Sunday Sermon: Dead in Adam (Romans 5:12-14)

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:15

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

00:23

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an

00:29

Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series.

00:36

Here is Pastor Gabe. Let us stand together as we read Romans chapter 5 looking just today at verses 12 to 14.

00:45

This is Romans chapter 5 beginning in verse 12. 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.

01:05

For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

01:13

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgressions of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

01:27

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come into this passage today,

01:35

I pray that we do come to an awareness of who we are as sinners, but even in that awareness seeing you as holy and the demands that you have required, perfection and holiness, in order to be in fellowship with you and dwell with you where you are.

02:00

Those are demands that we could not meet if left to ourselves, if left to our own devices.

02:07

And so you have graciously given your Son to die for our sins, and more than just being forgiven our sins, that we would be made righteous and be able to have fellowship once again with the

02:23

Most High, and more than this, but even dwell with you in your glorious heaven.

02:31

Lord, may we be convicted over our sin. We don't see the things that we're going to be considering today in light of what's said in these three verses as something abstract.

02:44

It is a reality that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but so that we may see the glorious truth that we are justified by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom you put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.

03:08

Strengthen our faith this morning and the conviction in our hearts to live lives of godliness in the present day.

03:18

It's in Jesus' name that we pray, Amen. In Genesis 1 -3, this is of course where we read of the creation of the entire universe, of the first man and woman, and they being placed in the garden of Eden, God told them, from any tree of the garden you may surely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from it, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.

03:49

When the serpent tempted the woman to eat the fruit, he countered

03:54

God's word. You will not surely die, for God knows that in the day that you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

04:10

And Eve found this argument persuasive. Eve in Genesis 3, 6 -7 says,

04:16

The woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise.

04:29

So she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

04:37

And the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

04:49

Then from that point on, when God encounters the man and woman in the garden, and each one kind of deflects their responsibility to the other, the man says,

04:59

Oh, the woman that you gave to me, she gave me the fruit and I ate it. And the woman said,

05:05

Oh, the serpent deceived me and I ate. And so then you see the giving of the curse then in that order.

05:12

God to the serpent, and then a curse to the woman, and then a curse to the man. And though God issued a curse to the serpent, and to the woman, and then to the man, we don't really come to understand the theological implications of what

05:24

Adam did until later chapters. As many who have scrutinized this narrative have pointed out, well,

05:33

Adam and Eve didn't surely die. They ate the fruit and they were still standing there.

05:39

They didn't immediately die. But death surely came upon them in that moment.

05:47

And as you go on to read Genesis, of course we read of the first murder in chapter 4 when

05:53

Cain killed his brother Abel, but it's really in chapter 5 when the weight of the understanding of death enters the narrative.

06:03

Not death at the hand of another as would happen to Abel, but death as a result of the curse.

06:11

Chapter 5 is where we have the first genealogy, and you're surely familiar with this. Over and over throughout the chapter we have various generations mentioning the descendants of Adam and his son

06:22

Seth by name and how long each of them lived. Usually the takeaway from chapter 5 is how long everyone lived.

06:28

Wow, Seth lived 912 years. Enoch lived 905. Kenan lived 910 years.

06:37

But what all the men of Genesis 5 have in common, except for Enoch, he would be the one exception, but what they all have in common is what's said of them after their ages are mentioned.

06:48

Every man's life ends with these three words, and he died.

06:56

So and so lived this number of many years, and he became the father of this guy, and he had other sons and daughters.

07:01

So all the days of so and so were this many number of years, and he died.

07:07

No matter how many years he lived, everyone, again except for Enoch, died because they were all sons of Adam.

07:17

And as Adam had eaten the fruit, and so he fell, and all of creation was put under a curse, as we will read later in Romans 8, all of creation was subject to futility because of Adam's sin.

07:31

So, all died. And as we arrive at this middle portion of Romans 5, this is another chapter of the

07:39

Bible that we are given to explore a deeper understanding of Adam's sin and its effects. Between Romans 5 and 1

07:46

Corinthians 15, which our brother Alan read for us this morning, there are not many words between the two sections in these two chapters.

07:53

But what is said is deeply profound, and affecting the way we understand our anthropology, which is the study of man.

08:05

Our harmardiology, which is the study of sin. And of course, even our theology, which is the study of God himself.

08:12

And we will consider those things as we go. We have three verses that we're looking at this week, so that should make things easy for us to break this into three main points.

