If you'd like to, turn over to
Romans chapter 5. That's the fifth chapter of Romans. For the sake of time this morning,
we're not going to read it all the way through in the beginning.
We'll just go verse by verse, but I want you to see the first
verse here. We'll read that real quick. Romans chapter 5, verse
1. being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, Lord, we
come to you this morning in Christ's name. And Lord, we beg that you
would open this passage of scripture to us. Lord, that you would be
our teacher, that we might see your son here, that we might
see him high and lifted up, exalted in all his glory. And Lord, we
might see that we are, in fact, Lord's sinners complete in Him,
lacking nothing. Lord, be with us. Bless the conference
down in Florida. Be with our pastor as he's gone.
And we ask, Lord, your word would go out in power anywhere it's
preached today. And we ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Now, I fully recognize that the
chapter designations and the verse designations in the scripture,
they're completely man-made. And this thing we call Romans
chapter five verse one is actually just somewhere in the middle
of this long epistle that Paul sends to the churches in Rome.
But I love how this begins. I love that this is the first
verse because it begins exactly where you should begin when preaching
the gospel, with Christ and what he has accomplished. Now read
that first verse again. It says, therefore, being justified
by faith We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
It does not say the following is a step-by-step manual telling
you how you can be justified. and it doesn't say you can be
justified if you do this, this, and this. It says this is a fact
that there are presently people being justified. They are justified. This is something that has already
taken place and it was by one means by the Lord Jesus Christ
and by Him alone. That's where you begin with preaching
the gospel. He has justified His people. Past tense, it's over. and to
dispel any question about who these people are, Paul tells
us in the same chapter here. Look across the page, look over
verse six. Notice in the first verse he
says, we, being justified by faith, we have peace with God.
Well, who has this peace? Verse six, for when we, here's
the we, were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. Now, if I want to know if I am
one of these people who have been justified, I'm currently
justified by Christ, and that can't be changed, it's very simple
here. He says they are without strength,
not weak. They lack all ability, all ability
to keep God's law, all ability to come before God and bring
anything that comes from them that would be acceptable unto
Him. They lack all ability to do that which is spiritual, to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to muster some love to Him. They
lack all ability, naturally, they are completely and utterly
reliant on Him for everything, absolutely everything, up to
and including faith, without strength, and they are ungodly. You know what that means, the
direct translation? Wicked, that's the word. These
are people, when they stroll through their heart, the darkness
of that heart. And they find that one thing.
They find that one thing that on the surface appears good,
appears wholesome. Maybe that's a good thing. Upon
further examination, what they find is that it is backed with
self-serving, self-motivated motivations and intentions, self-glorying,
it's all sin, it's all wickedness, there's nothing, I have absolutely
nothing, without strength and ungodly. And here's the wonderful
part. is the glorious part. Christ
gave Himself for these people, for His enemies. That's an ungodly
man against God. People who by nature, naturally
hated Him, wanting nothing to do with Him and would have killed
Him given the opportunity. These are the people He gave
Himself for. And Paul goes on to talk about that. Look in verse
7, it says, "'For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, And what he means is a righteous man, a self-righteous
jerk, a person who makes you feel intimidated when they're
around you because of their pious demeanor. Look at me, look what
I'm doing, look at how pious I am. They try to intimidate
folks. For a righteous man, scarcely, scarcely people love him. Scarcely
you might find someone to die for that man. It's not impossible,
but it would be scarce. Go on. For scarcely for a righteous
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man. Some would even
dare to die. A worldly good man, someone who's
generous, kind, humble. You can find plenty of people
that would love that type of man. You'd probably find somebody
willing to die for him, right? But look at verse eight. But
God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. This is something you do not
find amongst men. It doesn't exist in the human
realm. A man loving his enemy and giving his life for his enemy. And that's exactly what Christ
did for us. When we were enemies, before
we were given that new nature, before the Lord sent that spirit
into our heart and gave us that new heart, when we were against
God, he died for us. Beautiful, high, and this is
how he proved his love for us, he gave himself. Now, look at verse nine. Much more then, being now justified
by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. Now Paul
uses a phrase here that he will use four additional times in
this chapter, much more. He's going to use it four other
times and we'll see it every single time. You know what he means
by that? He's saying it's better than you could ever imagine.
