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The Power of One Romans 5:12-21 |
June 6, 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum |
During my junior year in high school I took one of the most memorable classes of my entire education career. The class was called, "Aviation Science," and it was taught by Mr. Clay. Strange, odd, never-known-to-crack-a- smile Mr. Clay. My motive for taking the class was two-fold. One -- it satisfied a science requirement. Two -- it was universally recognized as the easiest class at the school. Thankfully, it lived up to its reputation.
At the beginning of class each day Mr. Clay would deliver a 5-minute lecture on some aspect of the science that explained how it was possible for airplanes to stay in the air. Then, he would ask if there were any questions…and there never were…and then we would spend the rest of the hour casually browsing through the voluminous stacks of aviation magazines scattered around the room. As we browsed the magazines, Mr. Clay sat at his desk and buried his head in some aviation magazine, completely oblivious to the various acts of mischief being perpetrated by his students.
One of our favorite pastimes was to surreptitiously toss erasers at any student who might actually be trying to learn something. One day an errant eraser missed its intended target and hit the clock on the wall at the rear of the classroom. When it did, an interesting thing happened. The minute hand leaped forward one minute. A few of us exchanged knowing glances and a few moments later launched a barrage of erasers toward the clock. That was the first day that we got out of class 10 minutes early.
For the rest of the semester a handful of us came to every class well armed with erasers and for the rest of the semester we got out of every class 10 minutes early. Poor, old, dim-witted Mr. Clay never caught on.
On the day of our final exam Mr. Clay passed out our open-note test, which looked as easy as the handful of quizzes he had given us throughout the semester. The only challenging aspect of the final appeared to be its length. It was surprisingly long. Mr. Clay explained that we would have the full hour to complete the test but it was clear to all of us that, even if every question were easy, we would need every minute of that hour to answer them all.
So, we all hit the test running and started answering questions as quickly as we could and as we did so, poor, old, dim-witted Mr. Clay sat down at his desk, pulled out a box full of erasers and for the remainder of the exam he sat there with an evil smile on his face and tossed erasers at the clock and one-by-one ate away at our precious minutes. None of us could have possibly imagined that ending to that class.
This morning, as we continue our journey through the book of Romans, we come to a very significant passage as Paul brings to a conclusion the discourse he has been carefully crafting throughout these first 5 chapters and it is safe to say that no one could have imagined this ending to this discussion -- a lengthy, profound and detailed discussion of the process that God put into place to make it possible for us to get right with Him. A process that is called, "justification by faith." Let's quickly review the ground he's covered.
In the early chapters of Romans Paul began his explanation with a detailed analysis of the hopelessness of mankind's condition as a result of our sin. Our human nature is so fundamentally bent in the direction of sin…which basically means to disobey God…that even when we know the tragic consequences of disobeying God, we continue to do so. As a result, we had become God's enemies and were destined to be on the receiving end of His wrath and judgment. And there was not a thing that we could do about it. God is a just God and justice demands that disobedience must be punished. And the punishment was death.
But God is also a loving God and a gracious God. And He so desired for things to be right between us that He came up with the perfect plan to accomplish that goal. And here's the beauty of the plan -- instead of depending upon anything that we would have to do, it would depend completely upon what He would do for us. And here's what He did.
--First, He decided not to count our own sin against us. Instead, He took the sin of all mankind, laid it onto His own Son, Jesus, allowed Jesus to die on the cross and counted Jesus' death as payment in full for the penalty of our sin.
--Then, recognizing that even with our sin debt erased we could still never attain, through our own efforts, the standard of righteousness that He requires, He took the extraordinary step of counting His own righteousness as ours and in a once and for all time decision He declared that we were "justified." Our status with God was made right.
And the only thing that we bring to the entire process is our "faith." That's it. The only thing that God asks of us to bring about this transformation in our relationship with God…the only thing He requires is that we trust Him.
"God, I don't know why You would do such a thing for me, but Your word says that You did and I believe it."
And the moment we come to that point of faith, we get right with God. That's the process of "justification by faith" that Paul has been unfolding for us through these first 5 chapters. And now it's time to wrap things up with a closing statement about this amazing process. And no one could have imagined this closing.
Is it profound? Absolutely. Is it instructive? Absolutely. It's also one of the most difficult passages of scriptures to rightly understand in the entire New Testament. So, I have decided to follow the sage advice of Albert Einstein who said that, "we should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler than they are." And that will be my goal.
Sin, Death and Adam
To help us unpack these extremely difficult verses, I'm going to divide the passage into three parts. We'll begin with verses 12-14, but before we read them let me briefly summarize the three main points that Paul is making here so you can have them in mind as we read the verses.
Point #1 is that all of humanity is connected to Adam, the first man that God created.
Point #2 is that one of the consequences of this connection is that when Adam sinned, we all sinned.
Point #3 is that rightly understanding Adam's impact on mankind can help us rightly understand Christ's impact on mankind.
OK. That's where we're heading. Now, with that summary to guide us, let's jump in as Paul takes us all the way back to the Garden of Eden. God had put Adam and Eve in the garden, invited them to enjoy every good thing they found there and had given them one commandment-don't eat from this particular tree or you will die. And in verse 12 Paul reminds us how things turned out -- Adam ate the forbidden fruit and in so doing introduced sin and death into the world. He writes, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man (that would be Adam), and death through sin…(now, here comes the hard part)… and in this way death came to all men, because all have sinned…"
Interpreters have repeatedly tried to get the words, "…all have sinned…," to mean something other than what they seem to mean. Nonetheless, what they seem to mean is that in some mysterious way we all participated in Adam's sin. You, me and all of mankind became guilty before God through Adam's sin because Adam's sin was also our sin. Consequently, in that moment, sin became the biggest problem for every human being in every generation.