08:20

I'm going to spend the most time on the first point, which is out of verse 12, and that is understanding sin's spread.

08:29

Through Adam's disobedience, sin entered the world and spread to all humanity, resulting in death for all humanity.

08:38

Number two, we will consider sin's supremacy. Verse 13, even before the law was given, sin reigned over all humanity, though no explicit commands had been given.

08:51

And then third, sin's side effect, which is in verse 14. Death is the result of sin, even over those who did not sin like Adam sinned.

09:01

So again, we have sin's spread, verse 12, sin's supremacy in verse 13, and sin's side effect in verse 14.

09:10

And we consider these things this morning, that we may understand what Paul hints at, what everybody kind of foreshadows in the last part of verse 14, that Adam was a type of one who is to come.

09:23

Who is that about? That is, of course, about Christ, who frees us from sin and undoes the curse.

09:34

And so, let's look again at verse 12 as we come to understand sin's spread.

09:41

Verse 12 again, 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.

09:53

M -dash. Kind of sounds like an incomplete thought, doesn't it? I'll explain why that M -dash is there here in just a moment.

10:00

But first of all, the one man we're talking about here is, again, Adam. Now, Adam was created sinless.

10:08

God does not create sin in the Garden of Eden. He makes

10:13

Adam and Eve without sin. Genesis 1 .31 says, God looked at His creation, and behold, it was very what?

10:22

Good. And that included Adam and Eve. Adam was not only the first man, he was a good man.

10:31

Adam was created with the moral capacity to choose right or wrong.

10:37

And though he was created without sin, he chose to do wrong.

10:43

Now, as many of us want to blame Adam for the fall of creation, any one of us, when put in the same position, would have done the same thing.

10:52

Essentially, it was inevitable that this was going to happen. Because Adam was not God. If you had been created instead of Adam and put in that spot, you would have done the same thing.

11:03

Chosen your own way over God's way. I was in my backyard over the weekend pulling weeds, and I was complaining about the curse.

11:13

Literally, that's how my complaints come out. They're very theological. So I'm yanking weeds out of the ground, which, incidentally, my three -year -old son loves.

11:22

Like it was his idea. Daddy, let's go out to the backyard and pull weeds. He just wants the time with Daddy.

11:29

That's what he wants. And he doesn't quite understand yet how hard and difficult and annoying this is, to pull these weeds out of the ground.

11:37

But as I'm pulling a weed out of the ground, I'm, Oh, Adam! That came into my, I'm serious, that came into my head.

11:44

Because of the curse, and God's curse is given there in Genesis 3, the ground will not yield for you what you want it to yield.

11:52

Instead, it will be weeds. And so that's what I'm pulling out of the ground. But I can no longer,

11:59

I can no more curse Adam than I can curse myself. For I, in the same position, would have done the same thing.

12:07

And Adam, having transgressed the commandment of God, Hosea 6 -7 says that Adam transgressed the covenant.

12:18

Now, what covenant? I don't remember God ever making a covenant with Adam. He told him not to eat from a certain tree.

12:25

That's right. But the commandment was a conditional agreement with consequences.

12:32

And this really makes up the nuts and bolts of a covenant. In the

12:37

Bible, a covenant is a solemn agreement, a binding promise, a formal contract between God and humanity, or a group of people, or an individual, that establishes a relationship with specific obligations and expectations for everyone involved.

12:56

It is a serious commitment that defines the relationship between the two parties, often with implications for future generations.

13:06

And it specifies what each party is to do or not to do. Many of you probably watched a wedding yesterday online as we celebrated

13:16

Blake and Genesis getting married. Didn't happen here in Arizona, but thanks to the wonders of technology, we could watch the wedding via live streaming.

13:24

And you heard the pastor say that they were entering into a covenant with one another.

13:31

And not just a covenant of man, though the laws of man may recognize such an arrangement, but this is a covenant that has been established by God.

13:41

And so the marriage must be entered into based on the rules that God has set for marriage.

13:48

And that makes marriage a covenant arrangement. Here are the stipulations. Here are the parties involved.

13:55

You must do this. You must not do this. And you heard that in the vows that they exchanged with one another.

14:01

I pledge to do this. I will not do this. Even in the reciting of this covenant to each other.

14:08

The covenant that God made with Adam was contingent upon Adam's obedience.

14:14

God promised life for obedience and death for disobedience.

