Sin entered the world through one man

Good morning. I want a couple things before we get going. One is that if you'll notice on your handout today, it's really a page and a half out of Miles Stanford's writing on the doctrine of the two men. And that's what we're talking about today. We're going to begin to talk about the doctrine of the two men. the two most important men in the history of mankind. And if we were in Sunday school, the first thing I would do is ask you, well, who are these two men? Because both of them have something to do with who you are.

Up to this point, though, in the epistle, the great subject has been the presentation of God to us through the Lord Jesus Christ. One man. Notice last week and the week before, we talked about what one man did to achieve righteousness for those who believe. One man did that. But now our attention is gonna be called to the illustrious place that Christ holds as the one man.

Adam is a figurehead, like Jim said, but he is infinitely greater I'm sorry, Adam is a figurehead, but he, Christ, is infinitely greater than Adam. And the place and blessing which come in by him far exceed the evil that came by Adam. We're all familiar with evil. It's always there. But now we have to, as believers, begin to learn the place of blessing by grace. And that's what the other man brought. And so really Christianity is the study of this new man. That's what this is really about.

We've seen in chapters one, two, and three the fact of the universal human guilt, no question about that, that all humans are falling short of the glory of God, every single human being. And then we saw that Christ set forth by God as a propitiation through faith in his blood, propitiation as satisfaction. The work of Christ on the cross, the shedding of his blood was totally pleasing to the Father, that one man. Which, you know, incidentally eliminates you as the other man. You do nothing to be responsible for propitiation. Christ did it all.

Then we also found that those who believed in Christ, which is us, were declared justified, in other words, righteous, and seen as righteous in the risen Christ. We saw that in chapter four. And then in the last few weeks, we've seen that in the first part of chapter five, some of the blessed results of justification by faith.

I really like the fact that the first result of justification of faith is the fact that you get a trial. You know, God has a sequence of events that there's a trial, patience, tried character and hope in that order. You don't get the hope without the tried character, and you don't get the tried character without the patience, and you don't get the patience without the trial. So like Calvin Tank called me the other, last week when he was, flight was delayed in the airport in Ontario, and he said, I think I'm the only guy rejoicing in this place. He was rejoicing in the trial.

So now, when we come to Romans 5.12, there's a whole new phase in view of our salvation. There's a difference now. There's a couple of things that hopefully we'll get clear today as we go through these verses that kind of will change or maybe add to your perspective and help us understand what God really did in the total work of salvation. And that'll go on now through chapter seven.

There are two men. There's Adam and Christ. Those are the two most important men in history of mankind. Both of them are heads of races of men, and they're called federal heads, federal heads. In other words, what one federal head does accrues to all those that are from him. In Romans, we use the word as indicating the action of one for all in a representative manner and for the consequences of his action.

It's one of those things that you have to pay close attention to because our mindset is not based on a representative man. Our focus usually is on me and what have I done? but the word of God's gonna talk about federal headship, which is a really important doctrinal thing. And as we go through the next weeks and months, the understanding of Adam and Christ will be really critical to understanding everything that's in the doctrine of the next two and a half, three chapters. Initially, we'll look at the representative consequences of the first man, Adam. We can see that the word is now shifting from what man has done, our sins, to what one trespass of one representative man, Adam, that's in view.

What did this one man do that causes a lot of repercussions? So when you take a look at the issue here, here's another change you're gonna see. The word of God abruptly stops talking about sins, S-I-N-S, which has to do with what I've done, and it begins to talk about the word sin, S-I-N, And so the explanation as we go forward will be to try to explain what the thing, sin, is as a principle. As a principle, okay?

So far we've studied the work of another man, Jesus Christ, who's looked at as an atom. Adam, he's the last Adam, he's not the second one, he's the last one, there won't be another one. His one righteous act of death with its effect of justification for all those who believe, it was he who acted. So as we look back to the act of Adam, we were all reckoned as sinners not because of our own deeds.

So I love to ask the question, when did you become a sinner? When did every one of you become a sinner? When the first time you committed a sin? Was it then? Was it your mom who conceived you in sin? When did you become a sinner? You became a sinner when you sinned in Adam.

Oh, that's not fair. Well, we'll talk about fairness in a minute. As we look back, there's a direct statement in Scripture confirming or concerning justification in Romans 5.19, for as though the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of one, many will be made righteous. The connection is to the one man, Adam the first or Adam the last. Through the obedience of one shall many be constituted righteous before God, one act. So up to verse 11, the question has been, as I said, one of sins rather than sin itself. From 512 through 21 now, it changes.

