Death's Reign Undone

Let's grab our bibles. If you don't have a Bible with you, just

raise your hand. We're passing those out right now. Thank you. We're

passing out bibles right now. Also, if you didn't get a bulletin on

your way through those doors, we're passing those out as well, So just

raise your hand and keep it up if you need a Bible or a bulletin.

Both of those are going to be very helpful. And we have many

verses in Romans chapter five that we are going to be going through verse by

verse this morning, through some pretty dense paragraphs of scripture. So you're really

going to want that Bible right open in your lap so that you can follow

along. In Romans chapter five, and we're going to be in verses twelve

through twenty one Romans five twelve through twenty one, and I'm going to ask

our sister to come and read our sermon text for us, and then we're

going to jump right on in Romans five twelve through twenty one. And if

you would this morning, I'm just going to ask you to stand for the

reading of God's word. We do that sometimes, so if you would more

than such morning, our scripture passage this morning has found Romans five, verses

twelve through twenty one. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through

one lamb, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men,

because all sin for sin indeed was in the world before the law was

given. But sin is not counted where there's no law. Yet death raining

from Adam to Moses, eating over those whose sin 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 that 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 by 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, then

will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass.

But where sin increase, 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. This is the word of God. It

may be seated. Many of you probably have done this. I haven't.

I've seen it done ancestry dot com. Yeah, some seen how you can

take your sort of birth data and your mom and dad and grandparents as much

as you know, and you can like plug it in and you can start

to get the big picture of generations after generations of your ancestry. It's pretty

neat. It's pretty neat. It really allows you, and this is what

I'm getting at, to step back and see the big picture. In fact,

you can see you're a great grandfather reduced down to a name and a

dash, right, and and his grandfather and his grandmother and and the picture

comes in to view. And similarly, Paul takes a step back to the

biggest picture of all. Here in these three paragraphs he takes this giant step

back to reveal this theological truth, this enormous theology lesson of what it means

to be in Adam or what it means to be is in Christ. It's

as big a picture as you get. And in many ways, this theology

lesson is a call to unity, right, Jude, gentile, whoever,

you're all in Adom until you're in Christ. It's also a call to worship,

look at what God has done in Christ. And it's also a call

the holiness. If you are in Him and in His righteousness, how then

can you continue to walk in sin? It doesn't fit. But even if

it is a call, or that is to say, Paul is setting up

a call to those things, we really have to see that what we have

on our hand this morning is a theology lesson. It's a theology lesson.

Paul has already talked about peace with God, but here in the next part

of chapter five, he takes the step back and says, this is why

peace with God is necessary, and he lays out the truths that we know

as perhaps original sin and the truths of federal headship. And if you're like,

I don't really know what those things are, awesome, you're here this

morning. We're going to do some teachy stuff. You know, some sermons

are more teachy and some sermons are more preachy. You know what a sermon

is, it's what is true and what to do. And this morning it's

like a lot of what is true so much so so much so that you

might feel like this is just a theology lesson and not a sermon. And

I'm trying very much for it to be more of a sermon, but I

don't know. Get excited with me. Yeah, I mean, we're even

gonna use the whiteboard today. That's how okay? All right, so you're

up for the teachy. That's fantastic because that's where we are today. Some

key elements of Christian doctrine, key elements of Christian doctrine. And here's the

big picture. We'll put it this way. The reign of sin and death

is undone by God's free gift into a reign of grace and life. That

is a pretty good sentence for the gospel. That is a pretty good sentence

for the Gospel. And this is three paragraphs of Paul laying out the gospel

in these found theological terms. So here's how we're gonna do it this morning.

We're just gonna walk through each line of that sentence. The reign of

sin and death, reign of sin and death is undone by God's free gift

into a reign of grace and life, just one line at a time,

which correspond with the three paragraphs that you see in your Bible. And we're

gonna walk through those verse by verse, and we're gonna get a little teachy,

but you're down for that, So let's go the rain of sin and

death. What I mean by that from this passage is that sin and death

reiin over rule over all people, which has been initiated by Adam. Sin

was initiated by Adam. Sin was initiated. Death was initiated by Adam.

