Christ Life In Us Rom. 5:15-17 The Free Gift is not Like the Transgression
Rom: 5:15-17 · Brian White · Sep 28, 2025
Christ's Life in Us, No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926194113541

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

Well, good morning. It's good to be back here. Back in May, mid-May, I was here with my wife, kind of passing back from vacation. It's good to be back with you, since I heard that for, I think, for eternity you're going to stay in the Book of Romans. I figured I would like to be a partaker in that, so it graciously allowed me to come back. So my verses today are chapter 5, verse 15 through 17.

So before we get into that, when I teach, I usually like to give kind of a recap, not necessarily of just the previous week, but also kind of get a running start, if you will, just to make sure that we know where we are in the whole context, specifically in the context of Romans itself.

So the big picture of Romans, if you remember, the first 11 chapters is primarily doctrine. In fact, I think there's only a handful, four, maybe five total actual imperatives or commands in the whole first 11 chapters. And then 12 through 16 is pretty much nothing but application. So you gotta get the information before you know what to do with it. So that's kind of the big picture.

And to go a little bit more specific, at least leading up to where we are in chapter 5, in 118 through 320, he's going to talk about how all men are guilty. And then building on top of that, in 321 through 521, he's going to talk about how justification is by faith. And then in 6.1 through 839, he's going to talk about our victory over sin or what he did about that. And then chapters 9 through 11 is primarily Israel-focused. And then 12 through 16, of course, is our conduct based on all of that information.

So a little bit more specific leading up to us today, so hopefully you can read that. 118 through 32 is talking about all sinners, kind of like your general or generic sinner. And then 2, 1 through 11 is going to address people who judge those sinners in chapter 1. And then the latter part of, or the middle of chapter 2 is going to focus more on the Gentile sinners. which leaves another group called the Jews, and in 2.17-29, well, Jews are sinners too. So you're in the audience in Rome and you're reading this or being read this publicly, you're thinking, man, Jews are sinners just like the Gentiles?

Well, then who's better? And since I live in the South, in Georgia, I'm envisioning Paul reaching deep down, and in his best Southern accent, he's saying in 3.1 through 20, none of y'all ain't no good. And, I can't do the Southern accent, I'm sorry. And, none of y'all even seek me.

And it's almost like you're in the, I'm imagining myself in the audience there as these are being read, and this picture comes to mind. Now, where is this from? That's what everybody thinks. Everybody thinks this is from Home Alone. It's actually the Jewish reaction from the public reading of Romans.

So after 3.1 through 20, Paul's going to make his argument using logic. And using logic, he's going to use a lot of connective words. So we're going to do a deep dive on word study today. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. So I recently taught a class back in Georgia on Bible study methods.

The typical methodology is observation, then interpretation, and then application, with some nuances there, some caveats. But the whole idea is you have to start with observation, because if you don't know what is there, how do you know what it means? So this sounds kind of elementary or basic, but I have found just in my own study, especially leading up to this, is let's just observe what it says. And I don't mean just read it. I mean really look and then ask questions.

So when we do that, especially here in Chapter 3, we see a lot of logical words that he uses. So look at the logical words that he uses here to close out Chapter 3 in 21 through 31. He uses, but now, for, for, because, for, so that, for, since. All right? So he's building an argument using these connective words. So what's he doing here in these 10 verses? He's building an argument that justification is by faith, and that it's available to all who believe because there's no distinction, and that justification is by grace through redemption in Christ, and that we can't take any credit.

And I apologize for the size, the size didn't really come through, so these are really tiny, so you may not be able to read these. But moving on to chapter 4, he's continuing his argument of justification by faith, and you may not be able to read those, but you have a whole lot of other connective logical words, for, now, but, just as. He's continuing this. And then there's more in Chapter 4. So again, he's building this logical case. So what's he saying in Chapter 4? Well, he's continuing his argument that justification is by faith.

And he uses Abraham as an example. You had a lot of Jewish people in Rome, and they're thinking, well, that's great for the Gentiles, but There's a lot of past in our history, Israel's history. So I'm going to trust or look to see what Abraham did. Well, Abraham, what he did in chapter 4, verse 1, Abraham discovered that justification is by faith.

In fact, it uses the literal word eureka. That's where we get it from. Moving on to chapter five, the first 11 verses, we have a lot more logic words. Just in 11 verses, he's going to use seven of these. He's building his case. So what's he saying here?

