If you will, turn back in your
Bibles to Romans 5. If you will, briefly pull up
Deuteronomy 25, verses 1 and 2. Let us look at that for just
a moment as we lay a foundation for this next consideration. We're in Romans 5 and we are
dealing with a glorious and infinitely important subject around the
justification of the people of God concept or the doctrine or
the term justification could evade us if we do not understand
the enormous, the enormous wisdom that goes into God justifying
a sinner. If we think that justification
is something that can easily be accomplished on the part of
God with regards to you, you have not understood justification
right. Deuteronomy chapter 25 verse
1 and 2 is basically the mind of God because it's part of the
law of God and when we properly understand law we understand
that all true law is an extraction of the will and the character
of God. This I will be pressing home
more significantly when we get into Romans 6. where the apostle
will help us to understand that because we are not under the
law per se, that God's people are not lawless people. They're not lawless people that
the idea of throwing away the law would be tantamount to throwing
away God. Because the character of God
is the basis for which law proceeds and expresses itself in its will
towards its creatures. But how does God justify an ungodly
person, a sinful person, a wicked person? How can a holy God justify
you and I when we're sinners? That's a very important question.
When the Bible clearly says in the New Testament he has justified
the ungodly now Deuteronomy chapter 25 verse 1 says if there be a
controversy between men and they come into judgment that the judges
may judge them then they shall what justify the righteous and
Condemn the wicked God must always justify the righteous and He
must always condemn the wicked. He could never be holy or righteous
or just and justify the wicked and condemn the righteous. If
that's an eternal axiom of truth with God, you and I have a problem. So don't ever assume arrest with
the notion that because God justified you that that was some quaint
act that did not take omnipotence and Wisdom to accomplish since
God cannot change his character and he must punish sin and you
and I are worthy of punishment technically speaking God has
a problem here if he wants me to be his and And he has a holy
law that demands that I be condemned and go to hell. He's got to solve
that problem, doesn't he? I certainly can't. And you can't
because we're guilty. We're guilty. And all we deserve
is for God to be a righteous judge and punish us. Verse two
says this. And it shall be if the wicked
man be worthy to be beaten, and I am. that the judge shall cause
him to lie down, that is to submit to the verdict, submit to the
sentence, submit to the judgment, not fight against it, submit
to it. This is what Paul meant in Romans
chapter 3 when he says that the whole world might become guilty
before God and every mouth stopped. See, God is the judge that sits
on His throne and judges all of humanity. And here the man
who must face God in all of His holiness and righteousness and
is guilty of sin will be made to lie down. Notice what it says,
the judge shall cause him to lie down and to be beaten before
the face of the judge. See God is the judge who punishes
sin before his face So why the book of Revelation talks about
in the smoke of their torment went up forever and ever in the
presence of the Lord There's a sense in which the Holy Judge
will punish sin for all eternity in his presence It's an awesome
thought and yet it says and he shall be beaten before his face
according to his what fault By a certain number, verse three,
this is a final verse as we contemplated, 40 stripes he may give him and
not exceed, lest if he should exceed and beat him above these
many stripes, then your brother should seem vile unto you. Israel
was under the tutelage of the sovereign Lord. He was king,
they were his slaves. He was their father, they were
his son, and God would teach Israel his holiness, his righteousness
through these methods as they would actually be practicated
in the judicial system of Israel. And can you imagine Israel watching
a man being beaten in front of the judge because of their rebellion
and sin against that particular community under that particular
moral indictment? And you would empathize with
that man if you knew that you were just as guilty as him, only
this time you didn't get caught. You would empathize with him.
And the judge said, beat him with so many stripes and do not
go beyond that which is appropriate. Now what he's teaching is what
we call justice, not mere vindication, not the kind of overt unbridled
uncontrolled wrath and anger that pours out on people simply
because you want to destroy them the justice of God is precisely
that it's justice and when a man were was beating with five stripes
or ten stripes and no more than 40 people would understand that
God is a God of justice that man would have learned his lesson
the community would have learned their lesson and they would have
moved forward in the fear and in the love and in the reverence
of God because they would understand no sin is without some recompense
of punishment we still have a problem and that's that problem is this
how does God justify the ungodly how would God Stand you in his
presence in the midst of his holiness and righteousness and
say concerning you That you are righteous when you know that
there's no righteousness in you the only way God could do it
is if he had a device a mechanism a methodology by which he could
remove you from your place of guilt and put another in your
place and and putting that other in your place, look upon that
other, determined by the righteous virtue of that other that that
man is righteous and take his righteousness and give it to
you and account to you the righteousness of that other man so that you
go away scot-free and the justice of God has not been injured.
We call it the doctrine of substitution. We call it the doctrine of representation. It is the one necessary doctrine
by which if God were to save you and I, He must implement
this doctrine. It's the doctrine of substitution. You and I need a substitute who
can meet the demands of God's law. We need a substitute who
can then stand before God on our behalf in a character and
in a conduct by which when God judges him, he says of that person
who now represents me, he's completely righteous. He's completely holy. He's completely perfect. And
the verdict is not guilty. And that verdict is imputed to
me by the grace of God. So I go out of the courtroom
of God never ever once again having to worry about being punished
for my sin. Ladies and gentlemen, that's
the glorious doctrine that we're dealing with right now. Back
in Romans chapter 5, let's go to Romans 5. We got work to do
now because I want to follow the leading of the Spirit of
God in Romans chapter 5 to press home in your heart and mind the
magnitude of our deliverance by Christ from the guilt of our
sin. See, the Bible says to whom much
is forgiven, that person loves much. But to the degree that
you and I are ignorant of what Christ did for us, you and I
cannot respond in love. It is therefore essential that
we stay under the gospel, hear the gospel over and over and
over again, and bore down into the depths of its truth so that
all of the riches of the gospel permeate our life, inform our
mind, change our hearts, and cause us to love God as he ought
to be loved. cause us to love him as he ought
to be loved for his amazing grace which he has bestowed upon guilty
undeserving sinners as it were so that the title of our message
today as we just touch on a number of points because we're dealing
with terse material here Romans chapter 5 is the abounding grace
of justification the abounding grace of justification To be
justified by God is to be declared righteous. It is the verdict
rendered in the courtroom of heaven by which the people of
God, chosen in Christ, having been made righteous before God
in Christ, stand permanently free of all divine condemnation
and guilt. You guys believe that, right?
