There are things that have amazed me all my life, without exception. For example, I have always loved to sit at the beach and watch with amazement the waves continuously crash into the shore. I have always loved to look at the stars and marvel that they were actually much bigger than they appeared. I’ve always gotten excited at seeing the colors of the rainbow in the air – even if it was caused from a water hose. And I guess I was afraid to try to understand the scientific side of it all for a while because I didn’t want this amazement to go away.
However, I have found that as I learn that the moon affects the tide of the ocean, or that the stars are light years away, or that the rainbow is a spectrum of light that is refracted in the water, I have only grown more amazed at these things. I now spend a little time periodically looking at the pictures taken by the Hubble space telescope, and I think I get more excited looking at those now than I did looking at stars when I was a kid. Understanding more of the details of all of these amazing things has only intensified their magnitude in my eyes.
The same is true with the marvel of salvation. I have heard as long as I can remember that I am a sinner, that Jesus Christ died for my sin, and by grace I am saved through faith in him. And it has astounded me since my childhood. However, as I have studied more in Scripture and seen a fuller array of these things, my amazement has at times paralyzed me. I, thankfully, find it hard to get over the fact that Jesus satisfied God’s wrath toward me on the cross.
Such is the case when I think of the grace of God in saving me. It seems that just when I think I cannot be more amazed by his mercy, I see a deeper level of it in the Scripture. And that is what I want us to see tonight as we look into how death came to us, why death was then conquered in our lives, and why we are able to have eternal life. For Paul shows us a clearer picture of this in Romans 5:12-21 than many of us (possibly) have understood.
Before getting to verse 12, Paul identifies in the first eleven verses that we have peace with God (v.1), that Christ died for us (v.6), that God showed his love to us in Christ’s death while we were still sinners (v. 8), that Christ will deliver us from judgment (v. 10), and that we rejoice because we have been made friends with God when we were once his enemies (v. 11).
However, if we are thinking critically in our reading we should ask, “How could one person’s sacrifice of himself affect many people?” It just doesn’t make sense. And this is then the question that I believe Paul sets out to answer in the remainder of the chapter as he speaks of Adam and Christ. As we study through it, I pray that we might better understand the grace of God in our salvation.
Death entered the world through the sin of Adam (5:12-14)
This is much like a point I made Sunday, but I want to look a little more critically at this point. For Sunday my stress was that Adam’s one sin affected everyone born after him. But why is this the case?
Paul writes in verse 12, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
But how did Adam’s sin affect all men, bringing death to everyone?
Paul seems to answer that in this verse, writing, “Because all sinned.” But what does that mean? For if we can find out what this means, it will probably answer how Adam’s sin brought death to mankind.
There are pretty much two main options here. The first is that Paul means that Adam brought death to every man because everyone after him sinned by copying and repeating Adam’s sin. The second, however, is that when Adam sinned, we all sinned because we were included in his sinning. In the words of John Stott, the issue is “participation” versus “imitation.”1 So did we all copy Adam’s sin and, thus, death spread to all of us, or were we somehow sinning in Adam’s sin?
The first option could be as mild as saying, “Everyone has sinned just like Adam sinned in the garden.” That is to say everyone has rebelled against God. However, on the other end of the spectrum it could mean that when Adam sinned, his sinful nature spread to us and, therefore, we inevitably sinned after him because we were depraved, having wicked intentions in our hearts. Both of these statements would be fine in understanding verse 12 by itself. And, in fact, I think both of them are true. We all could say that we have rebelled against God before – just like Adam did. And we all can say that our nature has led us to acts of rebellion as we desired evil – be it the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. However, I don’t think this is what Paul is saying here.
I believe Paul is saying that all of us were included in Adam’s sin because we all sinned in and with him when he sinned in the garden. And the reason for that is his argument in verses 13-14. Here are the steps of his argument and the logic that I think drives this assertion.
1) Sin was in the world before the law – “For until the Law sin was in the world” (13 a).
2) Sin is not taken into account when there is no law – “But sin is not imputed when there is no law” (13 b). In the words of Leon Morris, “Where there is no law, there is no law to break.”2
3) Death reigned from Adam until the Law, even with those who did not break a specific command like Adam – “Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam” (14).
4) And, even though some did not directly violate a spoken ordinance of God (as did Adam, those at Babel, and Sodom), all died (i.e. Genesis 5).
5) Death is the penalty for sin (Romans 3:23, Genesis 2:17, etc.).
6) Therefore all sinned in and through Adam, who is the representative or federal head of the human race. We all sinned “in Adam” (i.e. 1 Corinthians 15:22).
This is what Paul must be saying, and it is the reason why we have reaped the consequences of Adam’s sin. We cannot say less, for to say something to the effect of, “Death comes to us because we sinned like Adam” would force us to say, “Righteousness comes to us because we all lived righteously like Christ,” and that is not Paul’s argument. Therefore, in Adam we are made sinners and in Christ we are made righteous.
