I'd like you to turn back in
your Bibles to Romans 5 as we continue looking into this summit
upon which the Apostle has cast our thoughts and reflections
on the work that God has done to redeem His people from death.
And we are contemplating and have been for several weeks the
subject of justification. And justification is where we
are again The apostle has begun a process of describing what
we might call the unchangeable love of God in Christ and its
impact upon its objects to take them completely into the uttermost,
save them by that grace that we have been contemplating for
several weeks rooted in a work of justification ending in a
permanent state of glory involving all three glorious persons of
God to secure this magnificent enterprise of eternal redemption,
which I believe the apostle is concerned that the church at
Rome doesn't fully yet believe. And that's because the gospel,
when it is perceived accurately, is unbelievable. So for a season,
I am going to describe the grace of God to us as the unbelievable
gospel. The unbelievable gospel. When
we come to understand certain elements of what God has done
for us in Christ, the only natural response for the natural man
is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. that God would
put away our sin by the sacrifice of his son and so justify us
so as to never, ever, ever have us to cause for worry or doubt
of acceptance before him. I say it's unbelievable because
you and I struggle every day with the claims of the grace
of God in our life. Is that true? And so Paul, as
a good shepherd, is laboring to help his auditors, his hearers,
understand. He says, I know, I know your
struggle. We talked about this last week. I know your struggles.
I know the struggles of the conscience. I know the struggles of the heart.
If you're honest, if you're sensitive, if you're longing and desiring
to be like God wants you to be, we struggle. And what the apostle
is trying to do is establish the feet of the Roman church
in ours as well upon a solid foundation of an understanding
of what God did when he justified us in Jesus Christ. And it's
for this reason in verse 12, he uses this opening clause,
wherefore. And you and I have talked about
wherefores and therefores, but when you come to a wherefore
in the New Testament, this is what we would call a conclusion
argument. When he comes into a wherefore,
he is concluding an argument. And at this point, his conclusion
now initiates or precipitates a final argument around what
justification has done for the people of God. You and I talked
about how justification merits for us. A perfect righteousness
by which we stand before God. It declares us righteous in the
sight of God. It causes us to stand before
God in the very righteousness of Jesus Christ. Justification
is God's right to say to me that I am just as righteous as his
son is. And he did that on a grounds
of perfect justice. in terms of what Christ has done
for us and what flowed out of that work of justification is
the gift of faith by which I can embrace that declaration to myself. See, we are justified through
faith. as the grounds upon which we
have peace with God and can enjoy Him in all of His beauty and
splendor in spite of ourselves. This is amazing. I heard our
elder say it this morning. He was quoting from Romans where
the promise is given that all things work together for good
to them that love God. Is that true? And he said, but
for those who don't always love God either, That's absolutely
right. Because we don't always love
God like we ought to. But we would be a mess if justification
stood on the grounds of our always loving God. Is that right? Now
I can argue for a perpetual presence of the love of God in our soul.
But I can also argue that sometimes we don't even see it. And so
if it were up to my personal intrinsic evidence of whether
or not how much I love God becomes the basis for which God permanently
establishes a righteousness for me, God's righteousness would
be fickle in my life every day, would it not? And so what we
have learned is that faith takes us away from ourselves. It sets
us on the promises of God, which promises are immutable and unchangeable,
are they not? You will notice that whenever
you read your Bible, it says the same thing every time you
read it. doesn't matter how long you have read your Bible you
can turn back to the same text and it says the same thing therefore
being justified by faith we have peace with God and not only so
out of this great pinata called the justifying work of God pours
out the blessings of faith and joy and hope and love the work
of the Spirit of God is to pour into our hearts the love of God
which we have described as that unchangeable love of God in Christ
by which he has redeemed us by virtue of his death on Calvary
Street never forget this when you are asking yourself the question
does God love me if you go any other place than to the cross
of Jesus Christ you have no right to get a positive answer if you
go any other place than the cross of Christ, you have no right
to obtain a positive answer. God has sealed his love to his
elect in one place. It's in Christ and it's at the
cross. This is how much I love you.
I gave my son for you. Not many times, one time. And it's that way that the child
of God is anchored in his hope for eternity as he continues
to drink from this well of grace and comprehend what God has done
for us in that work of justification through Jesus Christ. The wherefore
here then is where the apostle now is going to give a final
argument in chapter five. And from chapter five through
chapter eight, he's going to tell us that justification is
meant for you and I to marvel at what God has done, but then
to move out in the blessings of justification in terms of
our liberty in Christ. And then in our liberty in Christ,
we are to move out into the daily conflict that we have in this
world where we struggle with sin, we struggle with the world,
we struggle with adversaries of God. And so justification
is calling you to liberty and to struggle, and then ultimately
to triumph. Romans chapter five is justification. Romans six is liberty. Romans seven is struggle. And Romans 8 is triumph by the
Spirit of God because of what Christ has done for us. That's
where we're going once we leave Romans chapter 5. Liberty, struggle,
and triumph. And isn't that the Christian
life? Liberty, struggle, and triumph. And if you are not experiencing
that, you're not a child of God. We are liberated sons and daughters
struggling in this world looking for the triumph that comes only
through Jesus Christ. See, that's the message. You
can go home now. And so the Apostle Paul is laying out for us an
argument that's going to take at least two weeks for me to
work through because he's setting up an analogy, a contrasting
analogy. parallel contrasting analogy
between two persons which require us to be disciplined in our thinking
as he sets two rungs and on these rungs he will lay out arguments
of parallels and contrasts between two persons that's going to require
you to think see in our Christian Church we want to feel and not
think but your salvation is not based on feelings Feelings come
and feelings go. Feelings are so fleeting. Nothing
but the Word of God is really worth believing. So understand
your feelings mean nothing. We are anchored on the solid
rock of what the Word of God plainly says. So my mind has
to be engaged in propositional truth for me to have any hope
of glory. With the mind we serve the Law
of God. That's why our teachers open up the Word and break the
Word open so that by the Spirit of God we can enter into those
truth claims and own them for ourselves as our hope. So we're
going to be laboring through on today a concept that is critical
to us understanding the security of justification for every believer,
the security of justification. And again, this is designed,
as I am certain, on the part of the Apostle Paul, to help
the believer to understand this thing of our salvation did not
start with you. And because it did not start
with you, it does not depend upon you. And because it doesn't
depend upon you, it will end the same way that it started
in one man. And so what we're dealing with
can be described by our title, the reign of sin and grace by
one man. the reign of sin and grace by
one man. Obviously then, what Paul is
about to do is move us out into a much more objective analysis
of what's taking place. He wants to now sum up this issue
of justification on two levels, and I can describe it like this.
