Sin brought Death but Grace gives Life
Romans 5:18-21 · Josiah Matthews · Jul 16, 2006
Romans (2005-07), No. 40
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4826235636499

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, well, we have four verses to go through this morning, and I don't know if you probably approach this class differently, but I don't know if you've had time to study this passage. I'll go ahead and read it for you. 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. 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. The law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So, that's our passage, and let's get into it here. Usually what I do is I take verse at a time, study through it word by word, go ahead and make some applications or conclusions as we go through it, but then when we get to the end of the verse, summarize it, and then move on to the next one. So, verse 1 here, So then, let's see how this thing works. There we go. OK.

Actually, there are two two particles here are raw and and it's variously translated. Therefore, so then accordingly, therefore. These these two. conjunctions usually appear separately, and only in Paul's writings do they appear together. From what I understand, it's out of all Koinade Greek, they always appear separately, but Paul does his own thing often times when he writes, and he just puts them together here.

I gave you some details. I have to get used to the new clicker. Hey, how are you guys doing? Is one extra here? One more here. I think we have one right here. How are you doing? Oh, you got one. Okay. Bye. Okay, I think we have enough. Thanks. Okay. Let's get out of your way here.

So, verse 18 is going to summarize what Paul has said in verses 12 all the way through 17. 18 and 19, they kind of go together as a summary. Verse 12, quickly, you guys have already studied through this. Verse 12, Paul taught, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned, And then 13 and 14 were parenthetical, talking about the law and sin, which we'll get into this morning a little bit. And then 15 through 17, Paul goes through and talks more about the man Adam and the man Christ, and how Adam affected the entire race through his one sin, and then Christ will affect all who believe in him. So, we won't go back through that. But then, basically, Paul makes this summary statement of verses 12 through 17 in our verse this morning. So then, with that he's summarizing what he said before.

As this little comparative particle here hosts, in verse 18 it's used as a subordinating conjunction. So it's going to link the two clauses together And you have this on your handout, but it's really, really small, and it's not important other than just to show you what's going on here. We're studying through this clause, and it's linked to the main clause of the sentence. The main clause of the sentence is, they're resulted through one righteous act, justification of life for all men, just as they're resulted condemnation for all men. So that's what's going on here, just so you can see that. Also, in our passage, Paul is going to make three comparisons between Adam and Christ. In the previous verses, he's made a lot of comparisons between the two guys. Now he's going to make three more in these four verses. Verse 18, 19, and then 21. Okay, through, a little preposition dia. And in this instance, it shows means or instrumentality. It indicates the means or instrumentality by which the verbal action is accomplished. And it answers the question, how?

So, how has condemnation come to all men? And it's by one transgression or through one transgression. That's what Paul is saying. Condemnation has come to all men, how? By one transgression. One is just a little adjective. Transgression pro optima. This literally means to fall beside or to fall near something. It's used figuratively as a sin or as a deviation from the truth. used nine times in Romans, and it's a synonym of hamartia. Hamartia, we'll look at a little later, means to miss the mark, to sin as well. And we'll see Paul is going to use those two words for sin interchangeably this morning. Okay, so what is the one transgression that is being referred to?

Your turn. Adam's sin in the garden, that's right. I found a picture of Adam, believe it or not. Very cool. So, there resulted, next phrase, and guess what? There is no verb in this entire verse. So, there resulted is thrown in there for translation. There's actually a preposition there, but not a verb. Literally, the sentence reads, therefore, Therefore, as through one sin, with respect to all men, for condemnation." So, no verbs. So, they put one in there to help us out. So, there resulted, there is actually a preposition there, this little preposition, ace, which can be translated in many different ways. In this instance, it speaks of the result of something.

So, what was the result of Adam's sin? That's what we're going to learn. And condemnation to all men. That's what happened. Thanks a lot, Adam. This word condemnation is katakryma. It's a damnatory sentence. It's a condemnation. You're condemned. In this instance, it's a condemnation of death.

Only found three times in the entire New Testament, and they're all three right here in Romans. Here's one place. For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression, resulting in condemnation. Saying almost the exact same thing Paul is saying in verse 18 here. It's a condemnation of death. Okay, so there's one sin, then there's condemnation, and it's spread to all men.

