Christ's Life In Us, Romans 5:18-19 The Reign of Righteousness
Romans 5:18-19 · Brian White · Oct 5, 2025
Christ's Life in Us, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926194151187

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

Well, good morning. We're going to continue our study in the book of Romans chapter five. Today we're going to cover verses 18 and 19. But as I like to do, I like to kind of recap not only where we were last week when we covered verses 15 through 17, but also kind of where we are in the whole book of Romans. So we'll start with the big picture.

The big picture here is, uh, The first 11 chapters are primarily doctrine. In fact, I believe there's just a handful, if that many, actual imperatives or commands in the first 11 chapters. And then once we get to chapter 12, for the rest of the book is pretty much nothing but commands.

And it's all based on that doctrine. So leading up to our passage here today in Chapter 5, as we talked about last week, Chapter 1, 18 through 320, it talks about how all men are guilty. And then 321 through 521 talks about justification by faith, the transfer from justification by law to justification by faith. And then 6.1 through 8.39 really talks about the mechanics of how to have victory over sin and then ultimately victory over sin, kind of that process. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 are primarily focused on the nation of Israel.

And then 12 through 16 is conduct, right? And so to break that down just a little bit more as we lead into our passage today, chapter 1, 18 through 32 talks about all sinners, right? Kind of the generic general sinners. And then 2, 1 through 11 is going to focus on people who judge those generic or all sinners. In fact, in chapter two, verse one, it talks about, well, you know, how the judges of sinners are just like the people in chapter one. So he kind of equates them there. The next handful of verses really focus on the Gentile sinners. And of course, the Jews are reading this and they're thinking, wow, we're better than them.

And then Paul goes over, well, Jews, you're sinners too. And then the next 20 verses or so, as I discussed last week, since I live in the South now, what he primarily says is, none of y'all ain't no good. So he flattens everybody out and says, all right, so I've equaled, I've equalized all of you down to none of you are better than anybody else. None of you even seek after me. So I'm going to have to step in and do something about that. So he then takes 321 through 425 and talks about justification by faith. And then the first 11 verses of chapter five are really focused on the results of that justification.

Results such as having peace with God, hope in suffering, confidence in God's love, assurance of salvation, and of course, all of this is by Christ's death. So that leads us up to this passage that we've been looking at the last handful of weeks, which starts in verse 12 with a therefore. And as the famous joke goes, what's the therefore therefore?

It connects what was previous talked about, which we just went over. It connects that with what he's about to talk about. So Paul is really building a logical flow or a logical argument That's what he's been doing for the last handful of chapters and verses. But what he's doing now with the introduction of verse 12 is he's introducing something new, specifically where sin came from, what happened because of it, and what Christ did about it.

So if we look at, as I talked about last week, recently I was able to teach a class on Bible study methods. And if you remember the three primary ones with some tweaking here and there, we have the observation method, In other words, you have to see what's there, read it, ask questions, observe what's there, and then once you see what's there, then you can actually interpret. You can make an interpretation, but you have to know what's there. And then, of course, you can apply based on the interpretation. So I've recently really been focusing more on that.

Let's just observe. Let's just read, see what it is. And when we do that, specifically here in Romans 5, 12 through 21, we see there's all kinds of connective words or logical words that he uses. And last week, we went over the words that are there in the red boxes, all right?

So he takes the therefore and then he explains by using for, nevertheless, but, for, and then this week we're going to focus on so, then, and for. The phrase, so then, I looked it up in the dictionary, and what it really is is it's used to indicate a continuation or a consequence in a story. This may be obvious, but again, we're taking the observation method, and we're going to kind of take the foundational approach. So it helps to, this phrase, so then, really helps to connect events or thoughts and really helps us see what happens next or to clarify a point in conversation. That's what the so then is going to do in verse 18. And then after that, he's going to explain it by using the word for.

Some key points. Some key points in chapter five. The first couple of verses there are focused on Adam's sin and its consequences. Roger went over that a few weeks ago. And then we talked about last week, Christ's gift is greater than Adam's trespass. And then we're gonna talk today about the two representatives. And then next week we'll go over the role of law and grace. And again, we're gonna focus on these two verses today. So kind of as a recap from last week, we talked about in verse 15, how there was a sharp contrast with the word but, this is the word Allah, which introduces a sharp contrast.

And the contrast here is the free gift is not like the offense. So a normal contrast to offense or offense would be defense. You look at the dictionary, you look at antonyms or opposites of the word offense or offense, it's defense. That's kind of the normal way you would think of the contrast would be. Because Bob's not here, I promised that I would definitely not use his Cincinnati Bengals and their lack of offense and defense as a contrast. So because when you see him next, just tell him that I definitely didn't use that as an example. But that is an example of a typical contrast. But we see here in 515 that he's not contrasting offense and defense. He's contrasting something called the free gift and how it's not like the offense. And so last week we looked at what that free gift is, and we saw in verse 17 that he explicitly says that the free gift is righteousness.