We are and have been made the righteousness of God in Christ
if we are in Christ. And what Paul has done throughout
the book of Romans chapters one through five is masterfully proved
to us that we need a propitiation, which propitiation God provided
in the person of his son, Jesus, by which our justification was
accomplished. And by the time we get to Romans
five, which is where we are now, we have been enjoying the fruits
and benefits of the work of justification. Have we not? The fruits and benefits.
Let me help you again when we talk about the three critical
doctrines of the gospel. The first is justification The
second is sanctification. The final one is what? Glorification
learn those three main doctrinal headings because under them are
all the other doctrines properly placed for our edification when
we learn what it means to be justified by God what we are
being taught is about a work that God does and apart from
you, outside of you, having nothing to do with you personally. So that justification is never
a matter of how you feel or what you do. It is always a matter
of what God did for you in Christ. Therefore, the proposition that
attaches to this doctrine is the proposition for Christ died
for my sins outside of me. I could feel as guilty as the
devil. I could feel as rotten as all
the host of hell. And I can still be the very righteousness
of God in Christ. Because my standing has nothing
to do with how I feel See in my faith is attached to not myself
my feelings my condition my state but to the Word of God which
declares me to be righteous in Christ and Because I have a faith
that's given to me by the grace of God. I can actually overcome
the guilt of my own conscience Hallelujah Hallelujah, I'm not
talking about abusing faith. I'm talking about yielding to
the faith of the elect of God's elect that light precious faith
that he gives to us by which we can cleave to the promises
of God Because the promises of God are the only thing that's
gonna get you through this storm That's the only thing that's
gonna get you through and when you have lived long enough as
I have You will come to discover that there is an enemy that constantly
lurks in your life greater than the devil and Greater than the
world that would send you to hell if he could and that's your
own nature And you have to know how to deal with that not on
the grounds of who you are But on the grounds of who he is and
what he did That's what faith is able to do overcome the flesh
I'm gonna set that down for us here today and it's so it's important
for you to understand that the foundation the substratum of
the gospel is what God did for you outside of you and the person
of Christ has nothing to do with how you feel and Don't ever tie
justification to feeling. Now when it comes to sanctification,
that's another thing. Sanctification is what God does
in you. And by the way, until a work of sanctification has
occurred by which God is giving you faith, you can't even believe
what God did for you outside of you in the person of Christ.
So while they are distinct, they are never separate. They are
one golden chain. Am I making some sense? What
we learned in Romans chapter five was one of the gifts that
fall out of the work of justification by the proprietary sacrifice
of Christ is faith. Not all men have faith, but some
do. And the ones who do have faith rejoice in God. Thank him for Christ and love
the doctrine of justification. I love the doctrine of justification
is absolutely a marvelous doctrine how God would even take the time
to figure out my problem and Solve it for me and then own
me as his son when I have no right to be called his son more
of a right to be called a devil and But I am a son of the living
God on the merits of what Christ has done for me in the Father's
electing love of me before the foundation of the world. That's
good news for a brother. That's a good news doctrine a
good news contemplation and under that rubric What fell out was
faith what fell out as you saw was access before God Romans
5 1 What fell out was a standing in grace that allows us to dwell
in the presence of God and never get kicked out We have access
into his presence by the grace of God because of Christ. I stand
in the presence of God and And I will stand in the presence
of God for all eternity. And in the presence of God, there
is pleasures and joys forevermore. We get to rejoice in His glory.
We get to marvel at his love for us and remember what we learned
in romans chapter 5 verse 3 and 4 Not only are we rejoicing in
the hope of glory That is the return of christ and then the
full inheritance given to us that's promised in christ But
god tells us that you and I triumph over the mess we go through in
this life I love that and not only so but we glory in what?
tribulations See now when you grow up, you'll learn how to
glory in tribulation when you grow up, because tribulation
does not come without data. See, the data is this. God says
it's all working for your good. God says I'm working everything
after the counsel of my own will. God says very plainly, though
these outward things occur, though these temporary afflictions occur,
they are working for you a far greater weight of eternal glory. So they never come ignorantly.
They always come with promises. And God says, I will deliver
you out of every one of them. Remember what we learned? He's
going to throw you in the water to teach you how to swim. He's
going to cast you into the fire and purge you of all your impurities. He's going to take you through
the deep waters, but he promises to go with you because he paid
for you. And since God can't lie, change
or fail, he's going to have you for himself. But watch this. You're going to learn how to
swim. You're going to learn how to walk through the fire, and
you're going to learn how to give God the glory for it when
you do. You might as well call your name
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because those brothers stood
as a marked type and pattern of what it means to glory in
God come hell or high water. Neb, that's our version, told
you I grew up in the hood so we cut the syllables down because
we ain't got time for it. Neb, we are not anxious as concerning
your decree. You can throw us in the fire,
you can do whatever you want to because we serve a God that
we know is able to deliver us if he wants to. Now watch this,
and if he don't want to, we're still cool with it. Now that's
called being in love with God. That's called being in love with
God. And that's called triumphing in the midst of your troubles.
