Adam and Christ Contrasted
Romans 5:15-17 · Roger Henderson · Aug 6, 2023
Romans (2022-25), No. 035
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261932157438

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

Well, good morning. It's nice to be back. It's nice to, uh, we sailed the, uh, the lakes blue, not the ocean blue. We sailed the lakes, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately, that cruise is going to be discontinued. I don't know. They, yeah, it was pretty cool. I got to be in Mike's territory, Mike's home territory there. It was really great. Maybe we'll, we'll talk more about that. Okay. So. I get to carry on here. It's just a fantastic section here.

So I'd like to go back and actually review just verse 12 a little bit and then go on to 15 through 17. And so I've labeled this Adam and Christ's contrast. Mike had the doctrine of the two men. This idea about comparing what Adam's transgression was about what Christ's gift is kind of goes through the entire section here, 12 through the end of the chapter. Okay, so let's look at how sin entered the world. That's kind of what I labeled 5.12. So I'm going to repeat some things that Mike said.

Hopefully it'll be helpful here. So here's verse 12, kind of organized, kind of in four sections, and if you could look Remember our brother Hal and his sentence diagramming? I can remember the time when Hal came and he said, Roger, I've learned how to diagram in the Greek. I can diagram God's Word. He was just so pumped up about that, and Mike can attest to that too. And he just said, should I show those in the main service? Would that be too much? And I think maybe it might have been. He did that.

So I don't have the diagram, but I have basically Those four lines, under therefore, those four lines are what you would see if you were to diagram it, because there's a subject and verb in each of those statements. So the statements are, therefore, here's the first statement, justice through one man, and the definite article is going to be important here, the sin, or the sin nature, entered into the world. That's statement number one. Statement number two, and death, and you take the verb from from statement number one and it's by context it applies to death and it actually is the death entered through the sin so the death entered through the sin nature and the third statement is and so death the death spread to all men and here's the summary of that because all sinned and that last statement can be a stumbling block I think if you're not careful But hopefully it's going to open up an understanding of how bad it is. How bad is that one transgression that Adam did in the garden? How bad is that? It's pretty bad. And it's pretty devastating to the whole of creation. So there really are three verbs there. So let's talk about that a little bit.

So there are three verbs, entered, spread, and send. And they're basically subject with each of those. The first subject is the sin entered, and then it has the death entered, and then the death spread, and then all sinned. And the question of who's the all, we'll talk about that shortly.

So it's important to kind of see that. The next important thing, well actually before that, the other important thing is that the verb tense. All the verb tense of those three verbs, entered, spread, and sinned, are in what's called the aorist indicative active. That's you know we talk about that on off a lot And it's helped me and in studying in recent years and listening to different teachers especially Macaulay to think of the heiress tense and I know others talk about to heiress is best thought of it as an event it's an event that happened and So we're going to see this is going to talk about an event. This is the event of that we read about in chapter 3 of Genesis, the fall of man. And so these verbs tell us about what happened in that event. And their indicative means it's reality, it's truthful. And active, we're going to see the subject in each of those three cases.

But actually, the person, the main actor, if you will, is Adam in this whole thing. So Paul is telling us about the event, an event, that happened in the life of one man, Adam. It really happened because the indicative mood and Adam produced the action even though we're going to see we're going to have statements about the sin nature and about the death and so on that that are the subject of each of these statements. So one of the first things is to realize and we teach here a lot that the sin is speaking of Adam's fallen nature or his sin nature.

So let's go on to some other observations here about this. So what I've done here, I went through and I said, OK, we have those four statements. Can we make them more expansive? And I started reading and there's just so much written. I think Chester McCauley said there's more written about verse 12. I mean, it's just there's so much written about verse 12. After a while, you start reading it and you say, well, how does it connect to each of those four statements? And I found it hard. So I said, well, I just step back and let me look at each of these four statements and see if I can expand a little bit and explain it a little bit better. And that's what I'm trying to do here. Okay, so the first statement is, the sin nature, the sin nature, Adam's nature, entered into the world. So that's that first statement. This happened through one man, Adam only.

The results of that sin nature was death, both physical and spiritual. And we see that not only from the statement here, we see that from other places, especially like in Genesis there where it says, when God gave the commandment to Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he says, in dying, literally, in dying you will surely die. Kind of speaking of two aspects of death, I think, physical and spiritual. And then we see another statement there, I think it's the second statement or third statement. The death also entered through the sin nature. So we have two things going on. Two things entered. We have sin entered the world, the sin nature, and then we have the death entered. Two things entered into all of mankind, if you will.

