Grace Greater Than All My Sin - [Romans 5:15-21]

Father in heaven, thank you for bringing us here to Bethlehem Bible Church where we can come together and

worship you in teaching, in praise, in worship, in the

preaching of your word.

Father, as we focus today on the surpassing grace that we have received through the Lord

Jesus Christ, I just thank you for that grace and just pray, Father, that you would use these words, that you

would guide my speech, that we would learn some great, great things about

the free gift that has been given to us.

All right, so if you were here last week, this is the second part in a two -part series

on Romans 5, 12 to 21 on sin and the nature and effects of sin.

And then today we're going to take a look at grace and righteousness and the relationship between those two things, the sin and then the

grace and the righteousness that we see in Romans 5.

So last week we focused on sin, the nature of sin.

The title of the message was The Nature of Sin.

This week we're going to look at the other half of this great imputation equation.

We're going to talk about the work of Christ.

So this passage that we have, Romans 5, 12 to 21, holds a great contrast.

From 12 to 14, we have, like I said, this focus on Adam.

We have this focus on the work of Adam.

We talked about the inheritance that we receive from Adam.

What is that inheritance?

Anybody remember?

Sin.

It is not a great inheritance.

From 15 to 21, we're going to see Paul talk about the free gift, verse 15, that we receive as children

of Christ.

And we're going to contrast the two of those, the inheritance from Adam and the inheritance from Christ.

So why don't we read the whole passage as we get started?

Romans 5, 12 to 21.

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.

So from verses 12 to 14, Adam's sin ushered two conditions into the world.

What were those conditions?

We talked about this last week.

Verse 12, therefore, sin came into the world through one man.

So as a result of Adam's sin, all men have sinned.

All men have this sin nature.

And the other one, verse 13, well actually it's the second half of verse 12, excuse me, death

through sin.

So we have sin and we have death.

These two conditions were ushered into the world as a result of Adam's sin.

Obviously what we receive from Christ is different.

Let's take a look at that.

We have this contrast starting in verse 15.

But the free gift is not like the trespass.

But that's the first indication that we have that what we receive from Adam, this inheritance from Adam is

fundamentally different.

So we have the question, what is the free gift?

What is Paul talking about?

Grace.

Anything else?

Okay, we'll take a little bit of a look.

Last week we looked at sin and death.

We talked about what happened immediately after Adam and Eve ate the fruit.

What happened immediately after Adam and Eve ate the fruit?

Anybody remember Genesis 3?

They felt guilty.

Good.

Separation.

Exactly right.

The eyes of both were open and they knew they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

There was an immediate understanding, recognition of separation.

We talked about how separation is another way that we can understand death.

Death can be defined as separation.

So as we seek to define what this free gift is, we have a couple of verses we can look at.

We'll actually look a little bit further back in Romans 5 verses 10 and 11.

It says this, for if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much

more now that we are reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now

received reconciliation.

The free gift gave us reconciliation.

And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin.

This is verse 16.

For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought

what?

Justification.

So the free gift brought justification.

Also verse 17, the next verse, 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.

So I ask you again, what is the free gift?

Is it righteousness?

That's what it says.

Whose righteousness is it?

Christ's righteousness.

Much like the sin committed by Adam was an action, a physical action of Adam,

the righteousness is the earned righteousness of Christ through active and passive obedience.

Okay, so we have this active and passive obedience of Christ

to God, the Father, to the law, right?

And that is this righteousness that we talk about when we see in verse 15, the free gift.

Douglas Moot talks about this.

He says this, Paul chooses this unusual way of designating the work of Christ, the work of Christ

to accentuate its gracious character and its power.

Christ's act being a work of God's grace is far more potent than Adam's act.

So now we have both pieces.

We have what Adam's trespass is, and we have what this free gift is.

And throughout the rest of this, we're going to be looking at this contrast, and we're going to see across the board

that everything that we receive from Christ is far superior to that that we receive from Adam.

Not only in the fact that it's a much better inheritance to receive

grace and righteousness than it is to receive sin and death, but also in its power.

So the first thing that we can contrast in verse 15 is the effectiveness of these two actions.

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.