His final argument would go like this. What he wants us to comprehend
is that justification or condemnation as a standing for all men Hell
or heaven, glory or damnation, as a destiny for all men is your
daddy's fault. Hell or heaven, justification
or condemnation, the destiny of all men to one place or the
other is your daddy's fault. What he wants us to understand
is there's a starting point at which all this began. And that starting point is critical
to our understanding why some end up in hell and why others
end up in heaven. And I can see it like this. It's
because of our father. You and I are hell bound sinners,
not because of us primarily, but because of our father. And
you and I are heaven-bound saints, not because of us, but because
of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is that premise upon which
we are to contemplate now and understand our eternal destiny. If you can get the logic, if
you can follow the parallels, it will liberate you from faulty
anxieties of trying to hold on to your destiny by something
you do. but rather rest in the one who
started this thing, knowing how to finish it. Am I making some
sense? And so when he says, wherefore,
he's opening up a fundamental argument that will deal with
two men. And this argument will deal with these two men who will
serve for us as pathways, as streams, as fonts from which
both blessing and cursing proceed. And what he's compelled to do
is to demonstrate clearly, as I said earlier, contrasting parallels
that exist between our father Adam the representative of fallen
humanity, and the last Adam, as the scripture puts it, Jesus
Christ, the head and representative of a new race of people in him
called the church. Did y'all get that? There are
two people groups in the world, one under Adam one, the other
under the last Adam. The first category of people
are called creatures of the earth. The second category of people
are called new creatures in Christ. 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 17
if any man be in Christ Jesus He is a new creature old things
have passed away. All things have become new now
when we make that statement we have to qualify it because what
he is talking about is people being in one person or the other
and people being identified with one person or the other. And
the basis of your salvation depends on whether or not you are in
Adam or in Christ. It is from this radical, objective
perspective that Paul wants to talk. And if you and I give him
a time to explain to us what he means by sin originating in
Adam, and righteousness originating in Christ, it will help you and
I be able to get through our journey of liberty, struggle,
and triumph a whole lot better. Therefore, under our first point,
the union of all men in one man. That's point number one. It's
in verse 12, part A. Wherefore, as by one man, sin
entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon
all men for that what? All have sin. Now verse 12 carries
with it at least three lines, three clauses that have to be
more fully developed. But suffice it to say, when Paul
lays out this statement as the introduction for his final argument,
he is assuming that people have a biblical worldview. Because
today, people do not believe that God created the heavens
and the earth, nor do they believe that He created man out of the
dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life, and nor do they believe that the whole of humanity came
from one man. Today, your average postmodern
thinker believes that the world was populated with human beings
from the beginning, all over planet Earth. So that the notion
of us all streaming from one man is implausible with them. Are you hearing me? because they
would understand the implications of the whole of humanity streaming
back to one man. But if they can make the argument
that we have multiple human beings all over planet Earth, they can
deny that we are all by nature sinners. I mean, think it through
for a moment. Let me just exercise your senses
since I'm in this mode. We are dealing with the high
fruit of theology in our men's meeting. I trust that some of
you might be able to get this today. The implications of the
world being populated with all sorts of human beings at the
beginning, and yet Adam, that person Adam, being the one committed
the transgression, would imply, infer, it would conclude for
us that in the world there are some who are sinners, and in
the world there are some who are not sinners. Obviously because
Adam sinned of his own without him being any kind of representation
of the whole. Because there are other people
on planet Earth. Are you following the logic? That while Adam sinned,
his sin didn't affect the other people on planet Earth who didn't
eat that tree? And what that would conclude
then is that if God's gonna save sinners, he's only gonna save
some because the other human beings are righteous by nature.
Do you see the unraveling of that folly in terms of the the
exclusivity of the gospel, and in terms of the massive nature
in which the gospel appears to all men, or appeals to all men,
and that it claims that we are all by nature what? Sinners. If we did not scream from one
man, we can't make that argument. And so what Paul says is, he
assumes that you and I believe the biblical testimony that God
created Adam, and that from Adam and Eve sprung all of humanity.
And we do, don't we? We do and and his argument is
brilliant Because he is establishing for us a line of reality that
exists in you and me that goes all the way back to the first
person As I came from my father and he is all the way to all
the way back to adam all Of fallen corrupt humanity are bound in
adam now watch this When I say the union of all men in one man,
what we are teaching and what Paul is beginning to develop
is that God views all of humanity as having their origin in Adam.
So that Adam now becomes a representative of the whole human race when
he acts. That's why verse 12 tells us,
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.