Another little preposition, ace. And in this instance, the preposition implies motion. So the condemnation of death passes to all men. All is this little adjective, pas. And so, does the condemnation spread only to some? Maybe the really bad ones? And of course, no, Paul's saying that condemnation spread to all men. Everybody was affected in Adam.

Alright, to all men, this is Anthropos. It can be used differently in scripture. It can refer to a human being, a man specifically, in contrast to a woman. Or it can just refer to mankind in general. Alright, and here it's used plurally and it's used to refer to human beings, mankind, men and women, the whole, all the earth. Death or condemnation spread to all men. Anthropocene is used 27 times in Romans.

Okay, so there's the first half of our sentence, what Adam did and how that affected mankind. And now let's look at the main phrase of the sentence. Even so, two more particles, in this manner even, so Paul puts two of them again back to back. Even so, through, here we have dia, through or by, and again it's used the same way as it was in the last phrase.

It indicates the means or instrumentality by which the action is accomplished. So, it was through one act of righteousness. One is the same adjective for one. Act of righteousness. Dikaioma here. Righteousness. This is a righteous act or deed. Alright? Five times in Romans. So, through one act of righteousness, what act of righteousness is this referring to here?

Take a stab at it, or if you've studied it, go ahead and give a good answer, but what do you think? This is mine, right? This isn't yours? The cross? Okay. Yeah. It's referring to Christ's death on the cross. You've been to Bible school. That's right. Alright.

So it is referring to Christ's death on the cross. And here's a verse that nails it down for us. The next verse we'll look at, verse 19, says the same thing but in a little different way, and it refers to it as an act of obedience. And that may be a little more unclear, but this verse nails down obedience and Christ's death on the cross. It's pretty good. It says, being found in appearance as a man, he, Jesus, humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

And there are other verses, Hebrews 5.8 is another one. It's in your notes later on. Okay, so it was Christ's sacrifice on the cross that satisfied the Father's wrath toward sin and enabled God to justly confer righteousness to those who believe. Okay? Okay.

So, because of the one act of righteousness, what happened? Well, there resulted, and again, there is not a verb here, We have a preposition ace underneath here. Translated, there resulted. Because in this instance, the preposition is showing result again. So what is the result of the one act of righteousness?

It's justification of life. Justification of life to all men. Dikaiosis, a little different word than we had earlier, this is the act of declaring righteous, not the verb, but it's the act after it's happened, or justification. So there resulted justification of life. Used only twice in the New Testament, both here in Romans.

Here's the other occurrence, Romans 4.25, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions and was raised because of our justification. Those are the only two places in the New Testament where that form of the word justify is used.

So the moment anyone believes the gospel, that one is declared righteous by God. And Paul's been telling us that at length in Romans. I have a little side note for you. The key doctrine of justification by faith was recovered from scripture by Martin Luther and the other reformers back in the 1500s. And at that time, and even now, the Roman Catholic Church rejected the teaching of justification by faith as the Reformers understood it. And instead, they taught that justification, as it shows up in Romans and the Scriptures, refers to God's justness.

It isn't something that God gives to man. Now why I mention that, It's because there is a movement today within Evangelicalism or Protestantism called New Perspectivism. I know that's a lot of isms, but it's out there. And believe it or not, they teach that God does not declare men righteous by faith.

And they teach that Martin Luther was mistaken, and that he interpreted Romans in light of his personal guilt that he was experiencing. And the whole big thing was a big mistake. So anyway, it's out there, it's in our seminaries, and fortunately it's in some of our churches too. And so the perspective is not new, but is very similar to what the Roman Catholic Church has taught. But despite the critics of our so great salvation, our passage this morning clearly teaches that because of Christ's death on the cross, that one act of righteousness, that justification of life is made available to all men.

Real clear. So we'll see a little more of that as we go into verse 19 even. So it's justification of life. Zoe is life. And here it's talking about spiritual life. It can also talk about physical life in scripture, that Greek word. But here it's talking, of course, about spiritual life. Used 14 times in Romans. And the of life here modifies justification. So it's justification of life.