Now, if that doesn't completely make sense to you, you're not alone. So, what do we do with a verse like this? I think the best response is to resist the allure of an overly simplistic answer and just ask God for wisdom and faith. Ask God, by the power of His Holy Spirit, to open our minds and deepen our understanding of this hard truth.
Now, rather than completing in verse 13 the thought he began in verse 12, Paul takes a detour with a discussion of the law and doesn't return to his original thought until verse 18. The question is, why the detour into the law? I think it's because Paul realized that we would be struggling mightily at this point with what he's just told us about all of us becoming guilty before God because of Adam's sin. So, I think he moves into a discussion of the law to help solidify his point about our corporate guilt through Adam's sin.
In verse 13 he writes, "…for before the law (that is, the law of Moses) was given, sin was in the world. (That is, even before God gave the law to Moses, people were already doing sinful things.) But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. (That is, God doesn't punish you for behavior He's not yet revealed through His law to be sinful.) Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam…" In other words, even though God was not punishing people for their individual acts of sin prior to the giving of the law through Moses, people were still dying. Why? Because their participation in Adam's sin made them guilty and therefore subject to sin's penalty, namely, death.
And with that, we come to the end of verse 14 and the pivotal point that Paul is making in this passage as he speaks of, "Adam, who was a pattern…(some translations say, 'a type')… of the one to come." Paul's point is that in Adam we get a glimpse of Christ. Sometimes we see Christ a little more clearly through their similarities and sometimes we see Christ a little more clearly through their dissimilarities. In either case the point remains -- rightly understanding Adam's impact on mankind can help us rightly understand Christ's impact on mankind.
Grace, Life and Christ
And as we move to the next set of verses, Paul is going to develop more fully this theme of comparing Adam and Christ. He writes in verse 15, "But the gift is not like the trespass. (In other words, what Jesus offers mankind by grace is completely different from what Adam gave mankind through his sin. And here's the difference.) For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!" (In other words, while it's true that the actions of both Adam and Jesus impacted countless millions of people, the nature of that impact was radically different. Adam's sin brought death to everyone, God's grace offered through Jesus offers life to everyone.)
Paul continues in verse 16, "Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification." In other words, Adam sinned one time and brought judgment and condemnation to the whole world. But God's grace through Christ is so powerful that it is sufficient to cover countless numbers of sins and bring justification to all who believe.
He continues in verse 17, "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." In other words, mankind paid a terrible price through Adam's sin as death became the great and unavoidable enemy of everyone. But through the grace of God we have gained so much more than we lost: we have been made right with God, God has given us His own righteousness and through Christ death has been defeated by life!
Then, in verses 18-19 Paul completes the thought he introduced back in verse 12 by summarizing the scope of all that Christ accomplished for us through his life of complete obedience to the will of God. He writes, "Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."
When we couple the phrase, "one act of righteousness" in verse 18 with the phrase "the obedience of the one man" in verse 19, I think it's clear that Paul is not referring to any single act in Jesus' life, rather, his point is that Jesus' entire life of obedience can be seen as a single act of righteousness and that made it possible for sinners like us to get right with God and share in His righteousness for all eternity.
The Triumph of Grace
And that brings us to the third and final part of this passage, verses 20-21 where we see the complete and total triumph of God's grace over sin and death. And Paul's explanation of that triumph is absolutely glorious. This is one of the most eloquent and comprehensive statements on the effectiveness of God's grace in the entire New Testament.
In verse 20 he begins, "The law was added so that the trespass might increase." The phrase, "the trespass" is singular, indicating that Paul is referring here to Adam's original sin. So, Paul's point is that a single instance of sin shared by millions through our connection to Adam has now become, with the giving of the law, millions upon millions of sins as that law has been repeatedly broken. In other words, we're not just guilty of sinning because of our connection to Adam. God has now given us the law and clearly identified exactly what he requires of us and we have broken that law and fallen short of those requirements repeatedly. So, the law increased the trespass.
Now, the obvious question at this point is this: "Ok, that makes sense but why would God make that the purpose of His law?" And Paul's response in verse 20 is, "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more…" In other words, increasing sin was not the ultimate reason for giving the law. Yes, the law increased sin but that only served to demonstrate the abundance of God's grace.
But Paul's not done yet. He continues to build his case for the triumph of grace over sin and death by writing in verse 21, "…so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness…" In other words, demonstrating the abundance of His grace was also not the ultimate purpose of the law. God also wanted to demonstrate that the reign of grace is more powerful than the reign of sin. Sin had its chance, but sin lost the fight with grace.
But Paul's still not done as he continues to build his case adding the phrase, "…to bring eternal life…" In other words, demonstrating that the reign of grace is more powerful than the reign of sin was also not the ultimate purpose of the law. God also wants us to know that reign of grace will ultimately lead those of us who have been justified into eternal life.
But still, Paul has one final phrase to add before he can bring his argument to a close. He concludes, "…through Jesus Christ our Lord." Period. Now he's made his case. Grace increased, "so that…as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Grace -- present in an abundance large enough to cover all our sins.
Grace -- sufficient in power to totally defeat the reign of sin.
Grace -- sufficient in duration to carry us to eternal life.
And most importantly, grace -- available to us only because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ our Lord.
And why do we need to know that? Because it means that all the honor and all the glory for all of the benefits that flow to us by grace…all the glory for all of that…must be given to God. And that is the end toward which all of history is moving. Giving God the glory that He deserves for all that has been accomplished through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Ask God to open your minds and help you understand more fully the wonders of His grace. Then give God the praise and honor He deserves for this grace, which comes through Jesus.
© Copyright 2004 Pastor Tom Marcum