We see in part, we prophesy in part, but folks, we just see
the tip of the iceberg. better than you could possibly
imagine." He's talking about justification. Christ taking
a man who is sinful, who is wicked, who is against Him and making
him to where he is clean, and he is righteous, and he is sinless
before God. He says, it's better than you could ever imagine.
And he's going to go on and in these first couple of verses
he lists what I believe are four things, four consequences of
justification. The first one we already saw,
peace with God in verse 1. And he talks about it in verse
9 here, saved from wrath, Now that's the first consequence
of justification because Christ has justified his people. Here's
something we'll never see and we will never understand and
never know, the wrath of God. We have real peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ and we will never know that wrath. And
you think about this, we see things through a glass darkly
while we're here. The Lord gives us just enough. When we get to
glory, all mysteries are going to be opened unto us. Everything
that didn't logically make sense before, things we couldn't understand,
they were just deep mysteries. It's all gonna be open, because
we will have glorified minds, we will not have this old man
to deal with, and everything will be open. There will be one
mystery that will remain to us, something we won't know that
everybody else will know. What's it like to be under the
wrath of God? Everybody in hell's gonna know
that. They will feel it acutely. The Lord Jesus Christ knows it.
He knows it more acutely than any man that has ever lived.
But that one thing will be a mystery to us, what's it like to be under
God's wrath because we will never know anything about it because
Christ bore it all. Now look at that verse one again,
this is the first consequence. It says, therefore being justified
by faith. Now stop there for a second,
whose faith? Is it my faith that justifies
me? Me looking at Christ, is that my justification? No. What did verse 9 say? Therefore
being justified by his blood, his death, him bearing my sins
in his body, paying for them, putting them away, presenting
me to God wholly unblameable and unapprovable, that's my justification. Where does faith fit in? I believe
that. wholeheartedly, that is my salvation. I'm looking to one man, one man
and his accomplishment and his death. That is all I have before
God. That is the justification of
every believer. It is our peace with God and
that's the first consequence, peace with God, but much more,
much more. As if that wasn't enough, it
gets better. Look at verse two. By whom also? We have access by faith into
this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory
of God. Here's the second consequence
we have because of justification. Because Christ paid our debt,
we have access to grace. You think about that. What's
that really saying? It's saying this, because Christ
has justified all his people. floodgates of the Father's grace
toward them, His mercy, His grace, that which He delights to show,
He can open it to them and it does absolutely no damage to
His perfect sense of justice. God cannot show mercy at the
expense of His justice. He cannot be gracious at the
expense of His justice. But because Christ has paid our
debt, now we have access to grace. The Father can open those floodgates
of grace and pour down upon us abounding grace, and it does
no damage to his sense of justice. He remains perfectly just. And we have access to the Father.
You think about this, that first consequence is peace, right?
Real peace with God that cannot be broken. There's a lot of people
on this earth I'm at peace with in the sense that I'm not in
contention with them. And that is primarily because
I haven't met most people. You get people together, you're
gonna have contention. There's plenty of people on this earth
I'm at peace with in the sense that I do not have contention
with them, but I don't think anything about them. I don't really want
them around. They're just people I've never
met. Not even a passing thought. And then you have my children.