And then it talks about this spreading effect, I think the third statement. And this death spread to all men, all mankind, Here and then the next statement is really key and it's sometimes not understood or overlooked And as much it has that because because all sinned and you think well is that mean?

Because I send each day is that is that proof of that happening? No, what is saying is? You send in Adam when he sinned and you say well wait a minute Roger I'm I'm only How old are you today, you know? 50, 70, 80, you know, those ages. No, you sin in what's called your head. Adam is the head of a race. You sinned in him. So that puts a whole different picture on the problem that mankind has, because you sinned in Adam when he sinned, and that's just really key.

And then the summary of that is, therefore, this is in terms of death, therefore man's death must be due to the sin nature in mankind. So we see two things. Everyone dies. There's not a person that's not going to die. That's because of Adam. And that we also sinned in Adam when he sinned. And both those things have tremendous effect on how we should see life.

Okay, that's my short little summary. I could talk, as Mike mentioned, he had just great charts and great, there's so much more to say about verse 12, but for right now I'm going to put it aside and we're going to look at We're going to come back to these same ideas in 15-17. So let's go on. So here's 15-17. And I've highlighted some of the key concepts here. We kind of have this contrast going on in these verses. And you can divide these verses roughly. You can take a knife and slice them in half. And I'm going to try to do that pictorially for you here in a second.

But you're going to see this free gift The free gift is what Christ did on the cross, and what we receive by faith, this free gift of eternal life. It's going to be contrasted with this transgression that Adam committed. So through these verses you see those two things being contrasted, and the results of each. There's results of the free gift, and there's results of the transgression. And it filters through 15, 16, 17, and then also into 18 and 19.

Paul's going to contrast each of those. the great effect of Adam's fall and the great blessing of Christ's free gift on the cross. So I've highlighted some of the words in there, the one, so I created some definitions here. Okay, kind of pulling out, so here's the first definition, free gift. The free gift And there's a little bit of controversy, a little bit of difference of opinion sometimes, but I think the free gift, as best as I can, is defined later in Romans 6, but the free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The transgression is clearly, the transgression is Adam's disobedience as recorded in Genesis chapter 3, the fall. The one, the one with lowercase one refers to Adam.

The many, this is kind of a toughie, the many can have two different meanings depending on how it's used in the context. In some cases it means all mankind, all fallen mankind. In other cases it means all believers. And you kind of scratch your head and say why would Paul use the many when he could have used all, all fallen man, he could have used all believers. He chose to use the many and it seems like that's I don't exactly understand why it's used, but I know it's used in a few other places, like in Isaiah 53, it's used to talk about the many are used there in the context of my servant will justify the many. So it is used in other places, but it has a much more expansive definition. Then lastly, the one, capitalized one, refers to our Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, so now here's my attempt. I'm going to slice and dice here. We're going to slice this verse up into three sections. Hopefully it's helpful. If it's not, I'm sorry. Hopefully it's helpful. Let's just go with that. The first part. So in this verse, it's going to make a general statement, a general contrast that it's going to talk about. It's going to talk about The transgression of Adam and then and then the blessing of Jesus Christ so the statement here from verse 15 But the free gift is not like the transgression and from those definitions of free gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus and the transgression is it's a fall of Adam and Genesis chapter 3 so it is saying they're not alike the free gift is not like the transgression so the second part of this so this is the middle part of the verse and For if, or since, by the transgressions of the one, Adam, many died, there's our many, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abound to many.

So hopefully this little picturization helps you here, because we got the transgression of the one, and the many died, And then much more than that, overabounding the grace of God and the gift of Jesus Christ abounds to many. So you see the many being used in different ways here, hopefully. So now we're going to kind of dive into this in a little more detail here. So hopefully this is helpful.

But the free gift is not like the transgression. But Allah, in strong contrast, so Paul will now give us, will contrast the sin nature in the world with God's grace through Jesus Christ and there's a definite article is there so we have the free gift and this is Charisma a gift of grace a gift involving God's grace from Charis the word for grace and so here's the definition that I kind of picked up the free gift from Romans 6 23 for the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord and you know what I highlight in there you know the point is eternal life is in a person it's not just oh great I got eternal life no eternal life is in a person it's in the person of our Savior and you could say it this way God's grace is displayed by eternal life in our living union Christ Jesus we have this living relationship and we're going to see that so much more in detail as we get farther into chapter 6 this wonderful union we have with our Savior because we're we have all the blessings of God and it's in our Savior in a person and our Lord Jesus Christ okay and that's it it's not like or not as so here's the trick here's the other side of The green bubble. Notice I have the blue bubble and the green bubble. Blue is not so good. Green is good, right?

Anyway, that was supposed to be a little visual thing there. Maybe I overdid it. We'll see. Transgression. So it's not like the transgression, paroptima, of falling alongside a deviation from the right path. So the free gift is not like this transgression of Adam. Adam's original sin was a violation of God's will.

And God's will was only, you know, we only have just one snapshot of that, it seems like, and that's in Genesis 2.16. I referred to this earlier. So in 2.16, God gives his, this is his will for Adam, this is his commandment to Adam. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely. But from the tree of the knowledge of the good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. And that's where I picked up a better translation of surely die. In dying, you will surely die.

I think I have that right. Okay, so the consequences of the transgression, so now we see, he makes that statement, so now we're going to see the consequences of that. The first of the consequences, that's the blue bubble, and then we're going to see the green bubble, we're going to see the contrast with the free gift. Okay, for by the transgressions of one, many died. So this refers to... It's interesting. We're going to see that it's one transgression, one act, and then on the other side it's many, many transgressions, many acts. In 16 we're going to see that kind of comparison.

But this is one transgression, many died, so the effect was not just on Adam, but on his entire race. So the whole human race transgressed when Adam transgressed. In this case of Adam, the many means, this is from Constable, in this case of Adam, the many means all people, but in the case of Christ, the many means all who have received the benefit of his saving act of faith, namely all believers. So now the blessing, much more, vastly superior to that, Much more here shows that Jesus Christ did not just cancel debt, not just cancel the effect of Adam's sin, but he provided more than Adam's loss or even possessed, namely the righteousness of God. Adam wasn't righteous, he was just innocent. So a believer now in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has made him righteous, which is just incredible. So we see much more than Adam's transgression, much more in comparison to Adam.

And the verse goes on, much more to the grace of God. So there's kind of like double grace here. Some of it talks about the grace of God, God the Father. And then it talks about this grace of the Son, if you will. So this is sort of a general statement, if you will, about God's grace, who He is, that's how He operates. And now he talks kind of specifically the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ. And I always just love this verse, you know, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift, this gift of his grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.

It abounds to many, it abounds to all believers, and abounds the idea that it exceeds, it's an excess, it's more than enough, and it's a Point in time is Aristotelian and it's reality So it's in fact every believer has more than enough grace You may not think you do but you do God's Word says that you do you have more than enough grace So, okay, so that's that's verse 6 verse 15, so now we're going to do the same thing with 16 Okay, so you start off again with this general statement, if you will, or general contrast.

So now we have, the gift is not like that which comes through the one who sinned. So we have the gift, and it's the same word. The same word translated free gift in 15 is translated just the gift here. It's not like that which comes through the one who sinned. And what came through the one who sinned? It was his transgressions, right? So it's the same kind of general statement.

And then we have the two divisions. We have what happened for the transgression of Adam and what happened from the free gift of Christ. So first, the transgression. And this has this structure in the Greek, which is kind of neat. It has this on the one hand versus on the other hand structure. So on the one hand, judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

And that's contrasted with, but on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification. And boy, if you look at that, I mean, Vani was reviewing these charts, and it's just so beautiful, that comparison. You say, wow, one transgression. You think, was God just super picky?

No, he knew one was enough. One was enough. He didn't need to go any farther. One transgression was enough. But what's amazing is God took all of our transgressions, took all of our transgressions and dealt with those. And the free gift arose out of all of our transgressions, resulting in our justification. Just an incredible statement here. So now down to the nitty-gritty here. So the gift again, I believe, is the same word as eternal life.

It's not like. Charisma, the same word. It's not like or not as. That which came through the one who sinned. Again, the one is Adam. Having sinned. Again, the verb tenses here are all talking about, and it's like Paul is taking you back time if you will and he says here's the event here's what happened here are the details this is what happened this is what what Adam happened to Adam and this is what happened to you and this is what Christ did and he's going back to that time and what he's doing is he's validating the truthfulness and the authority of Genesis many people take Genesis and they think well those are nice stories nice stories about the garden nice stories about Adam and Eve and Well, Paul says, no, these aren't stories.

These are events that actually happened. And those events determine the whole human race and what happened to it. So he validates Genesis here. So this is the event of Adam's disobedience. And it's reality. It actually happened. And Adam was the one that produced the action. OK, we go on.

Now, the middle part. So here's the negative part, if you will. So it's this contrast, and in the Greek, the word is m-e-n, in the Greek, men. When you see that in the Greek text, you know what follows is going to be on the one hand, and then you'll see the d-e, and you'll know what follows is on the other hand.

Judgment arose from Adam's one transgression of Adam. It took only one transgression. Constable picks up on that. In Adam's case, a single sin by a single individual was sufficient to bring condemnation to the whole human race. Here's the other side of the coin. But on the other hand, de, in the Greek, the free gift arose from many transgressions. The transgressions of mankind, and I think that's kind of pictured here in this beautiful verse in 1 John 2. We all can probably memorize this.

That he himself, Christ, is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for those of the whole world. So God dealt with all the transgressions. And by dealing with all those transgressions, it resulted in being able to justify a man who puts his faith in Him. So it says here, Constable points out, in Christ's case, one act of obedience, which the transgressions of many people made necessary, was sufficient to bring about justification to all those who believe in Him. So we have that wonderful picture of the many versus the one and how God dealt with our transgressions. Okay, so now we go on to verse 17. Verse 17 actually doesn't have a kind of an introductory statement. It just kind of jumps right in to the contrast between Adam's transgressions and Christ's free gift.

So it just starts out For if, or since, by the transgressions of the one Adam, death reigned through the one Adam. So now we get back, this idea of death reigning was introduced. Mike introduced it last week a little bit. But as a result of Adam's action, death is reigning. So that's what transpired through Adam's transgressions.

But much more, but God much more, To those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. So we have, if you look here carefully, you have death reigning and you have will reign in life. And if you look through, you know, first you think, well, what's reigning here? We have death reigning. Death is on the throne, so to speak.

Then you have over here will reign. If you look through, Those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. Well, who's that? Right? That's that's every believer right in the Lord Jesus Christ So you could say the believer reigns in life through the one Jesus Christ So you have death reigning? But much more the believer is reigning in life through Jesus Christ.

So really really cool cool comparison here Okay, so let's look at the details here For if by the conditions of one, Adam, so you could say if is sense or in view of the fact, and by is by means of. Again, Adam's act of disobedience is presented. Death reigns through the one.

So again, this is both physical and spiritual death. And this is this word, reign, is the idea, basileo, I think it's pronounced. It's one who sits on a throne and rules. So you have death, and this is not a very pleasant picture. Death is reigning. Death is the one that's reigning. It's reigning on a throne. That's what he's presenting here, by his transgression. Death is reigning on the throne. Again, this is speaking of an event, Aristence, So spiritual death is on the throne.

So that's what the family or the line of Adam is all about, is that death is reigning on the throne. And just imagine, if you try to convey that to people, you say, you know what, from Adam, death is reigning. And it's hard, you know, without scripture to tell you that, you would never, you can't imagine that. It sounds almost morbid. Death is reigning on the throne for those in Adam.

And it says, much more, exceedingly above and beyond the transgression, those who receive the abundance of grace, the ones receiving, present tense, continuous action, the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is continually receiving this. It's speaking of the present position of every believer. We're continually receiving this abundance of grace. And it has two parts to that. The first part is, it's the abundance of grace. No amount of sin, and this is where the superlatives are just amazing. No amount of sin can overcome grace. You can't out-sin God.

And of course we're going to see, that's going to be exactly the question we're going to start chapter 6 with. Because Paul's going to address that right off the bat. Because somebody's going to say, well, if that's the case, I'll sin big time. And Paul's going to totally destroy that and say, may it never be.

The fact that God's grace has overcome sin and will continue to overcome sin is not a license for sin. So then 520 kind of tells us more about this abounding grace and just the magnitude of that. We're going to cover that part of that maybe next week. The law came in so that the transgressions would increase. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Okay, so that's the blue side of the picture, right? The transgressions part. The devastating effect of Adam's sin.

