Romans 5:18-21

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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5. One more time. Verses 18 through 21.
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Starting with 18, it says, Therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness led to justification for all men.
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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.
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Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. Last week we looked at the many comparisons that Paul was making between the work of Adam, our first federal head, and the work of Christ, our second federal head.
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And in verses 18 and 19, we have two more comparisons or parallelisms.
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Therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness led to justification for all men.
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For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. So by one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
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These two things here are called parallelisms and they shore up the previous ones that have been made that we've spoken about over the last couple of weeks.
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That through Adam's one trespass, he brought sin and therefore condemnation to everyone.
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And through Christ's obedience, both his active obedience in his life and his passive obedience in his death, he brought justification and righteousness to the elect.
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While we cannot forget his life and his death are absolutely connected and both are necessary for our salvation.
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Paul here specifically in these verses, the one act
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I believe is referring specifically to Christ's crucifixion.
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Philippians 2 8 and 11 or 2 8 through 11 says,
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And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even on a cross.
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Therefore God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord, the glory of God the Father. The other thing that Paul states here in 18 and 19 are the words, all and many.
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And I just want to address that for a minute because it has been used and still is used by many people to teach something called universalism or Christian universalism.
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This is the idea that Christ's death, his life and his death on the cross saved everyone.
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That everyone is saved. This is in conflict with the rest of Romans, nevertheless the rest of Scripture.
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So let us remember that we must let Scripture interpret Scripture. We can't make it say what we want it to say.
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He says the word all is referring to the elect because every other time he refers to those who are saved, he is referring to the elect.
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But rather what he is doing here is what they've done in the Old Testament is these parallelisms started with a broad term and narrowed it down.
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We come to the word many, and in the aspect of time, all of those who have been saved and will be saved and are saved, we are many.
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There are many of us. There will be many of us in eternity with Christ, but in comparison to all of the people who have ever lived and will live until Christ's return, we are few.
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This is why these terms are not in conflict. We have to take them in their context.
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Matthew 7 13 and 14 say, enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction and those who enter it are many.
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The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few.
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So how in one place can it say that there are many, yet there are few?
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Just what we just talked about. We know that our desire, at least the majority of us, our desire is that everyone would be saved from God's wrath.
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I wouldn't wish an eternity in hell on anyone, but the fact is is that Scripture says different.
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It says that not all will be saved. Most will spend an eternity in hell for offending an eternal
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God. We even understand this about those we know and those we love.
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Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends. There will be many that we know that will not be with us in eternity, and this is a hard thing for us to grasp and know, but rest assured, while our salvation is mercy, those who spend an eternity in hell, it is justice.
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That's what it is. If God saved no one at all and everyone went to hell, it's justice because everyone who is there offended
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Him and because we offended an eternal thrice holy
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God, we deserve an eternity of punishment. It's not about the offense.
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It's about who you offended, but that's justice. The reason we call it mercy is because He has given us a way out of His wrath through His Son, Jesus.
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Our confession even states this fact. Section 5 or chapter 5 section 6, which we reviewed the other day and will come to soon here.
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As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God as the righteous judge for former sins does blind and harden, from them
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He not only withholds His grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understanding and wrought upon their hearts, but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin and withal gives them over to their own lusts and temptations of the world and the power of Satan whereby it comes to pass.
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They harden themselves under those means which God uses for softening others.
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What He is talking about here, what it's talking about here in the 1689 is section 5 has to deal with sin and how
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God uses sin on the elect for their knowledge of it and to their growth.
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Section 6 is about how He uses sin on people who are not elect.
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Same situations, two different results for two different people. Those things that would enlighten and embolden and grow us and conform us to the image of Christ as the elect leads to a hardening of the heart for others.
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And in 2nd Thessalonians 2 10 through 12, it says, therefore
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God sends them a strong delusion so that they may believe what is false in order that they may be condemned who do not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
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Verse 20 in Romans says, now the law came in to increase the trespass but where sin increased grace abounded all the more so that as sin reigned in death grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our
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Lord. This point in Scripture has also been used to teach a false teaching known as antinomianism.
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This is the belief that you can continue in sin because it's covered. Sin all the more that grace may abound.
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In their view you could live however you wanted without consequence as long as you professed
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Christ is Lord. You were covered. There was no such thing technically as a sin.
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It wasn't counted anymore. There are two particular characters that Paul calls out in Scripture that teach this, but that isn't even what these verses are teaching.
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The irony is that if most people kept reading, Paul makes it clear in the rest of his teaching in Romans that this is a false assumption.
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We will go over that in a couple of weeks. We're not quite there yet, but here in verse 20 and 21 we see that the law came in not to make sin abound.
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Not so that we would sin more, but so that we would see our sin. The law is necessary for this and it is a grace that is given to us.
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Whereas before we did not have the law and knew we could know that we were trespassers because of our consciousness or our consciences because of the law written on our hearts.
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Now it is made more clear that we have God's moral character and his moral law to compare ourselves against so that we can know ourselves, so that we can know the depth of our depravity, so that we can know stealing is stealing and adultery is adultery, that murder is murder, but so that also we can see the wonderful depths of God's grace toward us.
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Romans 7 7 says, What then shall we say that the law is sin?
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By no means. Yet if I had not been, if it had not been for the law,
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I would have known, I would not have known sin, for I would have not, for I would not have known what it is to covet.
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If the law had not said, you shall not covet. My friends, it is a grace that the law was given that we can know ourselves.
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Having the mirror of the law to view ourselves allows us to see the innumerable sins that we have committed in our lives.
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I would ask you to take a moment at some point this week and try and count them. Try and count how many lies you've told, how many things you've stolen, how many times you've lusted, how many times you've broken a commandment.
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It only takes the once to be an offender, and then as one of God's people, understand the innumerable grace, the unmeasurable grace that God has given you through His Son, that He would give you eternal life, that He would cover you with His righteousness.
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The common question that comes after that thought is, why? The answer to that question is, because He wanted to, because He loves you.
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It's not because you did anything. Romans 5 14, we went over a couple of weeks ago, it says,
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Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.
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There was a type of the one to come. This is the verse that began our parallelisms that we've been going through.
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And as death reigned, now by God's grace, the work of His Son, Jesus Christ, life reigns through His righteousness, and is freely given to those who the
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Father calls to Him, and is given to us by faith. So when you look upon the world, and you see the things that are wrong with it, the sins that are committed, the sins that are promoted, as it says in the first chapter of Romans, the world not only commits sin, but encourages it.
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Take heed in considering yourself somehow better, because we're not.
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We deserve the same thing, but by God's grace,
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He has called us to His Son. I'll leave off with the words of Matthew Poole regarding verses 20 and 21.
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Before he ascribed dominion and reigned to death, now to sin.
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The reason is evident, because death indeed reigned by sin, before also he had made the comparison between Adam and Christ.
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Here it is between sin and grace, the power of one and the power of the other.
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The sum is that as sin hath prevailed over all mankind to bring death upon man, not only a temporal but eternal death, so the grace of Christ prevails and becomes effectual to confer upon us eternal life.