Sunday Sermon: One Act of Righteousness (Romans 5:18-21)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

The Gospel of the Cross and the Context of Romans 5

John MacArthur said the following, this is a good lead in to what we're going to be reading today. He would say, the message of the cross is not about felt needs. It is not about Jesus loving you so much that he wants to make you happy.

It is about rescuing you from damnation. Because that is the sentence that rests upon the head of every human being. And that's what we've been reading about in this particular section. As Chris had said last week, there are various sections of scripture where the gospel may not be shared explicitly.

It's certainly the word of God, but you have to understand how this ties into the gospel. But the section that we're looking at and we have been looking at these last three Lord's days have been explicit about the gospel of Christ and what we have been rescued from by the sacrifice he has made on our behalf.

When we read this section again this morning, I want to look at it all in context. So we're going to go verses 12 -21. In honor of the word of the King, would you please stand? This is Romans 5, verses 12 -21.

The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Rome, hear the word of the Lord. 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 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.

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read thus far in your word this morning, and I pray that you continue to guide and lead us and teach us. Help us to see in the words that we are reading today, grace that is greater than all our sin.

Help us to see the grace that abounds through the sacrifice in Jesus Christ is greater than any sin that we have ever committed against God. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, as we've already read about in Romans.

But we are justified by your grace. That is given through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our sins might be atoned for, and by faith in Him we have everlasting life. Help us to understand not only this truth, but we would also understand how it therefore applies in our lives, and how we live according to these things, as a pleasing sacrifice unto you.

Christ gave Himself as a sacrifice for us. May we live as living sacrifices unto the God who loves us. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, Amen. This is now the third Lord's Day that we are in this section of Romans 5, and in weeks previous, when we were looking at verses 1 through 11, the focus was on love.

I said to you when we started in Romans 5 that you could divide this chapter into two emphases. So first of all on love, which is verses 1 through 11, and the section that we've been looking at these last three Lord's Days has been the section on grace.

So love in 1 through 11, grace in verses 12 through 21. I remind you of what was said to us in Romans 5, 8. God shows His love for us. In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And now we read of the grace of God that is shown to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now in this section, verses 12 through 21, this could also be divided up into a series.

Of twos.

What we have in verses 12 through 13, we read about two men. Adam, and the last Adam, who is Jesus. Then in verses 14 to 17, we read about two deeds. What Adam did, and then what was the result of that, and then what Christ did.

And then what we're looking at today in verses 18 to 21 are two outcomes. So we've had two men, there's been two deeds, and we're reading today about two outcomes. Those who are in Adam will receive this outcome.

Those who are in Christ will receive a different outcome. And as we look at this in verses 18 to 21, this can even be broken down into the following outline. First of all, we will see the result of condemnation and justification.

That's in verse 18. Then we will see the appointment of sinners and righteousness. That's in verse 19. And then the increase of transgression and grace in verses 20 and 21. So that is our outline for today.

As we're in this final portion of chapter 5, seeing the two outcomes that come from these two men and their two deeds. Now, we've covered a lot of territory. Even in these three weeks, we've covered various different doctrines.

As I talked to you at the very beginning about the doctrine of federal headship, or federalism that Pastor Chris had expounded upon last week. The week before that, we were talking about original sin.

That understanding that Adam committed that first sin in the Garden of Eden, eating the fruit that God told him not to eat. And through that one trespass that we've read about here in this section, so condemnation came to all men.

As Chris had pointed out last week, Adam was your federal head, whether you decided that or not. There are always people who are making decisions for you, whether or not you are on board with the decisions that they are making.

And you might even be a person that is in a particular position, where if you are making a decision, you're making a decision not only for yourself, but on behalf of someone else, perhaps for the rest of your family.

If I were to make a decision to not pay bills this month, that doesn't just affect me and go against my credit, it would also affect the rest of my family. And we're certainly going to feel it here in southern Arizona when our A .C. gets shut off, and the rest of my family is suffering because Dad did not pay the bill.

So whether you like it or not, somebody else is making decisions on your behalf. And I love the illustration that Chris gave regarding that last week. In also saying that, you didn't get to decide that you were going to be a descendant of Adam.

That was appointed by God. And if you complain or grumble against Adam, oh, that guy that made that decision in the garden, why does that have to reflect negatively upon me? He's the one that made that decision, why am I suffering for it?