The first focus, this first focus that we have is on the action itself and the effectiveness of that action.

Paul says, Through one man's trespass, many died.

We know that because we look back at verse 12, which says that all died.

And then he says, The grace of God and the free gift by the grace of Christ did what?

What did it do?

Verse 15.

It abounded for many.

Commentator Hebert calls this a difference in the quality of this action.

So my daughter recently found our Calvin and Hobbes anthology, which

means that bedtime reading is now Calvin and Hobbes, which is a little bit different than I imagined it, but that's okay.

In Calvin and Hobbes, there is one particular strip that I thought of when I was looking through this.

Calvin comes up to Hobbes with a water balloon.

He says, All right.

What are you going to do to me if I throw this at you?

Hobbes looks at him and he says, Here's what I want you to do.

I want you to imagine the worst thing that anybody could ever do to anybody ever.

Calvin, You do that.

Hobbes, No, I would do much worse.

So this is a pretty common literary device that we have, where an author will, in an attempt to describe something that they

might consider to be undescribable, they'll say, Imagine this thing or take this picture

of something that we can draw this picture.

We can understand this.

When Paul tries to describe heaven, I mean, he's describing the indescribable, right?

So what Paul does here is he says, Look, look at this

death, this trespass.

And then he says, Consider the magnitude of this.

I mean, this is the entirety of mankind has been affected by this.

Consider this magnitude.

And then he says, But the free gift abounds much more

than that.

So there's this focus.

We can sort of grasp, Wow, there's like six billion people in the world.

That's a lot of debt.

That's a lot of sin.

And then we look at that and we say, Much more does that grace abound?

When we talk about the power of that sin, I'm not talking about your universalism.

We'll get to that later.

But the power of that of that grace to cancel sin is so much more

great.

Exposes Bible commentary.

The force of this seems to be bound up with the recurring use of grace and gift, suggesting that the

work of Christ, not merely canceled the effect of Adam's transgression, so as to put man back into a state of innocence

under probation, such as their progenitor faced, but rather gives to man far

more than he lost in Adam, more indeed than Adam ever had.

So we look at this effectiveness and we can see that the effectiveness of Christ's work is far greater than the effectiveness

of Adam's trespass.

Matthew Henry, in his commentary, a lot of times he'll basically restate

verses to try to help us to understand it.

And this is what he said about this.

If there was so much power and efficacy, as it seems there was in the sin of a man who was of the earth,

earthy to condemn us, much more are their power and efficacy in the righteousness and

grace of Christ, who is the Lord from heaven to justify and save us.

This effectiveness is far greater than the effectiveness of Christ's work is far greater than

the effectiveness of Adam's trespass.

So this is what we see in verse 15, the difference in that effectiveness.

Moving on to 16, we'll look at the difference in the result of Adam's sin versus the result of Christ's work.

So first we focus on what that action actually is, and then we look on the result of it.

Verse 16, 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.

Just like in verse 15, with the effectiveness of Christ's work being superior to the

effectiveness of Adam's, we see two aspects in 16 of the superiority.

Remember I said there's a lot of focus on the superiority of Christ's work.

There's two aspects of that superiority in verse 16.

Anybody know what they are?

There's two of them.

Guilt and condemnation versus justification and righteousness.

There's one of those two focuses is there.

Can I see your hand over here?

Covers all sins, exactly right.

The free gift followed many trespasses.

So just like you said, how many of Adam's sins were necessary to condemn all of mankind?

One sin.

As a result of that one sin, all of mankind stands condemned.

The whole of Christ's life and death, the complete propitiatory act that he committed, stood as this one

act of grace in contrast to Adam's transgression.

Yet as a result of that act, not only was Adam's sin paid for, but also the sins of the believer.

John Murray, the one trespass demanded nothing less than the condemnation of all.

But the free gift unto justification is of such a character that it must take the many

trespasses into its reckoning.

It could not be the free gift of justification unless it blotted out the many trespasses.

Consequently, the free gift is conditioned as to its nature and effect by the many

trespasses just as the judgment was conditioned as to its nature and effect by the one

trespass alone.