14:21

This was a very serious command. God did not have a do what you want attitude about Adam's role in the garden.

14:28

Okay, I've made you. I made this garden. Go off and play. These were very specific instructions and his covenant gave clear terms.

14:40

Adam could eat from any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

14:45

The consequences for breaking this covenant are explicitly defined. Quote, for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

14:58

Eating in the tree would result in death. In theological terms, we refer to this doctrine or this particular covenant as the covenant of works.

15:09

That term exactly doesn't appear in Scripture, nor does it appear in our confession of faith.

15:16

But in our own confession, it is defined in chapter six. As said in paragraph one, quote,

15:22

Although God created man upright and perfect, and gave him a righteous law, which had been unto life, had he kept it, and threatened death upon the breach thereof, yet he did not long abide in this honor.

15:38

Satan, using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing

15:43

Adam, who, without any compulsion, did willfully transgress the law of their creation and the command given to them in eating the forbidden fruit, which

15:52

God was pleased, according to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to His own glory.

16:02

There's a lot said there in that one paragraph, which we won't unpack. But nonetheless, to express that the description of this covenant of works is given even in our statement of faith.

16:14

This sin and its consequences and the implication it has had on the rest of creation and mankind also has another theological name attached to this particular doctrine.

16:28

There are various theologies that you can say come out of an exposition of Romans 5, verse 12.

16:35

And another one that you're probably more familiar with is the doctrine of original sin.

16:43

That again is not a term used in the Bible, but it is the label that we give to that doctrine which is clearly taught in the

16:50

Bible, especially here in Romans 5, verse 12. The doctrine of original sin does not simply refer to that first sin, although that's what we might think of.

17:01

It's original sin, so it's the first sin. It's the eating of the tree in the garden. There are others who might think original sin is lust.

17:10

This is actually a cultural perspective of the doctrine of original sin. In pop culture, you might often hear that term, original sin applied to sexual sin.

17:20

It's sung about in songs. It's referenced in TV shows and movies. But the doctrine specifically refers to not only that first sin that Adam committed, but the implications or the effects of that first sin that Adam committed.

17:37

So it's not just the sin, but what sort of effect did that sin have?

17:43

And the study of that, or the doctrine of that, is what we call original sin. And here in Romans 5, verse 12, even in this one verse, we have a clear statement of how the sin of Adam has affected all of humanity.

17:58

This is not the first place where Paul has talked about the universality of sin. If you've been in this series with us from the beginning, we considered this previously in chapter 3, where Paul said, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

18:11

He argued from the Scriptures, none is righteous. No, not one.

18:18

No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside.

18:23

Together they have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one.

18:30

And here in Romans 5, verse 12, Paul returns to the subject to show that this all started with Adam.

18:39

Now, there are other doctrines that I could say come out of this.

18:45

We could also talk about a doctrine of federal headship. That's something we will get to later. In fact, Brother Chris may expound on that next week when we talk about being alive in Christ.

18:54

Under Adam, all have sinned and all die as a result of that sin. Because Adam was the federal representative of all of mankind.

19:04

So as in Adam, all die, as said in 1 Corinthians 15, so also in Christ, who becomes our federal head when we put our faith and trust in Him.

19:15

In Christ, all will be made alive. So again, we have another doctrine that even comes out of our study of this passage.

19:24

Now, though this verse says that sin and death have spread to all men through Adam, the debate has continued in pretty much all of church history as to how deep this corruption goes.

19:37

So many may agree, yeah, sure, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's what the Bible says. But how deep is man, therefore, corrupted by having sinned?

19:49

Over the summer, I started a discipline of reading a bit of church history every day. Like, what happened today in church history?

19:56

And I'll find one event, one little tidbit, like a fact of the day website or something like that.

20:02

Today in church history, da -da -da -da, and it'll just give you a sentence or two. But then I'll do a deeper dive to read about that event as it happened in the history of the church.

20:11

And it just so happened, by God's providence, that while I'm preparing for this sermon in Romans 5 .12,

20:18

I came upon this bit of trivia for just this past week. On July 3rd, in the year 529, the

20:26

Second Council of Orange was held in France. Now, what does a synod named after a fruit have to do with what we're reading today?

20:36

Well, it was called the Synod of Orange because it was held in Orange, France. It's because of the city that it was in.

20:42

This was the synod that condemned a false teaching called semi -Pelagianism.

