About this sermon
Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so that death spread to all because all sinned. Adam stands as the head of the human race, and his one trespass brought condemnation for all, yet he is a type of the one to come. Through the one man Jesus Christ, his obedience and his death, the free gift abounds, and those condemned in Adam are justified and given life in Christ.
Sermon transcript
And let me invite you to turn to the passage we’ll be considering. The fifth chapter of Romans. Romans chapter five. Second part of that chapter. Verses 12 through 19. And of course this is God’s inspired word, authoritative. May we hear and receive it as such this morning.
Paul writing under the inspiration of the Spirit says, verse 12, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, And death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation But the free gift, following many trespasses, brought justification.
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners. So by the one man’s obedience, the many will be made righteous.
This is the word of the Lord. Father, this indeed is your Word, in all of its richness and complexity. Would you, by the Spirit, make the hearing, the proclamation of this Word, effectual to us? May your Word, as that sword that it is, pierce even to the dividing asunder of soul and marrow. and be a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of our hearts. And may through this Word, may we be called to follow more deeply, perhaps know, even at the beginning, the Word of Life, Himself made flesh, Jesus Christ. In His name we pray.
The Apostle says elsewhere, of course, that all Scripture is breathed out by God, it’s inspired, and therefore, because it comes directly from God, it is profitable. He goes on to name some of the things and ways in which it’s profitable. But from the profitability of all Scripture does not follow that all Scripture is equally profitable in all equal ways. I don’t think very many of us Westerners would argue that the genealogies have the same experiential or even spiritual impact on us as some of Paul’s directives to us in how to use our tongues, how to live. Both inspired, but profitable in different ways.
So this passage, Paul, verses 12 through 19 here, is for everyone. And it tells us that about the two most important people who have ever lived, and importance being judged by influence and impact. The most important people have the broadest and the most far-reaching impact. And every single human being is impacted, affected, influenced by the actions of Adam and Christ, which of course makes them the most important two people, the God-man and Adam, who ever lived. So let’s just consider briefly, this is of course, Paul being very complex and thick Potent we can only pull on a few things out of this very very very rich passage So let’s look at three aspects of the impact that Adam and Christ have on all of humanity. Look at the impact in sin, in solidarity. The three points are right under the title of the sermon. The impact in sin, the impact in solidarity, and the impact for salvation. Sin, solidarity, and salvation. Consider the impact in sin.
The effect of Adam is laid out for us directly. Right there in verse 12 at the beginning. Sin came into the world through one man. It was Adam. Verse 14 speaks of the transgression of Adam. It says, Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam. Verse 15 says that the many died through one man’s trespass. And then 16, again, one man’s sin.
17, one man’s trespass. That one man, of course, is Adam. And verse 18, one trespass of Adam. One man’s disobedience. And what, of course, this means and what Paul sets out over and over and over is this great, big reality, not great in terms of good quality, but this big, big reality that all of our troubles and woes within and without stem from one man’s sin. Adam. His one disobedience.
And it affects everything. Think about the biological realm. Our bodies fail us. We’re all, at various speeds, on a descent into feebleness and death. Weakness of the body grows as the days go on. That’s just the biological realm. Think about the psychological realm. We see things darkly. We have faulty thinking. There’s a phrase in the addiction community that you have to deal with your stinking thinking. that thinks that you get life from the bottle. So our minds are falling. The technical word, the noetic effects of Adam’s sin. We don’t think rightly. We don’t think in proper proportions. We call good evil, evil good. Think about the social realm. Not just the biological or psychological, but the sociological realm. And the effect of Adam’s sin. None of our relationships work right. Even the good ones could be better.
We all want people to let us in and never let us down. And so few of us let anyone all the way in. And we’re always letting one another down. We blame one another. We protect ourselves from one another. I’m pretty confident no one here has posted their social security number on an open platform anywhere. And that all of you locked your car in your houses. We’re not in Mayberry.
That’s because we understand the one man sin has violated the shalom intended even in the social realm. We don’t love one another as we ought. And then, there’s just the natural world. The physical, natural environment. It fights against us. Weeds grow. Roses have thorns. If we don’t cover ourselves, we’ll get sick. If we don’t put things on our feet, we’ll get cut and scratches and bruises. The natural world. We put big animals in cages. We don’t let them roam around freely.
This is all because of what verse 12 says. In successive verses, sin came into the world through one man. Now, perhaps Adam’s sin could have been any disobedience, because the emphasis in Paul’s language in this passage is on sinning and on disobedience. So perhaps any disobedience would have brought death and sin into the world. If he had a sin of commission, if he had lied to Eve, perhaps fall would have come as well. If he had refused to work, he was commanded to work, to make babies and work. If he had refused to do so, sin of omission, that would probably brought sin and death. But the actual obedience we do know about and what actually happened was the eating of the fruit that was given to him.
