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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
Through just a quick Google search one can see how many of us throughout the world are desperately trying to avoid dying one day. I mean listen to some of the titles of the books I came across: “How not to die,” “Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that could reverse human aging in our lifetime,” “The Longevity Code: Secrets to Living Well for Longer,” and “How to Avoid Dying – for as long as possible.”
Aside from books being written, people are pouring their money into research to see if certain things can help them live forever – or at least longer. In an article written in the New Yorker a few years back, Tad Friend, wrote that at the time, $25 million was being pledged as an award for anyone who could break through in this field of longevity and maybe crack the code on living longer or avoiding death all together…& those with money poured millions into this research, hoping that they could be the ones who would benefit…
In the same article, a microbiologist named Brian Hanley is mentioned as someone who had even been willing to be the guinea pig in the research. Apparently, the 60 year old at the time had started injecting himself with some kind of growth hormone for regeneration and said that he felt really good in the beginning but eventually had a herniated disk and couldn’t even sit down for more than a few minutes. But he said that he was willing to keep trying because he feels it’s all part of the process and it will be worth it in the long run.
But listen, it’s not just dying one day that is the problem for a lot of us, it’s the aging process and what it does to the way our bodies look…
Did you know that according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons that in 2020 there were 15.6 million cosmetic procedures done in just the United States alone. And a lot of those are being done to try and stop or hinder the aging process associated w/dying.
But you know, there are also a lot of these procedures being done on people who are still really young…meaning that there are a lot who are having cosmetic procedures done not necessarily because of aging but just because they want to look better…NOW THAT IS ADDRESSING SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THAN AGING AND THE PROBLEM OF PHYSICAL DEATH…THAT IS ADDRESSING AN INNER KIND OF DEATH…a death on the inside where they feel worthless and not as good as other people. So these young adults/teenagers want to look like someone else who they think is beautiful and gets a lot of attention for their beauty…& want the same kind of attention. They are trying to fill an emptiness they have on the inside.
But it’s not just those who are having cosmetic procedures who are running around trying to fill that emptiness…NO, we all feel that emptiness and try desperately to fill it in all kinds of ways… performance, entertainment, intimacy, food, alcohol, prescription and illegal drugs…anything that will take away the emptiness, the loneliness, the boredom, the depression.
It’s like death is ruling and reigning over all of us…physical death is coming to get us all at some point, and there is this death on the inside which has a hold on all of us and won’t let us go! We are slaves to death.
And so the question we are asking is, “Is there any way out of this bondage to death…the physical death that is coming for us all and this inner death that seems to leave us feeling empty, lonely, and bored?” Well, let’s see if the apostle Paul has any hope for us in Ro. 5:12-21…
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
Now in most translations you will see a dash at the end of this verse before verse 13 starts, and that is there because what Paul says next is kind of like a parenthetical remark to what he just said in v. 12. I mean, if you look at it he started a “Just As” statement where you compare something to something else…but what Paul does is start the comparison but never finishes it…at least not here. It will be much later in the passage before he completes it.
So it’s kind of like this…it’s like Paul was writing and started to draw this comparison, but realized that he needed to probably unpack a few more things before drawing the comparison, so he just stops the comparison and goes into this parenthetical statement. So we’ll get into that a bit more in a second, but there is a lot in just this one verse that we need to unpack a bit to make sure we understand the 1st part of what he is comparing…
Paul says “sin entered the world through one man.” Who is the “one man” he is talking about here? Adam, right? Paul is referring back to the creation account found at the beginning of Genesis, where we see Adam as God’s first created human being choose to disobey God. This was the first sin against God. Before this, sin did not exist in the world, but through Adam, Paul says “sin entered the world.”
And of course, there were consequences to sin entering the world…Paul said, “just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin…” In other words, death was not in the world until sin entered the world. But God said this would happen. He had told Adam that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would die. That there would be consequences for this choice. He could either trust God and depend on Him for life and what He needed…OR he could choose his own way, but if he chose his own way there would be consequences, namely death! And so when Adam chose to sin, death was introduced…and there were 2 sides to this death. One was physical death. Now Adam didn’t die right away, but the process of dying was introduced and eventually he did die. But there was another kind of death that was introduced that day, and that was a spiritual death…a death on the inside. This kind of death resulted in a separation from God. Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, away from God’s presence. So Paul is acknowledging here in v. 12, that sin entered the world thru Adam and that as a result of sin entering the world, physical and spiritual death entered the world. But Paul doesn’t stop there, remember what he said next?