Although plenty confirmed by our own lives, right, Adam got this sin thing

started, and none of us have tapped the brakes. And we have done

that in our own different ways, and we'll talk about what that means to

do it in our own different ways. But sin and death ran over all

people, and that has been initiated by Adam. Let's look at what how

the scriptures put it in verse twelve. Therefore, okay, so reconciliation has

been accomplished by Jesus Christ. Peace with God has been accomplished by Jesus Christ.

But Paul says, therefore, let me back up and explain to you

why that was necessary. Just as sin came into the world through one man,

that is Adam, our father, all of our phone and death through

sin. God told Adam and Eve that when they disobeyed, they would die,

and so death spread to all men because all sinned. But what do

you mean all sinned? What Paul is saying here, what the scriptures are

saying here is that in Adam all sinned. Adam, acting as our federal

head, declared war on God in disobedience, and therefore, as humanity,

we are all in that same state. Just imagine if the United States declared

war on some other country, and would you be at war? If the

United States declared war against some other country, would you it's citizens be at

war? The answer is yes, you would You say, well, that

they didn't consult me. But that's what it means to be acted for someone

to act in representation. Adam acted as the federal representative, as the head

of all of humanity, declaring war on God through disobedience, and every human

since has been at war with God. And we have confirmed that hostility,

every single one of us. It's not like any of us were born and

decided we were going to go in a different direction. Apart from from Christ.

We haven't decided to go in a different direction. We've confirmed the sin

of our father, Adam, every step of the way. So how did

this reign of sin and death come to be? It came to be through

the sin of Adam, our father, and has been confirmed by us.

Now here's a question that Paul tackles right away. Well, is that not

just for people who receive specific commands from God? You know, there were

many people after Adam who didn't receive any kind of specific commands from God.

Adam received a specific command from God. Israel, the people of Israel received

specific commands from God. What about other people who didn't. That's what he

tackled for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. So

those who did not receive specific commands from God, they were still in sin.

But sin is not counted. Where there is no law, it's not

counted. That doesn't mean that sin doesn't count. There's a specific meaning that

Paul has in regards to this accounting. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses,

the consequences of sin continued to rule even over those who's sinning was not

like the transgression of Adam, not like as in, didn't break a specific

commandment given to him, who was a type of the one who was to

come, which is to say Christ. So Adam, being the head and

representative of humanity, was a type of another one who would come, who

would be the head and representative of all of those whose faith is in his

work to atoms, the first atom and the last atom the better atom.

So Paul's making a specific point here about sin and death's reign in relation to

the law, in relation to specific commandments from God, And what he's saying

is, even though gentiles did not receive specific commands for a while they'd had

no law, they were still living in sin. And Paul has already made

that point from Romans chapter one. Right now, sin isn't counted, which

is to say, you can't let me give you an example, Say you're

in the kitchen, you look across the kitchen. You see on the kitchen

counter a pile of rice. Right, That rice is rice. It is

what it is. Just because you can't get close enough to see how much

it is doesn't mean it's something different. Right. But there comes a time

when if you were to take a magnifying glass and go on up to the

kitchen counter and get close to it, you could count, not just hey

there's rice over there, You could count this is how many grands of rice

there are? Right. This is the kind of difference that Paul's talking about

when he's talking about not counted. Right, not counted the law comes and

you can get real precise about what exactly is sin, how many sins are

there, and so on. So he's saying, like those who have not

received specific commands from God, they still sin, but you can't count it

the same way. That's really the first question, the first of three questions.