So this free gift was necessary to propitiate

not just the one, but the many transgressions.

And then Peggy said the other one, the free gift brought what?

Justification.

Here's a great question.

Was Adam created righteous?

This is a thought -provoking question.

Take a vote.

Yes.

No.

I have some yeses.

Do I have any noes?

Any dissenters?

There's a no.

My wife.

That might be a hint.

Another no.

I have a confused -looking Wes who says, I don't think so.

All right.

Anybody else want to...

Does anybody want to offer more of an opinion than a one -word yes -no?

Because he could sin.

Okay.

So let me ask you this question.

Well, I'll just give you the answer.

The answer is no.

He was not created righteous.

He was created innocent.

There's a difference.

Righteousness requires a knowledge of good and evil.

Right?

And it requires a predilection to commit those good acts.

Genesis 3 .22.

I should have written it and I didn't.

I'll read it to you.

Genesis 3 .22.

This is after the sin has been committed.

Then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.

How could one be righteous if they don't know the difference between good and evil?

Adam was created innocent, but that does not mean that he was created righteous.

So, right.

Does anybody want to answer that?

So I think we'll touch on that a little bit later.

But the answer to the question is that what Adam needed to know was whether or not to obey God.

And he didn't.

That's what was important.

The important thing was you need to obey the one commandment that I had given to you because I am the creator

God.

And he didn't do that.

So as we look at this, as we try to define innocence, righteousness, whatever,

justification.

Somebody define justification for me.

Declared righteousness.

So there's two parts to justification,

right?

So there's two parts there, right?

Just as if we've never sinned and

just as if we've always lived according to Christ, according to God's word, excuse me.

So justification is when we become justified.

It's an instantaneous legal act of God in which he thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ's righteousness

as belonging to us.

Right?

So we didn't have it.

Adam didn't have any sins that needed to be forgiven before the fall.

Did he have Christ's righteousness?

No.

So our position in Christ is greater than the position of Adam, even before the fall, because we

have that righteousness.

So we see the result of Christ's work, which is justification and how that is far greater

than the result of Adam's sin, which is condemnation.

So moving to verse 17, Paul shifts his focus from the act

and result of these two acts to the condition of man as a result of these acts.

If there's any questions, by the way, I know I'm moving quickly because I have a lot of pages of notes.

Please feel free to raise your hand and ask questions if you have questions.

All right.

So in verse 17, one commentator called these the two kings, when he refers to the

reign of death and the reign of life.

Verse 17, 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.

So we talked last week about how sin entered the world and then death through sin, right?

Talked about this.

Verse 14 reminds us that death reigned even from Adam to Moses before the law.

Genesis 5 has a listing of Adam's descendants.

What does the text say happened to just about everybody in that chapter?

They died.

Every one of them, except for Noah at the end, I think, died.

Adam lived to 920 years and he died.

Seth died.

Enosh died.

Kenan died.

They all died.

Death reigned because there was sin in the world.

Is that still true today?

Does death reign?

Yes, absolutely.

It reigns.

Chapters 3 and 6 of Romans tell us that.

The wages of sin, the sin we all commit is death.

Death reigns in the lives of all that are in Adam, right?

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

So there's this heritage.

There's this inheritance that we have from Adam that death reigns through his disobedience and that death

reigns over all men, unless what?

Unless they're in Christ.

Again, we take a look at this.

We can see the supremacy of Christ's act.

Not only are believers not subject to this reign of death, but we are royalty alongside

Christ reigning in life.

Romans 7, 6, 7 talks about...

Romans 8 talks about being co -heirs with Christ, right?

Colossians 2, 13, and you who were dead.

This is that spiritual aspect of death.

In your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh.

Talking about before Christ.

God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our

trespasses.

So unlike death's reign that we have in Adam, this reign of life is an active reign that the believer has.

It's actually an interesting way that the language comes together in this verse.

Let's take a look at that.

For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man,

right?

Death reigned.

Sorry, the Bible quote is 10 point font, which is harder to read.

Getting old, I guess.

Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man.

Jesus Christ abounded for many.

Wrong verse.

Let's try that again.

Much more.

See, that's the much more.

Will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in

life?