And then why is Adam responsible when it was Eve who actually ate the fruit first? Why does Paul lay it all on Adam here? Well, Adam is our representative head. He’s the one who acted on our behalf. He is the one, as Paul uses over and over, the one whose actual and original sin is imputed to the many. He’s the first one who had the Midas touch in reverse.
He turned a garden into a ghetto and was soon after handed his eviction notice. And we do the same thing. I live right next to a big ghetto. This is what we do as humans. We take good things and we mess it up, just like our first parents, in particular our first father. Adam was a covenant breaker, and all mankind in him are and have been covenant breakers as well. Such that one author says, the inescapable truth is that the grace of God continues to shine upon a people whose major claim to fame is the suicidal ability to break the covenant that’s what we bring because our first father brought that and brought the state upon us such that all we can do is break the covenant now how is it that as verse 18 tells us One trespass leads to condemnation for all men.
How does that work? The sin of this one person. And why does it work this way? None of us ever met Adam. Not sure if he even has a belly button. And yet we’re responsible for his one sin. Why is his guilt and condemnation put on us and all humanity. Why is our standing grounded in His action? Well, let’s consider together a second point. It’s a matter of solidarity. Well, some would say, in answer to some of those questions just presented there, that our union with Adam, our union in sin with Adam, our natural father, is primarily, if not principally and solely, a biological union.
When you consider verses like the writer of Hebrews saying, that one might even say that Levi himself was a descendant of Abraham. Levi himself paid tithes through Abraham. He came later. Levi came later. The writer of Hebrews says that Levi paid tithes when Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek. And he bases it this way. He says, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor. So the fact that Levi, a descendant, Abraham paid ties, in Abraham paid ties to Melchizedek is said to be because he proceeded from the loins of his father, ancestor, Abraham.
That’s biological union. So many want to say that we are connected to Adam because he’s our natural father. We share his blood and genes. And interestingly, the geneticists who are studying all of this, side note, are getting closer and closer to saying a single pair. All of humanity has descended from them.
Something we already know, God said. But they’re getting close. They got it down to like 100,000 people down in the Middle East. It’s like, well, let us know when you get there. We’ll give you what we’ve already known. But our biological union, many will say. Some others will say something like a realistic union.
That is, it’s not primarily biology that creates this imputation, as it were, by which sin is transmitted. But that Adam was the corporate man. He was the man out of whom every other, all our natures descend. So he was the one man in the earth And so when he acted, we’re a part of him. We’re not little individualistic atomized players. But he was one man with one nature, and we have a part in his nature. Therefore, what he did becomes what we do.
That’s called a realistic kind of union. By far, most Theologians who look at Paul’s language here, though, and traditions associated with Greg’s church here, say, no, there’s something more. There is this federal kind of relationship here. And you see it in a verse like 16.
In this federal kind of relationship, this representative union whereby God declares us guilty by a legal declaration. Verse 16 says that sin brings judgment leading to condemnation. That’s all legal language. Sin brought about a judgment on Adam in all his posterity. leading to condemnation, the death sentence. This is like the courtroom, God the judge, and by legal declaration saying, sin of your father becomes yours.
So a representative union, just like when our representatives act on our behalf. their declarations become effective for us. We can’t opt out of what our legal representatives say on our behalf or do. And so people mix these together and say it’s a combination of perhaps some other things. But however we might answer that, however we might answer the question, how are we constituted sinners because of Adam’s sin, what’s clear is that All of those views and every view you read, underneath it all, if you can’t explain all the particulars, what is abundantly clear is that there exists this solidarity between Adam and us.
And it rests upon a God-ordained structure in the creation and redemption of the human race. There is just this pattern and structure whereby we are connected. whereby the actions of one affect the actions and state of the many, in all different kinds of ways and levels. You see it all over scripture.
Moses says, God says in Numbers, as I get closer to the end of the journey, says, your children, speaking to the unfaithful, rebellious Israelites in the wilderness, your children your faithfulness, your faithlessness, until the last dead body lies in the wilderness.
Perhaps the most well-known is the incident in the case of Achan. When the Israelites marched to take Ai, they were told, don’t take any of the utensils, don’t take anything, no goods, no spoils. Of course, Achan stole else from Ai? And then Joshua gathered the people together and he said, that all Israel had sinned. See, it wasn’t, so one man’s sin, and it’s the army and all the people, the Israelites, and fighting Ai, one man. Talk something. And yet the indictment was, it is all Israel had sinned.
And of course they lost and were routed and had to run and run away. And the judgment was A.I. or A.K. was brought out. And it wasn’t just him who was persecuted. It wasn’t just he who was sentenced. He was sentenced to death and his family. They suffered for Him. All of Israel had sinned as a result of Achan’s sin.