I am at peace with my children. Absolute peace with my children,
but it's greater than that. They have access to me. In Christ,
we have access to the Father. Not that he just tolerates our
presence. He delights in our presence because
Christ presents us holy and unblamable and unapprovable. And as much
as I have a goodwill toward my children, as much as it is in
my intention and as it is in my power to do them good, that
is my intention. Father has a goodwill to all
his people in Christ. And here's the thing, I can have
the intention to do my kids good. That doesn't mean it's gonna
happen, because I'm not sovereign, I'm not omnipotent, and I'm wicked,
so I will do them wrong. He can't. He's sovereign. He's omnipotent. He's holy. He's
righteous. He's perfect. Therefore, if He
has a goodwill to a man, goodwill that man must have, so much so
that goodness and mercy, it must follow us all the days of our
life. We have access to grace. And
read verse 2 again. It says, by whom also we have
access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. We have a hope, and we have a
hope in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask you this,
is Christ presently glorified? Right now in heaven, is he presently
glorified before his father? Is his father completely and
utterly pleased in him? Does He have all the glory? He absolutely does. Here's our
hope, folks. He's presently glorified. He
has all that glory. That means He did all the work.
That means we have these consequences, this peace with God. We have
this access to this Father and access to grace. And you know
what it cost us? Nothing. We get it freely. It costs us
absolutely nothing. It's free grace. It's free justification. It's the free gift. That's what
Paul will talk about later on in this chapter. It's absolutely
free. No strings attached. We have
it by the grace of God alone. Isn't that good? Here's the fourth
consequence here. And if you wanted to put a label
on this one or a title to it, it's this. Even our trials are blessed.
Look at verse three. And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,
and patience experience and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed
because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy
Ghost which is given unto us. Paul says we glory in tribulations.
Does that mean we enjoy the trial? The God-given trial? No. Sometimes I hear men use this
term light afflictions because that's the term the scripture
uses for our trials. But there's no reverence in their voice.
And I want to say this. Yes, the scripture says our trials
are light afflictions because compared to the suffering of
our master, they are light afflictions. But there is nothing light about
a trial. Todd says something that's probably the most human
thing I've heard him say from the pulpit ever. He just stopped
and said, this life is very difficult. And it is. This life is very
difficult. And it's full of trials. If you're
a believer, you're going to have many, many trials. Those trials
are a blessing to you. And they work in this respect.
This is how we glory in the tribulation. We enjoy the end of the trial,
the fruits of it. What happens in a trial? Two things, number
one this, Lord's faithfulness to us is re-revealed to us. You get put in the fire in the
trial, you can't get yourself out, you can't solve the problem,
you can't stop the pain, and you are caused to cry out to
the Lord for deliverance and just wait, patience, just wait
for his deliverance. And after a while, after the
purpose of the trial has been accomplished, he delivers. one
way or the other. He takes you out of this world.
He solves the problem. He just might provide a livable
solution. Paul said, I asked the Lord three
times to remove this thing from me. He said, My grace is sufficient
for you. And that's how he lived. Well, however it may be, he delivers
every single time. And you see again, he's always
faithful to deliver me, always faithful. The trial happens,
the deliverance comes, always faithful. And if he considers
me and he thinks on me in those lesser things, those light afflictions
that do not feel light, if he has given that much attention
to me, but he always faithfully delivers me, that means in my
greatest need, the need of my salvation, he's taking care of
that one. He will be utterly and has been
utterly faithful in that one too. And in seeing his faithfulness
to us, we reach out and we grab a little tighter on him. Now, Paul changes gears a little
bit. Look at verse 10. For if when we are enemies, We
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more,
being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Now, he's
talking about justification by blood, by the death of Christ.
He's talking about salvation by His life. Now, we shall be
saved by His life. And notice this is a much more.
Much more. It's better than you could ever
possibly imagine. In what respect, Paul? For every
believer, This is the truth now. This is much more. This is truth.
The history of every believer is everything Jesus Christ has
done. Now we say that a lot, and we
hear that a lot, but Paul throws this much more in here because
he wants you to stop there and say, consider this, that is the
truth. It's not as if that is the truth,
that some sort of substitution is taking place, and now it's
as if you have the life of Christ. No, when the Father looks at
you, if you're a believer, your history is the very obedience,
and the very righteousness, and the very perfection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. That is your life. That life
has already been established. It's already been lived. It's
already gone. Christ in you, the hope of glory, he's our life.