Well, it's not just Adam you're complaining against. You would be complaining against God, who by His sovereignty determined that Adam would be the federal representative of the entire human race. But praise be to God that He didn't leave Adam to be our only federal head.

But there is another who was given, and that is Jesus Christ. By the one man's disobedience, all became disobedient. So by the one man's obedience, the disobedient will be made righteous. And this is among those two outcomes that we read about here in this section today in verses 18 to 21.

So let's come back to remember again the result of condemnation and justifications we have in verse 18. Therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

Now remember these things in context. So we have two things that we need to establish the context of as we are reading here in verse 18. Here's the first. The first establishment of context is that this statement continues what ended with the em dash at the end of verse 12.

Do you remember this? So I mentioned this to you two weeks ago, but here's the refresher. So notice that back up in verse 12, this was an incomplete thought. And it's kind of confusing even in our English language.

You have the em dash there and you're wondering, did Paul just not finish his sentence there? So once again, verse 12 says, 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.

Not end of sentence, but you have em dash. Verse 18 picks up where that sentence left off. So Paul had some things that he wanted to expound upon after making that statement in verse 12. So the exposition then is verses 13 to 17.

And we've spent the last two weeks considering those things. So now we're picking up in verse 18, which is the continuation or the completeness of that particular sentence. Now once again, what we have in verse 12 is a doctrine that we refer to as original sin.

This is that sin that Adam committed in the garden, and it had ramifications and effects on every single human being that would come in the life of Adam. There are people even among evangelicals today, your common modern American church-going Christian, who will deny the doctrine of original sin.

And they will do it in the name of free will. Like I just don't even agree or believe that this sin that Adam had committed therefore has ramifications on me in that sense. Oh sure, it's what resulted in all of the world being subjected to futility, and we're under the curse.

I get all of that. But I am not a sinner because Adam was a sinner. Oh yes you are. And again it's that longing for personal autonomy that drives a person to say that. I'm not under anyone else's control but my own.

But again, it's just utterly foolish to make those declarations when, as Chris pointed out last week, everybody's got to serve somebody. You're all under the headship of someone who is making decisions on your behalf.

Your free will be damned. And you don't get to choose. We do have a responsibility to respond to the gospel with belief. We have that responsibility. So don't hear me saying that we're all robots now, and that God has programmed us into all the decisions that we are going to make.

You are going to have to stand before God and give an account for your actions. Paul says that very thing in chapter 14, which we're not getting to until probably next year. But that is here even in Romans.

That we're all going to have to give an account before God. So you do have a responsibility to respond to the Word of God. And no one is going to stand before God and say, well it wasn't my fault, it was Adam's.

Or it wasn't my fault, it was yours. Adam already tried that, remember? The woman you gave to be with me gave me some of the fruit and I ate. So we just repeat the same sin of Adam when we blame God and try to say that it was your doing.

This is responded to, by the way, in Romans 9. Which again, I think we get to next year. You did not get to determine even to whom you were born. And the decision for you to be born was not yours, but your parents.

There are always people that are making decisions for us. So really when somebody rejects the doctrine of original sin and wants to say it's not because of Adam's sin that I'm a sinner, but it's just based on my own free will choices.

Which is an absurd argument to make. Because have you ever met a person that willed themselves to not be a sinner? Has there ever been one person that has proven themselves? See, I just managed to be a good person by my own decisions.

No one's ever disproven the doctrine of original sin. No one's ever done it. But that rebellion against that doctrine is really a rebellion against headship. And that's not the doctrine that we often talk about.

Usually it's original sin. It's not the doctrine of federalism. You don't hear as many preachers talking about federal headship as you hear about original sin. But it's that rejection of headship. I don't want anybody else to be over me.

Nobody else is making decisions on my behalf. I am my own man or my own woman. The free liberalism that we try to live in, especially in our modern American society today. So that was a doctrine that we had there in verse 12.

And it's like the principal doctrine regarding the doctrine of original sin. Sin came into the world through one man. And the consequence of that sin even came through that man's decision. Death through sin.

And so death spread to all men. Because all sinned. Because we were all descendants of that man, Adam. Now again, incomplete thought, which gets picked up in verse 18. And let me read that all together so that you hear it again in context.

