Romans 5:12-6:5
Today I’m going to teach you how to cheat death. But wait! There’s more: I’ll give you the secret to triumphant living. To living in victory over your sin. I’ll give you the secret to eternal life. And all this for only 99 999! (We need to buy a building.)
No! Actually, Jesus gives us all this – for FREE! Not death, but life. And triumphant living, victory over sin – in dying to ourselves, and being raised to life in Jesus.
See our problem is that we are in Adam. We are human beings. Human beings sin. Sinners die. Uh-oh.
We need to be remade. We need to reboot the human race. And that’s what Jesus does. He is the new Adam. In Him, we die to the old way of Adam, and are spiritually raised to life. He is the new Adam. We are human beings 2.0. We are the gloriously restored humanity – humanity as we were meant to be, but better, because in Christ we will be raised incorruptible, perfect, not in the image of Adam, but the image of Jesus Christ, the son of God. Amen.
Just two points today.
1. Adam brought sin and death
2. Jesus brings grace and life
1. Adam brought sin and death
12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
Sin entered the world. In the original Greek the first word in v12 is “therefore”. The Holy Spirit through Paul is coming back to and building on what has come before. Sin entered the world and we are all sinners. What’s the therefore there for? To remind us of what came before! Not 5:1-11 but chapters 1-4. I just want to spend a few minutes reminding us of what we have learned so far, because it all comes into focus in this passage.
Chapters 1 to 3: We are sinners, under God’s wrath. We see God’s wrath revealed in the world around us as He lets sinners sin. He gives us over, abandons us, to experience the sinfulness of sin. He gives us what we want, and that is terrifying (chapter 1). And chapter 2 says that following the law or being good is no help, because the law just shines a great big spotlight on our sin, and being good – well, it just reveals us as hypocrites, because the same things we criticise others for, we do. We all say lying is wrong, yet we all lie. Judged by our own judgement.
Do we see now why salvation must be by grace and cannot be through us? As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one. (3:10).
And so we are made righteous by receiving the free gift of righteousness. We are given Jesus’ righteousness. In Christ we are reconciled to God because in Christ we are justified, redeemed, and propitiated.
This deals with the threefold problem we have with God.
1. We have broken his laws and are so declared guilty. As a righteous judge he must find us guilty.
2. We are slaves to sin. We can’t stop sinning, and are therefore cut off from God.
3. We are under God’s wrath. Because of our sin, which is saying to Him “I wish you were dead”, and seen in how horribly we treat each other, God is rightly angry with us.
So in Christ those problems are dealt with.
We are guilty, so God justifies us. God as judge says: righteous. It is a legal declaration. Under the law, we are righteous. No longer a spotlight on our sin, but now a spotlight on Jesus’ righteousness.
We are slaves to sin so God redeems us: God buys us from slavery to sin. Jesus paid the price on the Cross to buy us back. We now belong to God. Slaves of righteousness. We are twice bought. We belong to God because he made us, and belong to God because he bought us with his blood. So we are no longer slaves to sin, but servants of God.
We are under God’s wrath, so God propitiates us. God sacrifices himself. For the wages of sin is death because sin is rejecting God, and to reject God is to reject life and so we die. Instead, Jesus took our place as our substitute. In Christ we are no longer under God’s wrath because in Christ we died and so satisfied his right anger. There is now no condemnation, no anger for we who are in Christ.
In Christ we are justified, redeemed, propitiated. There is no further judgment over us. We are no longer slaves to sin. God is not angry with us anymore. We are reconciled to God, and we have peace with him. We live in the realm of grace.
Therefore.
12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
The Holy Spirit through Paul now ups the ante. He makes things much worse for the person who is still clinging to the delusion that he can make himself right, justify himself before God.
Because of the problem of original sin, even if we lived a perfect life, we would still be condemned. You see, we are “in Adam”. We have inherited his sin. He is our representative if Jesus is not.
How do we know that Adam is our representative? We die. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.
“But” you might say “sin is breaking God’s law. There was no law to break before Moses, so how can you say they sinned?”
13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break.
14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did.
Death is the great evidence that we are sinners. No sin, no death. But we all die as proof that we are sinners. We grow old because we are sinners. We suffer because we are sinners. The only one who did not stay dead is Jesus. The resurrection is vital. If Jesus stayed dead, then he too was a sinner. But because death could not hold him, he proved his righteousness – a righteousness he gives to us. Because Jesus rose from the dead we – you and I – can be certain that in Christ, we are ALIVE!
The awkward phrasing in v13 is puzzling “But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break”. It’s puzzling because it’s something he’s going to address in chapter 7, so it’s just in seed form here, not really explained. There we read that we have died in Christ, and the law does not apply the dead people. You can’t say “hey, you disobeyed the law”. He’s dead!
So before the law came we couldn’t actively choose to disobey God’s law. God says “do this” and we choose to do the opposite. We can’t sin by breaking the law if there’s no law!
But, we still die! Even those who didn’t disobey the law still died. Why? Because they are in Adam. We all inherit his sinfulness. We are all condemned because he is our representative. So even apart from the law, we die.
So whether we actively rebel against God, or just passively go along “in Adam”, we’re in the same boat. 14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did.