How do you get all have sinned in the last line when sin entered
in by only one man? Representation and union. In other words, we were in Adam
when he sinned and because he sinned and we were in him, God
judged us as having sinned in Adam. Are you guys following
the logic? Let me see if I can tie that
proposition, that truth down by verses of scripture that you
already know. You already know that the Bible
teaches that when Abraham offered tithes to Melchizedek, Levi was
in Abraham offering tithes at the same time. You guys know
that, right? That's Hebrews chapter 6 and 7. Levi paid tithes in
Abraham, though Levi did not actually exist. But he existed
in the loins of Abraham, so God viewed Levi as honoring the superior
priesthood, which priesthood is Christ's priesthood, through
Abraham. And so because the blessings
of Abraham were given to Melchizedek, then Levi experienced the blessings
of Abraham having been in Abraham's loins. Conversely, you remember
when that wicked boy Ham saw his father's nakedness, Noah,
in the tent in Genesis chapter 9, and he went back and told
Shem and Japheth, come look at our father's nakedness. When
Noah awoke, who did he curse? Did he curse Ham or did he curse
his son? He cursed his son Canaan because
Canaan was in Ham when Ham sinned. Are you guys hearing me? And
so in the same way in which the blessings poured out of Abraham
to Levi, in the same way in which the curse poured out of Ham and
to Cain, the same is true of Adam's sin pouring out to us
and Christ's righteousness pouring out to us who are in him. Remember, the basic takeaway
from the message today is the question, are you in him? Him so as the as the the Apostle
is setting forth the proposition the union of all made in one
man You know how he ties it up in 1st Corinthians chapter 15
verse 22 a it says this for an Adam all died 1st Corinthians
chapter 20 15 verse 22 says for an Adam all died but in Christ
all shall be made alive You guys remember that verse there it
is Now, I want you to mark this statement now. See, because when
Paul makes a terse statement, a short statement like this,
he expects for you to think the statement through. At least be
honest enough to ask the question, how can that be? In Adam, all
die. Pastor, what are you talking
about? We are talking about how God can constitute all sinners
in one sinner. Just like God can constitute
all righteous in one righteous man. And the way he does that
is by seeing our union in the one or the other. Are you guys
following me so far? So here's a very plain statement.
For as in Adam all died, even so in Christ what shall all be
made alive? Therefore we argue the union
of all men in one man, the blessings and cursings flowing from them
to the whole of their posterity because If his role as head,
that is Adam, and our union in him is such, then the transgressions
that Adam committed necessarily must then be imputed to us, which
therefore under our second point, I'm calling your attention to
the idea of our third point, rather the idea of imputation. You see that word imputation?
It means to put to the account of. It's a legal term. It's also
an economic term. It's like when you place on a
ledger certain facts about your economic standing. It's to lay
to account what's there or to affirm what might not be there.
The actual Greek term means to express or affirm an account. And so when it says that in Adam
all die, what he is saying is God has imputed to the whole
of humanity Adam's sinfulness. This is why we read again, and
you can go back to our PowerPoint and leave it there. This is why
we read again in the gospel of John chapter eight, verse 44. Remember what Jesus said to the
rulers who in that same chapter boasted that God was their father?
He said to them, no, no, no, God is not your father. The devil
is your father. And then watch this. And the
works of your father you shall do. Because the stream of your
sinful nature is attached to the devil, you cannot but act
out according to the nature of the devil. Are you guys following
the logic? What Jesus was saying concerning
the rulers of that day who boasted in being Abraham's seed, we are
still arguing that point. They were boasting in being Abraham's
seed, but what Jesus is saying is, if you were Abraham's seed,
you'd act like Abraham. And because you and I are sinners,
and because we died, we know that we are Adam's seed. Am I
making some sense? So as he would argue to the Jews,
no, no, no, you're not Abraham's seed. Because if you were Abraham
seed you do what Abraham did and you know what that was believe
on Jesus There's an interesting passage in the book of Hosea
chapter 6 verse 7 I want you to capture Hosea 6 7 because
that passage is where God is arguing against Israel also on
this same grounds Here's what he says, but they like men have
transgressed the what? There have they dealt treacherously
against whom leave that verse there for a moment God is arguing
concerning Israel, of whom you and I have already engaged, was
a type of Jesus Christ, a second son. Remember, we learned there
are three sons. The first is Adam, the second
is national Israel, and then the true son is whom? Jesus Christ. And wasn't God the Father always
struggling with that knucklehead son called Israel? Israel was
constantly rebelling against God. And what he's doing is attaching
to Israel the origin of sin when he says, but they, that is Israel,
like men. See the word man there? That's
our Hebrew word for Adam. But they, like Adam, have transgressed
the what? I'm getting ready to get into
that. Because you see, the arguments of the gospel make no sense to
people if they don't understand that God deals with us in terms
of covenant. Until you understand that God
is a covenant God and he deals with all humanity and in covenant
frameworks You won't understand and you cannot logically understand
why God will bless others as a consequence of one Or why God
would punish others as a consequence of one you remember in the deck
of law God says and I will punish them to the third and fourth
generation that hate me and And I will bless them unto a thousand
generations that love me and what? Keep my commandments. That's
covenant terminology. Do you know what that means?
Because of the obedience of one, blessing flows out on others.
What I am trying to help us do as we lay a foundation for Paul's
argument of our justification being so far outside of you and
me, but rather rooted in Jesus Christ, is to understand that's
the place from which the blessings proceed and they don't ever stop. And it's the place from which
the child of God is to rejoice in this fact that I'm in Christ. And because I'm in Christ, everything
that Christ is, I am in him. Have you heard me say that before?
This is what we mean by union. Everything that I am, that he
is, I am in him because everything that I am, he was for me. Everything that he is, I am in
him. because everything that I am,
he was for me. This is the unbelievable nature
of the gospel that I wanna press home to us today. And it demands
that we think things through. So when we are dealing with,
going back to our PowerPoint, the idea of imputation, which
is another theological term that you may not be able to quickly
grasp, but allow it to sink into your system. Imputation is God's
right. to act towards the posterity
of those with whom the individual serves as a representative. Imputation
is God's right to act towards the seed or children of those
who are in union with their head and their father. I'm going to
give you another analogy before we move on. Do you remember the
battle between King David and King Saul? How that those two
families were fighting all the time? And in God's mysterious
redemptive purposes, he calls David to love Jonathan and Jonathan
to love David. Remember that? And remember how
those two were in such camaraderie and love with each other that
they entered into what? A covenant. Because they would
serve as a great type of Christ in the church. David, a type
of Christ. Jonathan the type of the believer and in the covenant
union between Jonathan and David, you know what David did because
of Jonathan he blessed David's children and one of them was
a boy named what much Fibber shaft Remember how David's army
was pursuing the family of Saul rightly so because Saul was constantly
pursuing him and Mephibosheth had to run for his life and and
running with his nurse, he fell and he became lame in his feet.
