Great Doctrines of Salvation
Mike Doyle · Oct 10, 2010
Great Doctrines of Salvation, No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492621643560

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

I want you to notice that in the questions I've handed out, I've I've titled them lesson one, two, three, four. And the reason I did that, I should probably be more definitive. It's lesson one, two, three, four on the identification part of what we've been studying. So we're in lesson four.

And let's see how far did we get? We get that from now. We didn't go to six. I don't think we did six. We did. We did. Yeah, we're ready for six. That's what I thought. So in question six, my question to you was, why is the offense of one unlike the gift of the other? And maybe what we should do. so that we can put it in perspective.

Somebody read Romans 5.12 through 21.

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death is spread to all men because all sin. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who was a type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many die, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, be found in the many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sins.

The judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. were it by the one man's offense that reigned through the One, much more are those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness or reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so, through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men. resulting in justification of the life.

That's good enough. I'll stop there. So my question six was, why is the offense of one unlike the gift of the other? The offense of one is who? Adam. And his offense is unlike the gift of the other. How come they're not alike? Or what makes them unlike? One would be passive and the other one would be active. One you're passive, one you're active. OK. Although in 512, it says that we send an atom. We were pretty active. I was taking part in the deal. Oh, yes, you did. According to that verse, you did. Well, yeah.

One is the condemnation. OK. And the other is for justification. There's there's a couple of differences. Steve 17 saying the difference or the 16th saying the difference is that because of because of the one offense resulted in condemnation and the other one. OK. That's one of the differences.

The one is condemnation. And along with condemnation comes the reigning of death. We'll talk about what reigning of death means in a minute. And the other, the many sins were put on Christ, but it resulted in justification, not death. What's the word justification mean? Nope. Be declared righteous. You can move up now. So by the act of one, Adam, we're condemned. All humanity is condemned because we were in him when he acted. And the result of that was that death became the reigning principle.

Contrary to that, the many sins were put on Christ. All sins were put on Christ. And because of that, there's justification or to be declared righteous. And then there's the reigning in life for those who believe in the person and work of Christ. The other difference is that God, the creator by grace in Christ, abounds over the sins of the creature Adam. The sins of the creature Adam is in this category. The grace of God abounding over those is unlike the sins of the creature. Does that make sense to you? No? Yes? Don't nod your head yes unless you mean it.

Adam is a creature, God is a creator. Adam was not gracious, he sinned, and the sin of the creature, God's grace of the creator, the grace of the creator God, superabounds over the sin of the creature. It seems like what you would expect would be punishment, but what you get is grace. And that's a really good point, Holly, because punishment is due, is it not? I mean, the rule was real simple in the Garden. The soul that sins, it will surely die. It wasn't 40 years of hard labor and a $50 fine. It was death every time. And so death by grace, the death of Christ, super abounds over the sin.

How much credit do you get? You hope you are. The one to be born in the second family, you're born in by faith. But it's a gracious act on God's part, so you don't get any credit for it. The other one, you got all the credit deserving you, didn't you? The credit deserving you is based solely on the fact that you sinned in Adam. And you got what was due to you, death.

Now, in verse 16, how many came under judgment to condemnation? All, every single human being. We joke about these young parents around here that have these babies, like Brian has a young son. Well, he's already proved over the weekend that he's got a sin nature. Most parents don't think they do. When he's hungry and some other things happen, his sin nature sparks. He's not a happy camper.

Well, I kind of do, too. You do? Oh, if you're uncomfortable or distressed because whatever happened, we rise to the occasion to some degree. To some degree? To the degree of death? Yeah, I think so. Well, a degree of distress. Distress. Rather than total trust, sometimes. Okay.

Describe what it means, what the term death reigning means. We're talking about a principle here. We've defined what a principle is, right? It was universal. Yeah? It's universal. Absolutely. It's king, the god, the ruler, the absolute. Death is a reigning principle. Everybody know what a principle is? It's a way a thing functions or operates, right? We talked last week about a principle. That's a principle. What's the principle? It's called gravity. Works the same way every time, right?

So the principle of death reigning is an absolute principle. Now, you're not going to find it in your books on geometry or physics. There isn't a principle of sin in there, but it should be there. because it is a more powerful and exacting principle than even gravity. Because you can defy gravity, but you can't defy death. So, we're all governed by the principles we live under. And the principle that we live under, all human beings come into this world under, is the principle of death.

Brian's son, he's four months, He's a baby and he's growing, but what's he really doing? He's dying. Isn't that pathetic? It is pathetic. You couldn't have said it any better. You're right, it is pathetic, but it's the result of sin that brought death as a reigning principle. Little Luke doesn't escape. Brian doesn't escape. You don't escape and neither do I. Because it's true.