Your troubles do not have the mastery over you when you understand
the gospel. Death is not something that you
equivocate or fear or shrink back from like our brothers right
there on the borderline of Egypt and Libya, ready to give God
glory. You know what they said to those
ISIS murderers? Would you please simply let the
world know that we're doing this for Jesus? Would you simply let
the world know we're dying for Christ? Since you're gonna put
us on internet anyway, just let the world know we're doing this
for Jesus. That is not done in vain, and
we thank you for it. What grace. What great see justification
calls those brothers to overcome. And do you know how it impacted
the city from which they came? It gave them boldness to stand
up for Christ, ready for the enemy to come back again and
get another group of God's lambs to lead to the slaughter that
he might be glorified in this abounding grace by which he has
justified us freely in Jesus Christ. as Paul has laid down
the virtues of faith and joy and triumph in Christ through
suffering and difficulty. And then he told us in Romans
5 around verse 6 how that the Holy Ghost constantly labors
to pour into our hearts, that's verse 5, the love of God in Christ. And so what he does is he offsets
our troubles by constant revelations and reminders of Christ's love
for us. so that we are constantly being
reminded that Christ died for you. Christ died for you. When you were at your worst,
he died for you. It can only get better from here. That's the goal of the Spirit
of God in the life of the believer when she or he is struggling
with the issues of sin in the world. And then what he did was
brought us to a place of which I call the security of justification. He has to secure the doctrine
of justification properly in your heart and mind. When men
and women give up the gospel and go into apostasy, and we
talked a little bit about it this morning, when men and women
go give up the gospel and go into apostasy, it's because they
do not understand the doctrine of justification. They do not
understand it. And they are compelled, therefore,
to make sure that their salvation is secure by something they do. When you do not understand and
are not persuaded of the immutable, unchangeable love of God in Christ
for your soul, you must get about working for your own security.
Am I making some sense, ladies and gentlemen? You must get about
working for your own security. And so God's elect will be taught
the gospel until God anchors their soul in Jesus Christ so
that no matter what storms blow, they have an anchor that holds
them sure. And that anchor is our forerunner
who has already gone into heaven for us, waiting for us when it's
our turn to go. That's the work of the Holy Ghost
in the preaching and exposition of the word. This is why we love
to do it. And so what Paul is doing now is teaching what we
call the doctrine or the concept of the security of our justification
by calling our attention to the man. And the man to whom he's
calling our attention is Jesus. This puts us way outside of the
whole scope and realm of our justification. And we are forced
to look at one person. And when we look to him, we have
to simply ask the question, is he mine? And am I his? Because if I am, I'm good to
go. Now I want to share something with you today about this man.
He is said, according to Romans chapter five, verse 14, to be
the last Adam of which the first Adam was a type. Point number
one, therefore, in your outline is the typology of Adam to Christ. The typology of Adam to Christ. When you hear the word typology,
don't allow your eyes to glaze over. One of the damning things that
take place in Christian churches today is the willing ignorance
of people not to be interested in the wisdom of God. One of
the damning things to take place in the church is becoming disinterested
in God's wisdom. And everything in God's Bible
is his wisdom. What that means is when your
teachers and your pastor use terms that are biblical, you
are to give the highest interest to that term. Oh yeah, typology. How many syllables? Typology. I know that causes us to struggle
who went to government schools, but hold on to the four syllables. Because typology simply means
God is patient enough to teach you what he did for you, beginning
with the ABCs. Because the way your Bible is
written, the way your Bible was conscribed, was for God to take
earthly things to point to heavenly things. Temporal things, eternal
things. Things seen to things unseen.
This is what you do when you want to train your children up
in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. Typology then are pictures
and patterns and symbols and images and constructs that serve
as an example to point to something else far more significant and
far more rich. Now I'm only gonna just touch
on a few things with regards to the typology of Adam. But
all through your Bible there are typological patterns. You
know that, right? Those of you who love the Word
of God, you know the Bible is filled with type, doesn't it?
Fill with typology. The ark of the covenant is a
type. The ark of Noah is a type. The sheep is a type. Sacrifices
are a type. Are you following what I'm saying?
Typology runs all the way through the scripture. And it allows
you to latch a hold to the historical narrative and run to its redemptive
implication and draw from it the benefits of Jesus Christ
for your soul. So when Paul says in Romans chapter
5 verse 14 that Adam was made in the similitude of him who
was to come, Verse 14, in the similitude of Adam's transgression,
who is the figure of him that was to come, that word figure
is the Greek word tupos from which we get the term typology.
And I want to just share with you that fundamental principle
so you can see it everywhere in the scriptures. In your outline,
under typology, what does the term typology mean? The term
typology means to make a print. A tupos is a mold wherein it
has a pre-designed shape and form. And you take something
that's malleable and you press it into the mold. And when you
press it into the mold, it conforms to the pre-designed form in that
mold so that when it hardens, you take it out of that mold
and it looks like the mold. Are you guys hearing me? That's
what a tupas is. And therefore, tupas in the first
century were often brands that were pressed on wood so that
when it presses inside the wood, the wood collapses and takes
on the shape of that brand. That's a tupas. Tupac or a type
is what we get when we use the word print in the gospel of John
chapter 20 when Thomas says I will not believe until I see the nail
prints in his hands See, and so a type is a print. It's an
image permanently and indelibly pressed into something so that
when you see that type, you know there's a reality behind it.
So the term type, tupos, means to print or to make a mark or
to create a pattern. It is an example in the scriptures.
Go with me in your Bible to 1 Corinthians 10, verse 6 and 11. I'll use
just a couple to press home this point. Now, actually what we're
talking about at present is part of what we call biblical interpretation.