He was exiled. Now, ladies and gentlemen, that's
a type of you and me in our state of sin until the covenant is
revealed to us that God had made an agreement in Jesus Christ
before the world began to bring us to the table of grace, even
though we are crippled sinners. What is my point? The blessing
of David, or rather Jonathan, fell out to Mephibosheth, not
because of Mephibosheth, but because of David and Jonathan.
Are you guys hearing my argument? Now, this again does not make
sense to the human mind, to the natural mind, that God would
do things outside of the scope and sphere of you and I, but
that's how God works. And the point is, you and I don't
get to own this grace that we are a part of. We got to give
God glory for this grace. Let me go on with my point then.
Point number two. Move on to point number two in
our outline. So if you accept the proposition
that the union of all men is in one man and therefore the
doctrine of imputation is valid because imputation means nothing
apart from union. You guys got that? It means nothing.
God can't impute to you or me the blessings of Christ if I'm
not in Christ. If He didn't first place me in
Christ, Christ can have all the infinite blessings anyone can
imagine, but they don't get poured out on anyone if they're not
already in Christ. Do I have the blessings of God
if I can say, yes, it's only because I'm in Christ? Do I have
the curse of sin in my life and it's leading me to a horrible
death, misery, and damnation? It's only because I'm in Adam.
For in Adam all was. and in Christ all shall be made
alive. Point number two, flowing from Adam to all that are in
him and the operative term that I want to press home to you is
in him is death. Flowing from Adam and all that
is in him is death. This is exactly what Paul is
trying to get across in our text as he works through the parallels
between Christ and Adam in chapter 5 verse 12b when he says sin
entered into the world and then death by sin right wherefore
as by one man sin entered into the world and then death by sin
let's talk about that see again if you don't have a biblical
worldview you're going to run into conflict with biblical propositions
because here's what we say that when God created the heavens
and the earth in the beginning he created it good And it was
so good that it was without sin. So that the original state of
our universe was not what it is presently. Under decay. Falling
apart. Disintegrating in terms of the
inanimate creature. And then humanity itself. Are
we not a mess? But we weren't that way in the
beginning. In the beginning it was good. It was all good. Until
Adam opened the door and let sin in. Are you hearing what
I'm saying? See, we accept that statement
that there was one man who was responsible for letting sin enter
into a world that was originally not a sinful world. And in fact,
I'm not going to dwell long on this because this would just
kind of frazzle all of your synapses if I got into it too much. But
you can't actually comprehend this, but you can think about
it. Can you imagine, no pastor, how, watch this now, how it was
to think thoughts that were not sinful. See what I'm just saying? My point is, Adam was in a state
of righteousness. where there was no presence of
sin of any kind. He was in communion with his
father. He was in communion with the son. He was in communion
with the Holy Ghost. There was blissful union between
all of them, enjoying each other as he was serving as a representative
of God, enjoying living large in the garden. And then one day,
him and his wife acted a fool. Now see, you and I understand
the part about acting a fool. What we don't understand is how
you could act a fool when you weren't a fool already. Are you
hearing me? That's the mystery. I'm gonna
leave it right there for a moment. But what I'm saying is there
was a starting point. If there was no starting point,
God would be a liar. And this is the mystery. How
can a good man have opened the door to sin when he was thinking
right and acting right? I'll leave you with that to work
through. But your answer is not in Adam. It's in Christ. Okay? That's where your answer is.
It's certainly not in you and me. Because all we have ever
known is sin. We only contemplate thinking
right. we we have never ever successfully
achieved it except maybe in our dreams and even there you understand what I'm saying
this is a great mystery that Adam would have opened the door
for sin in a state of righteousness but he did and we'll see that
a little bit in our last point and opening that door to sin
it contaminated the whole human race. So flowing from Adam to
all that are in him is death. Adam then is the whale from which
is springing up in the experience of all human beings throughout
the whole of history the corrupt fruit of dark pagan vile ungodly
worldliness as we have described in Romans 1 through 3. You remember
Paul laid out the argument in Romans chapter 1 verse 18 when
he says the wrath of God has been revealed against all unrighteousness
of men and ungodliness of men who hold the truth down in unrighteousness. You know what he was describing?
The whole world. He was describing in one fell
swoop the whole of the human condition. What is the whole
of the human condition? We are all sinful. We act sinful. We rebel against God. We reject
the light. We live perverse lifestyles.
We are corrupt in our heart. We are hostile to God. We are
rebellious against God. The whole shebangle. That's the
big picture scenario. He gave us that first, and now
what he's doing is narrowing the lens down. After he has persuaded
us, not only are we all universally sinners, from the greatest of
us to the smallest of us, according to Romans 1, 3 but in Romans
1 at 3 verse 9 and 10 what does he say there's none good no not
one if I accept the biblical testimony there's none good then
when Adam sinned all of us were made rotten to the core and not
one of us springs up out of the human race worthy of being called
good the testimony is there's none good no not one There's
none that do it good. There's none that seeks after
God. There's none that understand. There's none righteous. That's
God's universal indictment of the whole of Adam's posterity,
including you and me. My only hope is that God, before
he let me plunge myself into the hell of Adam's choice, was
to place me in Christ before the foundation of the world.