And we kind of explored that a little bit, right? We also saw some contrasts, which are often indicated by the Greek construction of men and de, like this. Men in the Greek means on one hand, and de on the other hand. So whenever you see men and de, it's very obviously trying to point out a contrast.

So we saw last week that on one hand, judgment from one offense resulted in condemnation. On the other hand, the free gift from many offenses resulted in justification. We also saw the offense of the one, Adam. Because of that, death reigned. Then on the other hand, we saw through the one, Jesus Christ, we can reign in life. We will reign in life. So we looked at the concept of reigning in life by using a sports analogy of this. playing to win versus not to lose.

And if anybody watched any football yesterday, I saw many examples, specifically in the Penn State-UCLA game, where UCLA was up by a lot. And then in the fourth quarter, Penn State almost came back to win. UCLA tightened up. And they, instead of playing to win the game, they played in the final minutes not to lose, and they almost lost, right?

And so what we talked about last week was how we often have a not lose mindset. We don't have an offensive, in a good way, a reigning in life mindset. We usually have, or have the tendency to have a, well, I'm just trying not to lose kind of mindset. And that's not his point. His point is, Those who receive will reign in life because we have the gift of righteousness. So do we have the reigning in life attitude?

That was kind of what we talked about last week. So I was trying to think of another example besides sports, because that's where I'm typically comfortable with. And I thought about this one. And husbands, I think we can relate. Is a husband loving his wife intentionally Or is he just trying to maintain the peace? Is he just trying not to lose, right? Is he loving his wife offensively in a good way? So hopefully that's a non-sports analogy that makes sense.

So, Who does it say will reign in life? Well, it's those who receive. Those who receive what? Well, the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. So you have to be a believer to have received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness in order to reign in life.

And last week we looked at this word abundance, and it's kind of like the contrast between these two glasses. On the left we have a glass filled full with water, but the abundance really means that it's overflowing there on the right. So grace is not just equaling the amount that's needed or necessary to kind of neutralize death. The abundance of grace, it's overflowing. So instead of replacing the offense or sin with grace, grace overflows and we have received that.

Okay, so that's kind of a recap of what we went over last week. All right, so onto our verse today in verse 18. We have a connective, a logical flow of so then. And as we said before, the phrase so then is often used to indicate a continuation or a consequence in a story and it helps connect events or thoughts. So let's see how this so then helps connect some thoughts. So he's transitioning to what he was trying to clarify in his previous point. So let's read the verses.

So then, as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous." So what we have here is we have a contrast of one transgression resulted in condemnation to all On the other side, we have one act of righteousness results in justification to all, all right? Condemnation, justification. And we also see in these verses, because of one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. But because of one man's obedience, the many were made righteous.

Now, I want to focus a little bit on this word made, okay? Typically, when you have this idea of coming into being or transitioning from one thing to another, it's gonna use the word ginomai. Ginomai is more like a becoming, right? It wasn't before, but now it's becoming. This is not that word. The word here is kethistemi. And the word literally means to appoint a person to a position or to a role.

So think of it that way when he uses the word made or make. For those of us who are married or about to be married, have you ever used the word, I would like to make you my wife? Making someone your wife, what does that kind of conjure up? Does that conjure up creating her to be something or appointing her to the role as your wife?

That's the idea here. All right. Is anyone familiar with the song, If You Want to Be Happy? I take that as a yes. All right. So I'm just going to read a short little verse. It says, if you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. Can anybody tell me why? Does anybody know why? No? Do I really have to go there? If you listen to the rest of the song, the idea is never make a pretty woman your wife, because she's very likely going to attract other suitors. So she may or may not stay faithful.

So anyway, the idea is to appoint to a position. And so by one man's obedience, we were appointed to being righteous, to becoming righteous. But what I really want to do here is I want to zoom in on this idea of justification to all. If you're in the corporate world at all, they like to use phrases like, I want to double click on this, if they want to kind of focus on that. So if you're used to that, that kind of corporate speak, we'll use that as well. So we're gonna zoom in on this idea of justification to all, but it doesn't say just justification to all, it says justification of life to all.

So he describes it as justification of life. And there's that word again, right? Last week, we've really focused on reigning in life, right? Playing to win, not to lose. Here's this word of life again. So justification of life. What does this really mean? So if we use our observation study method, what we find out is that this phrase, justification of life, is not used anywhere else. It's only used here. So then I have to ask myself a question, as should you, why? What is he trying to get at with this phrase justification of life? Well, let's ask the question of how else is justification described? If it's not described as justification of life elsewhere, let's see how else it's described elsewhere. So typically, justification often focuses on kind of the forensic or legal side of justification. And justification, by the way, just as a reminder, means to be declared righteous. So we often see a forensic or a legal side.

So for example, I have some verses. For example, Romans 3, 24 through 26. says, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Again, a forensic or a legal side of justification. Next chapter, Romans 4, 5 says, and to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. Let's look over in Acts 13, it says, through him, everyone who believes is justified or freed from all things, from which you could not be justified or freed through the law of Moses. Okay, again, forensic legal side, right?

Galatians 2.16 says, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So as we have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the law, no one will be justified.