That you're not going to make any success in the scriptures
unless you're ready to acknowledge that the Bible uses typology
virtually everywhere. And here's what Paul alludes
to as he's warning and admonishing the church at Corinth about her
behavior and conduct. What does he do? He uses the
Old Testament as a model. to warn the church at Corinth
that just as Israel in the Old, so are you. That's what we call
a typological principle. Just as Israel, so are you. So what he's saying is, if you
go back to the Old Testament, see how Israel behaved, you can
look at yourself and see whether or not you are being pressed
into that mold. So watch what he says. I'm going
to be reading verses... I'm going to actually read verses
1 through 6 to give you a context. Moral, brethren, I would not
that you should be ignorant. That's right. That's why we teach
so that you're not ignorant. How that all our fathers were
under the cloud and all passed through the sea and they were
all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Verse one
and two is what we call a covenant paradigm. This is what I talked
to you about last week. Moses was a covenant paradigm. Remember
he brought in the covenant. He established a covenant with
Israel. Adam was a covenant. Moses was a covenant. Both covenants
lead to the last covenant and his name is Jesus. Jesus brought
in a new covenant, right? This is the New Testament in
my blood, right? So this is a covenant paradigm. If I had time to talk
about it, you would learn then that this too is a type of how
we are delivered out of Egypt into the presence of God through
a covenant work that required the shedding of blood, Passover,
and baptism, the Red Sea. And so he goes on to say in verse
3, and they did eat all the same spiritual meat. What is that
meat? Christ. Is he not the bread of life?
Gospel isn't that manner that came down in the Old Testament
a type of the manna We there's typology again verse 4 and they
did all drink the same spiritual drink What drink were they drinking
up the Spirit of God? It's not the Spirit of God typified
by water as we've been learning several weeks now And the rock
in that wilderness is a type of Jesus Christ and when the
rock was smitten which was a reference to his crucifixion out came water
and to satiate the souls of those who have been brought into covenant.
Do you guys see the typology? It's very important for you to
understand those Old Testament patterns point to realities in
our life. By the way, as we get ready to
deal with this last point, do you drink of the gospel? Does it actually do something
for you? Are you actually believing that
gospel so that it's impacting your life? If you and I are traveling
through the wilderness and God provides a water source like
that, You have one option to drink or starve to death. Are
you starving or is your soul? Satiated with the goodness of
god in the gospel of his grace because it's available for men
and women who are willing to drink By the way that rock followed
them all the way to the promised land Isn't god good to us? And watch this i'm going to show
you this again later on down. We were complaining all the way
Weren't we complaining all the way? And he's still giving us
water. Why? Because he's good for his own
goodness sake. See, I'd have cut the water off
on you. These complainers, let's see
how they go for three days without water. Give me some respect. But God know he let the water
run because he needs to achieve some goals. But I'm asking you,
do you drink or do you just stare? And so we see in verse six these
words after that he speaks of that rock that followed them
being Christ, clearly developing the typology. But with many of
them, verse five, was he not well pleased for they were overthrown
in the wilderness. We know the reason why, don't
we? That the word not mixed with faith in them that heard it does
not profit you. See, faith is the mechanism by
which we actually imbibe the word, bring it into our system.
so that it benefits us. Verse six, here's our verse.
Now these things were our example. See that word? They were patterns
and types for us. Here's the purpose. To the intent
that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. Do you see that? As they also
lusted. The word again is in verse 11.
Now all these things happened unto them for examples. Amazing! What Paul just stated
was it happened to them and God used it as an example to give
to us That's why it's written down. And so what we see with
typology is that it becomes a pattern going back to our PowerPoint
I want to get begin to press forward Point number one areas
typology of Adam to Christ. It's a type. It's a pattern and
here's my second proposition You and I are all called to be
forged and shaped by the gospel paradigm You and I are all called
to be forged and shaped in the mold of the gospel paradigm. That's Romans 6, verse 17, more
fully to be developed when we get there. But if you pull up
verse 17, notice what the apostle Paul says in his thanksgiving
that some of the Roman church had actually been converted.
But God be thanked that you used to be slaves of what? But you
have now obeyed from the what? That form, see that word form? That's our word tupos. That mold
of doctrine. That mold of doctrine which was
delivered you. That's a bad Greek construction.
It really should be that mold of doctrine into which you were
pressed. I love it. God took me and by
the gospel forced me into his mold, changed my heart, changed
my mind and began to shape me into the image of Jesus Christ.
That's what happens with every man or woman that's truly born
again. We will develop that down the line. So going back to our
PowerPoint, the basic application is this. We are all called to
be what? Forged and what? Shaped by what? The Gospel into His image. One
of the reasons we sit under solid teaching is that the Spirit of
God can do what He said He would do when we sit under the Gospel. And that is to transform us into
His image. Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't
happen any other way. And ain't nobody gonna be in heaven. I
know that's bad language Ain't nobody gonna be in heaven on
the last day that don't look like Jesus See because the only
people gonna be in the kingdom are the father's children and
they all look alike and The reason why is the one man that we're
talking about right now the one man see the father is gloriously
satisfied with him and because the Son looks just like the Father.
And the Holy Ghost's work is to make us look just like the
Son who looks just like the Father. Oh, I'm sorry, ain't no desire
of salvation and glory. You don't get your own outfit,
your own wardrobe, have your own autonomy. We all looking
like one person, Jesus Christ. We're talking character now,
okay? We're talking character. Point number two in our outline.
This is very important. Let's go to work then. What Paul
does is he establishes parallels, see, and the gospel is for thinking
people. You actually have to think. If
you're not willing to think, you can be deceived, duped, bamboozled,
hoodwinked, and sent to hell because you are more emotionally
driven than rational driven. You really have to think. The
Holy Spirit works with us through his word to teach us who Jesus
is. What you and I have to have is
a revelation of his glory, and that only comes through knowledge,
not heebie-jeebies. Knowledge. Are you hearing me? Not heebie-jeebies. If some entity
is lifting you up in your room at night, it ain't the Holy Ghost. I just want you to know, he always
works through his word. And the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. And there was nothing that was
made that the Word did not make. And if you are a new creature
in Christ, it was the Word that did it. It was the Word that
did it. He must enter into your heart,
take out that stony heart, put in a heart of flesh, and mold
you into the image of Jesus Christ. Forget the feelings, forget the
emotions until after you have had a revelation of his glory
through the gospel. Then you can shout and dance.
