Title: Securing the Gospel Script: Romans 5:12-21
Type: Expository Series Where: GNBC 4-18-21
Intro: Pastor and Scholar Steven J Cole said the following of today’s passage: “When most commentators say, as Thomas Schreiner does (Romans [Baker], p. 267), that our text “is one of the most difficult and controversial passages to interpret in all of Pauline literature,” I know I’m in trouble when I have to preach on these verses! Another commentator (Alva McClain, Romans [BMH Books], p. 131) suggests that perhaps it was this passage that Peter had in mind when he said that some of Paul’s writings are hard to understand (2 Pet. 3:16). After reading hundreds of pages of commentaries and sermons on these verses, I began to wonder if I should look for another line of work! The difficulty with the text is not with the main idea, which is fairly clear, but with the many details. Just about every word or phrase generates pages of discussion and debate among the scholars. But rather than wading into several weeks of messages on that level of detail, I decided to give a single broad overview of verses 12-19. I won’t be able to explain every detail, but hopefully you will get the big picture.” (Lesson 29, Death in Adam…)
Prop: Romans 5:12-21 makes 4 Vital Comparisons Demonstrating how the Gospel was Secured.
BG: 1. Again, the author was Paul. Writing from Corinth during winter of 57-58 ad.
2. Paul did not found the church at Rome. Had never visited. Yet, Romans is the greatest articulation of the Gospel ever penned. 3. Sin. Then Salvation. Now the Sanctification of the Saint. Thru chapter 8.
Prop: Let’s examine Rom. 5:12ff to realize 4 Vital Comparisons Demonstrating how the Gospel was Secured.
I. Two Men vv. 12-14
A. Adam Acted as the First Man and Failed Miserably.
1. Adam sinned in disobedience.
a. In this verse we see Paul begins a sentence he never really completes. “Therefore just as sin entered…”but the corresponding “so also” like in vv. 18, 19, &20 never comes. In some ways vv. 18-19 complete the thought of the sentence. The topic of v.12 is “Sin and Death”.
b. With whom and where did Sin and Death enter the human existence? Gen. 3:6 the woman, who has been deceived by the serpent, saw that the tree was good for food, it was a delight to the eyes, desirable to make one wise, so she took fruit and ate it. What was very next thing she did? Gave some to her husband to eat it too. Illust: Isn’t it interesting, when we sin we want others to join us in doing evil.
2. Man sins through Adam.
a. Bible very clearly teaches the woman ate the forbidden fruit first. Yet, Adam gets the blame. Why? Gen. 2:16 – 17, God had specifically told Adam NOT to eat from the fruit of that tree. Eve disobeyed because she was deceived w/o Adam’s protection. Adam, however, willfully disobeyed God’s direct commandment.
b. Illust: Paul then introduces us to man’s plight with a staircase of three steps that demonstrates the downward, deteriorating plight of all people outside of Christ: 1. Sin entered thru 1 man. 2. Death entered thru sin. 3. Death has come to all men because all have sinned.
B. Adam Pictured the Second Man Who would Succeed Marvelously. V.14b
1. Paul tells us that Adam’s sin resulted in the rule and reign of Death.
a. “From Adam to Moses”. From the first man until the giving of the Law sin was judged and death reigned. Illust: Flood, Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, list goes on. Sin was in the world and deemed sinful before the Moral Law of God was given.
b. “even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense.” – What does Paul mean? He means Adam’s willful disobedience of a direct command of God. Paul, going back to his arguments from Rom. 1 is essentially saying, everyone was guilty even if they did not know the specific commands of God and disobey those specific commands.