This is hard to understand in our Western mindset of individualism, but it is not foreign to the Eastern culture mindset nor the Scripture. For example, look at the following:
1) Levi tithed through Abraham to Melchizedek – Hebrews 7:9ff.
2) All of Israel sinned in Achan – Joshua 7:11.
3) We died in Christ – 2 Cor. 5:14, Col. 2:8-15, Rom. 6:5-11, etc.
Thus, Adam is the representative head for all of humanity (all those born), sinning and bringing death and judgment to all men, and Christ is the head of his people (those born again – in him), bringing justification to all men through his life, death, and resurrection.
Adam’s act was superceded by the work of Christ (5:15-17)
Paul has shown that Christ and Adam were alike in that one man affects many, but in verses 15-17 he shows that this is where the similarities end. We could contrast the difference in the two by saying that Adam rebelled against God when he had everything while Christ went to the cross though it cost him his life; however, Paul focuses on their differences as they relate to what each man brings about. Thus, as we look at this, we will understand the blessings of our salvation.
1) Adam brings death while Christ brings life (15) – Adam brings a curse to all men, but Christ reverses that by bringing eternal life to his people. Thus, in the cross, Christ undoes the work of sin begun in Adam. Again, he succeeds everywhere Adam fails.
2) Adam brings condemnation while Christ brings justification (16) – We all sin in Adam and are thus declared guilty before God. This is the horrible consequence of sin. It is not simply that as sinners we do evil things but that we are condemned before God whose wrath is more than we can imagine. However, this highlights the work of Christ. We who stood condemned before God, awaiting our judge’s sentence, hear that we are justified, declared not guilty, and will receive the blessings of eternal life instead of eternal punishment. How merciful is our God!
3) Whereas death reigned because of Adam … (17)
The comparison here is altered a bit. You would expect Paul to say, “For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more life will reign through the One.” However, he doesn’t. The picture does not go from us being subjects of death to being subjects of life. Rather, in Christ, we rule over death and sin in the end. Thus, Paul finishes the phrase, “… much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
Because we are in Christ and he was raised from the dead, conquering it, we have become conquerors in and with him. This is the message of 1 Corinthians 15:20-22 and Ephesians 2:4-10.3 Therefore, the reason we have eternal life is utterly wrapped up in the work of Jesus Christ. We are completely dependent on what he did for us. So when someone poses the question, “Why will you go to heaven when you die?” our answer should not start with “Because I … ” but with “Because Jesus Christ took my sins, paid my penalty on the cross, was raised from the dead, … ”
God’s grace is richly seen in the work of Christ (18-21)
Therefore, Paul concludes his argument showing us that just as Adam’s disobedience (and ours in him) brought death and condemnation, so Christ’s obedience brings life and justification. And to recall verses 8-10, we were helpless and enemies of God when Christ died for us.
However, in a day when men want to get away from the harsh reality of the cross, someone could argue against its need. I’ll paint this for you in a hypothetical dialogue.
A: “If it’s Christ’s obedience (according to Romans 5:18) that saves us, then the cross isn’t necessary. God just needs to transfer Jesus’ righteous life to us and then we are justified before God.”
B: “But what happens with our sin? It must be dealt with, somehow. Therefore, yes, we do become the righteousness of God in Christ, but only because he pays the penalty for our sin on the cross.”
A: “But Paul doesn’t mention the cross here, just obedience.”
B: “Ah, but the cross is wrapped up in that obedience. Remember Philippians 2:5-11? Paul says that Jesus was ‘obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.’ Therefore, the cross was the main part of the obedience of Christ. Therefore, when we speak of the obedience of Christ, we must include his life, death, and resurrection from the dead.”
So you see that the cross is a necessary part of our attaining righteousness. It is all wrapped up in the work of Christ, and our salvation is then wholly of the grace of God.
However, what about the Law? This is the question Paul tackles in verse 20. If salvation is in no way merited by us, then why does God give us the Law? Surely it must be that we might achieve his standard and merit righteousness before him.
Paul says exactly the opposite. He writes, “The Law came in that the transgression might increase” (5:20). That is to say that the Law came in to highlight how sinful and helpless man really is before God. But the Law was not horrible but gracious in this, for it points us to the one who can attain righteousness on our behalf – Jesus Christ.
That is exactly what Jesus did. He succeeded where we all failed in Adam and has saved us by his grace. Where our sin made death reign, grace reigns in our lives “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (5:21).
But why do I get his blessings? It is grace – unfathomable grace. Thus we understand the overwhelming amazement with which Charles Wesley must have written:
“He left his Father’s throne above (So free, so infinite his grace!) Empyt’d himself of All but Love, And bled for Adam’s helpless Race. ‘Tis Mercy All, immense and free, For, O my God! it found out Me! …
No condemnation now I dread, Jesus, and all in Him, is mine. Alive in Him, my Living Head, And clothed in Righteousness Divine, Bold I approach th’Eternal Throne, And claim the Crown, thro’ CHRIST my own …
Amazing love! How can it be That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”4
Amen.