Are you hearing what I'm saying? My only hope was that he had
me in someone else. and that someone else is Jesus
Christ. We'll talk about that in a moment.
But what Paul would do is he would argue in verses 12 and
then verse 17 and 18 this way. In Romans 5, 12, he would once
again say that sin entered into the world by one man and death
by sin so that death has passed upon all. Have you met anybody? I have to do this at funerals
all the time because people do not think biblically at funerals.
When that person is laying in the casket, I tell him, take
a good look at this man. The reason that he's here is
because he's a sinner. Oh no, Pastor, he's not a sinner.
If he's not a sinner, why is he dead? Are you guys following me? I'm
getting ready to show you how God, from the lesser, takes us
to the greater of his arguments. The lesser being the empirical
evidence of the consequences of sin in all of our human experience. We all know people who have lived
and what? And we expect every one of us
at some point to what? And that's because we accept
the biblical testimony that we're by nature what? As soon as you
find an authentic non-sinner in the house, be sure you will
never see him at the funeral parlor. Are you hearing me? It is for this reason babies
die. Because babies are born sinners.
The one simple way to solve the complexity, the stress, the agony
that a parent has, why did my baby die? Don't you read your
Bible? They die because they're born
with an inheriting sin nature. And so at any time we are liable
to expire. And if you want to, you can blame
that on yourselves. because you gave them that nature,
just like your parents gave you your nature, just like their
parents gave them their nature, all the way back to one man. See, that's our argument. No,
no, no, they're not sinners. All right, work it out however
way you want to, but the biblical testimony is in Adam, all what? They all died as a consequence
of sin. So what Paul is doing is pressing
home the evidence of the effects of sin in all of humanity in
our head in order to justify the effects of righteousness
in our new head Jesus Christ. That's what he's driving home
because we are so aware of and affected by sin whether we want
to accept it or not. Let me see if I can give an illustration
to draw this up. Sin is likened unto a disease. Do you believe that? Contaminating
disease. It's the disease of sin. It's
like the leprosy in the Old Testament. When once it's discovered, what
God says is that leprosy will ultimately cover the whole body.
That individual will expire. They will die. You and I by nature
are all lepers. We are dying because we are lepers.
More than that, sin as a disease has contaminating affectation. We can contaminate each other
with our sin. You know you can't contaminate people with righteousness,
but you can contaminate people with your sin. Do you hear me? You and I can affect people by
our disobedience, our rebellion, our sin, and we do. And it's
seen not only in terms of our social behavior, but it's seen
in terms of our, not only our physiology, but our psychological
makeup, our emotional makeup. This is where psychologists make
a whole lot of money. I don't care for them for too
much because they have an unbiblical premise and they want to blame
everything on the daddy. And since I'm a daddy, I don't
like that. I'm telling the truth. Sit down, son, sit down. Now
tell me what's going on. Well, you know, I have all these
insecurities and anxieties and fears. Tell me how was your relationship
with your daddy? See what I'm getting at? However,
if the man believed in the doctrine of sin, he'd nail me to the wall
because I'm guilty of communicating sin to my children. But you and I cannot communicate
righteousness to them. That has to come from somewhere
else. And so what we are doing is contemplating sin under the
rubric of a disease. This is necessary, because you
and I are so hardened in our sinful nature that we really
don't mind sin being around until it plagues us. Like, you know,
some of us didn't trip off of Ebola. until a couple of the
symptoms start showing up in America. Now you start saying,
I'm not catching a plane. I'm not going on vacation nowhere.
Oh, because it's drawing near to your house. Now it becomes
a problem. Well, that's the nature with the contaminating effects
of sin. It's all going to get us. Let
me just share with you the major plagues that dominated our world. This is quick, and this is true,
and this is why the Bible likens our sin as unto an incurable
disease. This is what he says in Jeremiah.
Their sin is like a disease that is incurable. Smallpox, you guys
remember that? Between the year 430 BC and 1979,
before we found a vaccine to stop it, it killed more than
300 million people. Worldwide. In the 20th century
alone, 300 million people. Are you hearing me? 300 million. Now the people who were smitten
by smallpox, they saw it as a dangerous disease. Until your sin smites
you, you don't see it as a dangerous disease. The other one was the
Spanish flu. You and I mock the flu today
because of vaccines. But in the year 1918 to the year
1919, it killed more than a hundred million people in two years.
A hundred million people dying of the flu in two years. Isn't
that crazy? Those people saw the likeness and character of
sin in that flu epidemic at that time. And they began to hear
the gospel. Here's another one, the black
death. You guys remember that? That's
the black plague that came out of Asia into Europe and it killed
75 million people worldwide over some period of time, couple hundred
years. We talk about millions, ladies and gentlemen, millions. Malaria, we don't even talk about
malaria today. Malaria kills 2 million people
every year. It still kills 2 million people
every year. Age, which is one of the best
kept secrets today in terms of it's still impacting millions
of people. People are still being contaminated
with age everywhere today. It has killed thus far since
1981, over 25 million people. And millions
of people are contaminated with the AIDS virus right now around
the world. We talk about cholera. Here in
America we don't trip off of it. But cholera every year kills
hundreds of thousands of people. And the same is with typhus.
What am I saying? When we liken sin unto a disease
and start contemplating its contagion its effect on society Then we
begin to realize that sin does have an impact right? It has
an impact and that's what paul is doing here in his theology
He's teaching you and me that we can't play with sin. Sin's
gonna kill you It's gonna kill you if you don't seek a vaccine And so from that wide picture
angle of arguing about sins contamination in verse 12 where it enters in
and death by sin for all have sin look with me at verse 17
a For if by one man's offense Do you see what it says watch
this word death? reigned like a king like a monarch
like a ruler in all of this virulent power, death reign. Does death reign today? Yes,
it does. But it sprang from one person.