When one is declared righteous by God, he is also at the same time given eternal life. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Notice that eternal life is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Jesus is, of course, our life. He is the very eternal life. It's not to say that we don't have life without end.

It's that too. But He is our life. And when we get saved, we get placed in Him. Here's another one. John 6. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. See, there he nails it again. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed.

And then there's one more to look at in John 17.3. During your own study time. Okay, so it's justification of life to all men. And this is the same little preposition, ace, showing motion. It's justification of life going to all men. So there's motion involved. All is the same little adjective. All men, same word for man, for mankind. Is this teaching that all men are justified?

If it's justification of life that goes to all men, so are we to interpret it that everybody is justified? And of course, you don't need me to, you don't need to answer that. No. And the reason we know it's not teaching that is because of scripture. Because we compare scripture with scripture and we understand that you're justified by faith. And that's a key message in Romans. Alright, so scripture is clear that salvation is available to all men, but it must be individually received by faith.

Ephesians 2.8, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that, referring to the salvation, a neuter adjective, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. It's through faith. Okay, so let's summarize 18. And we've already noted that, really, 18 is a summary of what Paul said in verses 12 to 17. So we're summarizing the summary. In verse 18, Paul compares Adam's sin with Christ's work on the cross.

And this section in Romans, the whole section, like a lot of chapter 5 through what we're talking about today, teaches federal headship. sometimes called the doctrine of the two men, sorry, the representative men. It's called different things. Here are some federal heads, but that's not what we're talking about. Adam's sin resulted in the condemnation of all men because he was the federal head or representative man for the human race.

When he sinned, it affected the entire human race. Christ's work on the cross resulted in justification of life made available to all men who believe the gospel because he is the new federal head or representative man for all who believe. So if you believe the gospel, thank God Adam is no longer your representative, Christ is. All the blessings that are associated with Christ, if you're in him, you get. But if you're still in Adam, you get death.

Not a good situation. So who's your representative? That's what Paul's been teaching here at length. Do you have anything to add on verse 18? Before we go into 19? So we're still saying that it is for all mankind. Yeah. The justification. Sure. The justification was for all mankind. Yeah. That's why in the Word it can say that Christ died for all. Yeah. And it's clear. For all of mankind.

John 3.16. It's available for everyone. Yeah. But no one can benefit or enter in, if you want to use that term, until they actually believe. Yeah. That's right. Yep. That's right. He died for the whole world. Good, bad, and the ugly. And they were all spiritually ugly. Okay. Well, just because of time, let's keep rolling.

Verse 19. And as you can see, Paul is basically going to restate what he said in verse 18, using some different words. 4, this is Gar. little particle here. What he's going to do is explain in further detail what he already said in verse 18. And I say, isn't Paul amazing? He explains the truth, verses 12-17, then he summarizes it. And now he's going to give us more details on his summary.

If you like to play board games, you'd want to play with Paul. You know, he's going to tell you all the details of the game. If you play board game with me, I'm going to just tell you the basics so I can skunk you during the game. But I think Paul would be the kind of guy that would sit down and go through every little strategy and rule.

Anyway, okay. Paul, and ultimately God who inspired this epistle, he really wanted the Romans to understand the inner workings of federal headship. That's why he keeps giving them more information. He restates it, so he wants them to really understand this. Okay, for as, this is a little particle of comparison, another one, host bear.

Okay, now we have another main clause and subordinating clause here, and I just wanted you to see it again, just so you kind of picture what's going on in the verse. The main clause of the sentence is, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous, just as, through the disobedience of the one, the many will be made sinners. And the way the English, and the way it shows up in the Greek, we're going to look at this one first, and then the main phrase, okay?

So, through, this is dia again, it's used the same way, this preposition is used the same way as it was two times in the last verse. It's showing the means or instrumentality by which the action is accomplished. So, how have the many been made sinners?

Verse 19 says, through the one man's disobedience. It's basically saying the same thing as verse 18, but different words. The one man, same phrase as verse 18. And who is the one man? Adam. No, that guy, I think. Okay, through the one man's disobedience.