20:50

The teaching of Cassian of Gaul that a sinful person still has enough moral capability to accept

20:57

God's grace or reject it. Now, this has roots in the 5th century debate between Augustine and Pelagius over human free will in salvation and the doctrine of original sin.

21:10

Pelagius argued for the freedom of the human will and that a person can be morally good without God.

21:18

But what did we just read from Romans 3? There is no one who does good, not even one. And we'll see that come up again even in Romans 8, where it says that the person who does not have

21:29

Christ cannot keep God's law. It is not possible for the person to do good who does not have the

21:36

Spirit of God dwelling within them. But Pelagius wanted to argue that a person can be morally good even if they are not followers of God.

21:47

A person can will themselves to do the right thing or that a person is born naturally good and it's sin that somehow corrupts him.

21:55

Augustine argued from the Scripture that all have sinned and cannot do good without the grace of God.

22:01

He further argued that Scripture teaches we are so fallen that we are unable to incline ourselves to God unless God draws us to Himself.

22:12

As Jesus said in John 6, 44, No one can come to me unless the

22:18

Father who sent me draws him. Those whom God is predestined for salvation,

22:24

Augustine said, He shows His grace to and regenerates their hearts by the

22:30

Holy Spirit, bringing them to saving faith through the hearing of the gospel. The council of Ephesus that was held in 431 sided with Augustine and declared

22:40

Pelagius a heretic. That's how seriously wrong this teaching was to say that we can be good without God.

22:48

That is exactly contrary to what the Bible says. Now Cassian, fast forward 100 years later,

22:57

Cassian and his fellow monks agreed that Pelagius' teachings were justifiably condemned.

23:02

But Cassian also believed that Augustine's teaching on predestination went too far.

23:08

He argued for a middle way between Augustine and Pelagius.

23:14

Though the fall of man is serious, it's not as serious as Augustine taught because there remains in a person an ability, a person has an ability, to either accept the grace that God is offering or to reject it.

23:31

Now essentially, Cassian was arguing against the doctrine that would eventually be called irresistible grace.

23:38

And we also see in here hints of total depravity. These are doctrines that would later be defined in other councils.

23:46

But further Cassian argued, God desires to save all people and He made atonement of Christ's sacrifice available to everyone.

23:56

And it was this teaching that became known as semi -Pelagianism. So whether a person today might call themselves

24:03

Arminian, or might call themselves a freewheeler, or might call themselves a provisionist, whatever other terms might be made up for this, it's really semi -Pelagianism.

24:12

There's nothing new under the sun. And it comes back to the same false teaching that was condemned at the second council of Orange.

24:20

They affirmed the teachings of Augustine as biblically orthodox. Human beings are born with original sin and do not have the ability to choose

24:28

God or do any good without an act of God's sovereign grace. And they ruled Cassian's teachings as unbiblical, as elevating man and reducing

24:40

God. And though this was the determination of the synod, that did not bring semi -Pelagianism to an end, as you probably know.

24:50

It actually became the majority view in the Roman Catholic Church, eventually set in stone at the

24:56

Council of Trent in the 16th century, and remains the Roman Catholic position to this day.

25:02

The Reformers would go on to affirm what the Bible teaches about original sin, man's total depravity, and God's irresistible grace in synods such as the

25:11

Council of Dort in 1611, which was linked to the tradition of the second council of Orange through a commitment of what

25:18

Scripture says. Now, as much as Roman Catholicism wants to claim that they're the ones who are committed to church tradition, they have actually broken away from their own tradition.

25:29

The true church that is committed to what Scripture says has been consistent on this subject through these generations that God has been working out through His Word to His saints, which we have in the

25:45

Bible. Though even among Protestants, however I must say, Semi -Pelagianism has been the majority view.

25:54

But really, when it comes down to it, if I may interject my own opinion here, there is not much difference between Pelagianism and Semi -Pelagianism.

26:04

Either a person can be good without God, or he cannot be. There is not a middle way between the two.

26:11

But Semi -Pelagians want to argue, okay, we admit we're bad.

26:16

We're just not that bad. You're probably aware that this past week,

26:24

Jimmy Swaggart died. The televangelist who was most famous for committing adultery with prostitutes.

26:32

That's what he's most famous for. That's what most people remember him for. In 1988, he delivered his tearful,

26:39

I Have Sinned speech on live television, which many believe might be the most watched sermon on television in history.