So first death reigns and now the Christians reign in life.

Listen to Matthew Henry again.

By Adam's sin, death reigned.

But by Christ's righteousness, there is not only a period put to the reign of death, but believers are

preferred to reign in life in and by the righteousness of Christ.

We have not only a charter of pardon, but a patent of honor are not only freed from our

chains, but like Joseph advanced to the second chariot and made unto our God, kings and

priests not only pardoned, but preferred.

Why would I write my own stuff when I could quote that?

So there's this very real difference between this reign of death upon all of

mankind and then this active reigning in life that we have received through Christ that we have

as Christians.

So moving to verse 18, last week I talked about

18 and said, you know, we look at verse 14, 18 is actually like a restating of verse 14

because the second half of 14 through 17 is a rabbit trail.

Not that we know anything about those in this church.

There was sort of a side comment, a valuable one, of course.

So it's not really a surprise when we look at verse 18 to say, oh, well, 14 says, yet death reign from Adam to Moses,

even those who sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.

And then, oh, as therefore as one trespass led to the condemnation for men,

for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life.

So there's almost every verse in here is hugely similar to the rest of them, but it's not

really a surprise that there's a heavy parallel between the two of these.

Verses 18 and 19 are what John MacArthur refers to as the summary of the analogy between Adam

and Christ.

So here is where, in this entire passage, we come to the core difference, the number one

difference between Adam's work and Christ's work.

The ramification of Adam's trespass and disobedience is condemnation and sinfulness.

And the ramification of Christ's act of righteousness and his

obedience is justification and righteousness.

So there's a lot of questions that we can ask as a result of this.

This is kind of, I touched on this earlier, this is kind of a weird thing.

So listen to this again.

Therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men,

so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for who?

For all men.

That's weird, isn't it?

A little curious.

What's going on here?

The trespass led to condemnation for all men.

The one act of righteousness, what does the verse say?

It leads to justification in life for all men.

Houston, we have a problem.

OK.

Are we universalists?

No.

So what's going on?

Good question.

I have three answers to this question, so it's OK.

You're a four -pointer or five -pointer?

Are you a four -pointer or a five -pointer?

Is this a limited atonement question or not?

Keep reading.

Good.

I like that.

We'll get there.

This is the intrigue.

This is what makes this interesting.

This is fun.

All right.

So I have three reasons why it would have been written this way, why Paul would have done this, and they all cooperate.

Don't worry.

There's no disagreement here.

Number one, Paul has this habit of writing things in parallel

for us as readers to look at things and compare them to each other.

Verse 15, many.

He uses the word many when referring to both sides.

Verse 17 talks about things happening through one man, right?

So he has this idea of parallel.

Never mind the fact that it's in a completely different language to begin with.

Paul uses this type of parallel language to help us understand that there is a direct correlation

between these two events.

This is what Hendrickson said.

To answer this question, we should carefully read the entire epistle.

Oh, this is actually the second thing.

So let me step back for a second.

So there is this idea where we can say, you know, in any scientific

field, right, where something goes wrong.

I'm a programmer.

Things never go wrong with my code, right?

When something goes wrong, one of the things that you do to try to isolate the problem is you minimize the

variables, right?

So you keep as much the same as you can so that you can pinpoint the difference between what's right and what's wrong.

And that's kind of what Paul is doing here is he's saying, well, I don't want you to get mired in the grammar, OK?

I want to pinpoint the difference between the two things that I'm contrasting.

And so that's why he uses that parallel language.

So we have this one reason why it would have been written this way, why he would have said all men.

Is there a hand over there?

Is there just a scratch?

OK.

We have another reason.

And this is that quote from Hendrickson.

To answer this question, why would Paul say all men, one should carefully read the entire epistle.

It will then become clear, among other things, Paul is combating the

ever -present tendency of Jews to regard themselves as being better than Gentiles.

Over against that erroneous and sinful attitude, he emphasizes, as far as salvation is

concerned, that there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.

I'm just now realizing that I went fast to make up for the fact that I had a lot of notes and now I've gone too fast.

But we'll figure that out.

I'm going to try to slow down.

Once you get going, though, it's kind of tough.