Now this is a different word for sin. Last time we had paraptima, now we have parakae. It means disobedience. And literally, it's an unwillingness to hear. Akuo is the verb that this comes from. And so this is like an unwillingness to hear. So in verse 18, it was through one sin, now it's through the disobedience of one man.

And these are parallel statements called, generally, a Hebraism. It was a Hebrew way of communicating. They would say one thing, and then they would say it again. They'd use different words, but they'd just say it again. They'd keep hammering it, hammering the truth by restating it with different words. And we see Isaiah doing that in the main teaching hour. He does that a lot. Okay, so through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

This is a different adjective. Last time we had all men, and it was pas. Here it's palus, many, much or many. And it refers to the all men of verse 18, all of humanity. They were made, and here we actually have a verb this time. This is our first verb. It means to constitute, to declare, or to show to be. It's Aorist tense, indicative mood. So it happened in the past.

They were made sinners. Past tense. Because it's Aorist indicative, we know that all men were declared sinners by God when Adam sinned in the garden. What a horrible inheritance. Sinners. Hamartawas. This is actually an adjective. They were made sinners. Used four times in Romans.

And it refers to mankind's position as sinners and Adam. Paul's looking at our position. It's either in Christ or it's in Adam. And here we're looking at man's position and Adam. Sinners. Period. Okay, so that was the subordinating clause. Now we're going to look at the main clause of the sentence. Even so, through the obedience of the one. We have two more of these comparative particles here. He puts back to back. He didn't have to do that, but Paul is just emphatic with the way he writes. Hutos kai, in this manner, even, through the obedience of the one. Okay, so this is dia, through, and it's used the same way again, showing the means by which the action is accomplished.

How will the many be made righteous? through or by the obedience of the One. Okay, now obedience. Last time in relation to Christ, we had the act of righteousness, right? It was through the act of righteousness that we were made righteous. Here, it's a different word. It's the obedience of the One. And this is hupakai. It means literally to listen under the opposite of disobedience, of course. used seven times in Romans, and it also refers to Christ's death on the cross.

And we looked at Philippians 2.8.

You could also look at Hebrews 5.8, which says something similar.

There are teachers that say that this refers to Christ's whole life on earth, but again, that doesn't seem to line up with the other verses. Christ's conduct, of course, was righteous while He was on earth because He's God, but that's not what justified us. It was His death on the cross that makes possible our justification.

Of the one, same little adjective for one, hes, And it refers to Christ, of course. Okay, so through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous. Paul's little adjective for much or many, and it corresponds to all men of the last verse. Will all mankind be made righteous? And this is what Margaret was clarifying for us at the end of the last verse.

And the answer is no. They could. Christ's death is way more than sufficient for all of mankind, for probably 50 billion earths full of mankind. His death is more than sufficient for all sins forever. But, they have to trust Him, or they're not going to be saved.

And so, by comparing Scripture with Scripture, we understand that this is speaking of the many, Paulus, many, who will believe the Gospel. And I put, see the gospel of John. Because John hammers over and over again the necessity to trust the Lord. And that those who don't trust the Lord, they abide in death. But those who trust, abide in life.

Will be made, this is our same verb, is in the last phrase. Now this is future tense, so it is translated correctly in our versions. It says, will be made righteous. So it's going to happen in the future. And uh-oh, if it's future tense, am I not already justified? What's Paul saying here? And yes, we who believe have been justified, declared righteous by God. And Paul has spent much of chapters 3 and 4 teaching this. Past tense. I've been justified by faith.

So, why does he use the future indicative if we've already been justified? Because you can do that. He could have just used the past tense, but he didn't. He used the future tense. So, what's he doing? What do you think? Any ideas? It's a little tricky. The first time I looked at it, I was like, is this right? Yeah, exactly. Because what he's been doing here in these two verses, he's been making like summary statements, and remember the little preposition in verse 18 that they translated, they're resulted, but it was actually the preposition ace, which showed result.

So that's what Paul's been doing, he's been showing the result of Adam's sin, and the result of Christ's death on the cross. So what he's doing here is he's saying, Because of Adam's sin, all were declared sinful. Because of Christ's death on the cross, the many who trust him will be made righteous. Because not everybody who is going to be saved is saved already.