I think that this one paragraph raises number one. What does he mean

by sin is not counted? That is to say that like, rice is

the rice, but you can't count the grains of rice unless you get close

enough with a magnifying glass, so you can't count sin the same way,

even though it is sin and it counts. If you remember from Romans chapter

one, the way that Paul talked about the sin of the Gentiles was quite

vague. It was like this, they exchange the truth about God for a

lie. They exchange the truth about God for a lie. Whereas the people

of Israel were given specific instructions from God, and there violation of his will

was very clear and very precise and very rebellious, which is one of the

reasons why I think that knowing that God desires mercy, knowing that God desires

mercy, I think the scripture is very clear that there are those who've received

much knowledge about God's will, and they, in rebellion against him will received

the harsher punishment. And then there are those who, which is like to

say, infants, who have no knowledge of sin, and God then grants

them mercy even though they're an atom. God desires mercy, and so those

with no knowledge of sin receive full mercy. And then you've got those who

haven't received a lot of instruction from God, and they are also recipients of

justice. But I think the Bible is very clear, but God holds people

accountable for what they know. Now, there's two other questions that I think

this paragraph raises. The one is what kind of death are we talking about?

Spiritual or physical? And I think you already know how I'm going to

answer that yes. Yes, Just like our father Adam, God told him,

when you disobey, you will die. Adam experienced both spiritual death separation

from God and physical death. His body began to wear out and he died

and his body decayed. And similarly, we are all inheritors of spiritual death

and physical death, and Jesus is undoing that. Praise God. We are

stepping away from spiritual death, that is to say, justified and made in

right standing with God and becoming more like him, and one day will be

with Him inseparable and physical death will someday be no more. We will reign

with Him in life. Here's the third question that I think this paragraph raises,

particularly in a sermon, What do we do with this? What impact

should this have on my life? And I think that fundamentally, the respect

for the profundity of being a new creation in Christ should overtake us like that

ancestry dot Com thing. Where you can step back and see the big picture,

and it should kind of take your breath away. All the more,

when we step back and see the big picture of what it means to be

transferred from Adam to Christ, it should kind of take our breath away.

God is doing something bigger than we supposed and what He's getting at is undoing

this. The reign of sin and death is undone by God's free gift.

Undone by God's free gift. Look at verse fifteen. The start of verse

fifteen goes like this, But the free gift is not like the trespass.

The free gift is not like the trespass. And then he goes on to

explain how this bondage that has been started by Adam our head, is being

undone by our new head, Jesus Christ and his free gift. And he

gives us three different angles on it, three different angles on how this free

gift undoes the reign of sin and death. The first one is this,

through the free gift of Jesus Christ, his righteousness to us. Through the

free gift, we have the distribution of grace instead of the distribution of death,

the distribution of grace instead of the distribution of death. Read verse the

rest of verse fifteen. For if many died through one man's trespass Adam Sin,

much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace

of that one man, Jesus Christ abounded for many. So death through Adam

Sin is distributed to many. Grace through Christ's free gift is distributed to many.

Let's go, let's go whiteboard for this. I'm gonna I'm going to

do my best. And you say, well, pastor, that's that's all

you can do. It's your best, all right? So all right?

In algebra, remember the distributive property. Huh, distributive property. The passage

is saying that through Adam's sin, death is distributed to many. Check my

work. This is correct. Okay, kid knows more, knows more algebra

than I do. But in Christ, Christ's free gift then distributes grace to

many. Same distributive property. Right, grace too many? M right,

you can kill the whiteboard for now. I'll be back right Okay, Yeah,

we're back there, still doing my best. So that's angle number one

on Christ free gift. It's free, it's free. Do you deserve grace?