Of death reigning and death continuing to reign on all men outside of Jesus Christ. Well, now here's the good news. The gift of righteousness But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness." So that's a marvelous gift that God gives to every believer based upon his faith in Jesus Christ.

And notice, he doesn't ask us to work. He doesn't say, get busy, do something. You know, join a church, do this, do that. He doesn't say that. He says, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly. It's about our faith that God is interested in, not our doing.

We'll reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. The believer is now reigning through Jesus Christ. We may not feel like we're reigning. So what does reign in life mean? Notice it's We're not just, okay, I'm a king, I'm a king for a day. No, you're a king only through your Savior, only through the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's a couple of comments from our brother Hal.

The contrast, I think I mentioned this already, the contrast is between death reigning and all those who are in Adam versus the believer reigning. So the believer is king, not death. You know, and there's a beautiful thing, O death, where is your sting? O death, where is your victory?

The believer can look death straight in the face and say, I've overcome that. I don't have to worry about that. Because of Christ's death for me, I've overcome. I'm now with Him. I've overcome death. I'm king. The believer is under the control of the Holy Spirit, will reign in life, and will reign with Christ when He comes. So now I have my section on final thoughts. So here's my final thought. I kind of struggle with this. What should I say for today? So here's my thought. I'm going to start with a question.

Whose family are you in? Probably the most important question that any person on the earth can ask. Most people don't realize they're in Adam's family. For starters, they don't believe it. They say, Adam? That's just a guy in that story in the Old Testament, right? Well, Paul says, no, that's actually the truth. So whose family am I in? Well, here's the headline. Every person on the planet starts in Adam's family. Whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not, you're in Adam's family.

Even though Ryan and I get the wonderful privilege, we have five grandchildren. We've got to hold each one of those five grandchildren different times. I mean, just incredible, wow, amazing, just amazing. And just such intellect, our little daughter, Lila, granddaughter, Lila, she's just so, she's three years old, but she's so, her mind is just so amazing. Just so amazing. But, that little girl comes from Adam. And so she comes with issues, I'm sorry to say. Every person on the planet is in Adam's family. Every person, including our little granddaughter Lila, sinned when Adam sinned.

Therefore, every person needs to recognize that his actions, whether good or bad, you might be the best person doing the best things, the most generous, give all your money to the poor, all these things, it counts for nothing. Only God can change your family relationship. Only God can take you from Adam to Christ. There's no other way. You can't say, I'm tired of Adam. I don't like him. I'll follow Christ. I'll do what he did. No, that doesn't work that way. No matter how much money you give, how good a person you are, you cannot attain that.

God has a specific way for people to come to know Him. And only God can change the family relationship. So the question is What will bring what will what will allow you to? To change your family change your family from Adam to Christ So a couple verses occurred to me first one is and this just restates what I said It's by his doing that you're in Christ Jesus. So God has to do it. God has to change you from Adam to Christ and the second part of that is What's the most important thing in God's economy to him? What is the key thing about a relationship with God? It says, without faith it's impossible to please Him. So faith is the mechanism by which man interfaces with God.

And so the question that scripture shows time and time again, it's faith It's just not faith in faith's sake, it's faith in a person, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, and what's called His work on Calvary, His dying on Calvary. And that's stated very plainly, that Christ, the God-man, died for our sins according to the Scripture, and was buried and rose on the third day.

You know, I think a verse that I don't use often, but I think it's really good. We're going to cover it here in maybe a year or two Romans 10 9 often misunderstood That if you confess and it's to God not to men. Oh, we'll see that a year from now Or we can talk about now if you want later on if you confess over the mouth that's confession to God that Jesus Christ is Lord and don't get hung up on on Lordship salvation.

He's Lord whether you you know, you don't have to He is Lord. He'll always be Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved It's as simple as that God operates in the basis of faith. You're in Adam's family You need to meet us the Christ family and that's and that's and that's how you do it through simple faith and what Christ has done on the cross So hopefully that's helpful.

Hopefully that's encouraging Maybe there's some that that really haven't come to grips with that. Hopefully they will and So let's close. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much. We thank you for your son, for his marvelous gift of himself on the cross of Calvary. We thank you for our time today in your word. In Christ's name, Amen.