That seems to be what's going on there. we're already made righteous positionally. Conditionally, we'll be made righteous as well when we're actually. Right. And that is true, but he's not looking at our condition in this section. But yeah, that's absolutely true. Our condition will match, future tense, our position. Right on. But yet he's not going there yet. Right. That is, that is.

So anyway, that's, yeah, that's what Laban said there seems to be what Paul is doing. He's summarizing. The result of Christ's death from the cross is that the many will be made righteous. And it's future tense because a lot more people are going to be able to trust the Lord and get saved. Bob?

Yeah, I think two comments maybe work well. In verse 18, the fact that the many are condemned and the many are justified really indicates all of mankind like you so well taught. In verse 19 many would look at 19 to indicate that either all are justified or as the verse would say the same Greek terminology used for all men or the all or the many.

But others would use it as selective or preferential salvation, if God chooses to select a salvation, those who believe might too. So the second point is this, is that the Bible cannot be used out of context. In other words, and you, I think, made that point briefly before, to go to this section and come away with conclusive arguments or against all men being justified or no man being justified as others might, would be inexcusable. But yet, the entire framework needs to be taken into consideration.

Yeah, that's wise. That's right. And that's a good point because there are those who go to this section and pull out some of those doctrines. Well, either all men are justified before God, it's just a matter of works. Or alternatively, selective and preferential salvation for the many leaderships. The fact that the Greek and Paul's penmanship really indicates that the many is used identically in 19 as it was in 18 is against that.

Right. Yeah, good point. Good point. And as you pointed out, God would have the whole world to be saved, would he not? Yeah, and he says that. if they respond by the faith that is given by God's grace. That's right. John 3.16, for God so loved the world. Not just theologic as some would interpret it, but He loved the world. Good point. Okay, so wrapping this up, their justification will occur in the future as they believe the gospel. Okay, we'll move on here. They will be made righteous. They will be declared righteous.

Dikaios, this is another adjective used seven times in Romans, and it refers to our position of being made righteous, of being righteous, of being justified. Paul will get into condition here real fast in chapter 6 as he talks about the sin nature, controlling and being like a slave master to a person. But here we're still talking about our position of being righteous in Christ. There are other verses, Margaret mentioned the fact that one day our condition will line up with our position. There are other verses in scripture that address our condition and our Christian life, which we live by faith, by God's grace. Okay, so let's summarize 19 here. We've already done some of that as we've gone along. So again, Paul in 19 explains, in other words, what he just said in verse 18. He just restates it for us. Although all men are constituted sinners in Adam, only those who believe will be constituted righteous in Christ. That's all I had. Anything else?

Good. For time we've got to go. Keep going here. Verse 20. The law. Real quick here. What we're going to look at is the law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So let's get into it and break it down here. The law. Namas.

This can be translated into scripture law or principle. Used 74 times in Romans. So it's very frequent. In Romans, so within this book we're studying, namas can refer to a principle There's a couple of references for you there. Or, it can refer to the Mosaic Law itself. So, in Romans, from what I can see, it can refer to those two things.

Outside of Romans, nammas is also used to refer to the Law of Christ, as Paul mentions it in Galatians 6.2, which applies to Christians under grace.

Not the Mosaic Law, something entirely different. Here in chapter 5 verse 20, Law is speaking of the Mosaic Law. The Law came in. This is pare circumi. It means to come in beside or to enter in addition. What it's saying is the Law came in beside what? Beside sin. And Paul said that already in chapter 5, that sin existed before the law came in. Paul made a point to state that. I think it was verse 13 maybe. Sin was already there, but the law came in beside it.

Sin existed before the law was given to Israel, but God wanted to officially demonstrate to the world His holiness and man's sinfulness. We'll get more into that as we go here. God gave the law to the nation of Israel through Moses, probably around 1440 BC, just after they had left Egypt. God had delivered them from Egypt, they went into the wilderness, and they were given the law around that time.

So that Hina, you're going to have to put up with that. Hina plus a subjunctive verb expresses several different ideas in Greek, in Koine Greek, which is the Greek from Alexander the Great down through the first century and for a couple hundred years beyond. Hina plus a subjunctive verb can indicate purpose, result, purpose-result combination, or it can be used differently to state the direct object of a sentence. We won't get into all that.

