Transcript
Romans Chapter 5. We are in the final chapter, final section in the book of Romans that teaches us about justification. This final section, verses 12 to 21, is a summary of the first two doctrines that he has presented. The first one was the doctrine of condemnation, chapter 1 verse 18 through chapter 3 verse 20, where he presents that before God every human being stands guilty before God. And that there is no defense with everything that God has presented against us.
But then there was the doctrine of justification that began back in chapter 3 verse 21 and goes through the end of chapter 5 that we are in. About justification, that those who are condemned, those who have the judgment of God against them can be justified and these are all judiciary, legal terms. The book of Romans is written like a legal brief, as Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome to present to them the doctrine of the Christian faith. And he says, first of all, you are condemned before God. But, second of all, you need to be justified and the only way you can be justified before God and the courts pronounce you as righteous or justified is through Jesus Christ and faith in what He has done for you. That is justification.
So here in chapter 5 verses 12 through 21 he is summarizing some very important things for us. Our focus this morning is on verses 12, 13, and 14. He says in verse 12, Wherefore, literally, On account of this, meaning the doctrine of condemnation, the doctrine of justification.
12) Wherefore, as by one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed through all men, for that all sinned.
13) For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed while there is no law.
14) Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over the ones that had not sinned after the similitude (or likeness) of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come.
This section, all of it, verses 12 through 21, is actually an expansion of I Corinthians chapter 15 verses 22 and 45. Paul wrote his letter to I Corinthians before he wrote his letter to the Romans. And, again, as he is presenting it here, it is like a legal document with every detail. To the Corinthians in I Corinthians chapter 15 – he wrote to them in verse 22 of chapter 15, he says, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. Verse 45, And so it is written, the first man Adam was made a living soul; but the last Adam (that would be Christ) was made a life-giving spirit. And so he is now putting it in detail as to those principles that he has laid down for them.
This entire section is entitled The Principle of Sin. Not just sin itself but the principle of sin. And this is very important, especially as I am aware now over all the years that the body of Christ is very ignorant about understanding the sin principle. We all understand a little bit about sin but not the principle of sin.
The key word through from verses 12 through 21 is the word one. It is found twelve times and that is the emphasis because the focus is on two people, Adam and Christ. What came upon the human race through the one, Adam, and what has come to the human race through the One, Christ. And presenting this to us as to the sources and the understanding about sin.
So as we begin the principle of sin – verses 12, 13, and 14 – we are going to talk about the three phases of the history of sin. Not something that you want to sit down and study I am sure. But for our understanding, it is a fantastic understanding. And then those of you that attend the Thursday night class we will be taking it even in more detail, Lord willing, this Thursday. As you know Thursday’s come and go, sometimes we do not get there. But, Lord willing, we will be in Romans 6, 7, and 8; very important time this Thursday night.
He starts off, first of all, explaining the cause of sin, the first part of verse 12. He says, on account of this, that would be the literal translation. The word wherefore is literally translated on account of this, that is the two doctrines that he has presented: the doctrine of condemnation and the doctrine of justification. On account of this, just as through one man, notice the translation the sin entered into the world and death through the sin; and so death passed through unto all men, because all sinned. That is the literal translation for you. It is very powerful. Notice, it is through one man. We are not given his name but in verse 14 we are told that this is Adam. Through Adam sin came into the world – through one man. Verse 15 is going to tell us who the other man is and that is Christ. But we know from verse 14 that this is Adam.
Through one man it says something entered this world, it is called the sin in the original Greek language for this text. Not sin in general, but the sin. As we said the first hour, the word sin means to miss the mark. It is an archery term. To miss the bull’s-eye and God’s holiness is the bull’s-eye. There is no way we are ever going to live up to God’s holiness. And He has gone out of His way to show us that by giving us the law. As the law convicts us of our sin. It is not supposed to condemn us, it is supposed to drive us to Christ. He has to show us our need first. Just like in everyday life, even after you are saved the Lord has to show us our need for Him, not our need to take care of ourselves, or to do it ourselves. But this sin has fallen short of God’s mark.
Now notice another thing. Two things I want you to notice about this. In the text the word sin is singular. Secondly, it has the definite article the. He is not referring to acts of sin, he is talking about the sin principle that is in the world.
Now just as a glimpse, I John chapter 3 verse 8 tells us who the sin principle is or what it is. He says, The one who practices the sin, I John chapter 3 verse 8, catch this because it explains that entire section in I John 3, because it says, If anybody sins they do not know God. Well! nobody is saved, right? The one who practices the sin – makes it a little different – is of the devil for the devil is the sinner from the beginning. And for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. The word destroy means to loosen, untie, unfasten. So everybody practicing a lifestyle of sin is practicing from out of the sin principle, who is Satan.
The Bible tells us in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 about every single person that has been born into this human life. He says, And you has he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Everybody is dead in their trespasses and sins. Death means separated. Everybody has been separated from God because of sin. Where and in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that is, Satan, the spirit that now energizes in the children of the disobedience. We will see throughout this history of sin that because of Adam’s sin, just because of one guy, the sin principle was allowed into the world and therefore, as we will see in a moment, sin passed on to everybody. You and I were born with a sin nature. We did not do anything to inherit it. You do not have to work at being a sinner at all. Nope. Nothing. You just are. There is no goal. Everyone is born in sin.
