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Reading Romans 5:12, and understanding the doctrine of original sin, and why all of mankind has to suffer the consequences for it. Visit wwutt.com for all of our videos!
The doctrine of original sin. You will not find that term anywhere in the Bible, but it is a thoroughly biblical doctrine. In fact, it is the understanding that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God when we understand the text.
Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text, as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt .com.
Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the book of Romans chapter five, and I'm going to begin reading in verse 12. We'll go through to the end of the chapter. The apostle Paul wrote to the church that was in Rome, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.
For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.
And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 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.
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 Lord.
Now in case you did not know, what we are talking about here in the remainder of Romans chapter 5 is a doctrine referred to as original sin. This is the very first sin that was committed in the Garden of Eden by Adam and Eve when they disobeyed God and ate from the forbidden fruit that God told them not to eat.
It was the very first sin, that's why we call it original sin. But we also call it original sin because it was unique in a certain sense in that Adam's sin was going to have an effect on the rest of mankind.
Now I have talked on this program before, we've answered this question on the podcast several times and in fact Becky and I even talked about this this past Friday in the Q &A. There are not generational sins in the sense that you are paying for the sins of your fathers.
An argument that is going on in the culture right now is that one group of people made up of a certain race owes money to another group of people that are another race because the white group of people enslaved the black group of people generations ago.
Therefore reparations are owed to the descendants of those whose ancestors were enslaved by the whites. But that's not biblical. There indeed needs to be reparations paid for wrongs that are done. And in fact the Bible even talks about paying reparations for slavery.
But you do not pay reparations to someone that you have not enslaved. And that system of slavery no longer exists in America. So it is not even biblical nor would it be godly for one group of people to be forced to have to pay reparations to a group of people who was not enslaved.
And we in reference to this we looked at Ezekiel chapter 18 and specifically verse 20 where it says the soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.
The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself. All right. So there we have it in scripture. The son does not pay for the sins of his father.
So if Adam sinned and we're all suffering the consequences of that sin. How can that be the case if we do not suffer the consequences for the sins of our father? Well once again that sin that was committed there in the Garden of Eden was unique.
And especially when you consider that Adam and Eve are unique in being the very first man and woman. There was no one before them. Everyone who would come after them would be under the covenant that God made with Adam.
And if Adam broke that covenant everyone descended from Adam would suffer the consequences of that broken covenant. Consider that God made a covenant with Adam. He said to Adam in Genesis 2, 15 and 16 the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
So this is the agreement that God made with Adam. If he was obedient he would live literally in paradise. But if he was disobedient not only would he lose paradise but he would even die. Death would come into the picture.
This was the covenant that God made with Adam. And it is a commandment. Genesis 2, 16 the Lord God commanded the man. So there was only one commandment that had been given to Adam and Eve and they transgressed that commandment.
Now I've talked about this before. If God knew that Adam and Eve would sin why would he even bother putting that tree there in the first place? If he knows they're going to eat of it and die and bring a curse upon mankind why would God even put that tree there?
Well remember that Adam and Eve are living in paradise. And part of our joy is that we get to obey God. See this is a privilege. You get to experience the joy and the privilege of obedience to God as a follower of Jesus Christ.
So for Adam and Eve to truly experience paradise and all of the wonderful blessings and benefits of being with God then there would be obedience to God. God blessed them by giving them a commandment to follow so that they may glorify God with their obedience.
You and I do the same thing. Jesus even saying to his own disciples you will show me you love me when you keep my commandments. So Adam and Eve have this opportunity to demonstrate their love for God by their obedience to God hence why the commandment was given.
But Adam transgressed that commandment. This covenant was made with Adam and not only with Adam but also all of his posterity. Everyone who would be descendant from Adam. So when Adam sinned all of mankind descending from him sinned in him and fell with him in that first transgression.
Now this is only if Adam sinned. This would not have been the case if the sin was committed among Cain and Abel or let's just say Cain. So if Cain had committed this sin but Adam had not sinned then all of mankind would not be cursed because you would still have another son whom the rest of mankind could come from and that would be Abel.
Adam is the federal head of all of mankind because all of man comes from Adam. So the sin in Adam is the curse that has affected all of mankind. And once again this is only with Adam. This would not have been the case if any other person later on down the line had sinned.
Since the covenant was made with Adam and not with anyone else. But we were with Adam in the garden and when he sinned and fell we sinned and fell. It was the same as if we sinned and fell. When we sin we demonstrate that we are active participants with Adam in his transgression.
And this brought all of mankind into a state of sin and misery. We can't point the finger back at Adam and say that it's all his fault because we're willing participants in his sin. When we sin and we go after the sins or we go after the passions of our flesh, the things that we desire, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.
As the Apostle John puts it in 1 John. When we go after those things as the same thing that Adam went after. He saw something with his eyes that he wanted. He was not content with everything that God had given to him.
And he had to have that in order to feel like he was truly satisfied. That's what we do every time that we sin. It's always an act of ingratitude. We're not grateful to God for everything that he has given to us.
And Adam had way more than you did. And yet he wasn't satisfied with it. He had literal paradise that he was living in. And he still had to have that one thing that God was not giving him. He wasn't even satisfied in obedience.
The joy of the Lord that is practiced when we obey. He wasn't even content to obey God and enjoy the joy of God in that act of obedience. He had to disobey in order to feel like he was getting everything that he wanted.
The one thing that God was not allowing him to have. He felt like he had to have that thing. Not realizing that the joy in the Lord was in obedience to the commandment. Not by disobeying the commandment and getting the thing that God was telling him not to have.
So because of Adam's transgression, all of mankind fell. This is what we call original sin. Now there's another term here we don't often use. But it is in the history of theology a term that you do find in the catechisms and things like that.