But if that thing picked you up while you shouted and danced,
you better turn around and rebuke him. Point number two, there
are parallels. So what Paul does is he teaches
us, under typology, what you will have in typology are what
we call similarities between the type and the reality. Similarities
between the type and the reality. But under typology, you will
also have contrasts or disparities between the type and the reality
too. Obviously, whenever you have a type over against the
reality, there are things about the reality of which the type
could never actually achieve. So you can't have a one-to-one
full equation of the type and the reality so as to say that
everything that's in the type is in the reality. Are you ladies
and gentlemen hearing me? So what you have is a necessary
inferiority in the typology by design to lead you to the sufficiency
of the reality by design. So we'll see a few similarities
and then I'm going to call your attention to a few contrasts
to make your heart happy if you know Jesus. Because this is what
Paul is doing. He gives us the very clear implications
of Christ being like Adam, and as we learned it last week, that
Adam becomes a federal head and representative of the human race,
right? This again is kind of the doctrine of substitution,
but in fact it's not the doctrine of substitution with regards
to Adam, because Adam becomes a model of Christ in that he
was the first man that was created by God. And what makes him typical
of Christ is this. Adam was not the byproduct of
a mother and a father. Even though we call our sons
and our daughters firstborn from us, in reality there's only one
firstborn and that's the one who was made first. And as Adam
was made in the likeness of Christ, God the Father formed Adam. of
the dust of the ground breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life so he became the first man and what that means is there
would be no duplicate God would not repeat that pattern so Adam
becomes what we call the firstborn so Jesus Christ is the firstborn
meaning he is of God his father and there will never be another
one like Jesus So adam's the firstborn type of the first one
which jesus is he's the firstborn of every creature, right? By
which god made everything in the world. And so this pattern
ends right here in terms of them being first So we call adam the
first adam. That's first corinthians chapter
6 We call jesus the firstborn of many brethren 8 romans 8 29
and I love this this series of disparity But i'll toss it out
to you. You can call adam the first Adam
one, but you can't call him the last The only person you can
call the first and the last is the one that is himself like
God. You guys follow that logic? And
so there is a similarity between Adam and Christ in that under
our typological consideration, our parallel consideration, he
is a firstborn figure. And by the way, when you read
Romans chapter 5, verses 14 through the end of the chapter, what
you discover is that the apostle under inspiration of the Spirit
uses this term one man 12 times. The word one man is used 12 times.
Now, again, this is a side note. It's beautiful when you learn
how to explain and interpret and exposit and exegete scripture,
because you see things in the text that are not obvious. But the one man is stated 12
times. And in the scriptures, the number 12 is the number for
spiritual government. Adam was a ruler of a governing
kingdom. That's the kingdom of the flesh,
the kingdom of this world. And Jesus Christ is the ruler
of a governing kingdom as well. That's the kingdom of God. And
this is why God worked in the Old Testament paradigm of the
second son, the children of Israel, with twelve Children 12 sons
and this is why in the New Testament Jesus established 12 what apostles
the number 12 signifies spiritual government so inherent in Paul's
argument of the parallels between Adam and Jesus is Authority and
government over all those that are in that man Though God says
that the whole human race is in Adam and therefore in Adam
all what all die God better start learning Bible verses in Adam
all die Even so, in Christ, all shall be what? Made alive. Because
he's the governor, he's the king, he's the ruler, he's the firstborn
of many brethren. Secondly, by implication, therefore,
both of those men are representatives. This is what makes Adam also
uniquely different from his son, Cain and Abel. This gets into
the doctrine. I'm not going to go deep, but
I do want you to be able to see the nuances. You can't say that
Cain is exactly like Adam. You can't say that Abel is exactly
like Adam. What do I mean by that? Adam
possessed within himself the privilege and responsibility,
the awesome privilege and responsibility of total representation of the
whole human race. So that what Adam did affected
all of us, not Cain, not Abel, not you, not me. See, you and
I can sin and we're going to hell for our own sin. Your children
will go to hell for their own sin, but they can't go to hell
for the sin you commit because you and I are not representatives.
We're not federal heads. This is the unique role of Adam
and Jesus. Am I making some sense? So we
will all go to hell for our own sin, but none of us now occupy
the role of actually being a federal head, only Adam and only Jesus. And so you're reading your Bible,
two very interesting accounts. It's done three times, but only
pulled up once. It will speak to the gathering of the children
of Israel together to go to war against their foes. And in that
text, it will say, and they all gathered together as one man. Judges chapter 20 verse 11, listen
to the text. This is also done in Ezra chapter
3 verse 1 as well. Look at it yourself in your own
time and marvel how the Spirit of God affirms this doctrine
of representation of all in the one. So all the men of Israel
were gathered together against the city, watch this ladies and
gentlemen, knit together as what? See that's the doctrine of the
union of the head with the body. Is that true? Can you see that?
So the Old Testament was giving us patterns leading to the one
man whose name is what? Jesus. Alright, Ezra chapter
3 verse 11, just to give you another example. What am I pressing
home? The privilege of every believer
is completely secure in the fact that he has a head who was given
the office of representation, federal headship, and therefore,
all of our vestiture, all of our interests lie in who he is,
not who I am. Watch this, Ezra chapter three,
verse 11, it might be in there, maybe I got that wrong, let me
see here. Verse one, Ezra three, verse one? Okay, go to verse
one then, Sharon. All right, that'll work. And
when the seventh month was coming, the children of Israel were in
the cities, the people gathered themselves together as what?