But here, in our verse, Hena declares the purpose that the law came in. Why did the law came in? Paul is going to tell us. It came in so that the transgression would increase. This is per optima, the same word we've seen already. It described Adam's sin in the garden in the previous verse. In the New Testament, peraptima refers to sinful acts, not the sin nature. There is another Greek word, hamartia, which is a synonym, that can refer either to the sin nature or to the individual acts of sin themselves, which spring from the sin nature. But from what I could tell, peraptima is used in Scripture just to refer to the sinful acts.

The transgression would increase. Would increase, we have another verb, plenazzo, plenazzo, to make, to increase, used only three times in Romans, twice in our verse here. So, what Paul is saying is that the purpose God gave the Jews the law was so that sin would increase. And it's stated elsewhere in scripture that this is the purpose of the law.

And if you know your Old Testament history at all, that's exactly what happened. Of course you know that Israel already had sinned before they were given the law, but it's very true that after they were given the law, their nation just went to pot. It just fell apart. They were horribly sinful.

The purpose of the law is stated elsewhere in Scripture, Romans 3.20. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Galatians 3.19. Here Paul writes the Galatians who had been put under the law by these legalistic believers or unbelievers. And so Paul is telling them, look, you're not under the law. And so he asks them, why the law then? Why was it given? It was added because of or for the sake of defining transgressions. Almost identical to what Paul is saying here. As was stated earlier, Paul put the Israelites under law to show the world, and you and I in the church, His holiness and man's utter sinfulness.

But, de, little conjunction, but, where sin increased, where, who, Let's see, it's a little subordinated conjunction. But where sin increased, and this sin is hamartia. First time we've seen that this morning. This is the synonym of the other word for sin. And this is the one that can refer to sin itself, sins, sinful acts, or to the sin nature. Literally, hamartia means to miss the mark. You know, you throw a dart and it doesn't hit the bullseye. You miss the mark. However, in the New Testament, it always refers to sin.

It's used 48 times in Romans. Where sin increased, this is the same verb we had in the previous phrase. And my point in kind of stopping Paul here is, where sin increased. In other words, Aorist tense, indicative mood, Paul saying, it increased. Sin increased. So, God's purpose was achieved. He gave him the law to make sin increase, and it did. And you can study the Old Testament and see how many ways it did just that. Grace abounded all the more. Grace caris, unmerited favor, used 24 times in Romans.

And this is the grace of God, it's His grace. By the law, God had revealed His holiness, man's utter sinfulness, which created a huge gulf between God and man. It exposed man's sinfulness, and showed how holy God was, and it was clear to most, or to those who cared, that they had a huge sin problem. And so, what would God do next? He would show His grace.

And that's what Paul is starting to say here. God's grace entered the dismal scene and provided forgiveness of sins, justification, eternal life, redemption, freedom from the power of the indwelling sin nature, power for living the Christian life, so on and so on. Grace abounded all the more.

This word here is an unusual verb, huperparisuo. Paul takes these prepositions and just gloms them onto verbs and creates his own verb, really. This one is used only three times in the New Testament. So, sin increased when the law was given. God's grace doesn't merely increase when it enters the scene here. It superabounds beyond measure. So God's grace didn't merely fix the problem of separation between God and man. It did that, and that was a problem. But it didn't just fix what sin had messed up. It did way more than that.

And again, I just kind of threw some on the screen here, and we're out of time, I can't go through them all. So God's grace abounded all the more. Alright, I think I've been summarizing enough as we've gone here, and the bell rang, so I have to go to verse 21 here. Verse 21 here, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is Hena again. And this time, Hina is going to show us purpose and result. And that's where the two are so close that you can't really decide if he's talking about the purpose of something or the result of something. In this instance, he's basically saying both.

So here's the purpose and the result of Grace superabounding. He'll show us that. And again, we're going to look at the subordinating clause first, then the main clause. We have here our same particles of comparison. This, by the way, is the reason that the grace superabounded. So that grace would reign. See, that's what he's saying. But first he's going to give us the subordinating conjunction.