I'm going to read from verse 12 and jump to verse 18. 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, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

So hear the complete thought? Beautiful, isn't it? That's the first context. Here's the second context. We need to be careful about the statement. So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

How do you think that often gets taken out of context? The universalists will use that to say that because Christ died, therefore justification and life has come to all men. It says so right there. That's ignoring the context.

One trespass led to condemnation for all men.

All men in whom?

All men in Adam. So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

All men in whom?

All men in Christ. Those who are not in Christ are still in Adam. But those who are not in Adam are in Christ. And so it is all who are in Christ who receive justification and life. And that's the context.

And Paul has been establishing that in this particular section. So I'm not inventing something and sticking it into the text that isn't there. Paul has clearly been making these distinctions between all who are in Adam and all who are in Christ.

And so that is implied in this statement. It's to tear it out of context to therefore say that what's being said here is everybody is in Christ, so everybody gets life and no one gets death. No, that's not what Paul is saying.

This is not a declaration that is therefore of universalism. One trespass led to condemnation for all men. My friends, if you don't come to Christ, you remain in Adam. And you receive the consequences that came as a result of Adam's sin.

But if you turn from your sin to Jesus Christ, your federal head goes from being Adam to Christ. And all who are in Christ, there's not those in Adam and in Christ, you're either in Adam or you're in Christ.

And so those who are in Christ are the ones who are justified. And remember what we said about justification. You love that little pithy quote that us Baptists like to use. Justified. It's just if I'd never done it.

But the reality is that we did do it. As I had declared even in our prayer this morning from Romans 3 .23. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the fact that we have been justified automatically implies we were sinners before.

We had done wickedly and rebelled against God and what we deserved was judgment, hell, wrath, eternal punishment, separated from Him, and under condemnation forever. That's what we deserved. And yet it is by His grace that He gave His Son so that whoever would believe in Him by faith, we would be justified.

Remember what we read back in Romans 5 .1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And we read back in chapter 4, verse 5. To the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

And Abraham, our example, that was given there back in chapter 4. And so it is by faith in Christ that we've been justified. We're declared innocent. The penalty that we deserve for our sin was taken by Christ on our behalf when He died for us on the cross.

And so here in verse 18, we read of the result of condemnation, but we also read of the result of justification. What is the result of justification? It's life. What's the result of condemnation? Death, destruction, hell, etc.

The result of justification is life, reconciliation, fellowship with God, the promise of His eternal kingdom in which we will dwell forever. These are the results of the justification that we receive by faith in Jesus Christ.

So that's verse 18. The second portion of this section in verse 19 is the appointment of sinners and righteousness. So look at verse 19. 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.

And once again, we have words here, the qualifiers here being many. As the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. This should be seen synonymously with the all that was used in verse 18. So previously Paul said, one trespass led to condemnation for all men, that's all who are in Adam.

So here in verse 19, as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners. Again, that's everybody who is in Adam. So by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. And again, that's in reference to all who are in Christ.

As a tribute to John MacArthur just a couple of days ago, I did a video in which I had snipped out an interview that he had done with Kirk Cameron. And I took out the portion in which John MacArthur shared what was, in his opinion, the greatest gospel verse in the Bible.

And that gospel verse is 2 Corinthians 5 .21. For our sake he became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And MacArthur in that interview said, let me unpack those 15 Greek words for you.

He, God, made Jesus sin. What do you mean he made Jesus sin? Only in this sense, that he who was sinless became the sacrifice on which our sins were placed when he died on the cross for us. MacArthur goes on to say that there on the cross, he was never for one second a sinner.

He was holy God on the cross. But it was our sins that were placed upon him. Every sin that would ever be committed by every believer throughout time was placed on Christ on the cross. And by exchange, the righteousness of Christ is given to those who would believe in him.

So what happens then is that when God looks at Jesus hanging on the cross, he sees us. He sees our sin. He looks at Jesus as if Jesus had lived my life. But when he looks at me, who is believed in Jesus, God looks at me as if I lived his life.

Jesus' life. This is the great doctrine that we refer to as substitution. My sins placed upon Christ on the cross as he died for me,.

His righteousness given to me.

So that I may stand before God justified. And this by his grace. And so as MacArthur concluded, when God looks at the cross,.

He sees me.

When he looks at me, he sees Christ. What a beautiful grace of God. I've shared with you before that one of the most mind-blowing things to me that my father ever taught me when I was being raised to understand the Scriptures was when my dad told me that God loves you with the same love that he loves his own son.

That blew my mind.