The focus here is on the results of justification. The results of justification is that it's by faith. And those results, some of those results include peace with God, there's hope in suffering, There's confidence in God's love, we can have assurance of salvation, and it's all by Christ's death. So, as we lead into the verses that we're going to be covering today, based on all of this that I just covered, he's going to say, therefore. Therefore, he's continuing his logical flow, however, he's introducing something new. where sin came from, what happened because of it, and what Christ did about it.

So he's continuing his logical flow here. So he's got a therefore. So I want to show you some more logical words in the passage we're about to go through. Starting in 12, we have therefore, for, nevertheless, but, for, 16 and 17, but, for, and then in the next couple of weeks, we're gonna go through even more, okay? So what I want you to do is I want you to, as I read the next five verses, I want you to notice these logical words and see how he's building this argument, okay? So starting in verse 12, therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. 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 likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The free gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For on the one hand, the judgment arose from the one offense, resulting in condemnation. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many offenses, resulting in justification. For if by the offense of the one, death reign through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of condemnation, I'm sorry, of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

So here are some key points here, 12 through 14, it's talking about Adam's sin and its consequences. Here are our verses today, Christ's gift is greater than Adam's trespass. Next week, we'll go over the two representatives and then finish out the chapter with the role of law and grace. But this week, we're going to focus on Christ's gift is greater than Adam's trespass. So, I know Roger took three weeks to cover three verses. I'm going to cover three verses in one week. Mind-blowing, I know, I get it. All right. Next week we will cover the two representatives.

All right, so, like I said about Bible study methods, we first have to start with observation. When we use the observation study method, this helps us spot where the passage shows similarities and where it shows differences. So for you engineers in the crowd, you might be familiar with the Venn diagram, which can be used to show these comparisons. You've probably seen Venn diagrams at least in school.

I know it's probably been a while for some of you. But since I know that Mike likes cats, I'm going to use this cat to show some similarities and some differences that we have in this passage. So what Paul's doing here is he's introducing a couple of sharp contrasts in his logical flow of explanation. Our first one, Roger covered last week, which is nevertheless.

Nevertheless doesn't sound terribly intimidating, but the underlying Greek word is Allah. Allah is sharp contrast as opposed to just a gentle contrast. So based on what he just said about sin not being imputed, where there is no law, Paul answers the logical question of, well, what about when there wasn't any law given? He's introducing sharp contrasts in his reasoning. Our second contrast is in our verse here today in 15, which is but.

Same exact Greek word, ala, sharp contrast. So in my observation method, When I was preparing for this message, I said, you know what, I'm going to be a blank slate. I'm going to pretend like I know nothing about this passage. And it was kind of eye-opening to me because it's easy for us, especially if we've been around church and Bible studies and things like that, it's easy for us to just say, I don't need to start at the basics because I already know something.

And that can be a problem. It can be helpful. It can be a problem. We might miss some things. Well, it was nice for me to take a fresh approach because I look at this and I say that this first sentence here, which is, but the free gift is not like the offense.

And I'm thinking, well, what is the contrast? The contrast is the free gift is not like the offense, right? What that did for me was that gave me pause. And I said, whoa, if I use a blank slate and I say, I'm reading this, thinking the free gift is not like the offense, that's a contrast, but it's not an opposite.

So I did a little bit of digging and apparently this word offense can also be pronounced offense. So if you notice the title of the message today is offense versus defense. Offense versus defense because defense is the actual opposite or contrast of offense.

And I'll give you a real world example since Bob Beckel is in the crowd today. Bob Beckel's beloved Cincinnati Bengals lost their star quarterback a couple of weeks ago. Should we stop and pray now? Sorry. Okay. The good contrast between offense and defense because their best offensive player got hurt, which means or should have meant that the defense needs to step up because that's the opposite, right? The opposite side of the field. Of course, it didn't help last week when they got blown out by 38. I have five more slides on the Bengals. So you can see where I'm thinking well, but it says but the free gift is not like the offense. Is that really a contrast? It's not not a typical contrast.

So This passage can be a little tricky because it's like Paul starts down one road where he's explaining how sin entered through Adam and then it's almost like he interrupts himself and to introduce Christ's free gift and It's almost like he can't wait to talk about the free gift. He's like, yeah, I have to talk about this other stuff, sin and death and all that, but I can't wait to tell you about the good stuff. So what is the free gift? Well, he doesn't explain what it is here. Again, blank slate. He doesn't explain what it is here. He just describes what it's not like.

