And in this particular place
here we find Adam and we find our Lord Jesus Christ. We find
similarities between the two and there's also contrasts between
the two. And that's what we wanted to
look at this morning. In verse number 15 it says, But
not as the offense, So also is a free gift. So first of all,
as we look at it, we have an offense. Then we also have a
free gift. For through the offense of one,
many be dead. Much more, the grace of God and
the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded
unto many. We find both Adam and the Lord
Jesus Christ was both appointed head of a race, head of a covenant,
and each represented his seed. It's very important that we understand
Adam and it's very important that we understand Christ. Now,
each has passed on to their seed the effects of their own work.
What Adam did, he passed it on. What Christ did, he passed it
on. We see Adam and what he passed
to his seed, and we see the Lord Jesus Christ and what he passed
to his seed. Then there's a contrast, there's
a differing. The relation to Adam is a physical. We were in the loins of Adam,
and all men came by Adam except the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the
father of us all, Adam. The human race comes from him,
and the relationship is that of a physical, that we come from
him, was in his loins, then there's a relationship to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that relationship is a spiritual one. We find the
two terms listed here, and that is offense and we have the free
gift. Now those two are contrasts to
each other. And let's talk about the offense
this morning as we set the message, as we Look at this passage of
scripture, and the offense speaks of the fall of man. And it goes
on, it says, because the offense of this one, many are dead. Now, mankind had a heavy loss
in Adam, as we look at it, the offense of Adam. The Bible says,
by one man's offense, sin entered into the world. Then because
sin had entered into the world, death by sin, so death is passed
upon all men. So that was a heavy loss. Adam
sinned, the Bible says, we've all sinned. You see in verse
number 12 here it says, whereby as by one man sin entered into
the world. Sin entered in. Now it came by
Adam. and as a representative and death
by sin and so death passed upon all men so that all have sinned. It's easy to prove that we are
from Adam because of the consequences in it. I mean that's easy to
prove from the scriptures the consequences death has passed
upon all. What was lost? We find that we've
all sinned The Bible says, and we notice that Adam, he was placed
in the garden. There was the privileges that
he had, the delights that he had in the garden. He communed
with God. The Bible says he walked with
God. There was a freedom from death. There was no death till
he sinned. In other words, we could put it
in language like this, Adam had it all, didn't he? He lived what
was called paradise, garden. And after he sinned, we find
that man became a subject of pain, weakness, suffering, and
death. All this was the effect of the
fall. What we see today is the effect of the fall. And besides
this, there is a bias to evil. abides to it. Man is towards
sin. His nature is that of sin. He sins because he's a sinner,
doesn't he? That's his nature. And he goes
in the opposite direction of God. He doesn't keep God's laws. And we find that there's death
because of sin. And it's a certainty because
the Bible says there is an appointment of death, aren't there? We find
also that man by the sweat of his brow has to earn bread. Before this, before Adam's sin,
everything was right there for his taking. The Bible even says the thorns
in the brass is because of this. Children
born, the Bible says there's a travail, the pain and the travail. And it's continued all of these
years. We find that man goes back to the dust. So it was a
sad day when Adam disobeyed the Lord God. He told him not to
eat of that forbidden tree. And he took of that tree. The world was called paradise. Now look at the world. Look at
what goes on in the world. Look at all the evil of sin.
You just can look at the news and see the evil that goes on
throughout this world. And all the death because of
sin. It's all because of Adam that
it's passed on. That's the great evil of the
fall. And you say, well, what if I'd
been there? Well, you look at it like this,
Adam was the best of the human race. He came from his maker
upright, and what would you have done? You wouldn't have done
any better than Adam. He was of the best of the human race.
So, we also find a free gift. And that's speaking of our salvation.
So here's the offense, and now there's the free gift, and through
the offense, many be dead, much more the grace of God, the gift
of grace. And here's that free gift, and
that is salvation. We were learned by the Father. But we are saved by a free gift. The very gift of grace. As it
speaks here, much more, the grace of God. I am glad that the Bible
says this. It says, where sin abounded,
grace did much more abound. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. The Bible also says that grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ
our Lord. The Bible plainly states, by
grace are ye saved. Now, the language and the larger
portion of mankind, they do not believe in salvation by the grace
of God. There are those that profess
to believe it, yet they do not understand it. They say grace,
but they want to add something to it. They want to add their
doings or what they're going to do, they want to add something
to it. I remember Brother Wallace distinctly. saying one time, and he said
this at the Rock Creek Baptist Church when he was preaching
there years ago, and it stuck with me. He looked over at me
and he says, a lot of people is talking grace, but it's not
the same grace that they talk about. You know, men do not naturally
love grace. They do not naturally love it,
but there is a people that knows the joyful sound. They know grace. And this free gift is bestowed
without any regards to merit. We don't merit anything. Mercy
is for those that are undeserving. And it's not for the righteous,
but it's for those that are undeserving. It's for those that are sinful.