26:47

It was live broadcast in 145 countries. Now, contrary to what you might have remembered about this speech, or what your impression is of Swaggart, he never actually admitted to what he did in that tearful,

27:03

I Have Sinned speech. You had to watch the news later on to find out what it was he actually did. And as time would go on,

27:10

Swaggart didn't just carouse around with a prostitute one time, for which he repented. He would go on to repeat this offense several more times to demonstrate that he was not really repentant.

27:21

And though he was tearful the first time, in subsequent offenses, he told his church, it's none of your business.

27:28

I did a video on Swaggart earlier this week, and I mentioned that legacy of his. And many of the comments

27:35

I got on that video very much wanted to minimize Swaggart's sin. They would say things like,

27:41

Oh, he just struggled with lust. Don't we all struggle with lust? Repeatedly looking for prostitutes is not struggling with lust.

27:50

It's being a slave to your sin. As Jesus said in John 8, 34, Truly, truly,

27:55

I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

28:02

And there were other comments that were like, Come on, this was over 30 years ago. Are you going to keep bringing this up?

28:08

I'm sorry, I think I missed that verse in the Bible that says time heals all wounds. What do all these kinds of comments have in common?

28:18

Semi -Pelagianism, these comments about Swaggart's sin, this thing that would say, Oh, it was so long ago, or we all struggle with it, we all sin, we all do the same thing.

28:28

What do they all have in common? They all minimize the sin. And if they're willing to do that to Swaggart's sin, they would be willing to do that to their own sin.

28:41

They will minimize the severity of the sin so that they will feel more comfortable in doing it.

28:50

My friends, it is a very, very dangerous thing. To minimize sin is no big deal.

28:59

And it doesn't matter whether you're saying it to yourself or you're pronouncing it publicly to somebody else.

29:07

Sin is a big deal. Sin is the reason we die.

29:20

The reason we get sick. The reason we struggle. The reason we suffer.

29:26

The reason why life is hard. The reason why you can't find an answer or solution to this problem that you're facing right now.

29:35

The reason why mankind is in a general state of wondering what's the meaning of life. All of these things are a result of sin.

29:49

Sin sent all of creation into upheaval. Sin is the reason why

29:55

God subjected all creation to a curse. Because the one who was made in God's image took that image and instead of glorifying

30:06

God, glorified Himself instead. Did what He wanted to do instead of what

30:11

God had commanded. And because the one made in God's image rebelled against the

30:18

Creator in this way, so God cursed all of creation, which

30:25

He had given to mankind. We even hear this done with the sin that was in the

30:31

Garden of Eden. What's the big deal? All they did was eat a fruit. And that's going to plunge all of mankind into ruin?

30:38

The reason why you don't think that's a big deal is because you think way too much of yourself and way too little of God.

30:50

God is holy. Which the very definition of that word means set apart.

30:58

But as it applies to God also means perfect. And immediately implies that we are not.

31:11

God demands perfection. In order to be worthy to stand in the presence of God, we must be, as He said to Israel, as Peter repeated, we must be holy as God is holy.

31:27

And we can't get there. There is nothing that we by our power can do to make ourselves right to be in the presence of God.

31:38

Even insisting to yourself that we can be good just by trying to do the right things, the power of your positive thinking is never going to make you right with God.

31:55

The only way we are made right with God is through what

32:01

Christ did for us. And then by faith in Him, that righteousness is imputed to us that we would be declared righteous by faith.

32:14

This is something I'm going to come back to when we get to the application because we're more than just forgiven our sins.

32:20

It's more than just the slate was wiped clean. Remember what we read back in Romans 4.

32:26

Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteous. We're more than just forgiven, we're declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ.

32:40

But you can't get there without knowing first that you've sinned and you need a

32:47

Savior. And so again Romans 5 .12 reminds us that there is no one who gets out from under this accusation and the effects of it.

33:00

Adam sinned and through his sin it came into the world and death spread through sin, so death spread to all men.

33:10

Why? Because all who were descended from Adam sinned. And we all face the consequences of that sin, which the consequence is death.

33:21

Now before jumping into verse 13 where we read about sin supremacy, I said that I was going to mention to you the reason for that em dash there at the end.

33:30

The way the sentence is structured, it seems like an incomplete thought and it is. Most of you probably have an em dash, you may have some other kind of punctuation there at the end of the verse, indicating a break in the sentence.