Look at verse 18. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, watch this now, judgment came upon all men to what? Now
let's accept that proposition and just kind of work with it
for just a moment. I'll unpack this more fully next
week as we get into the legal aspects of federal headship.
What God is stating is that you and I, because we are born in
Adam and therefore sinners, are under condemnation. We're condemned. Isn't that an amazing assessment
of the human condition when in the world they don't even see
it that way? The average sinner walking the street does not see
themselves as condemned. They don't see themselves under
a sentence of death. They don't see themselves under the judgment
of God. That's a judgment that God decreed when he told Adam,
in the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil, you shall surely what? Die. And you and I are under
that judgment right now. Here's how corrupt we are by
nature before I move to my last couple of points. We're so corrupt
by nature, sin is not even a problem for us. And we whitewash death. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Sin's not a problem for us, and we whitewash that. But here's
the reality. What Paul is getting ready to
teach is that God has done something within the span of human experience,
human history, to help us to pay attention. This moves us
to our next point, as we get ready to work through our outline.
Under point number two, as we talk about the flowing nature
of sin. Now, look with me at point number
three, the process of contamination. The process of contamination.
He speaks in Romans chapter 5 verses 12 to 14 this way. Wherefore,
as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
so that death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. For
until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed
where there is no law. However, are nevertheless, death
still what? Reigned from Adam to Moses, even
over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's
transgression, And here's the last line we will consider under
our final point, who was a figure of him that was to come. Paul
is taking us into deep, rich, complex theological territory,
is he not? And if we are honest, there are
things that he is saying in verses 13 and 14 that really don't make
sense to us. that have to be explained. For
instance, for until the law, sin was in the world. Why would
he state that? Going back to our PowerPoint,
because I want you to see it under the PowerPoint. Why would
Paul state that until the law, sin was in the world? Well, he
was just expressing that the curse of sin was operating since
the fall of man before the law of Moses. Now watch this. So
remember, I've told you as teachers, you have to be careful about
knowing the audience to whom you're speaking. I'm always speaking
to multi-ethnic groups and lots of people. And so I have to try
to formulate and develop my arguments and my expressions in a way that
you guys get it. Paul is aware that he was dealing
with both Jew and Gentile. And as he's unfolding the argument
for what we call theologically the doctrine of original sin,
And then theologically, the doctrine of union. And then theologically,
the doctrine of imputation. He understood that the one people
group that would begin to get that kind of theological framework
would be the Jews. But the Jews had a problem. They
thought everything started with Moses. And see, lots of Christians
do too. But what Paul is saying is sin
was in the world way before the law came. And sin was having
its impact in the world way before the law came. Because remember,
the first law that was given, a law of prohibition with negative
or punitive consequences, was in the day that you eat of the
tree, you shall surely watch. And so from Adam all the way
up to Moses, men what? They died. Not only did they
die from the natural consequences of sin, but they died from the
wrath of God, did they not? God poured out his wrath again
and again and again over upon the human race in the days of
Noah, in the days of Lot, in the days of Israel. Did he pour
out his wrath? Why? Because we were under condemnation,
we were under judgment, we were under sin. So what Paul is doing
now is throwing a bone of recognition to his Jewish audience when he
says, Brethren, understand that things didn't start, the law
didn't start with Moses, it was written in the heart of man,
as Romans 2 says, from the beginning of time. And God acknowledged
that their sinful behavior merited the judgment of God. But here
is what he's teaching that you got to get. The distinct difference
between the time of Adam to Moses was a period wherein there was
no external code written as a stop sign or as an inhibitor or as
a moral or ethical break upon humanity. So they lived unfettered
because they didn't have an explicit code. Let me see if I can make
this good. You and I may live in a society
or an area where we drive cars and on our roads, we may not
have stop signs or slow down signs or turn right here or turn
left like we do here. In California, we got signs everywhere.
That's designed to make us great transgressors, if you don't know
that. And because the ways of a transgressor
are hard, it's designed to make us broke transgressors. Now see,
it wouldn't be a problem if we weren't transgressors. Am I making
some sense? It wouldn't be a problem if I
wasn't a sinner intrinsically. You can have a million signs
up because if I'm not intrinsically a sinner, I'm going to obey every
one of those laws. But watch this. If you removed
all those signs and left me in my native sinful state, I'm still
going to tie it up. And watch this, there will be
consequences for me driving down this street at 75 miles an hour
rather than 15 miles an hour when a little child steps out
on the road and the law of inertia still kicks in. And I try to
stop, but I can't because I'm in that window of inertia. See
the law is there, but it's not as explicitly established because
when it's explicitly established, we have now the band-aid on the
wound. Let me just make a little bit
of comment on that. What do I mean by the band-aid on the wound?
That's what point number three is dealing with. The law was
there in terms of the hearts of men, but it wasn't made manifest
in the fullness of its sense until the days of Moses. When
Moses brought in the law, he had brought in that covenant
law, which once it was heaped upon the nation of Israel, it
only made them more sinful. Why? Because what does the law
do? It defines sin, it exacerbates sin, and it exposes sin for what
it really is. That's what I mean by a band-aid.
Now watch this. You and I can have gaping wounds
that represent a disease, but so long as you and I do not acknowledge
it as a disease, we can go about like we're just as healthy as
all get-up. That's the way our world is, ignorant of the law.
But as soon as you put a band-aid on it, people go, whoa, what's
that? Dude, you all right? What does
the band-aid do? It alarms us that that person
has a problem. Big old gaping gauge on his arm,
tape around it, redness, stuff oozing from it. Now we're backing
up. That's what law does. Law exposes us as sinners. Now, can you imagine everybody
in the room here, big old gauges and band-aids all over our bodies
while we're sitting in the chair here? You and I would be much
more conscious of our sinful state if we came into church
like that, wouldn't we? That's the purpose of the law.