We'll show the grounds of our justification entirely is the work of another, entirely the work of another than ourselves, even Christ, showing also the accompanying place that the law has had that the trespass might abound. Therefore, opening God up to the floodgates of grace. So it's important that we carefully go through and understand what both men represent. The understanding of Adam helps us to comprehend the place which Christ has as the fountainhead, maybe is a way to put it, from whom flows a mighty and far-reaching stream of divine grace and favor. So the first verse we look at is 12.

Therefore, just as through one man, one man, sin, singular, entered the world, into the world, and with sin came death, so death spread to all men. Why? Because all sin. Now wait a minute, I wasn't born when Adam was. That's the whole point. The principle of sin entered the world by this one man, the principle of sin, sin itself. How would you define sin in this case? You wouldn't define it as, well, Adam broke a law, but he did break a law. God gave him one law. He wasn't a sinner until he sinned, but you and I are sinners when we hit the planet. and it's because of Adam.

It might seem a small thing to us to disobey God in a small act, but it introduced a principle which is destructive for all the relationships that rightly exist between the creature and the creator. I mean, haven't you ever thought about, gee, this guy takes one bite out of one piece of fruit and look what the results are. I'm living in a cesspool. of creation that's dying and all the sin that's around me, because one guy took one bite. It shows you how important it is that when the creator says something is so, it is so. And we don't have the freedom, well, maybe we do have the freedom to disagree with him, but it brings consequences.

Adam brought consequences. The introduction of the principle has affected everybody in the world, every single human being. We all sinned, now here's the key part, we all sinned in Adam and death passed upon all men. Well, like I said when we started, that doesn't seem fair. that I am accounted a sinner because when Adam sinned, I sinned.

Well, it wouldn't be fair unless you're gonna understand that your righteousness and the act of what Christ did on the cross is under the same principle. When he acted, you acted. When he was crucified, so were you. So if the principle isn't in place, then the best you can hope for is forgiveness of sins, but you're still a sinner. So God not only had to deal with the fact that you committed sins, he's gotta deal with this thing, sin itself. All sin. All men sin. So. There's offense, but it had a tremendous consequence that influences towards all men to condemnation.

An example of that, I read this this week. I thought it was interesting. It kind of ties in with COVID. I think this comes from Charles Coates. It was said lately that a clever man had discovered the death germ. The principle of sin and lawlessness is the true death germ, and it has shown itself to be capable of multiplying to a terrible extent. Sounds like COVID, doesn't it? We're all gonna die, gotta wear a mask. It's interesting that that's the way sin is. The problem is there's no antibiotics. There's no vaccine against sin.

Now, the most important word in these verses is the word one. And from Newell, I tried to put this chart together. You'll find it's said 14 times in the verses through here up to 21. It's one man, one man, one man in verse 12, 15, and 19. It's the one, the one, the one in verses 15, 17, and 19. It's through one act of righteousness, verse 18. It's through the obedience of the one, verse 19. One trespass, one disobedience, one act of righteousness, the obedience of one.

Everything centers in one of these two men. It doesn't center in you and me, it centers in these two men, and it's important for us to understand. if it doesn't work for us to count ourselves justified in a sense of merely having our own trespasses, those who have committed and been forgiven, because this would amount to just counting ourselves as innocent before we personally sinned, and to have become guilty only because we personally sinned.

But this is to forget that all were made sinners by Adam's act, not our own. Nor does this mean that we get a sinful nature, although we do get one of those, but that's not what this means, from our first parents. By nature, we were indeed children of wrath, by nature. So if you look at Ephesians 2, Paul tells us, and David declares, in sin did my mother conceive me. We were so connected, I'm getting ahead of myself, but Romans 5 does not talk about of a nature of sin received by us from Adam, but our being made guilty by one man's act.

We were so connected with Adam, and we're connected with him, that we did not have to wait to be born or to have a sinful nature, but when Adam, our representative, acted, you and I acted, that's a hard concept to get your mind around, but it's an important one that we understand and rest in because it'll help explain all this coming down the road.

The same divine principle is laid out in Hebrews 7, 9 through 10. Watch how it goes. Even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, so to speak, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. Here's the deal. When Melchizedek shows up, to bless Abraham. Abraham had just finished a war and had a bunch of booty from the war and he meets this guy Melchizedek and he realizes that Melchizedek is a unique, interesting, godly man and is due part of the booty that he got because he's a great priest of God. Now, who is Abraham's son that became the tribe of, that was the priestly tribe? It was Levi.

And all the Jews, the one tribe of Levi didn't have to work. They worked at the temple. How did they get supported? All the other tribes contributed 10%, it's called tithing, to the temple, and that's how they functioned. And it showed that the Levitical priesthood was a pretty high ranking group of Jewish men because they were all priests.

But here it says that before Levi was even born, his father was paying tithes to this man Melchizedek and that Levi was doing it too in his loins. Levi and that makes the priesthood of Christ who is a priest after the order of Melchizedek much higher than anybody who comes from the Levitical priesthood as a priest.