33:43

But where does it pick up? Because it obviously doesn't pick up anywhere in the three verses that we're looking at today.

33:49

This is Paul introducing a thought, like I said to you regarding Romans, kind of the way Paul unpacks these theological concepts as he goes through Romans.

33:58

He introduces his thought that he won't resolve until verse 18. So you don't get to the other side of the em dash for two more weeks, just to let you know.

34:10

So Paul is introducing this idea that kind of becomes the thesis or the header of everything that we're looking at in verses 12 to 21.

34:18

So he says, So death spread to all men because all sin, and then pretend for a moment that we've taken out verses 13 to 17.

34:27

So let me read the statement and then include verse 18 so that you can hear the complete thought. And like I said, we'll come back to it here in a couple of weeks.

34:34

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.

34:44

Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

34:54

You hear it? So that's the thought. That's the understanding. Sin came into all people through Adam and death being the consequence.

35:04

But it's through Christ and His act of righteousness that all who are in Christ are justified and receive

35:13

His life. We'll come back to that in two weeks. Like I said,

35:20

I'll spend most time today on that first subject, sin spread, which is in verse 12.

35:28

So let's go quickly through the next two and then I want to give some applications. So number two is sin supremacy, which we have in verse 13.

35:36

Look again. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

35:44

So sin was in the world before the law was given. These almost look like two contradictory subjects. So how is it that sin is in the world before there's a law, but sin is not counted where there is no law?

35:55

Well, remember we had read previously in Romans 2 about how mankind will even rebel against his own law.

36:02

Man has in his heart this inclination to rebel against the law. And as was said in chapter three, the law is given to reveal to us our sins so that every mouth may be stopped before God and everyone would be held accountable before Him.

36:16

It doesn't mean that mankind wasn't sinful because there wasn't a law there to rebel against. The inclination of man's heart to rebel against the law was already there.

36:26

We'll even make up our own laws and rebel against them. We can't even keep our own standards that we impose upon somebody else.

36:34

So sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. And we see that as you go through Genesis.

36:42

And again, you see the effects of sin. Those who are listed as dying in the genealogy in Genesis 5.

36:49

But even before you get to Noah, there is wickedness that becomes prevalent in the earth.

36:56

So much so that the Scripture says that God regretted that He had made man upon the earth. Not that God changes

37:02

His mind, but we get that anthropomorphic understanding of God expressing

37:11

His judgment against man because of the wickedness that had spread upon the earth.

37:18

And so God was going to wipe out mankind because of their sin, but God found favor with one man whose name was

37:25

Noah. Through the preservation of Noah and his three sons and their wives, eight people on an ark,

37:31

God would continue the human race after destroying the entire world in a flood. But you see, even with the sin that existed at that time, though the law of Moses had never been given, but people were wicked and evil and rebelled against God and went their own way.

37:47

They were violent men. They were immoral men. They destroyed lives. They made themselves great.

37:54

So sin was in the world even before the law was given. And again, in this, we see sin's supremacy.

38:02

Sin had a reign over people, and we were enslaved to it.

38:10

Every single one of us are there before we come to Christ. We are all enslaved to our sin.

38:17

We all desire to do the passions of the flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, as talked about in Ephesians 2.

38:25

And it's not merely that you, by your own will, decided, I wanted to do the evil thing.

38:32

You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you once walked. A dead person can't do good things.

38:38

A dead person only does dead things. And so mankind subjected himself to the supremacy of sin that had reigned over all who were descendant from Adam to do that which was in rebellion against God.

38:57

Sin indeed was in the world even before the law was given. So it doesn't take the law to make sin.

39:05

It was the inclination of man's heart. And then verse 14, we read of sin's side effect.

39:12

And we've already talked about this as we have considered how death spread to all men because all sinned.

39:18

Death came through sin, verse 14. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.

39:27

In other words, you've sinned, but you've not sinned like Adam sinned. You don't have to sin like Adam in order to have been a son or a daughter of Adam.

39:38

Adam was told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the garden. The fruit of the tree of knowledge and good and evil.

39:45

And by the way, that was not the only commandment that Adam was given.

39:50

What were some other commands that Adam was given? Be fruitful and multiply. Right? Fill the earth and subdue it.

39:58

And surely there was even an obligation upon Adam to give glory to God. Adam could have rebelled in that sense in deciding,

40:06

I'm just not going to worship God. I'm going to not believe He exists. Would have been absurd. But Adam could have rebelled in that way as well.