And God deals out His gracious salvation to those that are lost. In other words, the Lord says
He came to seek and to save the lost. He says they that are whole
need not a physician, didn't He? But it's those that need
a physician. It's to those that have no claims.
It's not something that It's not because there's something
good or we're going to do better, but it's because that He is gracious
and merciful. It's said of Christ, when He walked the face of the
earth, when He walked up and down, they made an indictment
against Him. And it's an indictment that We're
to look at and be thankful of these Pharisees and these religious
zealots. You know what they said of the
Lord Jesus Christ? They said, this man receiveth
sinners. He receives sinners. Oh, this morning, grace comes. Look at how grace comes. Look
at Saul as Paul. Look, it wasn't because of his
goodness. He didn't merit anything. He
even said of himself that he was a persecutor. He was a blasphemer. And yet, he was a vessel of mercy,
wasn't he? Grace came to him. It wasn't because of any goodness
in him. What about the thief on the cross? He hung there and
he said, we are justly here. Justly. Talking about him and the other
thief. But we see grace and mercy came. It wasn't because of any goodness,
was it? The Lord said, today thou shalt
be with me in paradise. is because of mercy. The Lord
had mercy upon him. It's because the Lord manifested
His power. It's because He's plenteous in
mercy. And you talk about foresight. Many talks about foresight. I'll
tell you what God's foresight is. God's foresight is what He's
going to do. God's foresight is what He's
going to do in the display of His mercy. His foresight is a
display of His love, what He's going to see that He does in
His love. What He's going to do in His
work of grace. Now, God says, the Bible says,
according to the good pleasure of His will. He says, I will
have mercy, upon whom I will have mercy. And if it's a foresight
of something that man does, if God says on account of a foresight
that man does, it's a matter of works and debt, not of grace. And yet that prevails today.
God says so and so because he foresees something in them. That
make a matter of debt. But God is a debt to them, a
matter of works. But the Scriptures declare this,
it's not of works, but of grace. God's grace. And if it's of works,
it's no more grace. You say, well, what about repenting
and believing? That's the acts of man. Yes,
it is the acts of man. God doesn't believe for anyone.
Doesn't. But it's grace. that brings us
to repentance. It is grace that brings us to
believing. It's the grace of God. It's grace
that brings us to faith that it might be of grace. It's of
faith because it might be of grace. The Word of God says this. It says, Believe not in Christ,
you die in your sins. It's just as plain as it can
be. But yet we don't make believing a merit before God. I'm going
to tell you what believing is and trusting. It's just like
the water in the well. There's a water and there's a
channel that it comes to us. Now what does us good is the
water in it. But there's something that receives
that. There's the power of the pump
that pumps it. And there's a channel that it
comes. That's what faith is. It's that channel. That's how
the water of life comes to us. By faith. By believing. The Bible says this. It says, while we were sinners,
that Christ died for us. He commended His love toward
us while we were yet sinners. It's through grace and mercy
that pardon comes to us. We talk about free grace. And
it came to the Apostle Paul. Look at it. He was a transgressor. You know, outwardly, he was alright,
the Scripture says. And he said he was alright outwardly,
but said covetousness when he read the law. He said covetousness
guided him, didn't he? He said he is a covetous man.
And again, We see that this grace came to him. He came over his
transgression. He was a persecutor. As I said
before, a blasphemer. But this grace, as it comes to
all that are saved, is over all their sin and rebellion. Just
as it said a while ago, where sin abounded, grace did much
more abound. God delighteth in mercy. We read
the Scriptures, and He delighteth in mercy. Eternal life is a gift. It is not of death. And His mercy
delights in blotting out sin. His mercy delights in abounding
above sin. His mercy to our very souls.
He loves to bestow His grace. Can you see it? I can see it
in the Apostle Paul's life. I see the greatness of the grace
of God as He has flown that road to Damascus and had the letters
against the Christians and going to take them to prison. I see
the power of God. And I see a great trophy of grace. Don't you? Look to change in
this man's life. Here's a great trophy of the
grace of God. And He bestowed it to those that
deserved it not. He didn't deserve it. But we see that God bestowed
it. So we are saved by grace. It's
free grace. It's pure grace. It's grace without
merit. It's by the mercy of God. It's
grace and mercy to those that are bought by the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And all those that are going
to be gathered around the throne, they're going to say unto Him
that washed us in His blood. Then it goes on, our text says,
the gift of grace which is by one man. Now it was one man that
we find that the offense came. And now it's one man, and that
is Jesus Christ. that He's abounded unto many. We were lost for one man and
we're saved for one man. Adam's disobedience, he did not
keep the law, but our Lord Jesus Christ kept the law. Adam disobeyed
God, but our Lord Jesus Christ, He kept the law entirely. As
a youngster, As he grew up, he was perfect in all of his
actions. Christ was. He never sinned in
growing up. He never sinned as a young man.