I was thinking of kind of a little bit of an analogy of what Paul's doing here. And it's like, imagine you go to the doctor And the doctor says, hey, I got the results of your test back, and it turns out the disease runs in your family. It's already in your bloodline. And that's really why you've been feeling the way you do. But I have a free gift for you, and it's definitely not like the disease. And you're going to be like, huh?

That's not the contrast there that I would expect, right? I started thinking, well, if he's talking about the free gift is not like the offense, well, what is the free gift? Well, we don't know yet because he hasn't described it, told us what it is. He's just told us what it's not like.

So what is the free gift? So, from an observational perspective, I have to look and say, well, where else does he talk about this free gift? Well, in the same verse, in 515, he mentions it again, and he says, "...and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ." So, is he telling us what the gift is? Well, not yet. He hasn't done that yet. So he's just telling us that the gift is by the grace of God.

So then I got to thinking, well, has he mentioned this before in the book of Romans? Well, he has, so let's look. Romans 1, 11, 12. It says, for I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established. Well, what is this gift? Well, he explains it in the next verse, in verse 12.

That is, that I may be encouraged together with you while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. That got me thinking, well, is this the gift that he's talking about in our verse in 515? Doesn't sound like it because he's saying here the spiritual gift is that I may be encouraged together with you. Doesn't quite line up for me. All right, so where else do we find this gift?

We see it in Romans 3.24. It says, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Is this the gift he's talking about in 5.15? One could make an argument that he is, but it's still a little unclear. I still want something definitive about what this gift is. Since he's contrasting, the free gift is not like the offense, right? So when we look at the word for free gift and gift here in 5.15, we see that he uses two different words.

He uses durea and he uses charisma. Now, by the way, if any of you are thinking that you don't have any charisma, he has given everyone charisma, including Courtney. The difference in these words, charisma stresses the gift of grace like a gracious gift. Dorea is stressing more the gratuitous character, sort of like the gracious gift that was freely given. Not a whole lot of a difference, but it's sort of a different aspect of it.

And so what I think he's doing here is he's highlighting grace so much Because he uses the word grace here a couple of times in this verse, and he uses kind of synonyms, right? Charisma, charis is where we get grace, the root of grace. So what I think he's doing here is he wants to stress grace so much, but he doesn't want to keep using the same word. You ever read a story or somebody's telling you a story and they keep using the same word over and over? It sort of loses its...

So what you do is you use synonyms. So, for example, how many synonyms do we have for the word beautiful? Lovely, gorgeous, pretty, stunning, handsome, delightful, ravishing, elegant, attractive, cute, fetching, magnificent, among others. So if you're writing a story or telling a speech or something like that and you want to stress that something has beauty, you might use a lot of these words instead of the word beautiful over and over and over and over again. So what I think he's doing here is it's like he wants to stress grace so much and the gracious act of a free gift, which we still haven't been told what it is yet, It's like he can't wait to use so many words, but he thinks by using the same word grace over and over and over again, he might bore his readers. So let's look at some more comparison and contrasts.

We'll get to what the free gift is here in a little bit. But the free gift is not like the offense. And then he's going to explain for, He's explaining how the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one, the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

So we see here, we have one and one man. So we have a comparison, but we also have a contrast. It's like Paul couldn't wait to finish...I'm sorry, he doesn't wait to finish the bad news before he blurts out the good news. because I think grace is bigger than sin. It's like, look, I have to tell you these things, but I don't want to stress that. I don't want to stress what God did about that.

And by the way, this word, by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ abound to the many, grace of God abounding to the many. Think about it this way. You have a glass of water. It's filled to the brim. and then you start pouring water over it and it's overflowing or abounding. That's what this word is signifying. That the grace of God is overflowing, not just matching, overflowing.

So let's continue with the free gift in verse 16. But the free gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one offense resulting in condemnation. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many offenses resulting in justification. So what we have here is we have the phrase free gift twice, but we have some contrast in between.

We have on the one hand and on the other hand. And I know Roger has pointed this out before. This is a Greek construction called men and de. In the Greek, it's men and de. And in English, it's on the one hand, but on the other hand. So it's showing a contrast. So I wanted to have a little picture for you here. So on the one hand would be men, and on the other hand, de.