40:13

God instructed Adam to name all of the animals. He could have said, nah, I've got other things to do. So it wasn't the only commandment that Adam was given, but it was the commandment to which stipulations were placed.

40:25

You had conditions that were given upon it. You eat of this tree, you will die.

40:33

And when we sin, we don't have to do the same sin that Adam did in order to be guilty therefore before God.

40:43

And in fact, you don't even have to find a law in the Old Testament. Say, I'm going to rebel against this law, and then that's going to make me a sinner.

40:51

We had read previously in Romans 1 that those who are enslaved to their sin are inventors of evil.

41:00

They look for evil things to do. We don't go looking for a law that we can disobey and therefore we become sinners.

41:10

We will simply go our own way, even when left to our own devices. Even those who have never heard the law of God, they have never heard the testimony that has been given from the

41:19

God of all creation through His prophets and apostles, even they sin. And it's kind of in that same semi -Pelagian mindset that some have tried to argue that the guy in the remote tribe somewhere in a primitive part of Africa who has never heard the word before, well, he won't go to hell because he's a good man, right?

41:40

Nope. Sinner too. I think it was R .C. Sproul that was asked this one time. He said, you know, how about that guy that has never heard the gospel, he's never heard the law of God.

41:51

If he's a good person, won't he go to heaven? And Sproul said, yeah, absolutely. If he's a good person, he will go to heaven.

41:58

Problem is, such a person doesn't exist. All have sinned, and sin spread to all men.

42:09

And the consequence for that sin is death. Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.

42:19

And we have sin's side effect in that death is the consequence of sin.

42:30

The reason even why infants die in the womb is not because they're inherently good.

42:37

It's because even they are born as children of Adam and suffer the consequences of sin.

42:46

There is no one who gets out from under this except by faith in Jesus Christ.

42:53

The one who came and died, though he did nothing worthy of death, he was the only man who didn't deserve it.

43:03

Back to R .C. Sproul again. When he said that the only good person there has ever been died, and he volunteered.

43:18

He gave his life for us so that in Christ Jesus we would be forgiven our sins and have everlasting life in Him.

43:27

And again, we have this statement here that gives us a hint of that, but for us, for our purposes of the verses that we're reading today, it's just a teaser.

43:36

Adam was a type of the one who is to come. And that one being

43:42

Christ. In Adam, all die. In Christ, all who are in Christ will be made alive.

43:52

And that's the hint there, the suggestion of the Gospel that we'll have coming up as we come into this passage, this section of Romans 5 again later.

44:00

But while I have a few minutes left, let me give you a few applications. So in light of this, that we've seen sin spread, we've seen sin supremacy, we've seen sin side effect, what sort of applications can we take away from this except realizing that there's all different kinds of theological doctrines that can be brought out of Romans 5?

44:23

Well, the applications that we draw from what we've considered today is number one, we need to recognize our rebellion.

44:30

Number two, we need to realize our need for the Savior. And number three, we need to repeat the sounding joy.

44:38

For those of you who like Christmas in July, I decided to throw that line in there. So, first of all, recognizing our rebellion.

44:46

Again, my friends, don't minimize your sin. Don't do it.

44:56

Minimizing it means you're just going to find excuses to do it again. If I may bring up something that I had shared previously when we were in Romans chapter 3,

45:06

I had quoted from the book that was written by Thomas Watson on repentance.

45:12

And Watson said, repentance is a spiritual medicine made up of six special ingredients. Number one, sight of sin.

45:18

Number two, sorrow for sin. Number three, confession of sin. Number four, shame of sin.

45:24

Number five, hatred of sin. And number six, turning from sin. If any one of these is left out, repentance loses its virtue.

45:32

If you minimize sin, how genuine is your repentance when you say you've turned from it?

45:41

You turned from something that was not that big a deal? Who cares? But when you understand the seriousness of your sin and what you deserve for it, it all the more puts you in a place of understanding,

46:00

I need to get away from this. I should not be repeating this. This is a big deal.

46:06

I could be sentenced to hell for this. And understand the seriousness of that.

46:14

Recognizing your rebellion so that you'll get away from it and not do it again. And it's because of recognizing our rebellion that number two is so much more powerful.

46:27

Realizing our need for a Savior. I know I have sinned.