No, it's grace. Do you deserve death? Well, in one

sense thanks to Adam, yes, But in another sense, we have confirmed

our sinfulness every step of the way. So it's although Adam has gotten this

ball rolling, we can't just like blame our father Adam. Right, we've

confirmed it. And yet Christ has come, and those who are united to

Him have have had distributed to them grace to you, Grace to you,

Grace to you, Grace to you, grace to you, though you do

not deserve it. Here's another angle that the scriptures give us on this free

gift. Here's the second that because of the free gift, we have been

transferred from condemnation into justification, transferred from guilty to acquitted in Christ. Let's

look at verse sixteen, and the free gift is not like the result of

that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation a guilty

verdict, but the free gift following many trespasses, those are those yeah brought

justification acquittal. Right, So Adam's trespass moves us into condemnation. Right.

Condemnation is our default position, guilty, and then we confirm that default position

with our lives. Right, but Christ's gift moves of righteousness, moves us

into justification, acquittal, and it's free. It's a free gift. Do

you deserve to be acquitted? Christ deserves to be acquitted? How come you

get to be acquitted because you're in Christ? Back to the whiteboard. Well,

in just a second, I'll get there. Thank you for being so

responsive. Back there, All right, here we go. I'm gonna call

the circle Atom, and all the tick marks in there, right, that's

you in Adom, that's all of humanity in Atom. Right. And so

what Scripture is saying is that in Atom, our position is under condemnation.

Right, our default position, all of humanity is under judgment. And not

only that, but with our lives, we confirm that position, all of

us who sin. Right, So in Atom we're under condemnation. That's our

default position, and we confirm that we belong in that position by this sinfulness

of our hearts and lives. Then along comes Jesus, and Jesus falls under

condemnation by taking on our sin, is condemned by God the Father, but

is then vindicated and moved, and we go with him because we are in

him. We don't deserve to be acquitted. We don't deserve to be justified.

We don't deserve to be declared not guilty. Jesus does, and we

receive the free gift of justification because we're in Christ. Amen. Amen,

Okay, we can go back to the slide one more time, undone by

God's free gift. Still doing my best, I'm going to give you the

third angle, the third angle on this free gift that Scripture lays out for

us. The first angle is we have grace distributed to us. The second

angle is we are moved. We're transferred from condemnation to justification. Here's the

third angle that because of the free gift, those in Christ will reign with

him in life instead of being rained over by death. Because of the free

gift, those in Christ will reign with Him in eternal life instead of being

rained over by death. Look at verse seventeen for if because of one man's

tress as death reigned, death rules, that's actually very uncontroversial. Death has

been winning for a long time, with the exception of Jesus, a notable

exception 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. Right, So, by sin, Adam put himself and his

children with him under death's reign. Guess who's out from underneath Death's reign.

Jesus is out from underneath Death's reign, and those who are in him will

also reign with him. They see, if I can do this one more

time? Yeah, all right, there's our atom and our humanity as the

tick marks in Adam right, And by Adam's sin, I'm gonna introduce death.

You like my death. Pastor's doing his best. By Adam's sin,

he was put under the rain of death, no doubt, uncontroversial. Death

has been winning for a long long time. But Jesus defeated death. Hmm.

And with him those in him will be out from underneath Death's reign and

will reign with Christ. He can go back to the slide. In each

of these angles, the free gift, the distribution of grace, the transfer

from condemnation and justification, being moved from being reigned over by death to one

day reigning. God is emphasizing this over and over again. It's a free

gift. It's a free gift. He repeats it. Five times, which

is not to say that the righteousness that comes from Christ, that being united

to Christ is cheap and easy. It's not cheap and easy. When you

are united to Christ, you turn your whole life over to Him. But

it's free. You don't have to earn your way. It is a gift

of grace that you seize with faith and are united to Christ. You trust

Him and you place your life in his hands. It's free, which brings

up this question. Brings up a lot of questions. I'm just going to

bring up this one. If you know the freeness of this gift, if

you know the grace of God, will you not show grace to others?