OK. So let's. Can I mess with you a little bit? At what point? At what point would you put him under the principle of death? How old does he have to be? OK. With four. No, but when you get really sick, when you're older, when you're sixteen. Sixteen? No, but you know what I mean. As a little kid, it's difficult for me to comprehend that. He's just been born and he's already dying. He's always old.

This is a really, really important principle. And the reason it is, is that when we switch over to the being in Christ, these same principles are going to hold true. So people who are in Christ are going to have incredible grace and not deserve any of it. When death is the reigning principle, it has to be...

Let me say this right. Last week we studied that souls were dying from Adam to Moses, right? Remember we talked about that? And even though they hadn't broken a law, they still were dying. How come? Because they had this thing called the sin nature. By nature, you're a sinner. By nature, little Luke is a sinner. Yeah, but you know, he's too young to even have a sense of reasoning. Well, let me give you another example.

We were talking Wednesday night in Romans chapter 9. that God chose Isaac over Esau. And he chose Jacob over Esau. When both of them were in Rebekah's womb, they had never done anything, but he chose one of them. Is that fair? Sure it's fair, because he's God. And when God says, look, I've created humanity in Adam, and I gave Adam one principle or one rule to obey and he didn't. But he's the head of the race and so when he sins the whole race is going to die. It has nothing to do with whether you're innocent or not. Luke is not innocent. According to the Word of God he was in Adam when Adam sinned.

He was there. Now he's four months old here but the Bible says you and he were both in Adam and both sinned when Adam sinned. That's the principle. See that? They wouldn't be a big seller. It's a really, really important principle and it seems harsh and a big pill to swallow when you're talking about sin and death. But when we start talking about life and righteousness, the same principle holds. It has nothing to do with the creature, it has everything to do with God's grace. You see that?

So when did little Luke become a sinner? When he wasn't even thought of by his parents. When did you become a sinner? When you first committed your sins. That's right. That's right. See? So when you were four months old... I did it the way he did. I did it by the sinful nature.

No, no, you didn't. He created us. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. He created Adam in the garden and when he was done with Adam, he said he's good. But he gave Adam this thing called a will. No, it's not. You know who Adam blamed for all of this? He blamed God. He said, you know that woman you gave me? It's your fault. You gave me that woman that gave me this fruit and I ate it. It's your fault, God. See, when Adam falls, God didn't cause him to fall. He wasn't responsible for Adam's action. Adam was responsible, because Adam had a will.

It seems like you can't leave out Satan here. If Adam is in the garden and Satan has just done a number on Eve, and she hands the fruit to Adam, And Adam, rather than just eating it right away, pauses for a minute. What would he have done? What should he have done? He should have referred to God. Hey God, do you see what's happening right here?

You're the creator, you're the one that And what do I do? I'm dependent on you. Say, I love this woman you gave me, but boy, look. The issue was, is that in every sinful temptation, if you're going to fix it yourself, you're going to lose every time. It's a point of dependency when that happens. But he didn't depend on God, he depended on himself. So what did God give him? Himself. Adam rather would have Adam than he would God, so God gave him Adam.

And with Adam came this thing called the sin nature. God is not the author of your sin nature, you are. But He didn't create him with the sin nature. You see that? Adam was created innocent. He didn't have a propensity to sin. He didn't have what we have, this desire to be rebellious, this desire to do our own thing. He didn't have that. He got that when he sinned. That was a consequence of sin.

So to hit that point about why we have the atom nature rather than the human nature, Okay, everybody understand the question? If Eve sins and... Yeah. Anybody want to take a shot at that? Eve wasn't. That's right. Eve came from Adam. Adam was the head of the race. She was innocent until she ate the fruit, but she had a will also. Every human being has a will. Here's the difference. Human beings that are born after Adam cannot not sin. You ever met a human being that couldn't sin? Or didn't sin? Because they just decided not to? Ever known anybody like that? Never. They're sin.

See, the problem with the sin nature is that if death is the reigning principle, the result of that is that we all have these sin natures that are under the principle of death, and a nature is how a thing operates or functions. A dog barks because he has the nature of a dog. He doesn't meow because he doesn't have the nature of a cat. We sin because we have a sin nature.

We are responsible for our actions, though. You see that? Even though we have a nature that really forces us to sin, or we desire to do it, to sin, we're responsible for our actions. The sin nature is more powerful than your ability to control it. And when we get a little farther on in identification, we'll address that. But every one of us is born with a sin nature, and you can't go to God and say, You know, I got this sin nature, and it's the sin nature's fault, it's not my fault. You, before you're saved, you and the sin nature are in union with each other.