“…and in this way death came to all people.” In other words, Paul is saying that every person born after Adam would also experience the same physical and spiritual deaths in their own lives. But why? Why would we each have to experience that b/c of something Adam did? Well, Paul tells us, “because all sinned.” In other words, and listen, there is some debate about this which I don’t have time to go way into this morning…but in some way, when Adam sinned, we all sinned too…all of humanity sinned in and with Adam in that moment. And because of that, the moment we are born we start the physical process of dying and at the same time we are all born spiritually dead because of a sin nature that we have, and we are separated from God. This is what Paul is saying in verse 12…but it’s again, like as he is writing he thinks of a possible objection that someone could have and puts the comparison he was starting to make aside to address the objection. And the objection or question Paul anticipates is “How can you say sin entered the world thru Adam’s disobedience, when the law wasn’t even give to Moses until much later?”
13 To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.
In other words, Paul, says, “And hey, just in case you think that sin wasn’t in the world until the law was given to Moses, you’re wrong!” The law was introduced to make people accountable for their sin but sin was still in the world & people were still condemned for their sin.
But there are also 2 interesting things Paul said here which will come up later in this passage over and over again. The first is this, Paul says “death reigned” (v. 14). It was in charge, in control in an absolute manner…it rules…in other words, the physical and spiritual death that was brought into the world b/c of sin ruled over people (and has been ruling over people ever since).
In other words, we talked earlier about the emptiness, loneliness, boredom, restlessness, and depression that plague us…which seem to be always just below the surface. Well, those are forms of the “death that is ruling and reigning over us.”
DEATH IS THE ABSENCE OF LIFE…because death is reigning over our life on the inside we are empty, lonely, bored, restless, depressed – always looking to fill that hole on the inside with something and not only that but trying to escape our ultimate physical death in the end.
Death reigns…it rules…in controls us…We can try as hard as we can to avoid it and fill the holes on the inside but we will not win…It rules and we don’t…we can delay physical death sometimes, we can experience fulfillment, companionship, be entertained, and be happy for a while, but in the end emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression will creep back in b/c death reigns Paul says.
So this is the first thing I wanted to point out but the second is that Paul says at the end of verse 14 that “Adam is a pattern of the one to come.” This is a reference to Jesus. In other words, Paul is saying that there is some way that Adam and Jesus are alike. And as we’ll see in just a moment, what Paul is referring to is that they are both heads of races.
Adam is the head of the human race as the first human, and Jesus is the head of a new race of people after his death and resurrection. But even though they are alike in this way, what Paul goes into next is how different they really are and how different the results of their actions as heads of these races are for those that follow.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
In other words, again, Adam, having brought sin into the world left all of humanity under the reign of death, but God, thru the gift of Jesus more than makes up for the effects of Adam’s sin. God’s grace thru Jesus overflows…it is superior than the effects of Adam’s sin so that it can reach over/above those effects to any who will receive His grace
16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
So, again, Adam’s sin, as the head of the human race resulted in condemnation for all of us…but the gift of Jesus was the opposite in that it took all of the sins (past, present, and future) that would ever be committed after sin entered the world and thru his death on the cross the result would offer every person the opportunity to be justified…declared right with God.
17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
In other words, b/c of Jesus we don’t have to be ruled by death! Paul says “those who receive God’s grace will reign in life through Jesus!” Death’s grip…it’s rule and reign over you will cease when you say yes to Jesus…when you receive his grace thru faith! I mean we will still experience a physical death one day in the future but we will continue living with Jesus in heaven for an eternity (just cross over from one life into the next…no real death for you) and also, in case you were worried about that old, decrepit body of yours…OH YEAH, you’ll receive new, restored bodies that are perfect and without blemish…Death doesn’t rule over you.
