©2001 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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1/28/01
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The 2nd Adam
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Romans 5:12-21
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1/28/01 The 2nd Adam
We are going to read a passage of Scripture in a few
minutes
that may sound like a confusing puzzle to many
of you.
To help us with that puzzle
I want to give some preparation
for what we will find when we get there.
The passage we will be looking at
is Romans 5:12-21.
It is a passage that provides us with an insight into
the mind of our God
in a very special way.
It answers some crucial questions,
questions that have gone unanswered
since the day Adam sinned,
and it also gives us
a panoramic view of God's plans and purposes
for the human race,
a view that we can gain
from no other passage in the Bible.
The overall purpose of the passage
is to give us a comparison
between the two most important men
in all of human history.
These are the only two men who,
each in their own way,
impacted every other human being who has
ever lived.
Those two men are Adam,
and Christ.
Paul takes those two men
and stands them side-by-side in these 10 verses,
and allows us to see an amazing comparison
between the two.
In our study of the book of Romans
we have just seen in Romans 5:1-11
Paul explaining to us
the personal results
of Christ's death for each Christian.
If you've been with us the past few months
you will remember the 7 birthday presents
given to each person by God
the day we enter His family
through faith in Christ.
Through those 7 gifts Paul was saying,
"Christian, let me help you see
just a little of what Christ has already done
both in you and for you."
But now, in verses 12-21,
Paul steps back and says to us,
"And that's not all!
I've shown you what Christ
accomplished in you personally,
individually,
now let me show you what He accomplished
historically -
let me show you what Christ did
in and to all of human history."
He takes us back to an event
that took place at the dawn of human history,
an event that had consequences
for every person from then on.
Through Adam
sin entered into human society.
Man, the created being,
chose to disobey His Creator.
That one act of disobedience
pulled the human race
into an unending flow
of rebellion,
and isolation from God.
Paul uses two words in this passage
to describe our world condition
from Adam to Christ.
Those two words are,
"Death reigned".
DEATH was the undisputed
ruler of the human race.
It conquered all.
It consumed all.
No one escaped its kingdom
or its absolute lordship
over the entire human race.
But in this last half of Romans 5
Paul tells us that through Christ
a new ruler has been established in human
history.
Let's read the passage
and then see if we can find some handles
to help us get a hold of it.
Rom. 5:12 ¶ Therefore, just as through one
man sin entered into the world, and death
through sin, and so death spread to all men,
because all sinned
Rom. 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the
world, but sin is not imputed when there is
no law.
Rom. 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from
Adam until Moses, even over those who
had not sinned in the likeness of the
offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who
was to come.
Rom. 5:15 ¶ But the free gift is not like the
transgression. For if by the transgression
of the one the many died, much more did
the grace of God and the gift by the grace
of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the
many.
Rom. 5:16 The gift is not like that which
came through the one who sinned; for on
the one hand the judgment arose from one
transgression resulting in condemnation,
but on the other hand the free gift arose
from many transgressions resulting in
justification.
Rom. 5:17 For if by the transgression of
the one, death reigned through the one,
much more those who receive the
abundance of grace and of the gift of
righteousness will reign in life through the
One, Jesus Christ.
Rom. 5:18 ¶ So then as through one
transgression there resulted condemnation
to all men, even so through one act of
righteousness there resulted justification of
life to all men.
Rom. 5:19 For as through the one man's
disobedience the many were made sinners,
even so through the obedience of the One
the many will be made righteous.
Rom. 5:20 The Law came in so that the
transgression would increase; but where
sin increased, grace abounded all the
more,
Rom. 5:21 so that, as sin reigned in death,
even so grace would reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
Now, to help us begin to relate to these words,
let me 1st show you a little comparison chart
that may help us here.
Paul takes Adam and Christ in this passage,
and then traces their choices,
and the results of those choices
on the rest of humanity.
In this comparison
he wants us to see
the extent to which the work of Christ
and the life and death of Christ
influences the entire human race.
Let me put it into a single phrase
to make it even easier.
Do you know what Paul is saying to us here?
He is saying:
One man did it wrong
and we all suffered the consequences.
But then one Man did it right
and we all reap the reward.
But there is more than just a comparison
between Adam and Christ
taking place in this passage.
There is an underlying question
that's being dealt with.
Why would God allow the human race to continue
after Adam sinned?
Do you realize that
Adam and Eve sinned
before they'd given birth to any children?
There were just the two of them.
The entire human race was right there,
both guilty of the same sin.
God knew, of course,
the consequences that their sin would have on
their descendants.
He knew their one sin
would grow and multiply
into all manner of wickedness,
and evil,
and perversion,
and ugliness
in the lives of those who would follow.
He knew, too,
that He could stop it all
by simply making Eve barren.
If she had no children
all that multitude of evil
could be eliminated forever.
So why didn't He?
I want to offer you two statements
that help me understand why.
And to help explain the 1st statement
I first want you to picture a mother of four
children,
all of them boys,
ages 6, 7, 8, and 9.
This mom is by both temperament
and by training
a person who loves neatness.