We're constantly on guard. Even if you're on guard, you're going to lose. I mean, you know, there's no... Why do you think in the Jewish temple that there were, one, there were no chairs, and two, it was a 24-7 operation? Seven days a week. Slaughtering animals, seven days a week. Why? Because the Jews never took a day off from sinning. Never. Because they couldn't. They can't stop. See that?

And so God never said, I'm going to give you Saturday as a sin-free day. No. He gave them a provision where they could cover their sins. with the Sabbath. He sure did. How'd that work out for him? You talk about sinning. My ascetic Jewish neighbor has a Michael Bennett sign in his yard. Now that's sinning.

Because of our sin in Adam, the non-believing All non-believing men have been positionally separated from the life of God and are placed in the atom. All men are separated from the life of God, but they function under the principle of sin and death. Every single human being that comes on this planet functions under this principle of sin and death. Now, we like to make it relative. We like to say, well, this is a good guy and this is a bad guy. From a biblical standpoint, every human being is under the principle of sin and death. All of us, okay? Now, but on the other side of the question is question nine.

What does reigning in life mean? What does reigning in life mean? Here we have this word reigning again. What's reigning mean? We Americans have a tough time with the word reigning. No, what's reigning? A ruling principle. If you lived in Iran, there's a reigning Ayatollahs there. They have absolute authority. Everybody in that country is under their authority, and they don't have anything to say about it. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ brings in a thing called life.

What is life? Life? Breathing. Breathing? Living. Living? It would be togetherness with God in this case, I think. Okay. God is life. God himself is life. Now he gave humanity, he breathed into Adam, and Adam became a living soul, but he breathed in the breath of life, so Adam was had physical life, had soulish life, and he had spiritual life. But when he sinned, his spiritual life went away. So he ends up being a creature that has soulish life that's dominated by a sin nature and physical life. So what's physical death? When the soul and the spirit leave the body, the body stops functioning, we call that death.

It's separation. But now, turn it around. Here comes this thing called life as a reigning principle. Okay? It's the life of God that is to be the reigning principle. Does it sound like, all of you who have been under the tyranny of sin and death, does it sound like you could reign as a king in life? What do you think? Is it understandable? Does it sound like you could reign as a king in life? reign over sin? No. Is it possible? In spiritual life, in eternal life. Yeah. Yeah, but on earth we sin constantly.

Read verse 16 and 17. 17. Read verse 17. Out loud. Well, it's about, if by the confession of the One, let rain be the One. Much more, those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness and rain, and then let it be. In life, through the One. Alright, what's that last phrase? Out loud, what does it say? The last phrase. Wow! What does that mean? He's drawing a contrast here.

He's saying all those that were under sin were under the reigning principle of sin. But now that Christ has come in, what's he saying is going to happen? You're going to reign in life. In other words, life, the life of the resurrected Christ is going to be the reigning principle over Sin and death. And we're not going to find out for a couple of months exactly the mechanics about how God got that reigning principle, but He's there.

And everybody in this room has that principle in them, the principle of life reigning. You know you don't have to sin. My buddy across the street who's not a Christian, he has to sin. You don't have to. But you don't have to, because the Word of God right here is talking about a principle of life reigning that's greater than the principle of sin and death.

How about them apples? Pretty cool. So I know you're going to say, when? Next week? No. When did it begin? When did this principle of life begin for you? the day you believe. And how long is it going to last, this reigning principle of life? For eternity.

So now we're down to discussing position and condition. Positionally, you're already in the reigning principle of life. Conditionally, you may be acting that way, you may not be. But positionally, you already have it. It's already yours. So how are you supposed to function? By faith. Now is this hard for you to believe? Sure it is. You read this and you say, God, but I sin all the time. And he says, how about reigning in the principle of life?

I might be jumping ahead. I'll tell you if you are. But we're still in Adam. Even though we're reigning in life, we're still in Adam. Are we in Adam? We're in Christ. But that's a big difference. See, the non-believer is in Adam and Adam is in him. The believer is in Christ, but Adam is still in him. He's no longer in Adam. He no longer has to respond to Adam. He may not know that, but his position is in Christ, and Christ is the reigning principle of life.

So what do you do about it? You learn the principles and then you believe them. See that? Basically the nature is there. That's the problem with us Christians. We have two natures, and both of them are vying to express themselves through us. We are so used to Adam, that we are trying to get Adam to act like Christ, and he isn't going to do it. When you live in Christ, you live by faith alone, by what he tells you is true. Now you may or may not have an experience, but faith hasn't a whole lot to do with experience. It has to do with believing facts that are already true of you.

