O Sweet Exchange! (Romans 5:15b-19)

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.

So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.

When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak, or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given you in that hour.

For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father speaking through you.

Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.

For truly I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.

It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master.

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much will they malign those of his household?

So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?

And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear not, therefore, you who are of more value than many sparrows.

So every one who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven.

But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who is in heaven.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Friends, let's confess our faith in the words of the Apostles' Creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Amen.

Amen.

And as we turn to the Lord in prayer, let's take a moment and quiet our hearts and pray that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Father, will come once again and open our hearts to his word.

Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things, graft in our hearts the love of your name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and bring forth in us the fruit of good works, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Amen.

And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be always acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.

Amen.

So when I was uh in high school and a dedicated member of my church's youth group many, many, many, many years ago.

Just kidding.

We played a game every summer.

We always looked forward to it.

We'd gather together and we'd do some ridiculous and crazy game.

Uh we called them our warm summer night gatherings.

We'd we'd go out and we'd be unleashed into the community to build some relationships and to have some fun.

And so one game in particular we looked forward to every single summer was a game called Bigger and Better.

And I forget how many teams we were divided into, but let's say six or seven teams.

And each team was provided with one single paperclip or something of equivalent value.

And we were sent out into the community and told, you're going to take this paperclip and make trades with willing households for something that's either bigger than a paperclip or better than a paperclip.

And the winner was, I mean, it was it was a subjective choice based on a panel of judges, but the winner was whoever came back with the biggest or best item, having traded up from a paperclip all the way up to, I remember one time someone brought a whole playground set with them.

Usually it ended up just being some kind of junk that someone was getting rid of anyway.

But nevertheless, that was that was a pretty impressive night watching this team of six or seven youth all march with, you know, various parts of a play structure behind them in tow.

That was that was pretty impressive.

So why am I talking about bigger and better?

It's well, it was an exchange, right?

You'd start with a paperclip, you'd go to one house and you'd trade a paperclip for an old stapler, and a stapler would get traded for uh, you know, it would get it would get traded for an old office chair.

The old office chair would get traded upwards, so on and so forth, until you came back with something that was truly impressive and a and a sight to behold.

Well, sometimes I wonder if we apply the same principle to our spiritual lives.

Sometimes I wonder if we assume that at the beginning of the game, so to speak, we're provided with a paperclip's worth of righteousness or good standing, and the goal of our spiritual growth is to trade that paperclip upwards and upwards and upwards in exchange for greater and greater righteousness, so that at the end of the game, when we stand before the judge, so to speak, we will truly have something remarkable to present.

Well, I think what Paul is getting at at Romans is going to challenge that very same idea, that idea that I suspect I carry with me even unconsciously in my own spiritual life and growth.

I wonder if you feel the same sometimes.

Paul is going to challenge that idea on its head.

Romans chapter five is a part of, well, obviously it's a part of Paul's letter to Romans, and I gave a pretty lengthy introduction to this letter last week, so uh thanks for being patient and bearing with me as I did that.

I won't repeat all of that, but it is so foundational to understand the first four chapters.

So let's have a brief review here.

In chapter one, Paul lays out his understanding that our God is a holy God.

He's a righteous God, he's a just God, he is a true God, he is a pure God, and he is a faithful God.

Our problem has nothing to do with God, it's that we ourselves are not righteous.

We are not just.

We are not holy.

We need holiness, but we're powerless to attain it.

And we stand condemned, we stand as objects of wrath before our holy God.

That's the problem, as Romans chapter 1 understands it.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Paul explores this idea that maybe we can earn it, maybe we can trade for something bigger and better according to the law of God as we go.

And he he comes to an understanding that that will not earn us any kind of meaningful righteousness before the Father, because even though the law exposes our sin, it's empowerless to provide that righteousness that we truly need.

And so in Romans chapter 3, we come to the source of that righteousness, Christ incarnate, who renews our humanity and gives us his righteousness as our own.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

So that in chapter 4 we can be brought into this family of faith called the church, the community of Christ's righteousness, of God's redeeming.

And so we find ourselves in chapter 5.

We began with chapter 5, verse 1, which is a huge therefore statement.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we now have peace with God through Christ.

Last week we explored this idea that justification means that we who are once at odds with God, we who were once enemies of God, are now brought into a peaceful, loving, redeemed, reconciled relationship with our loving Heavenly Father through Christ, who is that righteousness that we cannot provide for ourselves.

And now Paul is going to continue that line of thought.

He's going to do something funky in our Romans reading today.

He's going to look all the way back at the beginning of the story of the Bible at this guy, Adam.

And he's going to understand that the reason we cannot provide that righteousness for ourselves has everything to do with our inherited guilt in Adam.