He never sinned in his life. There's no blessings that ever
come to man from God without coming through the Lord Jesus
Christ. No blessings. The book of Romans. As we read it in the 8th chapter
of the book of Romans, we come down to the end of this chapter,
and he talks about the love of God, and he goes through all
of these things here. Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? And he goes on down in verse
number 39, and he says, Who shall separate us from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? The love of God is in Christ
Jesus. Isn't it? Isn't that what it
says? It goes on and it talks about,
persuaded neither death nor life nor angels, principalities nor
powers nor Frank's prison nor things to come nor height nor
depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Our blessings
flow in Christ Jesus. There's no salvation apart from
Him. No spiritual blessings apart
from Him. Didn't He say in His prior, in
the 17th chapter of the book of John, that He's the Giver
of eternal life? And grace is exclusive in and
through the Lord Jesus Christ. If He'd not come in the form
of a man, in the form of a servant, If He had not humbled Himself
and became obedient unto the cross and unto death, if He had
not submitted to taking our sins upon Him and suffering for our
sins and under the very wrath of God and not shed His blood
and not risen again, there would be no abounding grace. If there wasn't any abounding
grace, there would be no salvation. But it comes to us. in one person. This one person who is truly
man. He is a man as you and I. The scripture describes him as
such, yet without sin. And yet also he was truly God,
wasn't he? He is deity. You see him and
he was asleep in the boat and the storm came up. He is weary. He is asleep. You see man. The disciples came to him and
says, look, here's this storm. Now what did this one do? He got up and stealed the waves,
didn't he? Calmed the storm. Now that was
God. He hungered, but yet he fed the
multitudes with the fishes and the loaves, didn't he? He hungered
as you and I do. But yet He fed the multitudes.
He's two natures in one. When we look at Christ, and we
see the Scriptures and it speaks, and the Word was made flesh. Now who's the Word? The Word
is Christ. He's made flesh and He dwelt
among us. He's the God-man. He's Christ
Jesus. He's the anointed of God. He's
the mediator. Now, the blessings of grace and
salvation by grace, we see what all's happened to us through
the fall of Adam. Man lost paradise. But look what
great danger that has happened and what has gone. But here's
the second. Here is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see the first one. We
find that there is the fall and there is death. But we find the
Lord Jesus Christ and He restores the wound. He restores man. And He restores him through his
life and through his death and his resurrection. We find that
There's the great blessings, the benefits that flow to us
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We find Adam was to physical
life, but Christ is to eternal life. That's a great difference, isn't
it? We find Adam paradise, but we find Christ heaven and glory. We find Adam subject to sin,
But we find Christ can't sin. Adam was set up as what we call
a free moral agent. And he was subject to sin. But Christ is impeccable. He
can't sin. In Adam, nothing secure. Adam
was placed here and there was nothing secure. But in our Lord
Jesus Christ, all is secure. That's a blessing, isn't it?
That's a benefit, isn't it? All is secure in Christ. The
Bible even says all is yours. It says you're complete in Christ. It's all secure in Him. In Adam
we fall. But in Christ we're raised up.
In Adam, there's the old nature. In Christ, there's a new nature,
a new creation in the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam lost fellowship, but in Christ, fellowship is
restored. John talks about this fellowship.
It's restored in Christ Jesus. Adam was a breaker of the law,
but Christ is a keeper of the law. We see in Adam a dead ode. We see in Christ, paid in full. See, Adam owed. There's his sin
and he owed. But Christ says, paid in full. That's his salvation. That's
his grace. He writes above our very name,
paid in full. Adam lost righteousness. But
Christ has a perfect righteousness. We find that Adam came under
the burden of sin, but the Lord Jesus Christ has called our burden
a barrier. God says that we are saved for
Christ's sake. The cross, the wounds, the blood,
you can be absolutely sure that sin can be pardoned because of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't die in vain. He's no
failure. The Bible says that he shall
see his seed and be satisfied. That voice, you remember Abel speaks in the
book of Hebrews that Abel's blood cried out. Christ's blood cries
out, sin put away. Sin put away. The blood of the
only begotten Son of God is called precious blood. It's called powerful
blood. And that's how grace and mercy
flows to sinners through the bleeding Savior. and the offense
of one, and we see the free gift of one, and we see the action
of our first parents and the results and the consequences
to man. Out of sin drowns man in sorrow
and death. But look at the boundless blessings
of Christ and of His grace. The Bible calls it the exceeding
riches, not just riches, of grace, but the exceeding riches of grace. It calls God and says He's the
God of all grace. We see His loving kindness. It's
the Lamb that supplies life and everlasting life. Living the
blessings to His people and to every believer. The Bible says
that they have He hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. See what we've obtained in Christ. You can see what we lost in Adam,
but what we've obtained in Christ, in one, this one. Oh, what a difference this morning
in the persons that we find here, the difference in these in Adam.