So Paul talks about this issue a lot of Jews and Gentiles.

We see it a lot in scripture.

It's back in Romans 2, Romans 2, 9 through 11.

Paul says, there will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and

what?

Also the Greek.

But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and

also the Greek, for God shows no partiality.

Galatians 3, he says the same thing.

Verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, no male nor female,

for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Talking about equality in Christ.

So I mean, this is sort of one of his hobby horses is, look, there is this difference

that the Jews perceive.

We heard about that in Pastor Kozma's message this morning, or if you're here for second service, you will hear about it.

That in the temple, right?

Anybody who was here for the first service can answer this question for me.

So you first entered the temple.

Where are you?

You're in the court of the Gentiles, right?

Anybody can be.

Can the Jews be in the court of Gentiles?

Yeah, sure.

Why not?

Would they want to be?

Probably not.

So you move through the court of Gentiles, and then you get to what?

You get to the area where only the Jews can go, because there's this idea in Jewish culture that Jews are superior,

right?

I mean, it's just the way it is.

You don't want to be like those other people.

We're the Jews, the chosen race.

So Paul is combating this.

In Christ, we are all equal.

And so when he says all men, it's a very real idea here that he's talking about

slaves, free men, women, Jews, Gentiles.

So there's another reason.

This is my favorite reason why Paul would use this language.

It's one of my favorite reasons, because as a sinner saved by the grace of God, when you look at

this idea of federal headship that we have, right, in Christ, in Adam, first there's

the imputation of sin through federal headship.

And then in Christ, the imputation of Christ's righteousness and the imputation of our sins on Christ, he represents us

as our federal head.

I just, as a sinner, as a Christian, federal headship, this whole idea is just, I love it.

It's so great.

So thankful for federal headship.

Okay, so we talked about federal headship last week.

And at the end of verse 14, we see the beginning of this

contrast that Paul is about to draw in 15 through 21, when Paul says,

death reigned from Adam to Moses, even those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was what?

A type of the one who was to come.

Who was the one who was to come?

Christ was the one who was to come.

So we have these types, Adam and Christ.

Who is Adam the head of?

When we talk about this federal headship, who is Adam the head of?

Who is Adam the representative of?

When Adam sinned, who did he represent?

All of mankind, Christians, non -Christians, all of mankind.

Remember, there's a chronology here.

So who is Christ the head of?

The church, right?

So we have this assumption here, this understanding that when we look

at verses 18 and 19, we understand that Christ's representation is for the

church.

And we understand that Adam's representation is for all of mankind, right?

I think we can assume that based on everything that we've seen in this passage.

Plus, we know that Paul's teaching is not consistent with universalism.

So as we understand this, as we look at this and we say, okay, Adam is representing all of mankind.

Christ is representing all of the church.

All of a sudden, it just falls into place.

This makes perfect sense.

I have the Andrew Smith translation of this verse for you.

I'm going to read it.

And that's true.

That's true.

Old Testament believers as well.

So Abraham, for example, would be included in this.

Thank you for that.

So here's the Andrew Smith version of this verse.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men

represented by the trespasser.

So one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men represented by the

righteous one.

Okay, so we understand that that

Christ dying on the cross for our sins was for those who would

believe, those who would be elect.

We understand this.

And so his death died for all of those people.

Did I just describe universalism?

No, I didn't.

His death paid for all of those who would believe.

I just don't want us to get hung up on this word all because we need to understand why it's being used.

And so we have these three reasons.

And I don't think there's any argument between any of these reasons.

I think they're equally valid that we can understand why Paul would say all and most importantly,

understand the theology of the passage, which is that Christ's death

was sufficient for all of the elect.

Verse 18 also reaffirms what we talked about before.

Condemnation versus justification, right?

Condemnation.

And then not just putting an end to that condemnation, but also the righteousness of Christ.

That's part of justification.

That's part of that equation.

Verse 19 adds a little bit of a wrinkle when Paul mentions obedience.

He's basically saying the same thing as verse 18.

There is a lot of parallelism in this passage, but he uses different words.

And I think those different words help paint the picture to understand what he's saying.