Does that make sense? Did I explain that right? You see that these tithes that are being paid in the loins of Abraham. Levi's not born yet, but he does pay tithes and respect to Melchizedek. Why? Because the Lord Jesus Christ is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. He's much higher than the Levitical priesthood. So one man's act accrues to another man. One man's act of sin accrues to another man because he did it. We sinned in Adam.

And I know how our minds think, oh, that's not fair. Well, you know what my answer is to fairness. If the only attribute that God has is fairness, we're all going to hell. Because he doesn't act out of fairness, he acts out of grace. I hope that's, if it isn't, like Baud would say, see me after. So the verse in principle, through one trespass unto all men to condemnation, even so through the act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men. It was all there, it was available. So if you look at the word condemnation, it's a really interesting word. It's really a legal word and it belongs in a courtroom. It doesn't belong in the delivery room.

The same divine principle is illustrated in this fact that I just explained. The whole plan of salvation has to do with one man's work. By Christ's work and not ours, we have been considering in chapters three, four, and five, it's his work alone, okay? So therefore, this plan of salvation by a single Redeemer is on the same principle as when through the other, one man's sin entered the world, and with it, its wages, death to all men. Why is it this way?

By one man, death passed to all men because when Adam sinned, we all sinned. How often do you hear that? When Adam sinned, I sinned. You don't hear it much, because the focus is usually on what have I done, rather than my sinning in Adam. He's a federal representative, and he committed a federal representative act, which meant all of us were involved in the act. And because of that, there are consequences to the representative act, which we all suffer. And physical death is primarily in view here.

Paul's going to prove that death passed to all men, not because they sinned on their own, but because Adam sinned. He's also about to show in verse 18 that all men were condemned by Adam's act. They were made to become sinners because of what Adam did. In, death is a divine decree. God told Adam, in the day that you sin, you will surely die. It's appointed unto man, wants to die.

And after this comes judgment. Death involves four consequences from William Newell. First, the utter ending of what we call human life. That's obvious, if you've ever been to a funeral. Second, falling consciously into the fearful hands of that power under which men have, during the lifetime, who live lightly. In other words, death is a reigning principle. Third, being in prison in Sheol or Hades, in the pit where is no water, 1 Corinthians 15, 21, for since by a man came death, one man, by a man also came the resurrection from the dead. And lastly, exposure to the coming judgments, its eternal consequences of sin.

Of course, the believer is rescued from all of this, as we've seen, even physical death if the rapture happens. And that's why you wonder, why does Paul always talk about a believer who physically dies as falling asleep? Why do you think he says that phrase? It's because from a positional standpoint, we already died in Christ.

And again, as we go, and especially in Romans six, we'll see how that goes together. We are past death and judgment for us. You are not gonna be resurrected and then go to a judgment for your sins. Christ, as our substitute, has paid them all, endured them all.

Nevertheless, in this day of mad pleasure-seeking, it's certainly to be fitting for all of us to reflect on the fearful realities connected with death. How do you escape death? You can't. I don't care how people think, the problem is is that death is everywhere, because we've got cemeteries.

So as death spread to all men, because all sin. The word so here is an interesting word. It refers to the sin of one man, that the words all sin must not be read, all have sinned. as the King James puts it. The whole point is that all acted when Adam acted, all sinned. The Aorist tense, sinned. It's a fact. The translation here, have sinned, is to utterly obscure the scripture making man's sinnership to depend on his own act rather than on Adam, which is the whole point of the passage.

And that comes from William Newell. I must admit, the first time you run into this in Romans 5, it causes your brain to shift because you think, wait a minute, that can't be right. But the word of God says it's right. The word of God says that's exactly what happened. Now, Hal asked me about this verse before.

He said, until the law, sin was in the world, Yes, but sin was not imputed or put to the account when there is no law. How is that possible? So it's an astonishing statement. that all those sin was in the world between Adam and Moses 2,500 years, it was not put to the account when there is no law. If you don't violate a law, God doesn't put the sin to your account. But here's the big problem. We're still dying.

Put to the account here is not only means used to, it's used here to, occurs only when, one other time in Philemon 1.18 when Paul said about Philemon, whatever Onesimus' debts are, put them to my account. In other words, here's my credit card, use it for all of his debts. The holy different word of reckoning and this word regards the person. The words in 5.13 regard some items put on one's account.

So you're, if you were living between Moses or Adam and Moses, you were still sinning, but it wasn't put to your account. Okay, so it wasn't put to my account. Well, how come I'm dying? How come there's still cemeteries? Nevertheless, death reigned, reigned, important word, 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 to come. It was to Adam, and not to us, that God said in Genesis 2, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. God never said that to me. Didn't have to. It was to Adam. To whom did Jehovah give the Mosaic law to? He gave it to the Jews. It was Israel through Moses that God gave the 10 commandments.