You can’t argue before God that “I didn’t actively disobey you, so you have to accept me”. Even if we didn’t sin like Adam, we still have Adam’s DNA, his sinful nature. If you don’t believe me – wait until you have kids. Because I did not sit them down one night and say “Kristin, Kaleb, an essential life skill you need to learn is lying. So I’m going to teach you how to lie.”
It came naturally from them, from within.
I didn’t teach them to fight, and argue, or disobey me. That came from the nature within. Every single one of us confirms with our words, thoughts, actions and inactions that we are children of Adam. And so every one of us will rightly deteriorate and die.
Adam brought sin and death
2. Jesus brings grace and life
18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone.
V18 continues the sentence that was interrupted back in v12. Paul was going to contrast Adam and Jesus – directly, but then realised he needed to explain more. 12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned… v18 but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone.
That’s the contrast and the comparison. Because Jesus and Adam are both alike and different. They are alike in that both stand as our representatives. Both did one act which determined our destiny. Adam sinned and brought death, Jesus died in our place and brought life.
But they are also different. For Jesus is greater than Adam. The second Adam is greater than the first.
15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ.
Adam sins once, and condemns many. One to many. But the grace of God in Jesus Christ is that the many are swallowed up in the one act of grace. Imagine a jar full of marbles. It’s easy to smash that jar. One act. And many marbles . It’s easy to destroy, very difficult to restore.
So Jesus and Adam are similar in the one act affects many, but Jesus is so much greater because his one act fixes everything. Restores everything. V 16 continues: 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.
Sin breeds sin. From Adam’s one sin the world was plunged into chaos. Just think of how quickly things escalated: their firstborn son, Cain, murdered his brother Abel. From one act of disobedience, “no I’ll decide thanks for myself”, and then there’s jealousy, envy, hatred, and then a man standing over his brother with a rock.
In Greek mythology we read of Pandora’s box. Pandora, the first women on earth was given a present of a box (or jar) by the god Zeus, and was warned not to open it. Of course, full of curiosity, she opens it – only to unleash all the horrors of evil and death on the world. She desperately tries to close the box, but can’t. How can you close Pandora’s box once it’s been opened?
Well, you can’t. But Jesus can. The Pandora’s box of sin has doomed the world. One act of Adam has destroyed us. But Jesus is greater. Because his one act gathered all the doom of man from all of time and space, even deep within us. Our sin, all of our sin, sins in our past, sins now, sins in our future, sins we’re not aware of, sins we are aware of and should have stopped doing but we keep choosing to do – even those sins Jesus gathered. His one act of righteousness on the Cross pulled all these sins, this Pandora’s box of doom. From all of time and space and he pulled it all down onto his body and put it to death with his own death. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
Hallelujah! Praise Jesus. Because in him our sins have been dealt with. They have been killed. We have died to sin and so now live for Christ.
In Jesus we are humans as we truly are meant to be. Renewed, the new man. A new start. A new humanity. Adam is dust to dust. Christ is death to life. Eternal life.
And the law is no threat to this. Oh yes, the law shines a spotlight on our sin and says “Out! Out! Condemned!”. But v20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant.
Our sin is no threat to God. The greater our sin, the greater his grace. It’s like when I was growing up and arm-wrestling my Dad – the stronger I got the stronger he got! Or that’s how it seemed. He obviously wasn’t using his full strength when we were arm-wrestling. But the harder I pushed, he just was able to effortlessly match it. I could not overcome his strength.
Likewise our sin cannot overcome God’s grace. The greater our sin, the greater his grace. He effortlessly matches it. So v21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We can sum up the argument of this chapter like this: “Just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned, so righteousness entered the world by one man, and life through righteousness”
Or to put it very simply: In Adam we die. In Jesus we live!
Ok. But what does that mean for us then. How does that affect how we live. And so in these last few moments we’re going to let the Holy Spirit apply these truths to us through 6:1-5
Ro 6:1–5 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?
The first effect this being in Christ and not in Adam should have is: obedience. We are set free from sin. We are no longer in Adam. We don’t have to sin any longer. We can do what is right.
3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.
We are dead to sin, and alive in Christ. We have a new power in us.
You know we often get frustrated with our sin, but often it’s because we’re trying to fight sin in our own power. “C’mon, pull yourself together” “Do better” “You fool, you idiot” and so on. Berating ourselves, mentally beating ourselves up. This is not the way of the Christian.
Do we not believe that in Adam we are subject to sin that leads to death? And that we are powerless to stop it?
We cannot fight sin. But Jesus can. So we need to ask him for help. Jesus, I have sinned again. I can’t fight this, but you can. I believe in your grace, paid for on the cross, that means you will accept me. That means you hear my prayer. Help me to die to sin, and live for you, Lord!
We’ve had a few baptisms in this church, and they’re a great visual picture of this dynamic. We die to ourselves, and we live for Christ. We give up on ourselves, our own power, our own efforts, our self-reliance. We die as we go under the water, and we rise up to relying on Christ, on the Spirit’s power, on his one act that brings us all life.
Let us die to sin, and live for Christ. We are no longer in the old man, Adam, but in the new man, Jesus Christ. Let’s live like it. Amen.
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