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. If grace

has been distributed to you, if you have been freely transferred into the not

guilty column, will you not show the same freeness of mercy to those who

don't deserve it in your life. It's a pretty key implication of the freeness

of the gift. Okay, last line in our slides into a reign of

grace and life. We're going to do this, I think somewhat quickly and

we're going to step into the Lord's suppurb. How does this happen, that

the reign of sin and death is undone by God's free gift and into this

reign of grace and life. And Paul says this, it happens through headship

and inheritance verse eighteen and nineteen. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation

for all men, that is all in Atom, so one act of righteousness

leads to justification and life for all men, that is all in Christ.

And I think is very clear from the rest of the Letter of Romans and

the rest of Scripture that Paul is specifically talking about all who are in Atom

receive this. All who are in Christ receive that. I don't think we

should take the words all men to mean something different than that. And in

verse nineteen, 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.

So we receive an inheritance. We receive an inheritance of sinfulness from Adam,

which we're working out by our own volition. But now we receive an

inheritance of righteousness. We receive an inheritance of righteousness. We have been given

the righteousness of Christ, which becomes the basis of Paul's call to holiness here

in well, at the end of this chapter verse in chapter six, he's

like, okay, so then are we going to go on sitting? We've

been given the righteousness of Christ. How fitting is it that we would go

on sinning? It doesn't belong with us. So how has this happened through

headship and through inheritance? Even though verse twenty, even though now the law

came in to increase the trespass, But where sin increase, grace abounded all

the more so, Paul says, okay, but the law has come in

to increase the trespass. Though the law is good and reveals the will of

God, it is good in every way. The result of the law in

sinner's' lives is that it increases the trespass. How does it do that?

Well? Does that four ways? Law increases trespass? Because in one increases

awareness? Awareness? Right back to the Rice analogy. Right, yes,

sin is sin, but sin can be vague. Well, you're gonna have

a vague understanding or knowledge of sin. But when specific instructions come then we

know exactly what we're doing. As Paul says later in Romans, I wouldn't

even know what coveting was unless God had said, don't do it. And

now I know exactly what I'm doing, and I'm all the more guilty for

it. The law also increases the direction of sin, the direction of sin.

If I'm in if I have some vague awareness of sin, and I'm

sinning against my conscience, that's one thing. But if I receive specific commandments

from God, then who am I sinning against? I know I'm sinning against

the Holy God. That's an increase in trespass. Third law increases the motivation

for sin. Law increases the motivation for sin. Paul also says that when

I receive the commandment, sin takes the opportunity and jumps on it. Anyone

with kids knows exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, one of our

eluentes was when it was still crawling. I won't tell you which one.

He's still crawling. He's crawling from the couch across the living room, slowly

towards the outlet, towards the electrical islet, halfway across his mother and I

go. We call his name to no, and he looks over his shoulder

he's crawling, and then just goes in fast motion crawl. I can beat

you to it straight to stick his finger in there, and our hearts have

like never grown up sin. The law increases the trespass, It actually motivates

us towards sin. And then fourthly sin increases. That law increases the trespass

because it provokes self righteousness, self righteousness. So we could be in disobedience

in all sorts of different ways. But if we're aware of a specific command

from God that we are keeping in some way, then we think of ourselves

as way more righteous than we are. We get sanctimonious. So even though

the law increases the trespass, we're moving to a reign of grace in life

through whom through Jesus our Lord verse twenty one. So that as sin reigned

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

our Lord, our head, our federal representative. And how has he done

that? He has done that by taking on a body, right God,

the Son, taking on flesh like Adam and being a man stood in as

our representative for all humanity. And he took that body and in it,

and in it received all of the judgment, all of the condemnation, all

of the death that he did not deserve, and he did it on our

behalf. This is what we mean when we say when Jesus says, this

is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

And this is what we mean when we say, and when Jesus said,

this cup is the new covenant in my blood. A covenant is a

promise, it's a contract. It's like a wedding vow. What Christ to

say is by trusting in me and my work on the cross, this bloody

work. By trusting in me and putting your life in my hands, I

promise, I vow you will be in me, you will be rescued,

you will receive this free gift right