Just as sin reigned in death, so grace would reign through righteousness. Okay, so sin, this is Hamartia. Now, same word as in the previous verses. From what I can tell, this is the first reference to the indwelling sin nature. And I have reasons for it. Please read them. I think I'm going to just real quick mention them. The definite article is present. That's the least significant reason because the definite article has been present already, referring to the other instances.

Second, the sin nature and our freedom from its power is the main subject of chapter 6. When we get into chapter 6 verse 1, and through most of that chapter, we're going to talk about the sin nature and its relationship to the Christian. So it seems to me that here at the last verse of chapter 5, Paul brings in the sin nature.

Third, Romans 6.12. says, therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Talking about the sin nature? Well, what are we talking about in this verse? We're talking about sin reigning.

Same word for reign as in our verse this morning and same word for sin. So anyway, sin reign. This is basoio. It means to rule, to be king, to exercise kingly power. Used six times in Romans. and wait until chapter 6 to find out God's way of freedom from this indwelling tyrant. In death, this is a prepositional phrase that speaks of the sphere in which sin reigned. And you could look at it graphically this way. This is what Paul is saying. The circle represents death. And where does sin reign? Well, sin reigned in death. That's what he's saying.

Even so, some more particles, comparison here, in this manner even, grace would reign. And this is our same word for grace, would reign, the same word for reigning as we saw in the previous phrase. Okay, this is the last comparison of chapter 5, even so grace would reign. Due to Adam's sin, the sin nature reigned as king over all who were positionally in Adam. Due to Christ's work on the cross, grace now reigns as king and never ceases to super over abound for the believer. That's what he's saying. There's more. Grace reigns through righteousness. And this is the same little preposition dia, showing the way in which the action is accomplished. How does grace reign? It reigns through righteousness.

Righteousness, dikayasune, we've seen so many words for righteousness, right, righteous, but this is still a different one. And it's referring to the The quality or state of one who is righteous. Used 34 times in Romans. Here's where it's used. The gift of righteousness. So we've been given the gift of righteousness. We've been justified or given the gift of righteousness. And because of this, grace is able to reign in our lives.

Okay, we're out of time. Preposition ace has many different meanings. It can be used in the place of end, and from studying it, it seemed to me that this is what's going on here. just as sin reigned in that sphere of death, I think what Paul's saying is that, so now grace reigns in the sphere of eternal life. We've been given eternal life, and for all in eternal life, grace reigns.

That seems to be what's going on here. And I gave you some reasons for it, which I'll skip over right now. There's three reasons. Eternal life, Zoe again, And as mentioned earlier, eternal life is in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Last phrase.

The preposition dia here indicates the personal agent by whom the action is accomplished. So how does grace reign? through righteousness, through Jesus Christ. Personally, because of Him and through Him, grace reigns for us. Through whom will grace reign? Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This is the title for the second person of the Trinity, Jesus and Christ. I gave you the meanings of those. This is our Lord. Kourios, Lord, is a title of honor, expressive of respect and reverence, with which servants salute their master, Kourios. Well, he's our Lord. And that's it. Sorry, I ran out of time. Do you have anything to add before we pray?

When the wall came, did sin just increase just because more light was shed on what they were doing, or did it really cause them to fight more? From what Paul says in Galatians there, and what you see happening in Romans chapter 7 when Paul as a Christian decides he's going to operate under the wall, which isn't what you're supposed to do as a Christian. We're not under law, we're under grace.

You see the sin nature kind of like getting charged up, you know? And so I think it's both of those. I think I understand that's what's going on in Scripture. The sin is already there. The people are already sinful. The sin nature is already there and it's active. But when the law comes in, it just incites the sin nature.

It gives it a command. don't lust, and the sin nature goes... and it lusts, you know? So, it's kind of like you're driving on the highway and you see the speed limit. And I'm not, this is not what was going on there, but, you know, it starts thinking about the command and, oh yeah? And, you know, it takes off. I don't know. I think it's both though.

How are you doing, George? Let's pray. glorify you in our condition, in light of the wonderful position you've given us in Christ. Thank you for the fact that, and it's just a fact, that your grace reigns in our lives despite our condition. And thank you for that. In Jesus' name, Amen.