Romans 5:15-17

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

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We're in Romans 5, again covering verses 15 through 17.
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I'll start by reading from verse 12, which is where we were last week.
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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.
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For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.
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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 to come.
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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,
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Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin.
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For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
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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,
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Jesus Christ. Last week, we talked about Adam and why his sin affected or affects all of his descendants.
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To review for just a moment, Adam's sin affects everyone because he was our federal head.
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He was our representative before God in the garden. Adam also in the garden had, as we spoke about last week, dual natures.
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He had the ability to not sin and not die, and the ability to sin and to die.
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When Adam sinned, humanity lost the ability to not sin.
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We lost the ability to not die, and Adam's guilt is imputed to us.
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Our nature is now one of corruption and sin, but by grace, we now have a new federal head,
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Christ. He fulfilled the obligation of obedience that Adam could not, and by his headship, we are granted righteousness by faith.
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In the next verses, we will be looking at a contrast between Adam and Christ and their works.
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In Genesis 15, the first part of 15 says, but the free gift is not like the trespass.
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The work of Adam was sin, as we see in Genesis. In Genesis 3, the words having to do with Eve, whatever one sees firsthand is
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Eve listening to the serpent, but it is Adam's sin.
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He was there at full knowledge and decided to eat the fruit anyway, after having been told not to.
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The work of Christ is obedience to the Father.
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Romans 8, which we will get to sometime in the future, verses 3 and 4 says,
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For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own
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Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the
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Spirit. While the work of Adam, as I said, was disobedience, the work of Christ was full and complete obedience to the letter of the law, having faced the exact same humanity and temptation that we all do.
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The next part says, For if many died through one man's trespass, Speaking of the fact that Adam's sin wrought condemnation and death of many, as we spoke of last week, again,
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Adam's work put his descendants in a state of non -posse non -vicare and non -posse non -mori.
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Or, to make it a bit simpler, can't not sin and can't not die.
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This is the natural state of mankind that we are born into, that all of us were born into.
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This state, this natural state, is one lower than that of Adam's original in the garden.
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When he fell, because he represented us from the state that he was in, his representation, when he fell, everyone went to the same fallen state because we are his progeny.
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We lack those things that made him different, that he was originally created with.
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We call this doctrine total depravity. Now, again, that's not to say that everyone is as evil as they could be, only that that depravity affects every single part of their being.
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Romans 8, 7 through 8, or 7 and 8 say, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot.
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Please, God. Now, I was asked a question not too long ago, posed about this particular verse, and I thought it would be prudent.
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My answer to the question, or the question was, so, is it
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A, speaking of a man, he will not because he cannot, or B, he cannot because he will not, or C, he cannot because he will not, and he will not because he cannot?
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The answer is C, the both and, because we lack the capacity.
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Our desires are corrupt, so we will not. We will not because we cannot, and we cannot because we will not.
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The both and. Now, I've got you thoroughly confused on that subject.
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This is also evident, this corruption, in the fact that we have an abundance of illness in the world because of His headship,
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His dominion over creation. It wasn't just humans that fell, it was everything.
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All of creation. Everything that He had dominion over.
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Our bodies, our flesh is broken. It doesn't operate in the perfect way that it was created.
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The fact that our world does not operate in harmony as it does in the days of creation is very evident.
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One of my favorite passages that illustrates this is
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Isaiah 11, 6 -8. I'm going to read it, and the natural question might come to mind, and I will answer that question afterward.
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But Isaiah 11, 6 -8 says, The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together, and the little child shall lead them.
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The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
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The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
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They shall not hurt or destroy. Now this is speaking of the new creation.
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What Reed read earlier. Now, how is this evidence of corruption?
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Because he's speaking of how it ought to be. How it will be. How it was once.
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Because this is not how it is now. So by the fact that God is saying this is what it will be, we can obviously extrapolate that it ought not be as it is now.
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The work of Adam had great effect on the world and those who lived in it, or live in it.
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And oh, how the work of one man and his position brought such damage.