And so Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2 that we were energized by Satan. He goes on to say in that text that Satan energizes us to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind. And so Satan energizes people. He feeds people sin. He energizes them to want sin and to live in sin.
Now that is why there is a need for a new creation. Something happened to Adam. He did not just do something wrong; when he disobeyed God his entire nature changed. It was not that he did something bad or something wrong, the sin principle was allowed to come into the world and his entire nature as a person changed. Now you and I have a sin nature, just because of him.
In II Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 Paul says, Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature, old things are passed away behold all things are become new. See, there needs to be a change. There needs to be a transformation take place. It is not religious. It is not human. It is spiritual. Because I was born with a sin nature, because I am being energized by the sin principle himself, I need to be delivered from that.
And by the way, that is what salvation means. It means to be rescued, delivered. So at the moment that I call out to the Lord for Him to save me, the way He saves me is He sends His spirit and delivers me from the sin principle that is living in my spirit. Out he goes. I am unloosed, untied from the source, the sinner himself. And the Holy Spirit then resides within. And so now my spirit is filled with and energized by God’s Spirit. So a person is either energized by Satan, or he is energized by the Holy Spirit. That is the only two kinds of people in the world. Even a religious person, if they have never received Christ and been born of the Spirit of God, they are still energized by Satan. They are still not saved. It is a spiritual disease. It is a spiritual problem, not a religious problem, not a human problem.
Transgression is a word that we are going to see in our text. Transgression or trespass is more than committing wrong or sin, it comes out of a whole different kind of nature. It is an evil nature and an evil source. The sin principle entered through one man. Notice, it says it entered. Sin did not originate in the Garden in Genesis chapter 3. It did not originate. Satan and sin had already been in the universe but the entrance of the sin principle came through Adam and notice it says into the world. This would be the human world. The world of human beings, not the universe but the human world.
And something else came too. It says, and death through the sin principle. That is the literal translation. It has the definite article again. Something else came with sin, death. Death itself means separation and there are three kinds of death. We will get to that probably next week. But death means separation.
Romans chapter 6 verse 23 tells us, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Sin and death go together like grace and peace go together. Sin produces death and so death came into this life through the sin principle. The wages of sin is death, and that originated in the Old Testament in Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 4 where God says, The soul that sins it shall die.
Therefore, the coverage of sin, secondly. Therefore, death passed through into every man, because all sinned. The word sinned is what is called an aorist tense. It refers to a single act. And as we will see as we go through these important verses that it was Adam’s sin that we sinned. We did not commit the same sin he did, but, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Now, it is very interesting, this passed through to all men. We all have inherited the sin nature. People became sinners by nature.
David said in Psalm 51 verse 5, Behold I was shape and in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. The moment of conception the sin nature is born into the life of that baby.
In Psalm 58 verse 3 David says, The wicked are estranged (or separated) from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies. And so, we are born with the sin nature. Adam’s nature was changed by the sin principle and therefore he needed a new creation in his life, a transformation, a miracle, spiritual surgery, whatever you want to call it.
And as we said in II Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17 Paul says, For all who are in Christ are a new creature, old things are passed away and behold all things have become new. So a person does not become a sinner when they sin. As soon as we sin we say, “Well, I have sinned and that makes me a sinner.” No. We sin because we are sinners. We are a sinner no matter how nice we are or how good we are. We have sinned and we are born with that sin nature that has passed upon all people.
When it says that death has passed to everybody because all have sinned. There are three kinds of death or separation in the Scriptures:
1) spiritual death
Spiritual death entered the scene when Adam sinned. He experienced spiritual death immediately as he was separated from God. In fact, God told him in Genesis chapter 3 verse 19, In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of the ground you were taken; for the dust you are and unto the dust shall you return. This is after he sinned. There is going to be death. You are going to return to the dust of the ground. And so this death – spiritual death happened immediately. Everyone born or even conceived in this earthly life is already separated from God because of their sin nature. Spiritually dead. Again reference Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 that we were dead in our trespasses and sins before Christ saved us and that was the condition that we are in.
2) The second death is physical death.
That also happened with Adam, but it was much later. But physical death was introduced and brought in to the human beings, the human frame. I Corinthians chapter 15 verse 45 says, And so it is written the first man Adam was made a living soul and the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit. But verse 22 says, For in Adam all die. Even so in Christ shall all be made alive. So wherever you are looking at this picture from, we inherit from one side or the other. I stand in the middle and I see what Adam did and what came upon the human race because of what he did. And I see what Christ did and I see what comes to the human race through Christ.