That new man that is in you, that new man who says this, look
down at verse 11. It says, and not only so, but
we also join God through the Lord Jesus Christ by whom we
have now received the atonement. That word atonement is reconciliation.
That new man that receives the reconciliation, he receives Christ,
he receives him just as he is, he receives his salvation just
as he provides it. That new man in you who believes,
who loves, that's Christ in you. Much more, much more. These are
high things. They are much greater than you
could ever imagine. That is the very spirit of the
Lord Jesus Christ dwelling in you, and that's right now. You
are a place where Christ actually dwells. He is our life. Now, Paul's gonna use the rest
of this chapter to do something that I never would have thought
to do. He's going to compare and contrast Adam and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, the reason he's going to
do that is because God only deals with two men. He deals with Adam,
and he deals with the Lord Jesus Christ. And everybody else, he
deals with them in the person of their representative. There's
only one comparison between Christ and Adam, only one thing that
can be compared. They are both heads of peoples.
They are both heads of families. Every man, every human to ever
live was in Adam. When God created Adam, He made
the entire human race, every man, stored up in Him. He's the father of the entire
human race, that family. Christ is the father, the head
of His elect, of His people, the spiritual race. That is the
only comparison that we have. Everything else is a contrast,
a stark contrast. Look down here, look at verse
12. Paul begins with Adam, he says,
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. We were all in Adam. Adam was
given a law, a rule, one, don't eat the fruit. And he did. He disobeyed God, and he died. He died spiritually, taking on
a sinful, evil, dead nature that cannot perform the acts of spiritual
life. This is Adam's inheritance to
his posterity, that wicked, sinful, dead nature that we all are born
with, we are all conceived with. And before anyone questions the
fairness of that, look at the last five words, for that all
have sinned. This was a collective rebellion.
All of humanity in one accord, all united in this thought, we
will not have this man to reign over us. So before we question
the fairness of that, just take God at His word. You did it.
I did it. There's nothing unfair about
this. The way we are born and conceived, it's exactly what
I deserve. It's what I earn. Go on. Look at verse 13. And these two
verses demand their own message. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the submultitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure
of him that was to come." Now, like I said, this demands its
own message, but what Paul is doing here is responding to a
human rebuttal of the justice of God and imputing sin. And
here's the point he makes. We'll just get straight to the
point. The law always has been. The law is written on every man's
heart. Every human born in this world,
save the Lord Jesus Christ, is born with two things, a wicked
sinful heart and the law written on it. That's why his conscience
burns when he does evil. It bears witness that God hates
sin. And that's why everybody dies,
folks. That's why everybody from the young to the old, everybody
sees physical death because of sin. There's no injustice with
God. Everyone is born this way. And the best way I can explain
this is this. Why did Cain murder Abel? Did he murder Abel and then therefore
became a murderer? Cain was born a murderer and
therefore he murdered his brother. And that's the difference. Now
look here, verse 15, but not as the offense, so also is the
free gift. Now that's a strange way to say
something, isn't it? Not as the offense, so also is
the free gift. What Paul's saying here is you
can compare these things. But it's a harsh comparison.
One is so much more glorious than the other, and they work
in opposites. That's what he's saying here.