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The work of Christ is greater than that of Adam. The next part of the verse says,
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Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by grace of that one man,
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Jesus Christ, abounded for many. Much more, emphasizing that work of Christ and how it is vastly more powerful.
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The work of Christ has brought us from a position of being enemies of God, not to a position of neutrality, but to one of adoption as children to the
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Father. We stand, as I said before, higher than Adam stood.
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The position that Christ places us in also differs in another way.
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While the natural state of man is one of corruption, without God's intervention, the state that Christ places us in is that of justification.
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It is incorruptible. It cannot be changed. One cannot be brought into a state of grace and then taken from it.
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What God saves, He saves forever, no matter what.
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You cannot sin your way out of salvation. You are not the one doing the work in the first place.
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Verse 16 says, And the free gift is not like the result of the one man's sin.
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Paul is contrasting the work of Christ in Adam while Adam was a type of the one to come.
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The work they accomplished is not the same. The comparison ends with the type.
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The free gift is a result of the work of Christ. Paul refers to the result of this work as a free gift because, to paraphrase
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Tom Askell, a gift is defined by something of grace. It is definitionally something of grace.
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It cannot be earned. Romans 6 gives us another comparison of these two.
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Verse 23 says, For the wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
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Lord. We'll go on to the next part of the verse.
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It says, For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation. The one sin of Adam brought condemnation to all humanity.
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As we talked about last week in his headship, his sin is imputed to all mankind, leaving us in a state of depravity and inability not to sin.
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Try as we might. You cannot do it. You sin.
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It is a terrible doctrine to teach that Christians cannot sin.
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We should pray for those who teach it. I cannot imagine the condemnation they are under.
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The free gift of God is given to us through faith in Christ Jesus.
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The verse says, But the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
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You see this contrast. The one sin of Adam brought death to all humans, brought death and sin to all of mankind.
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The one time. Now certainly Adam sinned more than just the one time after the garden. But it was the one time in the garden.
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The one time of disobedience put us, put humans in the state that they are now.
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But the free gift following generations of sin and death brought us, as I said before, not from a state, not to a state of neutrality, but to a state much higher than that of Adam's originally in the garden.
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We now sit in a state of grace. God sees us as righteous without dual natures.
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And in time we will see the fullness of this, which
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I will get to in a moment. But the removal of the stain of sin and the covering of us with righteousness that is not our own, we are seen no longer as sinners by our
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God. Romans 5, 24 -25 says,
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It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead,
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Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
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Verse 17 says, For if because 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,
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Jesus Christ. The previous verses discuss the comparison between Adam and Christ, the first and second
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Adam, as it relates to their work. Now Paul has put a twist in here.
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17 is a comparison between us, the elect, and death.
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Do you notice that? So we see that we inherit death as a consequence of the work of Adam, and death reigned.
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As the scriptures we went over previously, death reigned from Adam to Moses. Paul says that it lorded over us with no escape.
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But us, the elect, are not only given life because of the work of Christ, but we are given a greater life, a more full life, a more abundant life.
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As we went over a couple of weeks ago, both the saved and unsaved suffer.
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There is nothing in Scripture that promises that as a Christian you will not suffer. The difference is that in our suffering, as we discussed before, we have hope.
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There is a reason for the suffering. The suffering that we endure builds us into what
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God wants us to be, whether we enjoy it at the time or not. We can have joy in the fact that we're suffering.
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Our lives are more fulfilled.
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And further along, the concept of eternity is a difficult one for us to grasp because we are subject to the flow and ebb of time in this life.
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When that has ended, we will know our
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Lord more perfectly in every way, more than we can possibly conceive.
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Living with Him in eternity, as read earlier in chapter 21 of Revelation, no suffering, no pain, no tears, no mourning.
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Just an eternity to enjoy Him, to reign with Him as we ought.
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The work of Christ is more powerful than any work of Adam could have ever been.
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I'll leave you with this, those most wonderful words of that most solid hymn.
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My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
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I dare not trust the sweetest rain, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
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On Christ, the solid rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.