There's original sin. There's also a thing called original righteousness. If Adam had not sinned that first sin, and there would not have been original sin, then there would have been original righteousness.
And essentially that's what it is that we're pining for. We want original righteousness again. We want to go back to the paradise that God had given to mankind when he created it and put Adam and Eve in it.
And so we clamor for that. Some people are looking for that kind of utopia even though they don't realize what it is that they're reaching for is the perfect goodness that God had originally created when he created all of the world, all of the universe in six days.
So they don't know that they're pining for that original righteousness. But that's what people want. Even the disruption and the clamor and the chaos and everything like that you see going on in the world right now.
This is people clamoring for paradise again. But they think that they can make it themselves. We don't need God. We can do it ourselves. And so they're doing all manner of ridiculous things that they're doing right now.
Even setting up that Capitol Hill autonomous zone in Seattle where it's basically just anarchy and the whole thing's going to explode. It's going to be terrible. It's a terrible experiment. But that's what they're doing.
They think that, hey, we don't need these societal laws and these other things and the man putting us down and all this oppression, which a lot of it's just perceived oppression. But anyway, we can create our own utopia like this.
So they take over a section of the city and and they're establishing their own well, their own laws. They are establishing their own laws, even though it's not like they're written down somewhere for them to follow.
But it's just kind of random and it's all over the place. But there is nonetheless some sort of system that everybody is expected to abide by there, even in an anarchist camp known as the Capitol Hill autonomous zone.
So we've we're all kind of clamoring for that perfection again. And we all think that we can establish that utopia. And we know what's best. But in the process of doing that, we are continually transgressing God's law.
When we try to establish and create and follow our own laws instead of God's law, then we're never going to come to that perfection again. God has promised us perfection, his heaven where he dwells. And that's the only perfection there can ever be to live in the place where God dwells.
Since God is perfect, he has promised this for us. If we believe in his son, Jesus Christ, we will be cleansed of our sin and we will live forever with God in glory. So there will be that restoration of original righteousness, which the book of Revelation actually talks about restoring paradise.
God is currently reconciling all things to himself through the person in work of Jesus Christ. I am making all things new, as he says in the book of Revelation. So all things are in a process of restoration in this work that God is doing through Christ, making peace by the blood of his cross, as it says in Colossians 120.
So we have, we're all under the curse that has been placed upon all of creation as a result of that original sin that was committed in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinning against God, God expelled them from paradise and cursed all of creation.
As we're going to talk about when we get to Romans chapter eight, all things have been subjected to futility by him who cursed it. And that is God. That is the consequence of the transgression that has been committed all mankind by our fall, not just Adam's fall, but our fall.
We were all participants with that. We're willing participants in Adam's sin. That's part of the curse that is upon all of mankind. But when he fell, we lost our communion with God, that fellowship with God, God separated himself from mankind.
And it's harder for us to see God. We don't get to physically see God. We can't because he's holy and we're not. But it's also more difficult for us to have any kind of communion. In fact, it's impossible for us to have any communion with him whatsoever.
And that again goes back to the fact that he's holy and we're not. We are under his wrath. We are under a curse. And so we go through this life in misery, even unto death itself. And if we are not saved from this state that we are in, we would even perish in hell.
But God has made a way to redeem us from the curse of sin, and that is by faith in Jesus Christ. And that's the way Romans 5 began. Romans 5, 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So what we're reading here in Romans chapter 5 is continuing to unfold that particular statement that was made in Romans 5, 1. Even when we get to this particular part, talking about original sin. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.
When Adam sinned, all of mankind sinned. So once again, that's why the sin is unique. That's one of the reasons why we call it original sin. Not just because it was the first sin, but also because it had an effect on all of mankind.
It's the only sin that would be that way. Now there are many who reject the doctrine of original sin simply on the basis of the fact that we don't pay for our father's sins. Those persons are probably well-meaning, but they're very wrong.
So they might look at a passage like Ezekiel 18, and they'll see, hey, we as sons don't have to pay for the sins of our fathers. So therefore, why should we be having to pay for the sin of Adam? And so they'll reject this doctrine of original sin, and they'll say that mankind is either basically good or has some sense of goodness in him when he is born, and he is able to make good decisions, but somewhere down the line, of course, mankind is going to commit a sin.
A man who is born is eventually going to sin. He's not going to remain pure, but their argument is that he is pure until he sins. It's kind of a pointless argument because no one's ever going to accomplish that.
No one is going to be born and go the rest of their lives without sinning. Only Jesus did that. It's because he was born sinless. He was not born under the federal headship of Adam, but he was conceived in whom?
He was conceived in the Holy Spirit. So he was perfect from his conception. You won't be that. You are going to sin, and you are going to transgress because that was in your nature to do that. But Christ did not have that nature because he was not conceived under the federal headship of Adam.
Otherwise, he likewise would have been born under a curse. But he was perfect from the time of his conception so that he might be the perfect spotless lamb that takes away the sin of the world, and whoever believes in him will have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them.
The curse of Adam is no longer upon you. Now your body is still going to die because of all things haven't been subjected to futility, but your soul won't perish. You will live forever with God in glory.
If Christ is now your federal head, you get all of the benefits that the father has given to the son. That's the gospel, and that's good news. Unfortunately, we got to stop there today, but we'll come back to this again tomorrow.
For these first few days this week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, we're probably only going to get as far as verse 14, but we'll keep on studying this doctrine of original sin and then the beautiful resolution of the gospel of Christ that has been given to us by God.
Let's conclude with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for considering our estate. We were cursed. We were headed to hell, but you did not leave us in that state. You sent your son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins so that all who believe in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.
And may we walk in his righteousness today, rejoicing that God in his love has saved us in his son. We ask for your continued guidance upon us daily. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
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