So what's the argument here? The general argument of Paul here is to show the effect of a federal or representative sin in which an Adam acted, bringing an effect upon the individual connected with him. To understand the force of the word, sin is not put to an account where there is no law, or you can say, as Coney Bare says, sin is not put to the account of a sinner when there is no law forbidding it. You have to remember that sin was in the world from Adam to Moses, that according to chapter one, the race was godless and had rejected the light, given them and were without excuse. We studied that back in chapter one. though they were without the law. Now, God gave every man on the earth, according to Romans chapter one, enough light to know that he existed, that he required them to honor him as God and they'd be thankful.

And what did they do? They said no. They said no. So, If we take a look at the godless race of Adam, you find out that it's not a transgression of law that condemns a man, it's the fact it's anomia, which means I refuse to be controlled. I am self-willed. That's the real issue. It's not the bad things I do, it's the fact that I will not submit myself to God.

There was a work written in their hearts to which their consciences bore witness, either accusing them or excusing them of their behavior. We call it conscience. That this working necessarily corresponded morally to any law afterwards to be revealed by Jehovah. It wasn't a law, it was a mechanism that either excused their behavior or accused them. They deserve judgment and they got judgment.

There was a thing called the flood, there's the overflow of Sodom and Gomorrah, there's destruction of the whole nation of the Canaanites, followed by the filling up of the cup of iniquity. At such times for such sinners both trampled on their own conscience and inherited the previous generation's guilt.

Why would God destroy the world by a flood when there weren't any rules to break? Because sin was in the world, and all of those people sinned when Adam sinned. So, nevertheless, death reigned. That nevertheless The sins between Adam and Moses did not bring about the sentence of death upon humanity. Why? Because those people, though they did sin, did not sin like Adam sinned. God didn't give the people in Noah's time rules and laws, but they still were sinners. We therefore must regard the human races under the sentence of death they did not bring upon themselves. Death reigned from Adam to Moses.

Americans have a tough time understanding the word reign because we're free. It says so in some paper in Washington. Reign is king because the Greek word means that not the power of sin to hold in bondage as in chapter six is going to talk about. is here meant, but the royal word, basilio, is used denoting sovereignty, not mere lordship. Sin and death, especially death, is a sovereign principle under which we all live.

How do we know? Because before our eyes, is a confirmation of this truth. Babies die. There are, and they never did anything wrong. They remind us of the universal effect of Adam's sin. Because death passed to all men. We see from Adam to Moses that death was a reigning principle. Nevertheless, death reigned.

Here Adam is declared A type of the one who was to come. Who is the type of him who was to come? What's the type? And who is the one? Who is the prototype? Is it Adam? Or is it Christ? Was Christ made in the image and likeness of Adam? Or was Adam made in the image and likeness of God? Christ is the prototype. He's the last Adam.

And it's necessary to see by one doctrine regarding our spirits as regarding our bodies. As with the latter, Paul says, as in Adam, all die. So also in Christ shall all be made alive. First Corinthians 15, 22. The first man, Adam, is of the earth, earthy. The second man is of heaven. And as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

So, to close up, let's... The discovery that we are right now no longer connected with the first Adam in which we were born. From now on through probably the next two months, that's really what we're gonna talk about. What's my connection to this first Adam?

What's my connection to the man that made me a sinner? Because I sinned when he sinned. What's my connection and how did God deal with that? You know, we like to say that my sins have been forgiven but have my sin been forgiven? You have to say no. My sin, my sin nature has been condemned because God, it's like if I stood before God as a forgiven sinner, let me put it another way. If I was asked, could you stand before God as a forgiven sinner, what would the answer be? No, I can't because I'm still a sinner. I'm still from Adam. And a sinner has no right, forgiven or otherwise, to stand before a holy God.

So what's the mechanics? God somehow has to take us away or out of the identity with the first Adam and identify us with the second or the last Adam. And that's what's gonna happen as we go forward. The risen Christ is the last Adam. With all of our joy through, all our joy through to chapter eight. When we get to chapter eight, it's magnificent.

But the foundation of this blessing is laid here in the doctrine of the two men. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to be really familiar with the doctrine of the two men, because it gives you a roadmap on why God is doing what he's doing. And why he went through the exercise, it just isn't that he, we're not any longer gonna talk about Christ died to pay the penalty for your sins. We're gonna be dealing with the source of those sins. And that's why it's so important. So let's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace. How we thank you of all that you've done. And the fact that you let us know about it. You teach us not only about what you've done and how it was done, but we're learning, as we talked about in Sunday school, we're learning about your ways, that you do a thorough job in what you do so that we can rest in the resurrected, glorified Christ, and we pray in his name, amen.