She loves to have her world orderly,
organized,
clean,
tidy.
Messiness just drives her crazy.
Now, picture this mom at 8 a.m. Monday morning.
The school bus is heading down the road,
taking her boys out of her life
for the next seven hours.
She looks around at the devastation
left over from the weekend
and gets to work.
For the next 7 hours she pours herself into restoring
order and cleanliness to her world.
By 3:00 p.m. her world is once again
neat,
and clean,
and orderly.
Then she hears the bus,
sees the door fly open,
and 4 boys blast into her home.
Within 15 minutes
they have left a wake of devastation
through the kitchen,
the bathroom,
their bedrooms,
the living room,
and the hallway.
And as she stands there in shocked disbelief,
she hears one of them call out,
"Hey guys! Let's go play in the garage!"
Now, given this dear mom's love for neatness,
why does she put up with them?
Life would be so much more simple,
so much cleaner,
so much more ordered and organized without them.
Why?
Because she loves them,
and working with those boys,
for those boys,
investing herself in them
is worth the cost.
Now let me give you the first statement:
God's war on earth
is not a war against sin,
it is a war for mankind.
I think we sometimes get the mistaken idea
that God's real goal,
what He's really working for here on this
earth
is to defeat and eliminate EVIL.
We may picture Him angry at sin,
fighting against it,
with His chief goal being that
of ultimately defeating it forever.
Now, it's true that He hates sin
because of the consequences that sin has on us
and on our relationship with ourselves,
with one another,
and with Himself.
But His real war is not against sin.
If it was, He could easily have dealt with the whole
problem
the day Adam and Eve sinned,
by simply making Eve barren.
No offspring,
no sinners,
no sin,
no problem,
just like that mom could have made her home
into the neatness palace of the community
simply by choosing not to have children.
But God didn't do that
because God is strongly pro-people,
no matter what the cost to Him,
and His commitment is not
a commitment to fight against sin,
it is a commitment
to fight for us.
Certainly His battle for us
has caused Him to fight sin
because of the effect sin has on us,
to us,
and in us.
But the whole purpose of the battle
is not to defeat sin,
but rather to rescue us.
And exactly the same principle
applies in our individual relationship with God
as well.
Right now some of you
are struggling with sin issues in your own life.
You know God is involved in that struggle as well.
But if you are not careful
it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking
that God's purpose is to fight against your
sin,
and that his point of focus
is on your sin,
and His great concern is to defeat that sin.
It is not.
There is only one reason why God
has chosen to involve Himself in your sin
struggle right now -
because He is fighting FOR you -
for your freedom,
for your health,
for your future.
It is not hatred of sin that motivates Him,
it is His love for you.
So, statement #1 that I come away with
as I read Romans 5:12-21 is this:
God's war on earth
is not a war against sin,
it is a war for mankind.
And statement #2 is this:
God allowed man to go on multiplying
even after sin entered the world
because He knew that through Christ
He could still offer each human being
the same choice He originally offered Adam.
I know it is easy for us
at this point in history
to look back at Adam
and want to curse him for the choice he
made.
We have seen
and suffered the consequences
of thousands of years of sin in society.
And, even more,
each of us have entered this world
with our own inborn sin nature
and the turmoil it causes us.
We have our own personal bent toward sin
that moves us down our own personal path of
self-destruction.
But I want us to see something this morning
that may give us a whole new perspective on our
situation.
You see,
in this passage
Paul tells us that Christ undid the damage
that Adam did in the Garden.
Through Christ
each one of us are placed in a position
where we can make exactly the same choice
that Adam once made.
Look at this...
God offered Adam and Eve a choice.
He said to them,
"You can have an eternal life of fellowship with Me
in a perfect creation
if you will trust what I say to you
about this one tree,
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
or you can have death
and eternal separation from Me
if you choose not to trust what I say about
this tree."
But look what happens through Christ.
Through Christ, the "second Adam",
God now offers each of us
exactly the same choice.
We can have eternal life and fellowship with our
God
in a perfect creation
if we trust what God says to us
about another tree,
the tree of Calvary.
Or we can have
eternal death and separation from God
if we choose not to trust what He says about
that tree.
Now, it is true
that Adam made his choice
in a perfect world,
unscarred by sin.
And it is also true
that we must wait a few years
for our perfect world to be brought into
being
by the recreative work of our God.
But honestly,
I think our having been able to taste
some of the fruit of our rebellion
before we make our choice
stacks the deck in our favor.
What Paul is seeking to share with us
here in Romans 5:12-21
is that, because Christ chose right,
He now has the power to correct everything
we have suffered
or would suffer
because Adam chose wrong.
God's scales never go unbalanced.
We are not just helpless victims
of the sins of those who have come before us.
In Christ
a 2nd Adam has come.
Whereas the 1st Adam chose wrong,
and brought the curse of death
to all those who followed him,
the 2nd Adam chose right,
and brings the offer of life
to all who will follow Him.
Rom. 5:19 For as through the one man's
disobedience the many were made sinners,
even so through the obedience of the One
(Jesus Christ) the many will be made
righteous.