WWUTT 139 The Reign of Sin or Grace (Romans 5:18-21)

Before Christ, sin reigned in our mortal bodies, but in Christ it is grace that reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life.

So we must no longer be enslaved to the passions of the flesh, but the righteousness of Christ when we understand the text.

You are listening to When We Understand The Text, an online Bible ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty.

Find videos and more at our website www .tt .com. Now here's our host,

Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We're getting a little bit of a March shower right now, some unexpected rain that wasn't in the forecast, but it's clearing out the air and it's got that wonderful rain smell going on right now.

It's even wafting into my office a little bit. So I'm enjoying that. A new blog is up, pastorgabehughes .blogspot

.com, I get that right this time, talking about the presidential election. I know you really want to read about more politics, right?

Apparently there was a survey that was done among Americans asking them if they're ready for this election to be over, and it came out 100%.

Every single person that was surveyed said that, yes, I'm ready for this election to be over.

Anyway, in this particular blog, what I suggest is that Rubio suspends his campaign and that Cruz extends a hand to him and they combine forces and you have a

Cruz -Rubio ticket going into the November election and the two of them together will be able to overcome

Donald Trump. You'll also learn some things about Donald Trump in that blog that maybe you didn't know if you've only been listening to Donald Trump.

Also a new what video is up. I didn't mention this yesterday, but meant to, correcting false teachers by name.

Yes, in fact, it is mandated by scripture that we should do that. You can find the video on the front of our website, www .utt

.com. We are in Romans chapter five. I want to read verses 18 through 21 again, and then we'll probably get into chapter six a little bit here, concluding our discussion of original sin.

So let's start here. 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.

For as by the one man's disobedience, talking about Adam, the many were made sinners, and that would be us.

So by the one man's obedience, talking about Christ, the many will be made righteous, and that's all who are in Christ Jesus.

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. The doctrine of original sin can basically be summarized by what we see in 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.

All who are descendant from Adam are born in Adam's line, inherit Adam's sin, and we're all willing participants in Adam's sin.

None of us can point the finger at Adam and say, hey, it was that guy's fault. If he hadn't messed up in the garden, then I wouldn't be in this situation.

We might not all sin exactly the way that Adam did, but we still have Adam's will to sin.

In this way, he is our federal head, and we talked about this yesterday, an understanding of federal headship.

The way that we associate the word federal is generally with government, a little bit difficult to understand the concept when we live in a republic though.

So we tied this in with a monarchy, a king is the federal head of his kingdom, and when he is committing to war against another nation, all of his subjects, all of the people that he rules over, they also are committed to war against that other nation because the king is the federal head.

Adam lost the battle with Satan in the garden of Eden. Satan came in and attempted to tempt that creation, which was made in the image of God, Adam and Eve, and Satan was successful and Adam fell.

So we all fell as slaves into sin because Adam lost that battle, but Christ succeeded and he won the battle over Satan, triumphing over him in death and coming back to life, and so all who are in Christ Jesus are not enslaved to sin, instead we reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

Lord, as it talks about in verse 21. So when we were in Adam and we were under Adam's federal headship, which everybody who is born a descendant of Adam is under his federal headship, then we are in sin and it reigned in death, as it talks about there in verse 21.

But in Christ, we are brought back to life, we are revived, and we are adopted into his kingdom and he becomes our federal head, and then we reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. I just have to read it again because it's so amazing. We are rescued from this enslavement of sin, and Paul will talk about that more as we get into chapter 6 here, because in verse 17 he says, thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

I am speaking in human terms, he says in verse 19, which is why he uses the word slave, because of your natural limitations.

For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now with Christ as our federal head reigning in his righteousness, present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

That growing process of being shaped more and more in the image of our creator, or in this case our king, our federal head

Christ. So we've dove in, dived,

I committed to the word and didn't know exactly where I was going with it. We've committed to Romans 6 a little bit already, so let's look at the start of this chapter and then we'll pick up with more of it next week.

Romans chapter 6 starting in verse 1, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life.

We'll come back to this again next week and talk a little bit more about the baptism aspects, but first let's see how this carries over from what we were just talking about at the end of chapter 5.

Verse 20, now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So the law showed us our sin. We became aware of our sin because the law told us, do not covet.

And when we heard that said, do not covet, we're realizing, oh my goodness, I covet those of us who have been opened up by the spirit to understand these things.

So the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

The law also increases sin and we're going to see this as we get into chapter 7 a little bit more, because since we have this disposition towards sin, that is our nature is to sin.

Then whenever we hear the law, it awakens in us a desire to break the law, our sin nature.

We want to break the law. It's just kind of like when you're walking down the sidewalk and you might see a bench and there's a sign on it that says, don't touch wet paint.

What happens in your brain? You're thinking, ah, now I can touch it. Surely it's dry by now, right? You want to disobey the sign.

Or you're walking by a nice plush little plot of grass and it says, don't walk on the grass.

What do you want to do? You want to walk on the side of the sidewalk that's closer to the grass, maybe even brush your foot through it.

You weren't even thinking about walking through the grass until you saw a sign that told you not to do it.

It's because the law awakens sin within us since we have this sin nature. So the law comes in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So with that in mind, what is stated there in verse 20, Paul says at the start of chapter six, so then what are we supposed to continue in sin that grace may abound?

Paul's going, no, no, no, that is not my argument. By no means, he says in verse two, which is my

Genoitide is the strongest statement of opposition in Greek that he can make.

No, we are not supposed to continue in sin. If we are slaves now to righteousness, we should not let sin continue to reign in our mortal bodies.

Righteousness reigns, not sin. How can we who died to sin still live in it? And I'm going to go ahead and kind of spoil the punchline here by looking at verse 11.

So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Sin no longer reigns in our mortal bodies. It is the righteousness of Christ that reigns in our spirit.

So let us commit our bodies as slaves to that righteousness and do the things that Jesus did.

Live as a reflection of that righteousness in everything that we do, submitting our members to Christ.

This chapter six is going to go on to talk more about, and we'll talk more about it too as we continue this study of Romans next week.

Tomorrow we're taking a question from a what viewer slash listener. If you would like to submit a question when we understand the text at gmail .com.

Let's conclude in prayer here real quick. God, I thank you so much for these passages and what is being shown to us about our sin nature.

We're becoming aware of this sin that is within us so that we might repent of it and follow

Christ. As David prayed in the Psalms, let there be no hidden faults in me, but expose these faults so that I might be cleansed and made righteous.

Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake, O God, and we pray and ask these things in Jesus name, amen.

This is a production of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Find us on the web at www .utt