One man to Jerusalem. Now, if I were to lift this text
out of its context and preach the gospel, what we're talking
about is the end of time. This is what we call the end
gathering, Ruth series on the harvest. And in the harvest,
Christ is going to gather all of his elect together. And when
we come together with Christ on that last day, we're going
to all be like one man. This is the beauty of the union
of God's people in Christ. So you might feel right now,
let's go to our next point. You might feel right now that
within yourself there's a level of inadequacy and deficiency
and weakness and you just don't like yourself, okay? Let me just
do it like that. You don't like yourself. But
you're in Christ, right? So you can feel good about who
you are in Him even while you don't feel good about who you
are in yourself. Are you hearing what I'm saying? You can not
like you, but you can like him that's in you. Now you can do
that, split it up, argue all you want to. Jess, I don't like
you, but I like your Jesus. You'll see what I mean when I
get to Romans chapter 7 and I deal with the two egos, because you
struggle with them. All right, so the last point
is, and this is remarkable, I'm getting ready to preach a little
bit of gospel here, show you something glorious. The last point under
this rubric is, there was one act committed by a representative
who was called a firstborn, which act impacted us all. You guys are already persuaded
of that doctrine. But what I'm calling attention to is not just
the one man, but the one act. So Adam's one act impacted us
all, right? It was one act. All he did was
say yes to his wife and it tore us all up. I'm just being honest. I know some of you don't like
the implications of that statement, but it's true. And because Adam
is a type of Jesus, Christ said yes to me. And the consequences
were he took my head. And because of who he was, he
liberated me from my transgression against God. I accept that interpretation
all day long, won't you? One act. So what are we talking
about? We're talking about the behavior of the conduct of the
representative, the firstborn, the head, the federal head that
impacts everybody. This is why Jesus said in John
chapter 18 verse 8, when the law came to Jesus and the soldier
said, who is Jesus of Nazareth? He says, I am. And they fell
backwards and they got back up again. And they said, who is
Jesus of Nazareth or where is he? He says, I told you, I am
he. If you want me, let these go. That's the doctrine of representation,
substitution, which means the one act of Christ yielding to
the law was his love on the behalf of his people by which him giving
himself over to the law liberated us from the law. I'm going to
come back to that verse in chapter six because the purpose for which
justification is given to you and me is to liberate us. Justification
lets us out of prison. All right. But I want to show
you a glorious gospel truth here. This has everything to do with
the larger typological pattern of the first Adam and the second
Adam. And this is under the account, that event, that monumental Old
Testament event in the days of King Saul and David. Go to 1
Samuel chapter 17. I want to talk you through this
briefly. We are talking presently about
the doctrine of representation and headship. Federal headship
by which one man represents a whole host of other men and you guys
remember probably one of the most important events in Old
Testament scripture and that is the event of David fighting
Goliath remember that Well, the context is critical to understand
the gospel Because most people have been taught who do not understand
that the purpose of the scriptures is to point us to Christ and
They have been taught that this... this anomaly of an event where
David is confronting, or this giant is confronting David, this
massive Philistine called Goliath, who stands over 11 feet tall,
and is just a gargantuan of a person, and the text calls him a champion. In your Bible it's called a giant,
but he's called a champion. And this champion Goliath is
part of what we call the tribe of the Philistines. Now again,
until you understand typology, the children of Israel represent
the church, they represent the people of God. And they are always
fighting battles in the land of Canaan. Hence, you and I are
in a warfare now. What they have come to discover
is that there is one formidable task or enemy or opposition that
they deal with all the time. And that formidable task that
they have to deal with is called the Philistines. They deal with
the Amalekites. They deal with other nations,
seven nations greater and mightier than them. But the one nation
they have to always deal with are the Philistines. And this
is appropriately so because the Philistines Do not represent
your fears They do not represent your anxieties They don't represent
your doubts nor do they represent any of your emotional tangents
or foibles or or Concerns, you know, you read these stories
and you've heard people talk about killing the giant of fear
fighting the giant of doubt casting the stone and knocking down the
giant of whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, Goliath
is not merely some type of your fears or anxieties or doubts. You still have those. Goliath
is far more significant in his typology than just your fears. More than that, he is never depicted
as someone with whom you fight personally. For teachers to preach
and teach that you are the one fighting Goliath steals God's
glory when it comes to the unique work that only Jesus could do
to accomplish your redemption. Hence, I teach you a very clear
gospel truth in regards to headship. The first king of Israel is King
Saul. Is he not? King Saul was the
one really confronted by this giant. King Saul was the one
that was really confronted with the Philistines and the Philistines
had their way with Israel all during the reign, the rule of
King Saul. In fact, King Saul died at the
hands of the Philistines. So King Saul being the ruler
over Israel brought Israel into a lot of trouble as he failed
again and again fighting the Philistines. So here we are in
first samuel chapter 17 and the account is very clear where the
philistine comes up to the front and he cried unto the armies
of israel and said unto them Why are you come out to set your
battle in a ray? Am I not a philistine boy? He
boasted and he boasted David has something to say about him
though. You know that right? We'll get there And and you slaves
of saul i'm going to talk about that in a moment you slaves of
saul choose you a man for you and let him come down to me.
Now what we're about to read is what we call the rules of
engagement. Which rules of engagement will teach you the doctrine that
I'm laying out before you today. The necessity of one man taking
on the role and responsibility of delivering the people. So
we read verse nine. Listen to verse nine. Here it
is. If the person that you bring out that you choose be able to
fight with me and to kill me, then will not I, but we. Do you notice what he's doing?