And as good and awesome as that will be…don’t be fooled into thinking that the whole inner death thing you had going on hasn’t been taken care of too…BECAUSE IT HAS! In your new union with Christ you no longer live under the spiritual reign of death, the life that you have always been looking for…that thing you’ve been looking to fill you up and satisfy you…YOU HAVE IT IN CHRIST…death no longer reigns over you…you are now filled, you now have meaning, you now have purpose…you reign in life!
And this is the point that Paul was starting to make all the way back in v.12 but stopped to make these side comments…so he sums up his point in v. 18
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
Again, this is what Paul had started out to say all along. That it is thru one man that you are either under condemnation and the reign of death or a thru different man that you are declared right with God and under the reign of life.
In other words, every single one of us are either IN ADAM or IN CHRIST. To be IN ADAM means that you are living in the sphere of sin and death. To be IN CHRIST means that you are living in the sphere of forgiveness and life. It’s one or the other…only 2 kinds of people in this world…those in Adam or those in Christ. And as we’ve said the past few weeks, Paul has already said over and over that the only way out of the first sphere of sin and death is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Don’t get confused here where Paul says “for all people.” That does not mean that all people are automatically moved from being in Adam to being in Christ through his one righteous act. Paul just said in the previous verse “for those who receive his grace.” We receive it by putting our faith/trust in Jesus to forgive us, justify us, and bring us life. But in that moment we move from being in Adam (ruled by death) to in Christ (where we reign in life). And again his main point is that we have SO MUCH more as a result of being in Christ than being in Adam.
And finally, Paul finishes up this section in verses 20-21, but he does so with kind of a surprising twist…he brings up the Old Testament law. But if we think about it, it makes sense that he would bring it up…I mean Paul here has basically traced out the religious history of the world in some very broad strokes…how Adam sealed the fate of all people but Jesus enabled people to escape that fate, but the Jews in the church were probably going, “Umm what about the law and all that God did for Israel?” So Paul goes ahead and address it really quickly by saying this…
20 The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
In other words, Paul says that the law was never given in order to bring relief from the condition we are all in, being in Adam.
Don’t get confused into thinking that the life is found in the Law…NO, it’s not found in the law - It was actually brought in to make it worse.
And listen, Paul will get into this a little bit more as he goes on and we’ll see that when we get to chapter 7, but basically he says knowing what you aren’t supposed to do, just makes you want to do that thing more.
So more people began sinning after the law was brought in, but He points out that God’s grace more than compensated. And so the death that reigned over you because you were a law breaker has now been broken and grace reigns which results in you having true life.
So let’s wrap this up by showing how this applies to you this morning. Again Paul shows that you are either in Adam or in Christ. So my first question to you would be, “Which one characterizes you?” “Are you in Adam or are you in Christ?”
Because if you are in Adam, then you are living under the reign of death. Not only is death coming for you one day, but you probably find yourself as we mentioned earlier, trying desperately to escape the death you feel on the inside…the emptiness, the loneliness, the restlessness, boredom, and on and on. You find yourself being filled for a little while but it always goes away. And it always will…because you are under the reign of death.
The good news for you is that Jesus has done what’s necessary for you to get out from under death’s grip on you. The question is whether you will receive his free gift of grace by putting your faith and trust in Him to forgive you, declare you righteous, and give you life? I hope that you will.
But for those of you who have put your faith in Jesus for salvation, the question I think for you this morning is this, “Do you know how alive you really are in Christ?”
Before this morning, did you even realize that the rule and reign of physical and spiritual death associated with being in Adam no longer have a grip on you? That you have been released from bondage of death. Because if you are in Christ you have.
And so, if you find yourself walking around with the emptiness, loneliness, restlessness, boredom, or any of those feelings associated with being in Adam, it starts with an awareness that this is no longer characteristic of who you are.
I mean, if you didn’t know…weren’t even aware of this, then how can you walk in the freedom you have? You can’t. In other words, if this is you, you have been walking around in bondage to something that you have been set free from already.
Don’t let Satan suck the life back out of you by convincing you that you are empty on the inside, and that you need to fill that hole with anything other than Jesus…