And you have heard me say it enough, I will mention it to you again, whatever a person’s problem is it is not the problem. We were born into this earthly life with a sin nature. As we are children people do evil to us. We have evil experiences. We grow with the damage that has been done by the experiences of sin. And so all of us are damaged goods, basically that is what it boils down to. But I have a choice as to what I do about it. I cannot work to undo what Adam did. Jesus came. It is between the two of them, you see. I can look to Christ and because of what He did for me He can come in and deliver me from that sin principle. He can perform a healing in my life as we continue to study the word. Because after you are saved what the Lord does is He transforms our mind. He renews the mind. All of our experiences are stored up here. And even though I am saved, I still have some bad experiences stored up here. And God says, “Stay in My Word.” It is God’s design plan that through His word His Spirit would transform and renew our minds to be a whole new person, a whole new creature.
I always use the analogy of my mother and father when I was a child, if they picked me up and threw me on the ground and broke my arm. And so today at age thirty-nine, I still have a broken arm. “Hey Bill, what happened?”
“Well, my parents picked me up and dropped me. So I have a broken arm.”
“Okay, that is too bad, and I am sorry you had to have that kind of experience, but do not you think you ought to go get it fixed?”
“Yeah, I will. But I like to go around going, ‘Hey, see my broken arm? See what happened to me? My parents did that.'”
“Why do not you go get it fixed?”
“I will. You know. I will get there.”
You begin to realize that the person does not want to be fixed, at least right now. You break your arm, if one of your kids breaks their arm, somebody you know breaks their arm, what do you do? Take them immediately in and get the arm set, and get it fixed, and go through the healing process, and then back to life again. So I cannot complain about the problem that I inherited because Jesus did so much more for me. I gained more through receiving Christ than I lost through Adam. More. And it is mine for a gift. Adam already said, “Merry Christmas.” Thanks, right? But it is the Lord that is saying, “I am going to heal you as a free gift to you.”
But see, there are some people that just will not do it because they want to blame God for everything. “Well, God got me into this mess and I am all messed up, and you know.”
“Why do you not go get fixed?”
“What? Him? He is the one that started it all. He is the reason why I am in this mess.”
No, at this point you are not in the mess because of that. You are in the mess because you do not want to be fixed.
But see, it underlies all of God’s message to us. Whether we are saved or we are not saved, is that He goes out of his way to show us we need to be fixed. See, what I am saying? Why does He have to go out of His way to show us? Because we have this personal deception there that says, “I am okay. It is everybody else that has a problem. Not me.” Or, “Oh, you religious people, you think a certain way and talk about sin. We will be alright. We just learn to do good.” It will not work. There is spiritual death. There is physical death because of sin.
3) There is eternal death.
Revelation chapter 20 verse 11 through 15 he calls it the second death. That is when everybody stands before God after dying physically, they are then sent into eternity, separated from God throughout eternity in a place called hell, the lake of fire. Did they go there because they were born with a sin nature? No. When Jesus died on the cross He says, All manner of sin will be forgiven man except for one, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy means to speak against. The Holy Spirit comes to us and convicts us of our need of Christ. We rebel. We say, “No.” We try to block it out. We push it away. And when we stand before God we say, “I rejected your gift to me to be fixed.” That is it. “Well, I know I was a sinner, but it is Your fault.” No. You died in your sins because you refused God’s way to heal and fix the problem. And as I said this is a spiritual problem. It is not human and it is not religious.
You would tell me – if I had a terminal disease health wise, human, and that I only had two days to live, in fact this Thursday’s class was called off because I am just not going to make it that long. But I tell you what I am going to do. I am going to try to live longer, I am going to go through the neighborhood and mow people’s lawns for them and do good. How is that going to take care of my health? Well you do good, maybe I will get healed. No. See, it is not a human problem. It is not a religious problem. You cannot join a religious system and practice – because that is human too. It is a spiritual problem and it requires spiritual healing. And the only one that can do that is Christ. But if I avoid Him, I will die my sins.
Next week will continue on. We have studied the cause of sin, that is the first phase. The coverage of sin that is passed upon all. Now you know why in first John chapter 3 it says, The one who commits sin is not saved. In the Greek text it says, practices the sin principle. In other words, Satan is still there energizing that person to live the life of sin away from Christ that all nonbelievers live. In fact John says it is impossible for you to belong to Christ if you are practicing a lifestyle of sin. Because if you are truly saved the sin principle is gone and Christ is there. And every time your flesh wants to reach out and sin because the desire of sin is still in your flesh but the source that energized it is gone. So in your flesh you still desire to sin. I can commit an act of sin as a Christian, but I cannot practice sin. Because when I commit an act of sin the Holy Spirit, according to the Bible, the Holy Spirit is there to convict me and drive me and draw me to Christ so that I confess the sin that I committed. And He was faithful and just to cleanse me and forgive me from all unrighteousness.
Not a pretty thing to study, but at the same time just getting understanding because the rest of the Bible talks about it. If you sin you do not belong to Christ. Hey, what does that mean? It is the sin principle. If you are practicing a lifestyle under the influence of the sin principle and not Christ then you are not saved. See how salvation itself, it is not a religious ceremony, it is not a religious experience, it is spiritual. Where God literally sends His Holy Spirit to unloose us from Satan energizing us to fulfill the desires of the flesh and of the mind. It is a literal spiritual experience. And Paul is laying it out for us so that we understand.
Let’s close in prayer.