First, we have the disobedience of Adam, right?

Is there any argument that Adam disobeyed in Genesis 3?

I really hope not.

Okay, I think we've already taken a pretty good look last week and then the first half an hour

today at this disobedience and what the result of that disobedience was.

But we also have this reference to the obedience of Christ.

So by the one man, so by the one man's obedience, the obedience of Christ, the many will be

made righteous.

That being made righteous necessarily dictates that it's the same as justification because you can't be made righteous

if your sins haven't been atoned for and you can't be made righteous if you don't have the righteousness of Christ.

So in this case, his righteousness and his justification are the same.

And like I said before, the thing about justification is that there's two components to it, right?

There's two necessary aspects of justification.

In order for Christ's complete work to affect both aspects of justification, it has to refer to the entire

life of Christ.

I mentioned this before as well.

Jesus was never disobedient, right?

He always obeyed his parents.

He always defeated temptation.

He was obedient even to the end of his life, Philippians 2, 8, and being found in human form, he humbled

himself, he being Christ, by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death

on a cross.

Perfect obedience was absolutely necessary and it was accomplished by the only man, the God -man, whoever could,

Christ Jesus, so that the many would be made righteous.

And finally, verses 20 and 21, we see the superiority of grace

over sinfulness.

Verse 20, now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased,

grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death,

grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ,

our Lord.

Now, another one of those thought things.

Silly that, thinking while reading the Bible, I can't imagine.

Now, going back in time, I want you to put yourself in a Jew's body.

Sometime after the law was given, so we have the law, if a Jew obeyed the law perfectly,

never mind the fact that that couldn't happen, if a Jew obeyed the law perfectly, did the law save him?

No, I have nos, any yeses?

I have a yes and a smile, I suspect it's a yes to someone else.

All right, let's see what MacArthur said.

This is kind of one of those rock my world, blow my socks off kind of quotes, so I'll read it.

MacArthur, the law was a corollary element in God's plan of redemption, serving

a temporary purpose that was never in itself redemptive.

Disobedience to the law has never damned a soul to hell and obedience to the law has never brought a soul to

God.

Sin and its condemnation were in the world long before the law, and so was the way of escape

from sin and condemnation.

God gave the law through Moses as a pattern for righteousness, but not as a means

of righteousness.

The law has no power to produce righteousness, but for the person who belongs to God and sincerely desires to do his

will, it is a guide to righteous living.

So as we look at scripture, as we look at the whole of scripture, can anybody think of anyone

who was kind of a perfect example of the fact that obeying the law does not save?

The rich young ruler would be an example, right?

Certainly Paul, right?

He was the Pharisee of Pharisees, right?

And then what is that worth?

It's worth nothing.

I counted all but loss, right?

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, right?

You're just whitewashed tombs.

Outward, you have all of this righteousness inward.

Exactly right.

So the law could be used and was used

to count transgressions, right?

We saw that back in verse 13 for indeed sin was in the world before the law was given, but the

sin is not counted where there is no law.

The law was used to count transgressions.

But it was the underlying motivations of obedience and disobedience and why people obeyed or

disobeyed that were the difference between being saved and not being saved.

Christ speaks to his followers about this.

What does he say in John 14?

If you love me, what?

You will obey my commandments.

What is the result?

Here's another one of those questions.

What is the result of keeping Christ's commandments?

Righteous living, blessing,

peace.

I'm going to make the argument that the result of keeping Christ's commandments in light of what we just saw about the law is

nothing.

There is no result to keeping Christ's commandments.

But what is keeping Christ's commandments mean?

That we have a heart of obedience.

The work of keeping the commandment shows a motivation and an inner condition,

right?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ is continually reaffirming the necessity of inward

obedience and not outward obedience, right?

Grab my Bible over here.

Once again, verses that I should have written down and did not.

I'll just give you one.

You have heard it said, Matthew 5, 21.

You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder outward obedience and whoever murders will

be held liable to judgment.

But I say to you, verse 22, that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says you fool will be liable to the

hell of fire.

Now, we drive in Massachusetts.

There's a lot of yelling at the guy who just cut you off, calling them fool, insulting them, whatever.