It serves as an exposure of our sin, but it never solves the
problem. It only makes sin exceedingly
sinful in its true form. And so when Paul says in our
text, the sin was in the world, but it wasn't imputed until the
days of Moses, he was actually establishing what I am calling
a covenant relationship between God and Adam, just as he established
a covenant relationship between himself and the children of Israel
through Moses. Moses is the term for the covenant.
Adam is a term for the covenant. This gets back to my terminology.
God deals with all men through two men because God deals with
us in the framework of covenant. Are you guys following me? This
is where the will of God comes in. You and I cannot understand
the mystery of sin in our life until we understand our sin having
its origin in Adam. Now we are to acknowledge our
own sinfulness. That's not Adam's, that's not
Paul's argument. Paul's argument is not that you
and I are personally sinners, we are. And you and I are to
acknowledge our personal sinfulness. We should, and we should recognize
that in the day of judgment, when we stand before God, we're
gonna stand before God because of our personal sin. But watch
this, we cannot say sin starts with us. That's the point. And in the same fashion that
you and I cannot say sin starts with us, we cannot say the grace
of God starts with us. The righteousness of God does
not start with us, just like sin does not start with us. We
can acknowledge the presence of grace in our life. But we
can't say that grace starts with us. So again, under the process
of contamination, there are three points that I want you to consider
so we can move to our last point. The curse was before the law
of Moses. When Moses brought the law in
under God's jurisdiction, the law made sin exceedingly sinful.
That's how Paul will treat it in chapter six and seven. And
we have already seen that you and I are under the judgment
of God. We are condemned. Sin is leading us to death and
hell. You guys agree with that, right? It was brought in as a
band-aid to show us that we are actually sick. The last point
is where I had opened up a consideration with you, and that is Adam's
sin, where Paul says, even those who did not sin after the similitude
of Adam, look at verse 14 again, nevertheless, death reigned from
Adam to Moses. even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression." You guys see
that line? That line has always troubled people. I'm just going
to touch on it briefly before I get to my last point. And again,
we'll come back and deal with this. These become individual
categories of theological thought. What does it mean that even those
whose sin was not after the similitude of Adam, or after the pattern
of Adam, literally the word here is type, Death reigned from Adam
to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude
of Adam's transgression, who was a figure of him to come. And fundamentally, what Paul
is still arguing is the sin of Adam was a unique sin of which
no one else was able to actually mimic or model with the exception
of the one that Adam is prefiguring. I'm gonna leave this, what you
deal with my last point and help you with some. Most commentators
have basically stated it like this, that sin reigned over and
death reigned over people during the time between Adam and Moses
while they were in their state of innocency, like little children. Again, we struggle with why children
die. Because we understand death as
a major blow and impact in our societal life. And because we
believe in God, we ask the question, God, why did you let the child
die? And then you and I say he dies because he's a what? But
then here comes the retort, but he never did anything wrong. Right? This is where we argue,
don't ask the question, what did he do? That's not the question. Ask the question, who is he in? The question of who is he in
will answer why he died. You guys follow that? See, it's
not the issue of, did he do anything wrong? It was the same thing
when Jesus talked about the blind man in John chapter 9, when the
disciples came and said, Master, did he do anything wrong or did
his parents do anything wrong that he was born blind? No, that
wasn't the issue. Don't ask what he did. Don't
ask what his immediate parents did. Ask who he was in when he
was born, because that will give you the stream and take you to
the origin of the sin problem that manifested itself that way.
Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? So that way you and I
don't have to have a guilt Sense around the death of our children.
Don't that's a God thing and that's a whole nother doctrinal
discourse But that's a God thing don't everything they died because
they did something now you can struggle with whether they died
because you did something and let that bring you to Jesus are
you hearing what I'm saying, but it's not even that I See,
theologically speaking, you don't even get the right to say they
died because of your sin. Because what God is leading us
back to is the one who opened the door to sin in order to lead
us to the one who shut the door to sin. Are you hearing me? This is a logical progression
from one representative to another representative. in order to shut
you and me up to the need of salvation coming from somewhere
else besides ourselves. So I'll deal with my last point
as we deal with this. No, going back, don't go yet.
Going back, I want to just deal with this. Adam sinned in a state
of righteousness. You guys see that? This is amazing
to me. He was personally aware of what
he did and he was conscionable about the responsibility of what
he did. Think with me for a moment. Just
for a moment, I just want this to resonate. Adam sinned with
his eyes wide open. with a perfect mind, or what
we would call a good mind. It wasn't perfect, I can argue
about that. He wasn't immutably good. He was probationally good. He was temporarily good. He was good in the sense that
as long as he stayed on a track of obedience, then he had the
privilege of thinking God's thoughts after him. And yet this is what
Adam does. He defies the God that he knows. And he knows this God in a sinlessly
righteous condition. This is unfathomable to you and
me. He raises his hand and says,
God, I know what I'm doing because you have told me in the day that
I eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I shall surely
what? Watch this. When God gives you a mean commandments,
because we're sinners, you know what we do? We do like the devil.
We start going around that proposition and trying to rearrange it and
say, well, maybe God didn't mean that. Maybe what he meant was,
and we start turning into pretzels, distorting the plain explicit
truth of the commandment. Because we're more like the devil
than we are God by nature. Am I making some sense? but with
a high open hand with a clear knowledge of the true character
nature of God did his son Adam in a state of righteousness jump
into that transgression it makes no sense until you understand
who Jesus is and what he did when he in a state of perfect
righteousness stepped in front of God's law and said, I will
be seen for those who sinned against you with my eyes wide
open. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
This is remarkable. This is remarkable. So it brings
me to my last point and I'll argue this statement that I just
shared with you later. Point number four, as we close.