2. Paul points to a glorious truth in v. 14
a. “who is a type of Him who was to come.” PTL! The Promise of the Coming of Christ was seen in the fall of our race’s father. 1st Adam failed, but in him is pictured and promised the coming of the Savior, the 2nd Adam, Jesus Christ.
b. Illust: Paul teaches that God deals with the human race under a system known as “federalism.” Simply put, federalism has to do with representation, with one person acting on behalf of another. Illust: We can understand this in our nation because we elect political representation at the local, state, and FEDERAL levels. Our Federal reps are Joni Ernst and Charles Grassley, Senators & Marinette Miller-Meeks, House of Representatives. Those three individuals represent our local community in the most encompassing area of government, the Federal. Are to represent our interests in the national body. Sometimes politicians represent interests well and sometimes not. Well guess what, God has appointed two representatives in history: Adam and Christ. Adam did not represent the race well; he disobeyed God. As a result, all of his descendants are born with an inclination to sin, and they all share in his guilt and suffer the same penalty he received—death.
C. Applic: We see the Gospel was needed and then secured by the actions of two men.
II. Two Results vv. 15-16
A. Death and Condemnation Resulted from the First Adam’s Disobedience.
1. Adam Disobeyed God and death entered.
a. Illust: Back in Gen. 2:17, God warned Adam not to eat from the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, for in that day they would die. And death entered in at that moment. Adam was created an eternal being to live an eternal life. Yet at that moment sin and death entered the human existence and never the same since. Sin spread! It spread like a pandemic. We are familiar with pandemics these days! In fact, it has been the most deadly pandemic of all time. Everyone is affected and everyone dies. Social distancing doesn’t work. Can live totally secluded from others and still a sinner and still die. Washing hands doesn’t work. Our efforts of attainting righteousness in ourselves is as filthy rags. Wearing a mask doesn’t work. Cannot hide our face from God, He sees and knows us. We transmit our sin and death to everyone around us. Lost man searches desperately for a spiritual vaccine, yet God tells us that what we really need is a blood transfusion! We need the precious blood of Christ applied to our hearts!
b. Illust: Yes, it is true, we have all sinned in imitating Adam’s sin (Pelagian), but friend, it was worse than simply that, his depraved Nature was transmitted to us. Adam was the God-appointed representative for all humanity, God counted his sin as their sin and imposed on them the guilt and penalty he incurred. The Westminster Confession of Faith supports this conclusion, saying, “[Adam and Eve] being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity” (VI, 3).
2. Illust: Just this past week reading one very vivid example of this in the OT. Joshua 7, At the siege of Jericho, Israelite named “Achan” sinned by keeping some of the spoil in direct disobedience to the WOG. At the next battle, siege of Ai, Israel is routed. Why? Because Achan had sinned. The result: The whole nation was punished. Achan’s sin was one man’s sin, but it was also the nation’s sin. What the individual did, the nation did. When Achan’s sin was admitted and exposed, not only the offender, but his entire family and even his livestock was executed. Achan was not a solitary, isolated individual, he was one with a solid mass of people from whom be could not be separated.
B. Grace and Justification Resulted from the Second Adam’s Obedience.vv.15b, 16b
1. Notice Paul’s insightful analogy. Paul begins with an analogy between Adam and Christ, between those in Adam and those in Christ. Death comes to all because of Adam. Life comes to all because of Christ. Illust: “I know a lot of people who claim it isn’t fair that he/she bears the stain and guilt of Adam’s sin. How is it right that I am blamed for what someone else did that was wrong?” Well, let me ask you, then how is it right that you can be forgiven and restored on the basis of what one other man did?” See, you can reject the first principle, but fact remains you and I are still sinners. We cannot escape the 2nd principle. So we are condemned because of what the 1st Adam did and we are forgiven by what the 2nd Adam did. Illust: Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones: “God has always dealt with mankind through a head and representative…The whole of human history can be summed up by what happened in Adam and what happened in Christ.”
2. Paul is here introducing an Argument of a Wider Context.
a. Vv. 15-19 - 5x in 5 verses Paul states the trespass or disobedience of one man brough death to all. He makes it very clear that universal death was the result of that one solitary sin. But he goes on to say that the “gift” is greater than the transgression!
b. As is the sin of one, so much more is the grace of the other. Praise the Lord!