I mean, even as a little kid.

When I don't really have a full grasp of my sin and everything that I've done against God, yet God loves me with the same love that he has for his own son? Yes, because the righteousness that I have is not mine.

It's Christ's. And so when God looks at me clothed in the righteousness of his son,.

He sees his son.

And has the same love and affection for me as he has for Jesus himself. And Paul talks about that even when we get to Romans 8. Again, that'll be next year. The grace of God as we've defined it previously is unmerited favor.

We do nothing to earn it. He just gives it to us. Because he's a compassionate and good God. As we've even quoted this morning in our responsive reading. God's saying, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

And who are any of us to say that I deserve better than this? Or that's not fair? Praise God that he's not fair. Because if you got what was fair, you would be condemned. But again, it's here that we read, by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

But praise God, by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. So we read here again of the appointment of sinners and the appointment of righteousness to those sinners that we may be justified before him by his grace.

That's verse 19. And then the third portion in verses 20 and 21, we read of the increase of transgression and grace. This is a little tricky here, so bear with me as we go through this. Verse 20, Now the law came in to increase the trespass.

Now that's a weird thing to say.

The law meaning what?

This is the law of God. It came in to increase the trespass or increase sin. Now why would God want to do that? Why would He want transgression to increase? Well remember that we've read previously in this section, back to verse 13, sin indeed was in the world before the law was given.

So the law doesn't create sin. God giving the law doesn't make you a sinner. You were already a sinner. You were already predisposed to disobey whatever it was that God said. God had given a law to Adam in the Garden of Eden.

And Chris had even talked about this doctrine last week, the covenant of works. And the covenant of works is very simply summarized as obey and you'll live. Disobey and you'll die.

And it's that same covenant.

That is upon all men in Adam. The struggle there being that no one has ever kept the law. No one has ever done good. If we read that previously in Romans 3, there is none good, there is none righteous, no not one.

And so it was our substitute who came on our behalf and lived the sinless life that we could not live for us so that He would attain that righteousness that would be imputed to us for those who believe in Jesus.

But again, back to this statement in verse 20, the law came in to increase the trespass. Now this was to reveal to us our sin and our need for a Savior. That's the purpose of this. It increases the trespass, but it doesn't make us greater sinners.

In the same sense that you don't become deader dead people. If you're dead, you're dead, you don't get deader. Okay, there's not mortuaries here in Casa Grande that's for dead people and another morgue for deader people.

Dead is dead. So if we are dead in our sins and our transgressions in which we once walked, as talked about in Ephesians 2, verse 1, the increase of that sin doesn't make us deader than we previously were.

The judgment being the same thing. If a person is under the condemnation of God, they don't become more condemned, they were already condemned. That's even John 3, 18. Those who have the Son have life, but those who do not believe in the Son are condemned already because they have not believed in the only Son of God.

So condemnation already spoken about there with regards to those who do not believe. You don't become more condemned. So what does it mean then that we would understand that by the introduction of the law there would be the increase of trespass?

The law came in so the transgression would increase that the grace of God may shine out to us all the more brightly, or to the praise of His glorious grace, as said in Ephesians 1, 6. When the law comes in, mankind is liable to think, oh, okay, I just keep the law, and that's how I can be justified, and then along he goes trying to keep the law and fails and fails and fails.

So this is how it increased the trespass. There were a few sins that you were doing before. The law comes in, and it just awakens in you that sinful rebellion to go against whatever it is that God has said.

That is by our nature. It's like the law proves exactly the statement that was said previously in verse 12. You're born an Adam. You're born with Adam's sin nature. It is in your nature to sin against God.

Oh, yeah? Watch me. Watch me obey the law. And then you try it, and then you don't, and you fall. So it just proves the statement that you were born an Adam. Your nature in Adam is to rebel against God, and the law proves that.

And you all know,.

You all understand this concept of being naturally inclined to disobey the law.

You all know this.

Have you ever seen a sign that says, do not touch wet paint? What do you want to do? I want to touch it.

Oh, it couldn't possibly.

Be wet anymore. Watch this. And it's still wet. Or do not walk on the grass. What do you want to do? I'm going to saunter right across that lawn. Who are you to tell me what to do? When I was younger, for me it was signs on pianos that said do not play.

It was almost an invitation for me to play that piano. And I'd sit down and play it, and I got in trouble every time. Sir, did you not see the sign that said do not play the piano? Oh, is that what that meant?