and what is called the second Adam, Christ. One is earthly
and the other one heavenly. Adam pulled us down, but Christ,
the greater, the Son of God, restores us and brings us up. Adam, eat of the forbidden fruit.
When our Lord died, the Bible says, poured out His soul unto
death. to burn the sins of His people. And we see under all
of that weight, to save. And the Bible says to save to
the uttermost those that are in Christ Jesus. A perfect work. A finished work. Salvation is
in this one Man. This God-Man. In this one Man,
the Scripture says here that by one Man, Jesus Christ, He's
abounded unto many. This morning there is no possible
failure. We may be failures, and we are
failures in many ways, but our Lord is not a failure. He never
will be a failure. His glory is this, that none
shall be lost as given unto Him. None. Oh, my salvation lies this
morning in one. It lies in the gift of God, in
His free gift. It lies in the life and death,
the atonement that was made for my sin. One of the most precious
verses of the Bible is found over in Peter. Peter says, He
bore our sins in His own body upon the tree. Bore them in His
own body. In other words, He stood in our
stead. He stood in our place. Imputation. That's the doctrine of the Scripture.
Adam's sin is imputed to us, but Christ's righteousness is
imputed to us. He stood in our place. What of
this morning if Adam had never sinned? Look at him if he'd never
sinned. You know he still might just
any time as he lived, mightn't he? At any time he might sin. There'd never be an absolute
security. You couldn't say eternal life
with any certainty. But now in Christ, Everything is certain. There's
no ifs and buts in Christ. That's a false gospel if you
put ifs and buts and perhaps and change and luck and all of
this in it. But it says in Christ we've obtained
an inheritance. The Bible says he that believeth
is saved and he hath everlasting life. Everyone that believeth. See, there's a sure standing.
When we was in Adam, there wasn't any sure standing. But in Christ,
there's a sure standing. We see that we lost life in Adam,
but we gained eternal life in Christ. Adam was God's creature by creation. that we are sons by adoption. We've been adopted into the family
of God. Behold what manner of love is
bestowed upon us that we be called the very sons of God. We also were born of God. Born by the Word, an incorruptible
Word. incorruptible seed, the scripture
says. We are members, as we are members
of Adam. We are members of Christ. And
I don't know how... I just take what the scripture
says. I don't understand it. But it
says that we are members of His body, and of His flesh, and of
His bones. We're joined to Him. That's what
it means. Members. The Bible even says
that we are raised up with Christ. Ephesians chapter 2. Raised up
with Christ into heavenlies. In Him. To sit in heavenly places. In Christ there's a bond of redemption. It means that Christ has bought
us, and Christ has paid for us, and there's this strong bond. See, when you buy something,
when you pay for it, and our Lord bought it and paid
for it, He's going to have it, isn't He? He's going to have
it. He's going to have what He's
bought and paid for. It's all free gift. from free
grace. One other thought this morning
that came to my mind and that is the responsibility that was
placed upon Adam. The responsibility that was placed
upon him. Look at it as he was made upright
and placed in the garden and everything there was for his
taking. The responsibility to that of all his seed. And he
failed that responsibility. On the other hand, I thought
about the responsibility placed upon our Lord Jesus Christ. His responsibility has been placed
upon Him. It was placed upon Him before
the foundation of the world. It's all placed upon Christ. And we see that He fulfilled
all of His obligation. One failed, but Christ never
failed. He fulfilled all of His responsibility. He is responsible to come. He
came. He is responsible to keep the
law. He did. He was responsible to go to Calvary's
cross and shed his blood, die. He did. You know, his responsibility didn't
stop there. He's still responsible. As he
came forth from the grave and went back to heaven, he intercedes
for his people. He's still responsible for them. Aren't you glad there's one that's
responsible for you? And it's this one man, Christ
Jesus. May we pray. Father, take the
message. As we think about this offense
that has happened, may on the other hand we think about Your
grace and mercy to us. Think about this one man. fulfilled
all His responsibility. This one man that our salvation
was upon, that secured our salvation, may we live in praise and honor
to Him. In Christ's name, Amen.