C. Applic: The Gospel clearly communicates two Results of the actions of these two men: Death and Condemnation vs. Grace and Justification.
III. Two Reigns vv. 17-21
A. Death and Condemnation Reigned vv. 17a & 18a
1. The consequence of Adam’s sin is that we are born guilty.
a. We die because we have been reckoned sinners in Adam, his sin having been imputed to our record because he represented us in Eden (Rom. 5:12–14). We are not sinners because we sin—we sin because we are sinners, people who are guilty before God from conception and who possess a dead nature wholly inclined to evil (Eph. 2:1–3). One man has said that this world is a place of cemeteries. And so it is.
2. Sin’s Reign Promises Much yet leaves us unfulfilled and dead.
a. Illust: Since 1872 the city of New Orleans has had the “King of Carnival” parade which takes place before the onset of Mardi Gras. Seems as though the city was still struggling after the effects of the Civil War. In 1872, Russia's Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff was going to visit Mardi Gras and New Orleans, so the city decided to take opportunity to impress with a parade. Lewis Solomon was picked to be the first king of Carnival. However at 12:00 am on Ash Wednesday, his rule, and the rule of every subsequent king of Carnival ends. Adam’s reign of death ended with the Res. of Christ!
b. If you go back to original sin, Satan offered man a substitute for obedience to God. He told man that God was the evil tyrant, but of course, it was nothing more than the original “bait and switch” routine. Illust: People experience this every Mardi Gras. A float rider holds out a huge, shiny string of beads and indicates that he’s going to throw it to you. So you jump and shout, trying to secure that prize as your own. You’re sure that “throw” is going to be yours, but then, he tosses it to someone else. What a letdown! Sin makes the same empty promises. Sin dangles the promise of freedom in front of us. “Don’t listen to God,” we’re told, “follow your own desires.” And so we do – we sin. Then comes the bait and switch. Sin rewards our foolishness all right, but it’s not with freedom or happiness. Sin rewards us with death.
B. Life and Justification Reigned. Vv. 17b&18b
1. In Christ, life and grace reigns.
a. Paul tells us about another king’s rule. Illust: Unlike His Majesty Rex of Mardi Gras, this particular king is ruthless and possesses universal power. This king is Death. Yet, Paul also gives us some comforting news. He tells us that this REX IS DETHRONED. The apostle points out that through the one life of obedience, grace and righteousness reign “much more”! PTL! Once we were under sin’s slavery and tyranny, now we have been transferred to the Kingdom of Life!
b. The glorious consequence of Jesus’ obedience is we can be born again! Paul says we are justified by faith in Christ alone apart from works (3:28), but to be more precise, we are not justified because we have faith. Instead, we are justified because we have Christ’s obedience. Faith is simply the means by which we are united to Christ and His obedience. Jesus’ “one act of righteousness leads to justification” and by His “obedience the many will be made righteous” (5:18–19)
2. We live a life of faith in the twin reality of eternal life in the midst of death.
a. Illust: Martin Luther spoke of Christians as simul iustus et peccator, which is Latin for “at the same time righteous and sinner.” This phrase maintains that we possess an alien, or foreign, righteousness. In a legal and positional sense, we are righteous once we are justified because God looks at us and sees the perfect righteousness of Christ. Yet this righteousness is not something within ourselves or something we do but instead is a declared righteousness.
b. Illust: A “duumvirate” is a term used for a form of government that is characterized by co-rule. That can be two individuals or two governments/nations, etc. In 1919 and 1935 the British put forth reforms that were called “The Government of India Acts” which began to allow more and more involvement in the affairs of India to the people of India. So that the colony/nation was being ruled simultaneously by representatives of the people of India and the British Crown. In some ways this describes the condition of mankind. We are ruled by the consequences of the first Adam, and for those in Christ we have the consequences of the 2nd Adam.