These things happen, right?

Hopefully less for us.

So it doesn't say whoever calls their brother a fool and they hear them and it's this outward

thing is a transgression and you will be condemned.

That's not what he says.

He's saying that whoever is angry, whoever purposes with their

heart to do these things will be condemned, right?

This is not an outward obedience issue.

This is an inward obedience issue.

So, if you obey the law, that

doesn't really do anything other than show your inward motivation, which is the key.

But that outward obedience doesn't really help, even if the law are the commandments of Christ.

If you obey them outwardly, it doesn't help.

It is an inward change, an inward obedience.

This is sort of the opposite side of looking at what James says in James 2.

Right?

James 2 .17, talking about the obedience to the commands of God being an example,

being works, right?

James says, also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is what?

Is dead.

Okay?

There is no faith if it's not manifest in works.

That isn't to say that works save, but without this manifestation, without this outward obedience

generated through a desire for inward obedience, which we could only have because of Christ,

doesn't matter.

I mean, how terrible would it be if we had to have, in addition to inward obedience, also outward obedience, right?

Perfectly.

We could never do that.

That's the whole issue.

That's why Christ came to fulfill the law, because no matter how hard we would try, we could never have that perfect outward obedience.

So, listen to what Hendrickson said.

A vague awareness of the fact that all is not well with him will not drive man to the Savior.

This is talking about, remember, the law came in to increase the trespass.

So, the law acts as a magnifying glass.

Such an instrument does not actually increase the number of dirty spots on a garment.

It makes them stand out more clearly and reveals many more of them than one can see with the naked eye.

Similarly, the law causes sin to stand out in all its heinousness and ramifications.

Moreover, this increase in the knowledge of sin is very necessary.

It will prevent a person from imagining that in his own power he can overcome sin.

The more he, in light of God's law, begins to see his own sinfulness and weakness, the more also

he will thank God for the manifestation of his grace in Jesus Christ.

The more aware we are of our nature, of our sinfulness, just because we're more aware doesn't

mean that we are more sinful, but we're more aware of our sinfulness.

If you live in Worcester and at night you go stargazing, it's kind of boring.

You might see maybe five stars.

If you live in, I don't know, near the Quabbin, I

don't know, and you go stargazing, it's a little bit more interesting, right?

You might actually see the Milky Way, which is pretty cool.

Okay, there's millions more stars that you can see.

Why?

Not because they're there when you're at the Quabbin and they're not there when you're in Worcester, but because

of light pollution and all these other things, we can perceive them.

And I would make the argument that I think when you can see all of those stars, it's a little bit more awe -inspiring, wouldn't you think?

So, it's all about perception here.

No matter what the subject, you could think yourself pretty good.

Hey, pretty good basketball player, sport player, whatever.

Pretty good programmer.

You could be kind of crafty.

Whatever it might be.

But then when you compare what you've done to a master of that craft, you know, you might be a pretty good

basketball player, but odds are pretty good that if you go up against KG, you're done, you're dust, it's over.

You realize how woefully inaccurate your perception of yourself is.

A similar idea is true with the sinner and the law.

In face of a perfect law, every sin that we commit, every sin is counted, every sin we commit is revealed,

and our trespass is increased because now we know better.

So, I have one last quote for you about this entire thing from the Expositor's Bible Commentary, and then we'll

close.

The treatment of sin, death, and salvation in terms of righteousness

is crucial to our understanding of our relation to God.

It loudly proclaims that no sinner, whether a mystic aspiring to direct contact with God, or a

legalist counting on his good works to approve him in God's sight, is able in his own way to find

acceptance with God.

Because another man, Adam, has intervened between him and the Creator, still another, even Jesus Christ,

must be the medium of his return as a sinner to a righteous God.

Right?

Jesus was right, absolutely right, when he said that, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

There is no one, there is no way to get to the Father but through me.

So, why don't we pray together?

We ponder grace as I think of this hymn.

Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt.

Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured, there where the blood of the Lamb was spilled.

Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

Grace, grace, God's grace, grace that is greater than all our sin.

Thank you, Father, for the grace that you have shown to us.

Amen.