It's just the natural inclination of us to rebel, to want to do our own thing, to disobey. It exists within every one of us, not just on this minor scale, just through this minor example that I've given, but even in large things.

God telling us to do one thing, and by our nature, we want to do something else. And it's by His law that the trespass was increased. And in the increase of that trespass, we come to know all the more the grace of God.

Remember what Chris had said last week with regards to this. You cannot out-sin God's grace. And so we sin more, but then God's grace covers up more sin, and we just see how much greater God's grace is over the sins that we have committed against God.

And that's the purpose of the increase of the trespass. Remember, we've talked about this before, especially if you've been in Sunday school with us as we've been going through the book of Exodus. We've been talking about the threefold use of the law.

So, the three uses of the law are that the law reflects, the law restrains, and the law reveals. It's not that the Bible explicitly says this, but we see these applications through the way that the law is given.

So first of all, the law reflects. It's like a mirror. James talks about this in James 1. You look into the mirror of God's Word, and it shows you the kind of sinner that you are. As I remember one preacher saying, I don't read the Bible.

The Bible reads me. And it shows me who I am. Reflects back to us our sin. The warning that James gave was, beware of those who hear the Word. Beware of being like a person who hears the Word and then walks away and forgets what the Word says.

You're like a man who looks at himself in a mirror and then walks away and forgets his own reflection. So we're not just to be hearers of the Word. We are to do what it says. And so the law reflects back to us who we are.

Shows us the sinners that we are that we may know our need for a Savior. Second use of the law is that it restrains. The law restrains evil. It protects us from being more unjust than we are. Now the law does not transform.

It does not turn a person from bad to good. And again, Paul expounds on that in Romans as well. The law may work as a restrainer from us being as evil as we probably want to be. But the law doesn't make us better.

So in that sense, the law has application in that it restrains. But the third application of the law is that it also reveals. And reveals in what sense? It reveals what is pleasing to God. You are now in Christ Jesus able to obey the Word and do what is pleasing to the Lord where previously you could not.

In your rebellion, you wanted to go against God. But now having revealed what is the will of God, we know the way that we should go, which we're able to do if in the righteousness of Christ. So this is the threefold use of the law.

It reflects, it restrains, and it reveals. And that application is given here even in understanding that the law came in to increase the trespass. That we might see our sin and need for a Savior. So it's in that first one that the law shows us our sin and our need for grace.

That we may know His grace that is greater than all our sin. The law did not kill you. It demonstrated our need for grace. The law did not make you a sinner. Remember again, we were already sinful. We were already condemned.

But the law showed us our need for a Savior. The law was not given even to condemn us. Because again, we were already condemned. John 3 .18, let me quote it the right way this time, He who believes in Him is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And then John 3 .36, which I tried to blend with John 3 .18, He who has the Son has life. He who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. So the law came in to increase the trespass.

But Paul goes on to say, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Again, you could not out-sin God's grace. Now, it's not that we should put ourselves in a position to sin and sin and sin, and so God will show us more grace.

Paul is going to confront that idea when we get to chapter 6 starting next week. This is not permission for you to sin, because God's grace is just going to cover all of that up. But rather that we would give glory to God for His abounding grace that has covered all of our sin.

So that, verse 21, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, understand something between this contrast that we've had between Adam and Christ throughout this particular section.

You receive more blessings in Christ than Adam ever lost. Did Adam's sin lead to a great fall? Absolutely it did. As I've said to you as we've been going through this section, sin is the reason we die.

Sin is the reason why you got a screw in your tire that caused it to go flat, and now you're struggling on the side of the road wondering how you're going to get anywhere because you have a flat tire.

The whole reason the entire cosmos has been sent into chaos and upheaval is because man, made in the image of God, sinned against God, and all of creation was subjected to a curse. And every struggle and trial that we have in life, whether it be psychological, spiritual, external, material, whatever it might happen to be, every struggle that we go through is a result of sin that has happened in this world.

Not that you sin, and so God is personally punishing you for your sin by causing these things, but that mankind altogether rebelled against God, and so all of creation has been subjected to the curse.

So yes, Adam sinned greatly, and it had great consequences. But what Adam lost, you gain even more in Christ Jesus. You gain more than Adam ever lost in Christ. And that's how much greater the second Adam or the last Adam is from the first Adam.