And you can find this all over Scripture. You can see it in Paul’s language about the body, the church as the body of Christ. When one member suffers, all suffer. He doesn’t say, you all should think of yourself as suffering, when one suffers. There is real suffering. When one heart suffers, and when one is at work both ways, and when one member is honored, all rejoice as though they’re honored.
See, there is just this implicit structure of solidarity that operates at all kinds of levels and ways. And it operates that way by virtue of God setting it up to be like that. And think about this, if there wasn’t this kind of, the actions of one affecting the standing of many, if there wasn’t that kind of structure of sin, then there wouldn’t be the possibility of a one for many in salvation.
That’s the other half. of the Adam-Christ parallel that Paul is reasoning through in this passage. Consider not just the sin of Adam. Consider the salvation that Christ has brought and brings through His faithfulness and perfect obedience. We don’t just see similar comparison were parallels between Christ and Adam, who was a type, Adam was a type of Christ, Paul says in verse 14, who was a type of the one who was the God.
We also see these glorious contrasts in the impact of their actions. There’s comparison, but there’s contrast. Specifically, there is a how much more happens in the action of Christ. Look at 15. But the free gift is not like the trespass. And then in 16. Free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. And then in 17, fourth, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man.
He was sinned by Adam. But Adam sinned. We’re all constituted sinners. How much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ? Where Adam’s sin brought universal condemnation, that’s the death sentence. Christ surpassing salvation by his obedience brought justification. It didn’t just neutralize Adam’s verdict. It’s not like Adam’s sin, for all sinners, Christ was obedient.
We’re all made back to zero and we’re okay. Now it brought justification. It went beyond it and brought the reign of righteousness as verse 17 says. See Christ’s work didn’t just undo and is undoing and will eventually be completed. Undo the effect of Adam’s sin. It brought us beyond and made us righteous people. Declared righteous who will be completely righteous.
And it did that in the face of the reality of sin. Verse 18 tells us, shows us that the wonder of salvation by grace And it gives us family life. Christ’s act of obedience brings justification and life. And that life, as Jesus spells it out in John 17, is life with the Father and the Son, who was put to death for our sins. We are brought into His family.
There was a couple years ago, Ike Brown, a senior. He was a Jacksonville officer, police officer. And one night, there were three young men who were together. And one of those young men, who were in their time together, pulled out a gun and shot the other two young men dead. One of the men who was shot was Officer Ike Brown’s son, Ike Brown, Jr. They caught the young man pretty soon after that and, of course, sentenced him. And as you would completely understand and know and might would think, Officer Brown had a terrible hole in his heart. to lose in his son, his namesake. But he was a believer.
He wanted to show tangible forgiveness to the young man whose name was Takoya Kreiner. You can Google this later. Jacksonville, Mike Brown, Takoya Kreiner. Wanted to show tangible forgiveness. So what he did is he began a relationship with his son’s killer through writing at first. And thus began regular visits. You know, and on one visit, Officer Brown asked his son’s killer, DeCoy Cranor, to quote, fill in as a son for his own deceased son. And then went beyond that and offered to adopt Takoya Kreiner as his own son.
He recognized Takoya Kreiner had grown up an aimless young man, no parental authority, no fatherly mentoring or guidance, and was just a lost man. And when he asked him if he would be allowed, would let himself be adopted as the son of Officer Brown, he didn’t know how to perceive that. It was just really bizarre to him that this man would extend all his forgiveness such that he would want him to become his son. And you see the interview with him, and he just didn’t know how to process that. Well, eventually, he accepted that, and they began the adoption process.
There was a man that was condemned to life imprisonment, killing an officer’s son, a law enforcement officer’s son, who not only was he forgiven by that father, but he was actually invited in, condemnation. became a state of being a family member. Not just a declaration of, I don’t hold this against you, but I want to care for you. I want you to have all the rights and privileges that my deceased son had.
And how much more is the grace of God in Christ who takes condemned sinners and who would be perfectly just if he had just wiped the world out and started a new one. Yet chose to send his own son to give his life so that we who are condemned in our first father heaven by Christ’s faithfulness and perfect obedience and his own bloody death have been brought justification unto life. How much more greater than Mike Brown? Paul lays this out, and he can hardly contain the euphoria. Where sin abounds, the grace and salvation of Christ super abounds. That’s why we really take on board the greatness of our salvation in Christ.
Let’s pray together. Father, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for the marvels of your saving grace. Lord, cause us, the eyes of our understanding to be opened that we might comprehend more and more the breadth and depth of this grace in Christ. And for those who don’t really know it, for whom this is just perhaps a fairy tale or a story they’ve heard over and over and over again, would you break the stony heart in pieces and give them a heart of flesh. Give them the gift of faith to see your great grace through Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen. Well, let’s take our hymnals and It stole the works of our Savior who died with perfect obedience, brought us justification in life.
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