Point number four, flowing then from Jesus Christ and to all
that are in him, I want you to mark this last phrase and we'll
pick it up next week. flowing from Jesus Christ to
everyone that's in him is life. I want you to think about that
term life, Zoe, for a moment. I want you to think about that.
This is qualitative This is quantitative. This is infinite. This is impeccable. This is spotless. This is holy. This is transcendent. This is divine life. This is
a life on a level that you and I could spend years talking about
as a subject all by itself. Watch this now. Flowing from
Jesus Christ to everyone that's in Him is this kind of life. This is where Paul wants us to
shout and rejoice. Because there is a river that
flows out of the wombs of Christ to guilty hell-bound sinners
that purifies them, that changes them, that puts them in a state
of righteousness before God, that transforms them, that makes
them new, that gives them eternal life, that gives them resurrected
life. It gives them triumphant life.
It makes them a partaker of the divine nature. It brings them
into a status of sonship. It makes them princes and princesses
of God. It makes them kings with God,
priests with God, prophets with God. It makes them to be a partaker
of God at the highest level anyone could contemplate life. That's
too much for me. Too much. It's too much. Are you hearing me? Too much.
See, I just wanted to just salt you with that for a moment so
that you don't make the mistake that there is an equal and opposite
tension between death and life. That the life to which you and
I have been called, if we are believers in Jesus Christ, so
far outweighs the death that's in Adam. that the two actually
are not even in the same sphere, in the same realm. It is for
this reason, in the flow of Paul's argument, he says much more,
much more, much more than. If Adam, much more Christ. If
Adam, much more Christ. What he's talking about is the
triumph and the victory and the blessings of the grace of God
that comes to those that are in Jesus Christ. Here, watch
this, watch this now. If you are in Christ, you have
no idea how rich a life you have been made to be a part of. Let
me just cover just these four points quickly. He's the last
Adam. You guys got that? That's first
Corinthians chapter 15 verse 45. Do you know what that means?
That means this, no more covenants, no more programs, He's the last
representative of his people. In other words, all the blessings
of God for all eternity from here on out are in Jesus Christ.
That means everyone that's in Christ are now heirs and joint
heirs with this man who has inherited the universe. No more covenants. In other words, no more probation
periods, no more falls, no more sins. To be in Christ is to be
a new creature for all eternity, entering into the new heavens
and the new earth with all the blessings that come with it.
That, again, corresponds to what Peter said is an unspeakable
gift full of glory of which you and I need to be jumping and
shouting and thanking God. I don't know what I'm thanking
him for. I don't understand it all together. But there is a
life in Christ that is so infinitely glorious that I need to be tapping
into it every day of my life. and drawing from those promises
so I can live joyfully knowing that I'm in Him. In Him. This is why he says, he that
hath the Son hath life. He that does not have the Son
does not have life. And when he meant life, he meant
it to the full. He justified all that are in
Him. You guys see that, right? He justified everyone that are
in Him. As the last Adam, it was his job to justify me. Crazy! It was his job to justify
me. People will ask, well, how do
you get into Jesus? Because you didn't get yourself
into Adam. God put you in Adam. Are you ready? And you can't
get yourself into Jesus either. Pastor, I'm up a creek. Yes,
you are. How do you get into Christ? God must put you into
Christ. First Corinthians chapter 1,
verse 30. But of God, Are we in Christ? Who of God is made
unto us? Righteousness, redemption, sanctification,
and wisdom. All those are virtues in Christ
by which you and I are partakers of the divine nature. How did
I get into Christ? God put me in Christ. Are you
hearing me? God placed me in Christ. When did he do it? Before
the world began. Why? In order that I might have
this life that I could not obtain by my own good works. in the
same way that death came upon me because of my father Adam,
so the righteousness of God comes upon me because of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the lovely Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Lord Jesus
Christ, who said to his father in a covenant of redemption before
the world began, I will justify him. I will give him my righteousness. He gets to have my life and enjoy
my life with me. Only teach him not to steal my
glory, of which I am glad not to do. I will tell you I am saved
by grace through faith and that not of myself. It is a gift of
God that my faith didn't put me in Christ. God put me in Christ
and that the gift of faith that was given to me is to affirm
the fact that I'm in Jesus Christ. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
And I thank God in His goodness and in His mercy, that one day
I was able to open my eyes by faith and realize that He had
placed me in His Son. And the blessings that come to
me, I have to give Him all the glory for it. And because He
justified me freely by His grace, I live because He lives. Is that
true? See, that's the proposition he
gave in John 14. Because I live, they shall live also. He was
already confident that I was going to live. Because I live,
they shall live also. What are we talking about? Union
with Him. Union. And then Him imputing
His life to me. Imputing his life to me. That's
what he came for, to impute his life to me. He promised I would
live. They live because he lives. That's
Romans 5.10. Look at Romans 5.10. I want you
to see that. Just one more verse. Romans 5.10.
I'm not going to develop it. I just want you to see it. Paul
knows these thoughts. For if then we were enemies of
God, we were reconciled to God by the what? Death of his son.
Much more. See, that's a text in itself.
That's a sermon in itself. That's a series in itself. Paul,
what do you mean by much more? I want to know everything I got
coming in the covenant. What does that stipulation much
more mean? It has everything to do with
the enormous, unending, exhaustible blessings that are in Jesus. You remember the promise, eye
has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the
heart of man. Those things which God has prepared for them that
what? Love him, that wait on him, that trust him. Saints,
it's a lot of stuff that we have in Christ, both now and for all
eternity. But listen to what he says. For
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. Isn't that
great? He didn't wait for us to become friendly with him before
he made us reconciled to him. being reconciled, therefore,
then we shall be saved. How? You better own that. I'm done right here. You better
own that. Let me ask you the question.
Does he live? How long shall he live? Forever? Then how long shall you live?
Why? Because you are in Christ and
Christ is in you. And so long as he lives, we live. And that's the truth of the gospel.
Amen and amen.