So let's let's crack open Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Let's figure out who this Adam guy is as we dive in.

Who is Adam?

A couple of weeks ago, uh, Trinity Sunday, we we looked at the earliest chapters of Genesis and we acknowledged that it's a very important conversation to have about uh history or literary framework.

But whether Adam is a figurative representative of the human race or a very real person, and I do think Paul gives us, God's inspired word gives us enough reason to believe that Adam was indeed a real historical person.

Regardless of what you might think about who Adam was or wasn't, we understand that God created Adam as the first human, and through Adam brought the human race into being through Eve and through their union, and now the human race is wrapped up in Adam's own fate.

God created Adam, and through Adam created Eve to partner with him in this wonderful, blessed job of cultivating and renewing his creation.

He's going to be an ongoing partner in the good work of creation, ongoing creation that God wants to do.

And so here's Adam, all humanity in him, called to cultivate and be a source and a conduit of God's blessing into the world.

But Adam fails, we understand.

In Genesis chapter 3, he and Eve choose to rebel against God, choose to substitute their own self-will and self-determination for God's good will for them.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And so, because all humanity is called in Adam to partner with God, so now all humanity in Adam fails through Adam and now shares Adam's guilt.

So this is not a thought of when when Paul talks about being in Adam, he's not trying to make a commentary on any kind of status or power dynamic between men and women.

Paul is is appealing particularly to the creation order, understanding that Adam, being the first human created, is the representative, the figurehead of all humanity.

All humanity is caught up in this one person.

And through this one person's failure, he has inherited that very same guilt.

So here Paul wants us to understand.

He wants Roman Christians in the first century, just like he wants us Christians gathering together over Zoom in 2020, to understand the implications of Adam's failure for us.

And for this, I'm going to go to my handy chart.

Thank you, Craig, for setting me up here.

I'm really excited about this.

This took me a little while this week to set up, but here we go.

You can all act impressed here.

Let's talk about our death in Adam here.

Of course, this section we understand, so we've we've read verses 15 to 19, but it really belongs to a greater section that begins in verse 12 and ends with verse 21.

I do encourage you to take some time and read through this section and ponder it to see some of the full implications of what Paul's getting at.

Paul wants us to understand what Adam's failure means for us.

So here we go.

What does it mean for us?

Well, it means this.

It means that Adam's, uh pardon me, in verse 15 he says, many died through one man's trespass.

That is, Adam's trespass, of course.

His trespass, or we might say his moral failure, introduced the power of death over all subsequent generations.

Everyone is caught up in Adam's own trespass, his own sin.

So in verses so in verses 12 to 14, Adam explores this question.

He anticipates this, um, he anticipates this uh this counter-argument, this argument that, well, you know, the law was given through Moses, but there were many, many generations between Adam and Moses.

So is is it fair for God to hold these people accountable for a law that they didn't have?

Paul concludes, yes, we can see the power of sin at work.

These people were counted guilty before the law, precisely because death was introduced as a power of this law.

Verse 16, the judgment following our trespass.

Notice he says our trespass, not Adam's trespass, our trespass.

We are all caught up in Adam.

Because, pardon me, the judgment followed our trespass, which brought condemnation.

That is God's judgment.

Verse 17, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man.

Death reigns.

In this present world, death is a power, it is a reality.

It is inescapable, isn't it?

We are subject to the power of death, precisely because the power of death was introduced through the failure of Adam.

So in 18, Paul makes a huge concluding statement.

Therefore, he says, and he makes two parallel statements, one trespass led to condemnation for all men, that is, all humanity.

And verse 19, by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

So thanks, Craig, for that.

We can come back.

By one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

And because we're sinners, we rightly deserve a righteous, holy God's condemnation.

We are not righteous or holy like God is.

So immediately we can start to catch a biblical understanding of why salvation is so necessary.

It's not wrong to think that I need to be saved from my sins.

It's true, we need to be saved from our sins.

We do commit those very personal sins, those very personal transgressions against God ourselves.

But as Paul understands it, we are all caught up in Adam.

When we set out, when the game began, we were not handed a paperclip.

We were handed an insurmountable debt, a debt that we ourselves were powerless to pay.

There is no exchange that is bigger or better that can get us out of this debt and into God's good graces, precisely because Adam's disobedience led to us being sinners, which leads to us being condemned by a holy God.

We need to be saved from our sin, it's true, but we need to be saved fundamentally, foundationally, from the sin of Adam into which we are born.

We have inherited guilt from Adam.

You might have heard this phrase, original sin.

This is what we're kind of getting at when we talk about original sin.

I find that to be a tricky term because when I hear original sin, I think, oh yeah, that first sin, you know, that very first one that Adam did, you know, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, right?

It feels very removed from us, so to speak.

But that sin, that original sin, has very real implications for us living today, just as it did for these Roman Christians in the first century.

We have inherited this guilt.

It's ours for the very simple fact that we were born into this fallen human family.

The first time I ever learned this word inheritance, I was very young, and I just watched the movie Richie Rich.

Have you ever seen the movie Richie Rich?

It's a ridiculous movie.

It's out it's absurd.

But it blew my mind when I was a young child because it was it was the first time I really encountered a lifestyle that was so unlike my own, right?

He has the coolest hangout in Mount Rushmore, and he just he's got like a McDonald's inside his house, and it's just it was the first time I thought, wow, that is unbelievable.

And I thought to myself, he must be someone really special to have, you know, gotten all that stuff, to earn all that stuff.

And when I learned the word inheritance, it blew my mind to think that there are certain folks who are born into a certain state where things have just been given to them by the simple fact that they were born into the particular position they were in.

Now we know what's true on one side of the wealth spectrum is true on the opposite side of the wealth spectrum, isn't it?

There are those who are born into cycles and generations of poverty.

Here we are born not into a state of righteousness, not born into a state of superabundance and goodness.

We are born into a state of spiritual bankruptcy, a state which we are powerless ourselves to pull ourselves out of.

And the truth is the Bible is pretty unapologetic about this reality.

Death as a result of this sin does not discriminate.

So Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians, he writes, You were dead in the trespasses and sins, and you were by nature, he continues, children of wrath.

That is, we were born into a state of inherited guilt.

It is ours by the simple fact that we've been born into this family, this fallen human family, we have inherited insurmountable guilt, and we are subject to the judgment and condemnation of God.

That is what we need to be saved from.

We need to be saved from the wrath of God.

Now, if you're thinking, like me, that's not fair.

That's not fair.

God gets to make the rules, God is holy and just.

Why would He hold me accountable for someone else's failure?

But that doesn't make sense.

See, it runs against some of my deepest feelings about justice.

But I think the Bible wants to wants to challenge us to go deeper and see a bigger picture here.

There is good news, friends, in the midst of all this.

But if we're gonna grasp at the good news, we need to understand the implications of the bad news here.

See, I I get it.

I get why we would think that's not fair.

We're all responsible agents, we're all responsible for ourselves.

God shouldn't hold us accountable for the guilt of someone else's.

I need to be saved from my sins, not someone else's sin.

And in one sense, that's true.

In one sense, yes, we do need to be saved from our sins, and in one sense it's very true that we will be judged according to our works, good and bad.

Romans chapter 2, just a few chapters earlier, Paul writes this that God will render each one, God will render to each one according to his or her works.

Romans 2 · chapter mention

We will personally held be accountable by God.

It is true that we are saved by grace and we will be judged by our works.

But what we're talking about when we talk about inherited guilt, is we are going that much deeper.

Paul is challenging us to go that much deeper with a biblical understanding of our fallen state.

Human beings, for Paul, are not islands unto themselves.

We are not individuals.

I know I like to understand myself as an individual completely uh completely responsible for myself, completely self-determining.

That's I think that that's something like our modern narrative here.

But for Paul, he wants us to first and foremost acknowledge that we are not islands unto ourselves.

We've been born into a family, a fallen human state, a fallen human family.

And here we are sharing in that common guilt.

We are all of us in Adam.

We have all inherited Adam's guilt, and we're born into this alienation, enmity, and hostility before a holy God.

So this is humanity's problem, as the Bible understands it.

We are condemned in Adam, and we need to be saved.

So again, you might say, but doesn't this make God really rather unjust, really rather cruel, to condemn people for someone else's failure?

Why is it that Christians would affirm this doctrine of inherited guilt?

Here's what I want to suggest, friends.

I want to suggest that the very thing that makes the bad news so bad is the same logic that makes the good news so good.

What has been attributed to us in Adam is his failure.

What has been attributed to us in Adam is his transgression.

But now there is a new Adam.

Now there is a new righteousness, and now we can be counted as those who are righteous, not on our account, but on his.

Let's look at the logic of the gospel.

God has created us, human beings, as a unified whole, not as on not as islands unto ourselves, but we are included under a chosen represent a representative.

Adam, our first representative, has failed.

In him we are credited with trespass and guilt.

And we are powerless, so the New International Version says in Romans 5 6 we are powerless to redeem ourselves.

But the cross shows us a new way.

That God has elected a new representative for humanity, the Word who became flesh in Christ.

He has not failed.

Where Adam failed, and he will not fail.