You see that? So you start to see these things, and if you get realistic with God, you have to say, Are you nuts, God? What are you talking about? This is not true of me. And what does he say? Yes, it is, because I said it is. And if you'll wait a minute, I'll explain it to you, so that you can have absolutely clear faith about who I say you are and what I've done. You can live by faith. That's all that matters. Actually, that's what it comes down to. Whatever God says matters. The rest of it is irrelevant.

The first time I've ever seen this for a study on a Wednesday night, Romans 9. Paul has a tendency to ask questions in anticipation of you asking them. I forget what the question was, but it was a question that had to do with the sovereignty of God. And Paul's answer was, he never answered the question. He never answered it.

You know why? Because he just squashed it. His point was, if you're walking by faith and you believe what God has told you, that's not a question to even be considered. You see that? I mean, you go up and you challenge God's sovereignty, is He going to respond to you? No, He's not. He's sovereign. You go up to God and He tells you that you're going to reign in life through one Jesus Christ. And you start giving this whining dance about being a sinner. What's He going to say to you? Did you read the book? And do you believe what I told you? That's what it comes down to. Not legally, but graciously. You alright with that so far? Here's a quote.

Let us refuse to be content. with a Christian existence that cannot be finally summed up as He reigned in life through Jesus Christ over sin, over Satan, over the world, over difficulties, over adverse surroundings and circumstances. Let us refuse to be content with a Christian existence that cannot finally be summed up as He reigned in life through Jesus Christ. That's what God's provision for us is, is that we reign in life through Jesus Christ. The reigning principle of the resurrected life of Christ is greater than the principle of sin and death. but we haven't got yet and won't for a couple of weeks as to why that works so well for us.

So question 10, how am I doing time-wise? What are the much mores? Have you noticed in this chapter, bless you, have you noticed in this chapter there's this little phrase three or four times, much more, much more. What do you think that means? There's four of them. Oh, interesting way to put it. Ongoing trump card. For you who play bridge, trump cards are really important.

In verse 9 and 10, there's much mores, right? And the much mores of grace. In verse 15 and 17, much mores. Verse 9, Much more then, having been declared righteous by means of his blood, shall we be saved through him from the coming wrath. Much more is a great phrase to describe what grace is. No matter what the circumstances are, the much mores of God are grace. You see that? Much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his risen life.

Much more. Verse 15, For if by one trespass the one death came to many, much more did the grace of God and the gift by grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound unto the many. Much more. For if by the trespass of one death reigned as king through the one, much more those accepting the abundance of grace and of the free gift of righteousness shall still be under the reigning principle of sin and death."

How come you're not screaming at me? Because that's how you think. You think even though the much more is there, you're saying, oh God, you can't be telling me the truth. Right? You can't be serious about this. Don't you know how powerful sin is? No, he says to us, much more.

Those accepting the abundance of grace, have you done that? Yes, you have. And of the free gift of righteousness, you didn't earn it, shall reign in life through one Jesus Christ. Now, you may not be, but you should be. How do you do that? Simple, by faith. You have to take God at His word.

See, if Adam would have figured this out in the garden, we wouldn't have had this mess. So when he talks about rain as kings in life, what life is he talking about? Specifically, what life is it? Which life? It's not an animal life. It's not Adamic life.

It's the resurrected Christ's life. And the reason it's so important is because Christ has been through all that we've been through. He was made sin for us. Sin and His Father slew Him because of it. But then He did this cool thing. He rose to newness of life. New life. That's the reigning life.

But wasn't there grace in the Old Testament? Yeah, but not life and grace. as a reigning principle. Well, there was grace because every time the Jews brought sin to the table, God came with grace. But in spite of him, he displayed grace. All the time. That's right. Yes, he did. But it was not a reigning principle like it is now. I have a tangent question. That's all right.

For as bad as Adam, our Adamic nature is, how do you understand the command to, or the idea to love yourself? What's there to love? Okay, oh, what a great question. What is there to love? Zero. So where's that command, who's that command given to? And where does that command come from? Comes from where? From where? From God to the Jews. To the Jews. Right? Sure? Love your neighbor as yourself. So if I don't love myself, I don't get to love my neighbor, so I better really work hard on loving myself. Well, I'm kind of a bum, so my neighbor must be a worse bum than me.

What's the command to the believer? I give you a new command that you love one another even as I have loved you. Oh, wow. Wow, that's different, isn't it? A new command I give you, that you love one another how? He's telling you a command that's directed to you who is doing what? Reigning in life. That command is consistent with the life you have. You see that? The command of the mosaic system was to a nature that couldn't do it. But you know what? You can, because you have the life. You see that? That make sense?

