal life with Christ in
glory. That's the only sentence they
can have. Christ made them not guilty. See, Adam brought condemnation
on everybody he represented. Christ made everyone he represented
not guilty. so they can never be condemned
by the law, ever. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. He made them not guilty. What
Christ gives to everyone he represented is so great and so glorious,
it just can't be compared to all the ugly things that Adam
did to his race. Adam can't be compared to Christ.
because Christ undid everything that Adam did, and much more,
much more. The righteousness and the life
that Christ gives can never be lost. It's not just a righteous
standing before God that could be lost through disobedience
like Adam had. No, Christ gives his people eternal
life. Life that can never be lost.
Christ doesn't give his people a righteous standing. He makes
them righteous so they can never be condemned. You can't compare
death and life. I mean, you know, we've all had
a loved one die. You see him lay there in the
casket and they kind of sort of look like themselves, but
not really. Why don't they really look like
they used to look? You can't compare death and life,
can you? You just can't compare them.
How much more can you not compare spiritual death and eternal life?
The two just can't be compared. Now that is glorious good news. That is news we can rejoice in. Now I can't quit till I deal
with these last two verses. I hope no one here, but somebody
might ask, somebody might ask you one day, all right, if we
didn't become sinners because we personally broke the law of
Moses, And if we can't make ourselves righteous by keeping the law
of Moses, why did God bother giving it? It seems like a waste
of time. No, God doesn't waste anybody's time. God gave the
law to make Christ and to make the free gift of his grace all
the more glorious. Verse 20, moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. Here's why God gave the law,
so that both sin and God's grace would abound in our understanding. The only way we can understand
how much sin abounds is by looking at the law. I wish I could get people, people
I know, to quit looking at the law. Like if I, if I, if I, you
know, outwardly keep these 10 commandments, then boy, I'm living
a good Christian life. No, no. All that can happen when we look
at the law is see how my sin abounds. That's all we can, if
we look at it honestly, the law is a mirror. Chris Cunningham
said this one, Tom, I love it. He said, the law is not a list
of things telling us what to do. The law is an indictment
of our sin. The law is a mirror that holds
up and we see Everything I do, everything I think, everything
I desire is sin. I'm not just a sinner, I'm a
great sinner. The law shows me how my sin abounds. And only when we see our sin
and our shame and our guilt, how it abounds, only when we
see that will we lose all hope in ourselves. That's why the
law was given. So we'll lose all hope in ourselves.
Oh, but thank God, where sin abounded. I can't paint a picture
how big sin, I cannot paint a picture big enough, the mountain of our
sin. But thank God, where sin abounded, and sin abounds. God's grace did much more abound. God's grace is greater than all
of our sin. The blood of Christ is greater
than all of our sin. His blood cleanses us from all
sin, all of it. Oh, there's a stain of sin, but
the cleansing blood of Christ goes deeper than the stain is
gone. Oh, where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound. And yes, death reigns over these
mortal bodies, but Christ reigned, the reign of King Christ. is
far greater, verse 21. That as sin hath reigned unto
death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Death reigns over these mortal
bodies. We're gonna die. Unless Christ returns first,
we're gonna die. Sin in this flesh demands this
flesh dies. Who would want to live in this
flesh for very long? What an awful, horrible thing.
That's what Adam did to us. But everyone that Christ represented
has already escaped eternal death. You already have eternal life.
It's not you're gonna have it someday. He that believeth on
the Son hath everlasting life, right now. Life-giving grace
reigns. It reigns in a reign that cannot
be broken because of the obedience, because of the righteousness
of our Lord Jesus Christ. That life can never be taken
away from God's people Because it doesn't depend upon them.
It all depends upon Him. And His righteousness demands
eternal life for everyone He represented. I want to give you just one statement
in conclusion. Before I became a pastor for
26 years, I worked in a warehouse. And we would, every month, get
a profit and loss statement. Every single month we'd get one.
And you know what I did every single time for 26 years, every
time, I turned to the back page. I want to see what's the conclusion.
I don't want to start filtering through all that stuff till I
see, did we make money or lose money? How much money? How do
we do? Here's the conclusion. And I was sitting there thinking,
I pray this is the conclusion that you draw from every message
you ever hear me preach. This is the conclusion. Trust
Christ. Just trust Him. Trust Christ
to be your all. Trust Him to be all of your salvation. Quit your working. Quit looking
to the law. Just quit. Quit. And rest in Christ. Just rest
in Him. There's rest in Christ. Oh, there's
a good hope in him. Isn't that cause for rejoicing?
There's a good hope. There's a sure hope in our Lord
Jesus Christ. May God make that so in each
heart here this morning that we leave here trusting in him.
May the Lord bless you.