So in this verse, on the one hand, judgment from one offense resulted in condemnation. On the other hand, the free gift from many offenses results in justification. Let's look at verse 17 for some more contrast. For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. So what we have here is we have death reigned through the one, and reigning in life through the other one. So if we look at it this way, through the one Adam, death reigned. On the other hand, through the one Jesus Christ will reign in life. So going back to our verse in 17, it says, for if by the offense of the one, death reigned. Observationally, I'm thinking, so what does it mean by reigning, and why would he use that word?

Well, if you think of the audience in Rome, it was both Jewish believers and Gentile believers who lived in Rome. Well, the Jewish believers would have understood this reigning because they had many kings in their lifetime, right, their history. They're thinking, okay, that resonates with me. But what about the Gentiles and other people who lived in Rome? What would they have understood as, or that this word reigning resonated with them? Because of emperors, right? So Paul's using a specific word that would really hit with them, because they were very familiar with this.

But he's talking about death reigning, or death reigned, and then he contrasts that with reigning in life. Observationally, notice that he didn't say death reigned and then now life reigns. He didn't say that. He said death reigned, now reigning in life. In other words, he didn't just replace death with life. This shows how Christ reverses and surpasses the effect of Adam's sin. He didn't just counterbalance sin's effect. He took it and abounded it all the more.

I have a sports analogy for you. You ever heard this phrase, hey, let's play to win, not not to lose. So what does this phrase mean? In sports, Typically this happens when one team shouldn't beat another team or one team is that much better and instead of playing their offensive strategy, they'll play not to lose. And typically that doesn't end well. It also happens when a team gets up by a lot of points and they're not as good as the other team and they're afraid the other team is gonna come back. So instead of continuing to play the game the way they got up by a big score in the first place, they'll start playing not to lose, which typically ends up not very good. So I wonder, how often do we have the not lose mindset?

Meaning, Do we have the mindset that, hey, I'm a sinner because of one man, Adam. I'm a sinner positionally, I was in Adam, but because I now am a believer and a receiver of the abundance of grace, I now have life. In other words, life canceled out death. Do I have that mindset or is it more than that? Is it a reigning in life attitude? Is it a playing to win, not just to not to lose? Do we have the attitude of, I hope I don't do something wrong attitude? Or do we have the attitude and mindset of, hey, I'm a receiver of the abundance of grace.

I am reigning in life. So how do we realize this raining in life? How do we realize this? Well, realizing that we received the abundance of grace, step one. And the abundance here, it's like this picture here. Instead of just replacing the water, the abundance of grace overflows that, overflows the opposite, the contrast, which is sin, sin raining, right?

We are reigning in life because of the abundance of grace and of the free gift. So what is the free gift? What is it? Well, he tells us here in verse 17, the gift is righteousness. He describes it before, but now he explicitly tells us the gift is righteousness.

So if we reread Romans 5.15, read it this way, but the free gift of righteousness is not like the offense, sin. Where else do we see this?

Well, we see this in 1 John 5.17, where it explicitly says, all unrighteousness is sin. So he's defining what unrighteousness is, which is sin, but then he's telling us that because we are receivers of the abundance of grace and the free gift, the free gift of righteousness, which we'll see Next week, we'll see how it doesn't just match the unrighteousness. Righteousness doesn't just cancel out unrighteousness. The abundance of grace doesn't just cancel out sin.

He's going to be talking about reigning in life. It's so much more than just the canceling out. So, I want to close with this. The theme of Romans is in 1, 16 through 17, which says, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

For in it, the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. So thinking about this, the gospel reveals the righteousness of God. God's standard and command is that the righteous shall live by faith. But how would we expect to and how would he expect us to fulfill this command if he didn't freely gift us a righteous standing before him? It wouldn't be fair. How could he expect that from us without giving us some sort of tools to do it?

Well, he did. He gave us this righteous standing before him so that we can reign in life, not just have our debt paid. Did that happen? Yes, but it's so much more than that. And next week we're going to talk about the much more abounding because of the two men, Adam and Christ. So we're going to expand on this righteous standing next week.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we're just so grateful for who you are and who we are because of you. We're so grateful that you didn't just leave us in our sins, leave us in Adam, and that you didn't just cancel that out and then just leave us on our own to figure it out. You gave us a righteous standing before you so that we can reign in life. And we're thankful for that, Lord. We're thankful for just the message that you have of identification coming up and just the overflowing of your grace. We thank you for that, in Jesus' name, amen.