Goliath is representing his own camp. He's bringing the whole
of his nation in subjugation to the outcome of the battle
between him and the person that he's going to fight. And you
and I will see the implications of that, not in chapter five,
but chapter six and seven, because there are consequences that fall
out to the atoning work of Jesus Christ for you and me. But he
says now, If he be able to prevail see it if he be able to prevail
against him and kill him then shall Do we do we skip the verse
if he'd be able to fight with me and to kill me then I will
be your servant We will be your service. But if I prevail against
him and kill him here it is Then shall you be our servants and
serve us? You see the doctrine laid out Representation here's
the battle if Goliath wins all of Israel is a slave to the Philistine.
I If David wins, all of the Philistines are slaves to David and his host. How enormous are the stakes here? Oh, by the way, let me ask you
the question. Where do you think the army of Saul is right now? What do you think Saul's army
is doing at this present time as they're listening to this
debate in this conflict? They're hiding. I think it's verse 11. Look at
verse 11. I think they're hiding in shame.
And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistines,
they were dismayed and greatly what? Now guess who they represent? You and me. That's right. You and me. The reality is this
battle between David and Goliath is a type of the battle between
Christ. And not the devil. between Christ
and the flesh. The flesh. I want you to hear
it now. See, it is your fallen nature
that will send you to hell. And it is your fallen nature
that, while not as subdued by the work of Christ, has the power
to agree with the law by which the law gives its strength to
sin, which sin will send you to hell. See, Christ had to come
to destroy not only the works of the devil, but its power to
bring your flesh into subjection to obey it. The Philistines always
represent the flesh. And this is why David, when he
wrote, I can't wait to get to chapter six and I'm going to
come back in. David, you know what David did? He snuck down
to the battlefield. Wasn't supposed to go, but he
wanted to. Nosey, snuck down to the battlefield to feed his
brothers. And as he's feeding his brothers, his brothers giving
him all kinds of trouble. Man, you need to get out of here.
You ain't got no business here. We don't like you, David. You're
nosy, you love getting in people's trouble. And David said, hey,
hey, hey, I'm just here to help. And then he heard the Philistine.
And David looked over at that dude, he said, who is this? Talking
to the Lord's people like this? I mean, David was just indignant
with this dude while everybody else is running scared. And this is the disparity between
who Jesus is and who we are. And that historical narrative
is designed to teach you and me, are you ready? That the work
of your redemption is never to be viewed as something you did.
Because what we are seeing in our account is that one man with
a boldness that was given to him was willing to face the giant
that could destroy not only him, but all of Israel. And in the
heart of David, was God's glory. It was the glory of God that
ticked David off when the Philistine talked about destroying the children
of Israel. You heard it? I'm not going to
go there. David is moved by the glory of God, just as Christ
was moved by the glory of God. He came to do the will of Him
that sent Him. He came to do His Father's will.
He was compelled more than His own reputation, but the salvation
of His people and the glory of His Father. He was willing to
take on this giant You guys understand that? He's willing to take on
this giant. And it's important for you and
I to see what the outcome was. Look over in chapter 17, verse
49 and 50. I'm believing this is where we
are. As David has now begun to take on this giant, look at verse
49. And David put his bag in his hand and he took this stone. Now he had already gone to the
brook and gotten five stones. You guys know that, right? Some
people say just in case he missed no no People talking like that
Do not understand the gospel People talking like that do not
understand the gospel if David is a type of Christ and Christ
is a type of our representative and Christ came into the world
one time He's not coming twice three or four or five times.
And the battle that our Savior fought for the redemption of
our soul was not a just-in-case battle. It was a one-time battle. The reality is all he needed
was one stone because he wasn't going to miss. Christ died one
time. It was one sacrifice for sin,
one offering. Christ went to work to redeem
our souls once for all. Are you guys hearing me? David
picks up a stone, and there's a lot of gospel implications
in that. I won't get to it. and he slung his stone and he
smoked the philistine in his forehead that stone sunk so deep
in his forehead he fell down upon the earth his face hit the
earth and the whole earth shook boom what are we dealing with
we're dealing with christ's death on calvary destroying the power
of sin that rules in our nature And if it wasn't for his death,
our nature would still have dominion over us. When the giant falls,
our fallen nature falls. That's Romans chapter 6. And
so it's necessary for Christ to have represented us, assuming
our nature, living our life, dying our death, rising again
from the dead, to destroy the power of sin in our fallen nature. See, it's too great for us. Too
great for us. That's what our Savior accomplished
by His death on Calvary. He destroyed the power of sin
to send us to hell, not the presence of sin to give us trouble. It's
still there. It's still there. Watch this.
Verse 50. Watch verse 50. Here it is. Verse
50 says so David prevailed over the Philistine you guys got that
mark that it wasn't we that prevailed over the Philistine It was David
that prevailed over the Philistine It's Christ that prevailed over
our sin nature over the law over the curse of the law and therefore
over the devil You and I were on the sidelines We were cheering
Jesus. Oh Go ahead on, Lord Jesus. David, being God's beloved, stood
in our place to fight a battle that we could not win, did not
win, didn't even want to fight. We didn't even want to fight
that battle. How much love is that for a sinner like you and
me? That he fought a battle that we didn't even want to fight.
I'm going to say that again. He fought a battle that we didn't
even want to fight. He fought a battle that we didn't
even want to fight. We love sin. We would be more than willing
to yield to the Philistines and their armies and make a league
with them and have them to have dominion over us. Christ fought
a battle against our sin nature for us without our agreement. Hallelujah. See, that's what
I meant earlier when the text said Christ died for our sins.
For while we were yet sinners, we were on the other team in
our heart. He died for us. He reconciled us while we were
enemies of God. He reconciled us. David is a
grand type of the Lord Jesus Christ in the exclusivity of
his singular work in your behalf. See, don't ever frame your lips
to tell anybody that Christ died for you because you were better
than anyone else. Otherwise, you destroy grace
altogether. Grace is always an undeserved,
demerited favor on God's part towards you. So that when you
get the benefits, you simply blush in thankfulness that God
saved a rebel, a rebel for his cause. The children of Israel
rebelled against God over and over and over again. And here
God raises up. Servant like David to fight this battle again. David
is a type of Christ ready and able to take on Goliath Because
Saul King Saul Represents the first Adam Yes, he does see when
the children of Israel asked for King They wanted a king like
them Not like God and God gave them what they wanted though.