So we see a focus on the forensic or legal side. But that's not what it's saying here. He's using justification of life. justified. Based on this phrase, we see that justification is not just a legal declaration, but also a life-giving reality. Through Christ's one act of righteousness, He didn't just cancel the guilt and release us from the penalty of sin. He made or placed us as righteous in Christ. He made us righteous by placing us in Christ. Now, this declaration of righteousness leads not only to a new status, not only to a new status, but to a new kind of life, one that is eternal, spirit-filled, and reconciled to God.

So as we talked before about the reigning in life, playing offensively to win instead of playing not to lose. The idea is of instead of just trying to, instead of not trying to break the law or hoping that our good deeds kind of outweigh the bad, or you might be familiar with this phrase, kind of living carbon neutral. You ever seen those things where you can kind of buy carbon credits to kind of neutralize your flight or your car or whatever? The idea is of carbon neutrality is you're taking something and you're trying to neutralize it. Do we have the mindset that we're just trying to live carbon neutral with being justified? I've been declared righteous. Awesome. Now my sins are taken care of. The debt has been canceled.

Or are we living offensively toward reigning in life or the justification of life? We have to have a mindset change. to live as though we have that life. In fact, John 10, 10, the second part of John 10, 10 says, Jesus says, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Not just I came that they may have life, but have it abundantly. It's like the picture of the glasses of water, not just neutralizing, but in overabundance.

So speaking of abundant life, He died for you and made us righteous. Do you think there's something he's holding back on? Let's look at Romans 8.32 where he says, for if he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him over for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? This should really wow us. He didn't just cancel out our debt, pay for our sins on the cross and just leave us be.

He wants us to reign in life and gave us the justification of life. By the way, notice the word freely. He freely gave us all things. So to say it again, we see that justification is not only a legal declaration, but it's a life-giving reality. Now, justification of life isn't a new type of justification, but what this phrase does is it emphasizes the outcome, which is life, reigning in life. Now, we have a progression, we have a progression here of justification, which is legal, and then it gets to relational. But ultimately, because we have received everything we need to reign in life, it's to be transformational.

I want to close out with this idea. Romans 12 to a says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now, when we use our observations, we see that this, this phrase be transformed is in the passive tense. And so, if you don't know what the passive tense means, it's the subject is being acted upon. So this is a command for us to not be conformed to this world, but we must be, in the imperative sense, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind. So if we're going to use the observation study method, we have to ask the question, well, if I'm to be acted upon, meaning my command is to be transformed, but it's not me doing the transforming, we have to ask the question, well, be transformed by what?

Well, he tells us here in this verse that it's to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Well, The renewing of our mind, the word for renewing comes from the word kainos. You may have heard that word before. And the word for mind here is nous, which is the intellect. So if we step through this, it's a renewing of our intellect, which means something has to be put into our minds.

If we take this word kainos and look elsewhere, we see in 2 Corinthians 5.17, this is the word that is used to describe us as a brand new creation. It's the word for new. We are a brand new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. So if we are a new kainos, a new creation, this renewing of our mind must have something to do with being a new creation.

In fact, Romans 6.4, which we'll get to in the next handful of weeks, it talks about, so that we may walk in newness of life. There's our word again, kainos. So there must be something about this new, something new that we are, that we are to have our minds transformed by. So as I put all these things together, I take the observations, from the Greek construction, from asking these questions, be transformed by the renewing of our minds. What I get from it, I think what we can extrapolate from this, is if The renewing of my mind has to be based on something new, and I'm a new creation in Christ.

I have to know this. And the renewing of my mind, the word new here is my intellect. So intellectually, I have to know the facts. I have to know that I am a new creation. And knowing more about who I am as a new creation, the old things have passed away, behold, all things become new. The more I know these things, the more I am transformed. And this is what I am to be transformed by.

Really, it's the Word of God. The more facts I know in my intellect, the more transformational it's going to be. Such as learning about how through one man, death reigned. Through the other man, we can reign in life. We now have justification of life. The whole idea is to have life and have it more abundantly.

But if we don't know that, then how do we grow? How are we transformed? Whatever is in our mind is going to, we're going to act out whatever's in our mind. The more we are renewed by the transforming of our mind of who we are in Christ, the more transformational it's going to be.

Okay. So my prayer today is that we play to win, not to not lose. May we walk out of here today realizing that we can reign in life because he's put us in a position to do so. He's made us righteous. He put us in that role, put us in that position. And what we can do is we can reign in life because of that. So my prayer today is that we realize that we are renewed by the transforming of our mind, that we know the information and we believe it because it really, really is transformational. Let's close.

Heavenly Father, we're Just so grateful to be here this morning to learn about you and how you didn't just cancel out our debt. You didn't just pay for our sins. You did that so that you can give us life and have it abundantly. And thank you for the overflowing abundance of grace that we have received and the reigning in life and the justification of life. And that's part of the conformity process. that we are predestined to be conformed to the image of your son.

And Father, may we not just learn these facts and learn this information, but really be transformed by it. Be transformed by the fact that you came and gave us all things freely so that we can really truly reign and play to win. Thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen.