You are holding your baby and enjoying the wonder of a new life. The child gets restless and seems uncomfortable and begins to cry. A few cries and all of a sudden he launches everything you just fed him. His aim is good and his sleeper and your shirt are dirty and smelly. As you lift him you notice that he has also blown through his diaper and a light brown liquid is seeping through his sleeper onto your pants. What a mess! What happens next? Do you send the child to his room to get cleaned up? Not a chance. He is a baby and incapable of cleaning himself. You get up and after putting a clothes pin on your nose you clean up the mess on the baby and then clean yourself up and hope it doesn’t happen again too soon.
Sin makes a mess. How is it cleaned up? Who does it? In order to find out, we will look at Romans 5:12-21. This is a fascinating passage which deals in comparisons. The most frequently used phrase is “one man.” The passage draws a contrast between the one man Adam and the one man Jesus Christ. We are identified with the one man because we are human and invited to be identified with the other man because we are loved. What we will see is that by His grace in Christ, God has cleaned up the mess we have made.
How did this mess we are in get started? In previous messages on Romans we have learned that we are all sinners. Why? Where does sin come from? Romans 5:12 answers that question when it says, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…” It all started with Adam through whom, as the text says, “sin entered the world.” How did that happen?
In the concentration camps in Germany during the second world war, there were times when people were herded into a room. Sometimes they didn’t know what kind of a room this was. Some may have thought it was a delousing station or something like that. Although perhaps somewhat fearful, they were all fine and could breathe and were doing OK, until one door was opened which allowed poisonous gas into the room. When that door was opened, the gas permeated the entire room and very soon all the people in that room were dead. The power of the deadly gas was allowed into the room and overcame everyone.
Sin came into the world in a similar way. By his disobedience, Adam opened the door that allowed the power of sin to come into the world. Since that time, this power has been present in the world and has had an impact on everyone in the world. The power of sin is not a genetic thing. We are not under it’s influence because we inherited a sin gene from our parents. Rather, it is an environmental thing. The power of sin is everywhere in the environment of the world. This is an important distinction. If sin is genetic, then the practice of baptizing infants becomes very important, but if it is a force in the world, then children are innocent until they succumb to that force.
Another way of looking at it is that sin is like a magnetic power which attracts everyone. With a magnet, you can attract metal which is within its magnetic field. In the same way, sin is like a magnetic field that attracts everyone in the world.
Just as everyone in that gas chamber died, so the magnetic attraction of sin also results in the death of every person who yields to its.
There is, however, at least one way in which the illustration of the gas chamber fails. Those who are overcome by the power of the deadly gas are overcome innocently. The power of the gas is imposed on them. Although it was Adam who opened the door for the power of sin to enter the world, we are all implicated because, as the text also says, “all sinned.” Every one of us is subject to the power of sin, and everyone of us also yields to the power of sin through our sinful acts. If we had been Adam, every one of us would have opened the door for the power of sin to enter the world, allowing death to also enter. So Adam opened the door to the power of sin and death came in. Everyone of us yields to that power and as a result every one of us is subject to death.
How can this mess be cleaned up? As we read on, another man is mentioned who came to this world to establish a relationship between God and people. This man was Moses who gave the law to the people of Israel. Was the law a good thing or a bad thing? The Jewish understanding and Paul’s understanding was that the law was good. It was a gift of God. The law given by Moses did two things.
First of all, we read in Romans 5:13, that “before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.” One of the purposes of the law was to show sin for what it was. The basic sin in the world is rejection of God. When the law came, the true nature of sin was revealed. The rebelliousness of people was revealed and the evil of every person’s heart was also revealed. There are instruments which measure the presence and strength of magnetic fields. The law was like an instrument to test the presence of the magnetic field of sin. The law demonstrated the presence of the power of sin and, because people could not keep the law, it also showed how powerful sin is.
But the law had another purpose. The law was intended to help people overcome the powerful attraction of sin. That is the meaning of Romans 5:20, which says, “The law was added with the result that sin was multiplied.” It was intended as a barrier so that people would not yield to it’s power. The problem is that the attraction of sin is just too strong and it is impossible for us to escape from it’s power. If you have ever played with a magnet you know that you cannot remove the attraction of it by putting it in water or putting a piece of paper over the magnet. The only way to remove the power of the attraction is to move the magnet far away from that which is attracted to it. There is nothing that can be applied to remove it’s attraction. Just as it is difficult to escape the attraction of a magnetic field, so also it is impossible, even with the law, to escape from the attraction of sin.
What a mess! It seems like a totally hopeless situation. The power of sin is very great! We are not strong enough to overcome it. The law is not strong enough to help us overcome it. As a consequence, we all succumb to the consequences of sin and we will all die.
This is the starting point of this passage and the themes I have outlined here are mentioned throughout the passage as the one man Adam is compared to the one man Jesus Christ. But the passage is not about sin and death! It is about grace and life! Through the one man, Adam, sin and death entered the world. But this passage is mostly about the one man, Jesus Christ who brought freedom and life into this world. This passage is written to contrast Adam and what he brought into the world with Jesus and what He brought into the world. John E. Toews says, “the free gift of righteousness…went far beyond what was needed to correct the consequence of Adam’s trespass.”
Those of you who play Rook know how important it is to hold a trump card. I have played games in which one player seemed to be dominating and was boldly playing his final card with confidence that he would win, but did not count cards and was beaten because one person still held a trump card. The trump card wins! What this passage tells us is that God holds the trump card when it comes to the power of sin. John Toews says, “salvation trumps sin in Christ.”
Earlier I said that everyone has fallen to the power of sin and that no one has been able to overcome its influence, but that is not entirely true. There was one man who did not yield to the power of sin. We read in 5:18 about “one act of righteousness” and in 5:19 about “the obedience of the one man.” Jesus became a human being and lived under the power of sin, but He was the only one who was not overcome by it. The consequences of that victory are amazing!
It is easy to make a mess. You wouldn’t believe the mess I can make whenever I do any baking or cooking. However, cleaning up is much more difficult. The easiest way to clean up the kitchen after I have cooked is to ask Carla to do it. Of course that usually doesn’t work either.
Yet Jesus didn’t mess up. Adam began with a clean slate, but made a mess. Jesus, began with a huge mess, but did not add to that mess at all. What’s more, because He didn’t, He is able to clean us up as well. The amazing thing that Jesus did when he didn’t mess up was that He did what the law could not do. By overcoming the power of sin in a human person, Jesus was able to introduce into the world, the way in which all people can overcome the power of sin and also to release them from death and show them how to live apart from sin. John Toews says, “What makes the second person so amazing is that He is able to undo the disastrous outcome of the first person’s disobedience…The faithfulness of Christ reverses the unfaithfulness of Adam and assures righteousness for all who faithfully commit themselves to God.”
It is important to note that cleaning up sin has happened through Jesus. It is very important for us to see Jesus. We are so quickly tempted to think we can clean up the mess ourselves. Even after we are saved we often think that now that we have a good start, we can live clean. We can now keep the law. However, we need to remember that the work of God in cleaning up the mess has happened entirely through Jesus. This theme is repeated over and again in this passage. Please take note of the pervasiveness and power of this truth.
5:15 – “the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ.”
5:17 – “the gift of righteousness (will)reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”
5:18 – “the one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.”
5:19 – “through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
5:21 – “grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
What happened because Jesus did not succumb to the power of sin? The text lists three things.
First of all, it speaks about God’s grace. In 5:15 it says, “God’s grace and the gift…overflow to many.” 5:17 speaks about “God’s provision of grace…”, 5:20 says, “grace increased all the more.” and finally, 5:21says, “so that grace might reign.”
When the baby blows it at both ends and makes a terrible mess, why do you clean him up? You love your child and have no expectation that he is able to clean himself up. You clean him up because you love him and he is helpless. Of course, we would say, “but we should know better.” But do we really? Of course we are responsible for our sin and of course we need to repent of it, but that does not change the fact that God cleans us up as an act of grace because He loves us and we are helpless without His help.
“G. Campbell Morgan was once approached by a man who said he would give anything to believe that God would forgive sins, "but I cannot believe He will forgive me if I just turn to Him. It is too cheap." Dr. Morgan said to him: "You were working in the mine today. How did you get out of the pit?"
“He answered, "The way I usually do; I got into the cage and was pulled to the top." "How much did you pay to come out of the pit?" "I didn't pay anything." "Weren't you afraid to trust yourself to that cage? Was it not too cheap?" The man replied, "Oh, no! It was cheap for me, but it cost the company a lot of money to sink that shaft." The man saw the light, that it was the infinite price paid by the Son of God for our salvation, which comes to us by faith and not by anything that we can do.”
The other thing that Christ’s act accomplished is that we have been made right. Not just declared right, but made right. The words “justified” and “made righteous” appear in 5:16,17, 18,19, 21. They are all the same Greek word, which means "being made right.” While under the power of sin, we were all wrong, but God, in Christ has made us all right.
John E. Toews says, “Salvation effects more than a change of status – the gift of ‘right standing’ before God – but in fact makes people righteous.” When I have studied this in the past, I have sometimes been taught that being justified means that we have gotten a piece of paper which says that we have a right standing with God, but we are still sinners and when we get to heaven we will turn in our piece of paper for true righteousness. But, this has never completely made sense to me because it seems to put too much distance between our lives and what God has done. Yet to believe that I am now righteous is also hard to understand because I know myself and how much sin still exists in me.
A few weeks ago my son and I made a trailer to pull behind a bicycle. We made it out of aluminum conduit. We used a conduit bender, but had never used one before. We tried to do it right, but realized that some of the bends were in the wrong place. I tried to straighten out one piece that we bent wrong so we could use it again, but it was impossible to do so, we had to start over with a new piece. What was impossible for us, that is, to straighten ourselves out, was done by Jesus. We were bent and crooked, but God, in Christ has straightened us out.
It is true that we are made straight, but it is important to remember that it is in Christ that we are straight. He never sinned and when we belong to Him, God does not see our crookedness, but the purity and holiness of Jesus. So we are made right in Christ and invited to continue to live in that righteousness.
Having been made right, the result is life. We find this theme in Romans 5:17, 18 and 21. Because the power of sin is overcome, its consequence is also overcome. One year, there was one place in our yard where I was always afraid to walk by. It all started one day when I was mowing the lawn and all of a sudden there was a terrible pain in the back of my leg. I realized that I had been stung by a wasp. It took a while to figure out what to do about it and so for a few weeks I walked by that place very carefully. Eventually, I found out how to get rid of the nest. Once the nest was gone, the fear of getting stung was gone and I did not fear to go there any more.
I Corinthians 15:56 says “The sting of death is sin…But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Because of what Jesus has done, the cause of death has been removed. Therefore we are no longer subject to death, we are now released to life, which is eternal.
In many circles today, people talk about improving ourselves through therapy or the practice of some ritual, but it does not work. Sin is too powerful and there is nothing we can do to overcome it’s attraction.
The emphasis in this passage is on what Christ has done. He, by His faithfulness in not yielding to its power, has conquered sin for us so that we can live free from it’s power. Having been freed from it’s power, we are also placed into life.
Who is this for? If you read through these verses, you will notice the word “all” appears several times. Particularly we notice that Romans 5:12 says, “death came to all men, because all sinned.” However, it is also important to notice that 5:18 says, “the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” In other words, all of us have the same problem of being under the power of sin and death and what God has done He has done for all men. There is no racial or cultural limitation. God’s grace in making right and giving life is for all men.
However, we also notice another word and that is the word “many.” Notice particularly 5:19 which says, “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.” This seems to limit what God has done. Here it does not say that “all” will be made right, but “many.” What are we to understand by this? Who is freed from the power of sin? Who is given life?
From these verses it seems clear that God’s grace is available to all, but given, as Romans 5:17 says, to “those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace…”
Have you received it? If not, I invite you to accept God’s gift. If you have, I encourage you to live in Christ.
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