God hated Saul and and eventually God killed Saul because Saul
represents the first Adam, the weakness of our human nature.
David represents the last Adam, the son of the beloved. Are you
guys hearing what I'm saying? And that's why between David's
house and Saul's house, they were always fighting. But aren't
you thankful that David still loves some of the family members
of Saul's house? Mephibosheth. That's your name,
Mephibosheth. Aren't you thankful that David
still loved some of those weak, sinful, religious folk who were
willing to live contrary to God and made a covenant with Jonathan?
And so we get to sit at the table of the king as slaves, even though
our feet still be lame? That's what we're going to learn
in chapter 6. We're saved, but we're lame. Listen, you hear
these folks say, I'm no longer a sinner. Call it a rap. They
don't understand the gospel. They do not understand the gospel.
They're stealing God's glory. You are still a sinner. You're just saved. You're just
kept. You've been brought to the table.
Your feet still lame. You can't walk apart from grace. Somebody's got to carry you.
Now, there's a day when you and I will be healed, but it ain't
right now. Because when God sits us at the table to eat with him,
he wants us to be thankful. Boy, you know, Mephibosheth was
thankful. He's sitting around looking at
all these dignitaries saying, what in the world am I doing
here? Nothing but the grace of God. Nothing but the grace of
God. The only reason you're at the
table is because of the grace of an almighty sovereign God. Are you guys hearing me? All
right, so now I'll just show you a little preview. Verse 51.
Here it is, verse 51. After David handled him easily,
verse 51 of 1 Samuel says, therefore David ran stood upon the Philistine,
took the Philistine sword, drew it out of his sheep, and slew
him and cut his head off. In theology we call this a two-part
prophecy. He was smitten by Christ's death
by the stone in the sling. He was smitten. His head was
cut off when Christ comes back as judge on the last day. So
this is a two-part prophecy. Ultimately cut off. And then
notice what it says. And when the Philistines saw
their champion dead, they what? See that? See that? You see how
it necessitates the grace of God for you to begin to overcome
the weakness of your flesh? The next verse. I want you to
see the next verse. Here it is. Here it is. Verse 52. Here it is. And the men of
Israel and of Judah arose and shouted and pursued the Philistines.
Oh, okay. Now y'all going after them. Oh,
okay. Now you're going to get bold.
Now you're going to get bold. Now you're going to have confidence
to go after your enemies. Exactly right. Because the gospel
ought to give you confidence. to stand against your foes when
you see all Christ did to destroy your chief enemies. After all,
all you're dealing with is the peon flesh now because the champion
has been killed. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? The champion has been killed. This is what we mean
by the doctrine of representation. Let's go back to our last one
close so we can have the Lord's table. Let me underscore it again.
What we're dealing with under our third point are the contrast
now between The first Adam and the last Adam this is where the
Apostle Paul wants you to understand One critical truth and we're
done and I'm just gonna simply state it as I run through these
points There's one critical truth that you and I need to understand
and recognize That when we talk about Adam one and we talk about
the last Adam, we are not talking about equals in other words,
we're not saying that as Adam was so Jesus is and Not only
in their person are we not saying that, I think I underscored that
earlier, but neither are we saying that in His work. When you and
I are saved, God doesn't simply restore us back to where we were
in the beginning. That would be a zero net sum. There would be no gain there.
There would be no victory there. And then what would fall out
of that assumption is this. that Adam was impeccable, that
Adam was gloriously endowed with all of the eternal blessings
that Christ has. It would assert that for us to
go back to Adam is to enter into all of the blessings that God
has purposed for us as if Adam had them. Adam did not have them. Do not look at Adam as though
he had achieved glory. He did not. Adam and Jesus are
gazillions of years apart. First of all, Adam was a man.
Jesus is the God-man. Adam was temporal. Jesus is eternal. Adam had a probational righteousness
which was based upon his continued obedience to God, of which, so
long as he obeyed, he could enjoy the land. But he had never, never
obtained the glory that Christ has procured and has accomplished
for those that believe on Him. And what I'm saying is this,
when you come into the blessings of salvation, Christ has brought
you into so much more than you can even begin to imagine that
we had in Adam. And this is a profound truth
that God, before the world began, saw you and saw me who believe
the gospel. See, if you don't believe the
gospel, this is not for you. If you're not trusting Christ,
you don't have this promise. But in Christ, I already possess
the inexhaustible riches of His eternal glory and bliss as if
I were already there. In Christ, I already have obeyed
all of God's law. I never violated the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. And where Jesus is, I am. And all of that for which you
and I can't even begin to imagine. I said it last week. I'll say
it again, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, it cannot even
enter into these finite bodies. All that Christ has accomplished
for you and for me who believe this gospel. See, the whole world
has come short of the glory. Adam came short of the glory
and it keeps on coming short. of the glory. All of God's elect
have it. We already possess it. Our champion
Jesus has already procured it for us and that's why what Paul
talks about is the more abundant grace of verses 15 through 19
of Romans chapter 5. Let me just read a few and I'm
closing. Here it is. I'm going to start at verse 18
and go to verse 19 therefore as by one man's offense of One
judgment therefore by as the offense of one judgment came
upon all to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one
The free gift came upon all men unto what? justification of life
for as by one man's disobedience one many were made sinners and
So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Verse 20. Moreover, the law entered
that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace
did much more abound, that as sin had reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness, unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, Christ
has obtained way more, way more for us than we could even ever
imagine. Isn't he wonderful? Isn't he
wonderful? Amen.