46:33

I know what I deserve is death. And even worse than that, eternal separation and judgment from the

46:40

God whom I have rebelled against. And yet, what has

46:46

Christ given me? He has not poured out His wrath on me. He poured it out on His Son in my place.

46:55

And in Christ I am saved from the judgment of God. So we recognize our rebellion so that we may realize our need for the

47:06

Savior. And even in that, realizing our need, we realize what our Savior has done. And this enhances our worship.

47:15

How much more meaningful for you has it been to praise the name of Jesus when you know your sin and what

47:22

Christ has saved you from? When you know your sin, the consequence of your sin, and that Christ has taken that away by His life and His death and His resurrection.

47:31

As I said to you earlier, when we believe in Christ, it's more than just having our sins forgiven or expunged or wiped out.

47:42

We are even credited as righteous. God doesn't just say, okay fine,

47:48

I forgive you, get out of here. We believe God, and it's credited to us as righteousness.

47:54

We put faith in Jesus Christ, and when God looks at us, He doesn't see the sinner anymore.

48:00

Nor does He even look at us as a guy who previously sinned who's now doing good. See, if that's all

48:06

God was doing for us, when we put faith in Jesus, was forgiving us of our sins, that wouldn't be enough.

48:14

Because you know what you do next? Sin! You go right back to it! You sin again!

48:20

It wouldn't be enough to simply be forgiven. To be justified is even more than that.

48:28

It's to have righteousness credited to us. So that when God looks at us,

48:33

He sees us as righteous. Clothed in the righteousness of His Son. Another doctrine, another theology that you could come out of Romans 5 with, is that doctrine of double imputation.

48:46

When Christ died for us, our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross. By faith in Him, His righteousness is imputed to us.

48:54

So when the Father looks at us, He sees us as righteous as His Son. And that also fills us up with assurance.

49:06

That though I have sinned, I've not fallen out of God's favor. He doesn't hate me now. But He demonstrates

49:13

His love for us in this way. 1 John 1 9. That if we confess our sins,

49:19

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

49:25

I mean, the very fact that we would obey what's said there is an expression of realizing the seriousness of our sin.

49:33

That it needs to be confessed. That we may have it wiped clean and cleansed of all unrighteousness.

49:40

David, even going as far in Psalm 139, to say, God, search me for hidden faults.

49:47

Like, what other things have I done that I'm not even aware of? Bring those out that I may lay it before you and I may be cleansed of my sin.

49:58

We recognize our rebellion. We realize our need for a Savior. And then finally, number three, we repeat the sounding joy.

50:07

It helps me with my, with every one of these applications, starting with the letter R. And then

50:13

I also get to throw in a Christmas lyric in there. That, of course, is from joy to the world.

50:19

Repeat the sounding joy! What do we do in repeating the sounding joy? Two things. Continuing to glorify

50:25

God and exalt Him, and in so doing, desiring to live lives of holiness. We're turning from our sin, and we desire to be, as Paul is later going to say in Romans 12 .1,

50:37

living sacrifices unto the Lord. And this is our spiritual act of worship.

50:42

Jesus died for us, that we might live for Him. And so we would live, desiring to walk in that righteousness that we have been clothed in.

50:53

And also, in repeating the sounding joy, not just continuing to praise God for the goodness that He's shown to us in Christ, but we also tell others the good news of the

51:04

Gospel that has saved us. And it is only by faith in Jesus Christ that they can be saved as well.

51:12

My friends, we have considered today sin's spread, and how it has affected every single person.

51:22

We've considered sin's supremacy, the power of it, and how everybody who is without Christ is under it.

51:30

And we've considered sin's side effect, that everybody who is in sin, who is a descendant of Adam, dies, because that's the consequence for sin.

51:43

And so that we may give these applications, we would recognize our rebellion against God, what we have done and what we deserve for that.

51:52

We realize our need for a Savior, that we may turn to Christ, and be forgiven our sins and live in His righteousness.

52:00

And then number three, we would repeat the sounding joy. We would glorify God for His goodness to us in Christ.

52:08

And that we would also tell others of the Savior, who will save them too, if they will turn from their sin and believe in Him.

55:13

You've been listening to the preaching of Pastor Gabriel Hughes, a presentation of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

55:21

For more information about our church, visit our website at providencecasagrande .com On behalf of our church family, my name is

55:29

Becky, thanking you for listening. Join us again Monday for more Bible study, when we understand the text.