Philippians chapter 2, Paul writes that being found in human form, Christ Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

See where the first representative, Adam, was prideful and disobedient, Christ, our new representative, humbled himself and was obedient for our sakes.

And now in Christ we have a new humanity, a renewed humanity.

His obedience, his righteousness becomes ours.

So I'm going to go back to my chart here.

Suddenly this failure in Adam gets transformed into eternal life in Christ.

Much more, Paul writes in verse 15, have the grace of God and the free gift by that grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many.

Verse 16, the free gift brought justification.

Verse 17, 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.

Notice that word that Paul keeps using, free gift.

Free gift, free gift.

Friends, the free gift of Christ is a gift of grace, a gift of righteousness without charge or without merit.

We are freed by death from the free by the free gift of Christ.

We are freed from death by the free gift of Christ.

And so Paul concludes in verse 18 and 19: one act of righteousness leads to justification.

Christ's act of righteousness leads to our peace with God.

And by the one man's obedience will the many be made righteous.

See, I'm a bit of a visual learner here, and to me, it there is no better way, no better place to see the cross than right here in the middle of this chart.

Can we see that?

Here we have a life, or pardon me, a death in Adam into which we are born, a guilt into which we are born.

But here we have a promise of eternal life in Christ, into which God is calling us.

And through the resurrection, God is renewing our humanity.

I should, oops, sorry, I should have more arrows there.

I'm going to go back for a second.

Oh, thank you, Craig.

Craig's got my back here.

So just as Paul wrote in Ephesians chapter 2 that you were dead in your trespasses and sins, now he can write that God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we are dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

By grace you've been saved, and raised up with him and seated with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming age he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

And by grace you have been saved through faith.

This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So thanks, Craig, for that chart.

Friends, this is the great exchange.

We have been born into insurmountable debt, debt which we are powerless to pay, and inherited guilt in Adam, and yet God in Christ loved us enough to give us a new representative.

One who succeeded where Adam failed, one who was obedient where Adam was disobedient, and now by faith we can be placed in Christ so that his righteousness becomes our righteousness.

Friends, this is a God who supplies far more than he demands.

This is a God who sends his son to the cross for our sakes, so that our debt can be paid.

We are his, and he is ours.

What an amazing Savior we have.

So now we can rejoice, can't we?

We can rejoice with the earliest Christians who pondered this beautiful exchange and wrote these words, O sweet exchange, O unsearchable operation, O benefits surpassing all expectation, that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous one, and that the righteous one should justify many transgressors.

Friends, that's you and me.

We who are born into Adam are now through faith brought into a new life in Christ.

The old is gone, the new has come.

Alleluia, what a savior.

Friends, this means that by grace we get to put off the old Adam.

When we're brought from our old way of life into our new way of life, we have been brought not under the power of sin, but we've been brought under a renewed power in Christ.

Paul will go on in Romans chapter 6, just a few paragraphs later, to exhort us not to let sin reign in our mortal body or obey its passions.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

So, friends, when when we choose, deliberately choose to sin, when we live in our former selves, we are acting unlike ourselves.

God has made us new creations in Christ.

We are meant to live as those who are called into Christ and into greater good works, not to earn our salvation, but as fruits of the salvation in Christ.

So, friends, don't let sin reign in your mortal body.

Where do you begin with that?

I want to suggest this.

Begin by getting real honest.

Begin by getting real honest with yourself and with God.

Repent of your sin.

Call sin what it is.

Name it before the Lord and ask his forgiveness and be assured that our good Heavenly Father forgives the repentant sinner.

And then consider taking it a step further and getting honest with one another.

I'm convinced that's why we have brothers and sisters in Christ.

Because we need to bear one another's burdens, because we need to be honest about our sin with one another and get real.

Because we do not want to let sin reign in our bodies, and we do not want to let sin reign in our community here together.

So we begin by getting real honest, getting honest before God, getting honest before one another, getting honest about sin so that we can see the resurrection power of Christ conquer that former way of life that we've known in Adam, and now we can see an eternal life that we're promised in Christ begin to reign.

So, friends, this is the exchange.

This is the ultimate bigger and better.

Not that we have exchanged for our own righteousness, but that Christ has exchanged our guilt for his righteousness, and we receive that by faith and by faith alone.

Alleluia, what a savior.

Heavenly Father, we give you great thanks for sending your Son Jesus Christ to be the propitiation of our sin, and not for ours only, but for the whole world.

So, Lord, we give you praise.

We sing your praises, Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Renew us, give us newness of life in Christ, that we would follow him by faith and discover true and eternal life in him.

And we pray in his precious and holy name, Jesus Christ.

Amen.