Go on reading. But not as the offense, so also is the free
gift. For if through the offense of one many be dead, much more,
this is so much greater, the grace of God and the gift by
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. Much more, the grace of God in
Christ through his free gift, much greater than the death that
Adam plunged us into. I'm gonna speak hypothetically
for a second, okay? Just follow me on this. Let's
say for a second that Adam didn't eat the fruit. Let's say for
a second he didn't disobey God. The very best Adam could do was
pass on an innocent nature to his children. That was it. not
holy, not immutable. That means in every generation
past that, they would have had the opportunity to fall. It would
have always been there. And I recognize that the fall
is all according to the purpose and the will of God. This is
hypothetical. But the best he could do was pass on in innocent
nature. Much more, in Christ, through
his free gift, we're restored to a position that is way better
than Adam had it. Adam was innocent and he was upright, but he could
fall and he proved that. We can never fall away. We can
never be separated from God. That peace we have with the Father,
it can never go away because of this abounding grace through
the free gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's much more. It's
much greater. Look at verse 16. And not as it was by one that
sinned, so is the gift. Once again, you can compare these
things, but it's a harsh comparison. They're opposites. For the judgment
was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses
unto justification." Adam was one man. He committed one act
of disobedience, and through that one act of disobedience,
he condemned the entire human race. Christ was one God man. He completed one act of obedience,
his cross, going and dying under his father's wrath, according
to the purpose and will of God. And through that, he brought
in life to everybody he died for. What's the difference? They're
contrasts, they're differences. It's the sin. Adam committed
one sin, just one, and it was enough to plunge the entire human
race into darkness. Christ's salvation is of many
offenses. Every single sin that every one of his people ever
committed, he had to bring that into his body. He had to bear
the wrath, whatever it feels like to experience an eternity
in hell. He had to experience that times ten thousands and
thousands and thousands for every one of his people in just a few
hours on that cross. Adam committed one sin, it plunged
the whole human race into condemnation. Christ paid for all the sins
of everybody he died for, putting them away by the blood of his
cross. Now, look here, verse 17. For if by one man's offense death
reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace
and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus
Christ. The key word there is reign.
When Adam plunged us into darkness, death reigned. His sinful, evil
nature reigned. A man who the Lord just passes
by and does not intervene for, he cannot change his circumstances.
Death reigns over him. He cannot believe. He cannot
love. He cannot do anything to please
God. It is impossible. But in Christ, life reigns in
us. We believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and we cannot not. I
recognize we say, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief. I cannot
not believe that he's able. I stagger sometimes as to whether
what he did, he did for me. I worry that he won't receive
me. But here's the thing, if we don't
stagger it, he's able. He's utterly able. And you cannot
not believe that. It's impossible because life
reigns in you. Look at this, verse 18. Therefore, as by the offense
of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
under justification of life. Key phrase, all men. All condemned
in Adam. But are all men justified? No. Well, why does it say all men?
It's speaking of the head. Everybody in the head experienced
this thing. The entire human race was in
Adam, therefore all men were condemned in Adam. But everybody
who is in Christ, all men, every one of them in Christ, his elect,
all of them have life, and it can't be taken away. Verse 19,
for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one many shall be made righteous. Key word,
made. This is the mystery of the gospel,
the mystery that's answered. A man who has made a sinner,
a filthy, wretched sinner before God, how do you make him perfect
and holy and acceptable unto God? The answer is Christ. Salvation
is found in one place, in him, that's it. And look at the conclusion
of the matter, verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that
the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. The law entered. When did the
law first enter? Somebody says it's Sinai with
Moses. Nope. In the hearts? Nope. When did the law first
enter? With Adam. Adam had the first
law. Don't eat the fruit. Ever wonder
why the Lord gave Adam a law in the first place? Why he created
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the first place?
Why he allowed the fall of man in the first place? Folks, this
is all according to his purpose. It's all our fault. We sinned. We ate the fruit. We disobeyed
God. It's all according to the purpose of God. The law entered
that the offense might abound so that grace would much more
abound. to make his people holy, unblameable,
unapprovable, to make them to where they can stand before God
eternally, no hope of falling. It took the cross of the Lord
Jesus Christ, therefore the fall is for the cross. Now, you know
who gets offended by that and questions the fairness of that?
A person where sin does not abound. A person who is not a sinner.
You know who doesn't get offended by that? Who doesn't question
the fairness of that? Somebody where sin abounds. Because
where sin abounds, grace does much more abound. And if you're
a place where sin abounds, every bit of you under that faculty
of sin, you can't get out. The grace of God is upon you
and you have the very life of Jesus Christ. We'll stop there.