I mean, you know, no fair going to God saying, hey, it isn't working out so good. He says, wait a minute, I gave you the life. It's about my dog coming to me and saying, you know, this barking stuff isn't working out too good. I say, hey, you're a dog. You're supposed to bark. That's what you do. You're a believer. You're supposed to reign in life. That's what you do. I gave you the life for it. You alright with that? Yeah, the first commandment is great.

I am the Lord thy God, and I will not have false gods before me. Who is he talking about? Me! I'm God, you're not. That's what he's saying. I will not have you self-centered, godly, and your mentality standing before me. No way. So ultimately, what does he do about you and your idol? You get crucified.

Cool thing. Glad he did it. That's how he got rid of the idols. So why is it important that we see that God has changed his man? Do you understand what I mean by that? We're talking about representative federal heads. And when Adam sinned, God dealt with humanity through that one man. because everybody came from him. Do you see that?

Whatever was true of Adam was true of every other human being, and so God had to deal with mankind through Adam. Now granted, here comes these other guys like Abraham, David, Moses, Noah, but they're all Adam guys. So, no matter what God did in the Old Testament, he still had an Adam guy to deal through, didn't he? He had a flood through Noah. Where did Noah come from? Adam. He had a guy that he decided, well, I'm not going to work with the whole world. I'm just going to work with one nation. I'm going to pick this guy, Abraham. Where did he come from?

Adam. Right? But God has changed his man now. Who's the man? The resurrected, glorified Christ. Now, God deals with humanity through this new man. What's cool about this new man as opposed to what wasn't so cool about Adam? Everybody that comes from Christ is just like him. Just like everybody who comes from Adam is just like him. Right? How does God deal? How does God view Christ? How does he look at him as a representative head? What's his attitude about Christ? He loves him. Respect. Can't grace him enough because of what he's done and who he is.

You see that? But you guys are still in Adam, right? So you don't get any of that. Right? No, you're in Christ. So all those who believe, what happens is you change men. You leave your whole identity with Christ, or with Adam, and your identity is now in Christ. And what the identification truths are all about is the mechanics that God went through to get you into Christ. You no longer belong to the Adamic race.

That's kind of cool, isn't it? So no fair going to God saying, yeah, but. Because he said, no buts, you're in Christ. You said something there that I think is key, but I'm not sure. Well, let me know. That we became in that position in the glorified Christ. So that's after it's completed. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Good point. That's a great point. The man that God deals with now, with all humanity, is the resurrected, glorified man, Christ. See that? He's representative of all that come from Him as a glorified man in heaven who has been glorified by God.

There is nothing left to do. Do you see that? Nothing left to do, and there's certainly nothing left for you to do other than to believe Him. There's nothing left to do for Christ. And really there's nothing left for you to do but believe Him. That's it.

When you capitalized, how did God change His man? I understand what you're saying, but I feel a little dense about the capital His. Is that Christ? How did God change Christ? Glorified Him? Is that what you're talking about? Yeah. What He did, what God did, is He started over with another man. Because who was Christ's father? One Joe? No, it was the Holy Spirit, right? Why is that important? Because Christ doesn't come from Adam's line. His Father has to be somebody different. Do you see that? So the Holy Spirit is His Father.

So He's a brand new kind of man. And when He goes through the cross and deals with the sin issue before God, is crucified, buried, and then when He's resurrected, This is a brand new man on the earth. Brand new, never been that kind of man on the earth before. Then he goes to heaven and he's glorified. And then through this process, those who believe in him are now identified with him. No longer identified with Adam.

You see that? So when Christ was a teenager and he was building houses, he, whatever he was doing, he was sinless then. Yeah, how cool is that? How about when he hit his thumb with a hammer, was he still sinless? Yeah, he was. Yeah, he would say Judas Priest.

Which is difficult to understand, really, because kids are kids. No, it is. It's very difficult to understand because we don't know anybody like that. But what's interesting is that God is laying this scenario out for us, starting here in 5.12, about this changing of men, and next week we'll start into 6, which will begin to show us the mechanics with which God dealt with getting us unidentified with Adam and identified with Christ, known as the identification truths. And they're critical to a growing believer because you can't live by faith as a growing believer if you don't know that information. You can't do it. You've got to know it.

Maybe that's why the Bible doesn't talk about Jesus' life as a grown-up, because maybe that would have been more like law. He was under the law. And Jesus didn't do that, and we try and do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your word, and how we thank you for your provision of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray in his precious name. Amen.