Christ Life In Us Romans 5:12-14 Death Reigns Without the Law

Let me get my picture here first. So here's my picture. I spared no expense on the internet. So the title for today's message is Death Reigned Without the Law. So I have a picture of somebody resting in peace, death. You think about it, outside of our Savior and the few that were taken to heaven, Elisha, Elijah, at least two, Everybody dies. That's a guarantee, right? Nobody has proclaimed yet they've overcome death. Some of them only have 120 years, or I'm not sure what the oldest person is. But they can overcome death. But this, we're going to learn today that death reigns. Death, the idea of reign is to sit on a throne. So death is sitting on the throne.

And we're going to learn about that quite a bit different ways. And it's really, this is a neat section. So this actually is almost like a parenthesis. We started with 512 last couple weeks. This is like a parenthesis. So let's kind of get into it here. So this is my little chart for where we're going in this study.

So we've labeled this study Christ's Life in Us. And we're going to study 5.12 through all of 8. And basically this is Christ's life as we learn in these passages of Scripture, Romans 5 through 8. Christ's life is death to all that we were in Adam, all that Adam brought, his fallen nature. We're death to all that, but life is to be lived through the power of the Holy Spirit with Christ living his life through us.

So we have a list of topics we're going to cover. We're roughly going to follow 5.12 through 8 and kind of divide it up into sections. So last week we covered sin entered. We did verse 12 over two weeks. Today we're going to talk about death reigns. Then the following through the rest of chapter 5 we're going to look at the free gift is not like the transgression and so on. So I'll finish out chapter 5.

And then we get into that wonderful chapter six about our union with Christ. And that union is expressed in kind of interesting ways. It talks about, Paul says, we've been baptized into Christ. And your mind goes to water, but don't think water. We'll learn about that a lot down the road. You guys know about that already a lot if you've been here for a while. It's our wonderful union with our Savior and how that's to be the hallmark of our life that Christ is living our life through us, living His life through us.

Okay, so let's go on to today's verses. So we started out back a couple weeks ago and we looked at the anointed cherub from Ezekiel. Look back at the anointed cherub, that's Satan's name before he fell. And in Ezekiel 28, 17 and 18 it says, actually it's 17, and this is Ezekiel speaking about the anointed cherub.

He says, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. And then our brother Chester McCauley says, the anointed cherub, the Satan to be, if you will, before he fell, observed his beauty, this wonderful, magnificent beauty that God had given him, and his wisdom. He was incredibly wise, and he was impressed.

Hey, I made it! I've arrived! And he declared that he was independent of God. So that was the first entrance of what we have sent into God's creation. And then we see the story, and if you notice in those passages we covered a couple weeks ago, that two things about the anointed cherub, he was created, he was a created being, and he was in the garden. So the stage was set for Adam and Eve to appear on the scene. And they did. And what happened is a story we all know pretty well. Both Adam and Eve fell. Eve was deceived, but Adam did it willingly it seems.

So he had the greater sin as we're going to learn because he had almost like a law in front of him. In fact, we're going to see he had a law in front of him or a commandment in front of him. And so this disobedience resulted in sin, the sin nature entering the world. And that sin nature spread to all mankind. all mankind fell in Adam as his head. So think of Adam as being the, he is the person that describes the human race.

He was the first human Created by God and when he fell the entire race fell with him So every person man woman child from that time forward is a fallen creature unfortunate little babies as cute as they are our Fallen creatures and actually I learned that that helped me in my coming to Christ really when I saw our first child I said and he wasn't cooperating he didn't want to feed and I said, this doesn't make any sense. This little baby, he doesn't know anything. He doesn't want to feed. Why doesn't he want to do that? Well, I guess he must have, at that time I didn't realize it, but I guess he must have a sin nature. He didn't want to feed. That seems kind of silly.

Okay, let's carry on here. Okay, so here's our picture of the world. Actually, I studied a little bit longer. Colorado is right about in the center of that thing, right? There's Florida on the right there a little bit. Colorado's right a nice clear day in Colorado as usual so sin entered mankind Sin it says in 512 it says sin and death entered. It's our first verb entered through Adam Death spread to all men and the reason it spread the second verb Was because all sinned not in themselves they sinned in Adam and sin here is the is the sin nature or Adams nature if you will the fallen nature and and that nature every person on the planet has that kind of nature and that's why he sins that's why a sinner sins because he has the nature to sin and that's why Christ had to come and die on the cross to set us free from that sin nature and to pay for our sins okay so that's kind of where we've been so now we're going to start in today's verses for until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no law nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses even over those who had not sinned in the lightness of the offense of Adam who is the type of him who was to come all righty interesting verses So here we go so let's look at actually one thing and this is kind of a if you look if you start reading 512 through the end of the chapter you're going to notice that these two verses 13 and 14 are kind of like a little aside if you will it's like somebody said Paul what about that time period between Adam and Moses God hadn't given any commandment he commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and he gave the law we got this period a long 2,500 years there's no law what about that period so Paul's going to answer that question what about that period you know why did men die what's going on there okay so here's the question that is raised another little picture here here's a timeline so we have in Genesis 3 we describe the fall of Adam and Eve they sinned then 2,500 years passes.