C. Applic: Paul expertly juxtaposes the effects of the actions of the two men. Death vs. Life.
IV. Two Reaffirmations vv. 19-21
• Paul culminates his comparisons in the final three verses.
A. Two Men Brought Two Results v. 19
1. Back in v. 15 Paul compares and contrasts the transgression and the gift. Here he contrasts disobedience vs. obedience. Disobedience of Adam placed us in the category of sinners, obedience of Xst placed us in the category of the righteous.
2. Look at yourself in Adam, though you had “done” nothing, you were declared a sinner. Look at yourself in Christ, though you had done nothing, you are declared a saint! PTL!
B. Two Forces Brought Two Results v. 20
1. Here Paul makes a bit of a digression out of deference to his countrymen, the Jews. The Jews objected, certainly this was true for the goyim, the Gentiles, but what about them! They had Moses, they had the precious Law. Thus, in their minds, shouldn’t there be Adam/Christ/and Moses? Can’t there be a righteousness attained through the keeping of the Law? Paul unapologetically and emphatically says: “Never!” The Law simply pointed out sin all the more!
2. Yet here is the glorious truth. “Where sin increased, grace increases much more!” When CH Hodge commented on this passage, he said: “the Gospel of the grace of God has proved itself much more effective in the production of good, than sin in the production of evil. The benefits of redemption far outweigh the evils of the fall.”
Illust: I have a friend, many of you know him. He is not perfect. However, his dad left home when he was 13 yrs., so entered Gangster Disciples. Began selling drugs and committing crimes. At 16 yrs. of age went to Statesville for attempted murder. Made a couple of return trips. Became a dysfunctional full blown alcoholic black bigot. Moved to Iowa to get away from Chicago. And in God’s sovereignty put him next door to white redneck from Texas. Gloriously succumbed to the Gospel!
C. Two Rulers Reigned with Two Results. v.21
1. Illust: Sin and death thru the 1st Adam’s disobedience held you and me prisoner to an evil master. Imagine what it would be like to be held captive by someone who hates you. Tom Sutherland knew. On June 9th, 1985, Tom was kidnapped in Lebanon by Islamic Jihad terrorists. He was not released until November 18th, 1991. Tom was held hostage for 2,353 days. There were other hostages, but much of the 6 years, Tom was in solitary confinement. The captors made up the rules as they went along. And the slightest infraction of those rules was met with violence the bound and blindfolded hostages. Their food, such as it was, was served with insects crawling on it. Sometimes the prisoners were pulled aside and lied to about being released, only to have that false hope crushed again and again. On some days Tom could hear a radio that the guards had tuned-in to the BBC. And every day he would strain to hear the news, hoping and praying that he might hear his name, not been forgotten. Tom never did hear his name, but he was not forgotten. After 6 long years he was granted freedom. Tom's wife was able to join him for the flight home. Getting off the plane, Tom was amazed to see lights and TV cameras. There were reporters, people holding signs, and a huge crowd. Tom said to his wife, "Jean, look at all these people. There must be a celebrity on the plane with us. Look around and see if you can spot who it is." Jean replied, "Honey, they are all here for you! This is all for you!" It was a great celebration of freedom. But it was nothing compared to the celebration up in Heaven when someone is set free by our crucified and risen Savior. (From “Great Reasons…” by Rick Crandall).
2. Friend, sin reigned in death. But praise the Lord, grace reigned in life! “Nothing sums up better the blessing of being in Christ than the expression, “the reign of grace”. For grace forgives sins through the cross, bestows on the sinner both righteousness and eternal life. Grace satisfies the thirsty soul and fills the hungry with good things. Grace sanctifies sinners, shaping them into the image of Christ. Grace perseveres. Grace will usher in Christ’s kingdom, because God’s throne is a throne of grace and He rules with love over you.” (Stott, Romans, pp. 157-158)
D. Applic: Two men, Two Results, Two Reigns, Two Reaffirmations. Which will you choose?