And not everybody agrees with that 2,500 years. So if you have your, I saw as high as 4,000. I saw 2,500 to 4,000. 2,500 seems to be the popular number. I didn't go out and study it out. So if you have some, if you've done that, I applaud you. I didn't do that. It would be a worthwhile study, really.

Anyway, so in Exodus 20, we see the law given. So 2,500 years passed. So people died. So if you read your Bible, read from Genesis to Exodus 20, you're going to see lots of people died, right? Lots and lots of people died, but with no law. No Mosaic law was given. If there's no law, there can be no transgressions. We'll see that idea come up many times. And since death is a penalty for transgression of the law, why did those people die?

And you kind of already know the answer. I've already kind of given you the answer to that question. But if you haven't kind of picked up on it, hopefully by the end of this message you'll understand that. okay so let's carry on here in verse 13 it starts out for until the law until here's the idea until the day until the day of the law you could say speak in the mosaic law sin was in the world And in this case, you know, I've been making a big deal about looking really carefully at when you look at sin, singular, and sin, plural.

In this case, it's sin, singular, but we don't have a the in front of it, if you will. We don't have what's called a definite article. So it's referring to a principle. So we're talking about how sin, missing the mark of God's righteousness, is operating in the world. How does sin operate is what we're talking about in the world. And was is this continuous action verb in pastime. So sin was continuously acting this way in the world, is what was being said.

The world speaks of, if you look at that world, it's the same one in John 3.16, for God so loved the world, all the human race, all of mankind. So we already learned, you know, in the past couple weeks that Adam sinned and sin and death entered the world.

I like to think about this, you know, sin and death is a package. You can't have one without the other. But that's one side. On the other side we have grace and truth. Sin and death, grace and truth. A wonderful contrast. and sin and death remain until the law. They didn't go away, God didn't say, oh, okay, no commandment, no law, we get a hiatus, there's no death and no sin's gonna happen. No, Adam already had put the human race on a course downward, if you will, down the primrose path, or not a good place. Okay, so let's carry on to the second half. So I like the Weiss translation here.

This word imputed can be translated to put to one's account. So it would read, but sin is not put to one's account, is what's being said. And again, it's the principle of sin being spoken of here. So put to one's account is this word that talks about, it's denoted to being charged or if you're If you have a record, a police record, or you have tickets, you know, how many tickets were put to your account or how much money is put to your account in the bank, that's always a good thing.

Yvonne had the case where she goes into the bank and we were going to deposit some money and we didn't have something and the teller told her, well, ma'am, You're welcome to deposit as much money as you want in the bank. We don't care how much money you want to put in here. You just put it in the bank. That's not the problem. It's taking the money out of the bank that we're concerned about. You put all the money into the bank, we don't care. Taking it out, we have a problem with. So this is talking about things being put to our account. So sin being put to our account. OK.

So Paul's talking about this is how God's operating. He's not putting to man's account. between Adam and Moses, he's not putting that to his account, but there being no law, there's no law system out there. So a couple verses that actually, let me put them both up there.

So Romans 3.20 and Romans 4.15 kind of talk about that. It says, through the law comes the knowledge of sin. And then 4.15 says, but where there is no law, there's no violation. So the law is important. defining and highlighting and spotlighting sin. It says the standard was this and you violated that standard and therefore you're guilty.

So that standard wasn't in place during this time period. So the middle part of that no violation since God had not given a commandment during the time period. But we know men still died. We have all the people, look at all the people that died during that time period, that 2,500 years. Lots of people died, and men still sinned, right? Men were still dying and sinning during that time period with no law in place. Okay, so let's go on. So here's my little picture of 513.

So once again, we have Adam's sin, we have the giving of the law, 2,500 years, So on the left we have God gave a direct commandment, and he said in Genesis 12, 12, Genesis 2, 16, 17, he says, for the Lord God said, Lord God commanded, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, 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. So that was God's direct commandment, and Adam and Eve violated that commandment, and they fell, and that's where the problem began, right?

But during this time period, there was no direct commandment at all. But, if you look at Genesis, not too many chapters later, Genesis before the flood, things weren't going too well in the world, right? Things were going terrible, in fact. So God says, through Moses, he says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart were evil continually. No law in place, but man still was, because he was descended from Adam, he still continued down that path. So as I think McGee says, none broke the law, since there was no law. So no law was broken, but man still sinned and died.

Okay, so now to verse 14. So verse 14 starts off with kind of a contrast. It says, nevertheless, it's going to make the point I've kind of said, you know, in this message I kind of found, we're kind of talking, you know, Paul comes to this, he likes to really dig into things. Chester McCauley made this statement, so I get this right.

He says, if the Apostle Paul had a son, I'm not sure he had a son, but if he had a son, this is how he would explain to him about bedtime. He would take an hour to explain to him about the benefits of bedtime, why you should go to bed on time. He would explain to him all the details of this. At the end of that hour, his son, now go to bed.

So Paul was very much into looking at things from many different approaches and saying, let's figure this out. And he does it from so many different ways. So it seems like he's repeating himself. So here we go. He's going to somewhat repeat himself here.

He says, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses. So nevertheless is contrasting the fact that sin not being put to one's account. No law, not put to one's account, but, oh by the way, death is reigning, right? Death reigned. And this idea of death reigning, my picture at the beginning, right? Death reigns, it's the idea that It's like a king on the throne. Death is a king, and it's reigning over mankind, reigning over all of unsaved mankind, and it's still doing that today.

That's what the sad thing is for people outside of Christ, the unsaved. Death is reigning in their lives. They don't realize it, but it's on the throne of their life. And this is from Merriman. He points out that you could translate, you could say that death was in control. On the throne and control are kind of similar ideas. Death is in control as a king over unsaved mankind. But the point is, death was in existence because sin was in existence. As I mentioned before, sin and death go together. You get sin, you get death.

Together, they're inseparable. You can't have one without the other. from Adam until Moses, and I got my number from the Berean Bible Society. Like I said, I found a 4,000 number someplace. I'm not sure who those people are, but whatever. If you have a number, let me know. It would be interesting to know. Okay, let's carry on.

The middle part of the verse says, over those people living between Adam and Moses who had not sinned, they didn't sin in the strictest sense, right? Because there was no commandment, no law that said, thou shalt not, whatever, steal, lie, and so on. There was no commandment, but they still sinned because of Adam.

It's going to tell us that. In the likeness of the offense of Adam. Lightness is the idea that made like something, resembling something. Offense is the idea of transgression, wrongdoing, law-breaking. Adam sinned when he disobeyed God's commandment. No commandment was given to those between Adam and Moses, but death reigned because of Adam's sin.

Is that fair of God? I think whenever we ask that question, that's really not a biblical question because God, we cannot... God is gracious. Fairness doesn't even come into the equation. I kind of thought that, that's kind of a silly question, Roger. You know, we think, that doesn't seem fair. Why should he, why should he done that? No, he's gracious. We may think he's unfair, but we don't understand his ways as well as we should. So he's gracious and not unfair. Okay, let's carry on here.

Last part, who is a type of him who was to come? Type, he's a type of Adam. This is this cool word, tupos. It's a type or a figure or a pattern. So it's the idea of a person bearing a form or figure of another, having a certain resemblance in relationship. I was trying to think of a good example. I couldn't think of a good example. Maybe in the entertainment world, I don't know. I don't know enough about entertainment to give you a good example.

But Adam is a type of Christ, and we'll see that shortly. Adam and he and Adam continual throughout scripture Adam continues to exist in that state as a type and we're gonna see that actually coming up in the last part of chapter 5 we're gonna see You know, we're gonna see first some statement about Christ and some statement about Adam and Adam Christ Adam Christ back and forth comparing those two and contrasting Jesus Christ, the type of Jesus Christ who was to come.

A couple of verses that talk about that. In 1 Corinthians 15, 45 it says, so also as it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living soul, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. So Adam versus the last Adam Christ. Then in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, for as in Adam all die, So also in Christ, all may be made alive. All right.

So, I have a couple of charts here on kind of comments about these verses. And first of all, this is a contrast between Adam and Christ. This is from Constable, quoting others here. Constable says, from the other person, Adam came from the earth, but Jesus is Lord from heaven.

Adam was tested in the garden, surrounded by beauty and love. Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, and he died on a cruel cross, surrounded and hated by ugliness, and hated. Adam was a thief. And actually, I had to pause for a minute there. Adam was a thief.

So some have taken that to be the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was actually God's tree, right? And when Adam partook of that tree, he was stealing from God. I don't know whether I exactly agree with that logic, but that's this gentleman who he's quoting did. Adam was a thief and was cast out of paradise. Jesus turned to a thief and said, today you shall be with me in paradise. The Old Testament is a book of the generation of Adam and it ends with a curse. And as we know, the New Testament is a book of generations of Jesus Christ. It ends with no more curse. You know, just marvelous contrast between Adam and Christ.

And what's wonderful is, and our brother Mike likes to point this out a lot, when you become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, your history changes. Before, as an unsaved person, all your history is in Adam, right? You all trace all back to Adam. When you become a believer, your history changes. You now are traced back to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. You have a new history. And that's what's so wonderful. You change from Adam to Christ when you believe on the Lord Jesus.

Okay, so here's 10 points, two charts, 10 points, but what Paul tries to do, I like Paul, what Merriman tries to do here, he thought Paul's argument here in 13 and 14 were hard to follow, maybe you do too, so he said, I'm gonna create 10 points to make this simpler. You may not think that when I finish, but I think it's good, it's really pretty good. So here we go, he's gonna try to explain Paul's logic in verses 13 through 14.

Okay, he starts off, a penalty implies a broken law or commandment. That's point one. Death is a penalty. Adam's sin equals a transgression of a direct commandment. Adam's sin equals a transgression of direct commandment. Sin is not put to your account where there's no direct commandment or law.

So we kind of see what he's setting up here. Adam and Eve had a direct commandment, but this time period had no direct commandment Okay, that's what he's trying to show that contrast five says no commandment or law existed between Adam and Moses Sid did not partake or take on the character of a transgression it's not as sinful as it could have been sin is more sinful and It's more sin if you know something is wrong and you do it anyway. If you didn't know it was wrong, actually God, that's less a sin.

I mean, I hope I'm saying that right. That's kind of what scripture talks about. Sin, the law, or commandment highlights sin, puts a spotlight on sin. Okay, transgression is a willful stepping over the line of commandment or law. When you step over the line, knowing what is wrong, sin takes on a deeper significance.

So why did death reign from Adam to Moses? Death reigned because Adam's sin, which involved every member of the human race, Adam's posterity shared in the effects of an act done by the representative head of the human race. So you can blame Adam, is the bottom line. You can't blame Adam for your sins, you can blame Adam for your sin nature.

I hope I'm saying that right. Michael, correct me if I'm wrong here. A couple of additional thoughts here. Sin is not spotlighted when there's no commandment. So a couple of verses along that line. We said this this morning in the Galatians class. In Galatians 3.19 it says, Why then the law? It was added for the sake of defining transgressions. The law defines the transgression. You define what it really is. You've broken the speed limit. You've told a lie, whatever it might be.

Then in Romans 7.13 it says that sin, by the commandment, might become exceedingly sinful. kind of reinforcing that point. The commandment spotlights the awfulness of sin. Then one last point, Coney Bear, which is a, I think he's a brother and writer, he paraphrased what we've been talking about. He says, sin is put to the account of the sinner. So he added that little of the sinner. If that helps you, that's good. Sin is, I'm sorry, sin is not put to the account of the sinner where there's no law, but he's still a sinner.

That's what it's trying to say there. So I'm probably totally confusing you by now, but anyway. Okay, if that hasn't confused you enough, let's try to wrap it up here. Okay, so this actually is from Kelly. Not Kelly. It's from Newell. I have to make a correction here. This is from Newell.

He says, we therefore must regard the human race as under a sentence of death. they did not bring upon themselves. So the human race is under a sentence of death. They did not bring upon themselves. Unlike Adam, unlike Israel after Moses, those who live between the two had no positive or outward divine law. Nevertheless, the death reigned over them. Constantly before our eyes is the evidence of the same truth. Babies that know nothing of right or wrong die, and this one kind of chokes you up a little bit. Every little white coffin, yea, every coffin, should remind us of the universal effect of the sin of Adam. For it was thus, and only thus, that death passed on all men.

Pretty pretty somber message for today, so let's pray dear Heavenly Father We thank you so much Lord for the completeness of your word how you're precise you don't leave any loose ends everything is covered every Aspect that man might question is covered. We thank you for the Apostle Paul and his how careful he is to Portray the God that you are that loved us and died for us, and we thank you for that we ask it in his name Amen