Death through Adam, life through Jesus
Romans 5:12-21
Key verse 5:17
Good morning. Last week, we learned when we believe Jesus, we have peace with God. Since we have peace with God, like a little girl calls “daddy” and runs to her daddy, we have access to God 24/7. Also in God we have hope even in the middle of sufferings. It is said people perish not because they are in hardships but because they do not find any hope in it. But thank God that we can find hope in sufferings. Also we have confidence in God’s love, no matter how we mess up, God, he loves us and cares us. The cross of Jesus is the sign of his amazing love. Today, Paul compared life in Adam and life in Jesus. Through Adam, sin entered the world and death through sin. Through Jesus, God’s grace entered the world and eternal life through the grace. I pray God may help us to understand differences between life in Adam and life in Jesus.
- Life in Adam
Can we read verse 12? “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned”. Here “therefore” appears in Romans 5 three times. Verse 1 begins with “therefore”, here verse 12, and verse 18 “consequently” in KJV, “therefore”. This “therefore” refers to chapter 4:25 “Jesus was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
Based on that verse, Paul now explains why Jesus had to die for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification. In order to forgive our sin, did Jesus really have to die on the cross? Why not God just proclaim in heaven “I forgive you all sinners?”. Why did Jesus have to come in flesh, suffer, be crucified, and rise from the dead? Because of the cross, Jewish people consider Jesus just a man of failure. Muslims regard Jesus also just as a prophet because he died but never rose from the dead.
However, verse 12 clearly explains once again why Jesus was delivered over to death and was raised to life. Because one man, our 1st ancestor, Adam messed up. Since he messed up, in order to clean up, Jesus must come in flesh, die, and rise from the dead.
How did Adam mess up? In Genesis, God created him from dust. Even if he was made out of dust, God gave him glory over all creations to rule over and subdue. God also gave him food, the garden of Eden, and his wife Eve. Then, God warned him one thing: Genesis 2:16, 17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”.
Then, in Genesis 3, the serpent, Satan, came and tempted Adam’s wife Eve first. Eve ended up eating the fruit which God commanded not to eat. When she gave some to Adam, he should not listen to her. But he ate the some too. Because of this, sin entered the world and death followed sin since God commanded Adam “you will certainly die”. As Adam sinned and died, all people after him, when they sinned, they all died too. That was our human destiny which no one could escape.
In verses 13 and 14, sin was in the world before the law was given. From the time of Adam to the time of Moses, there was no the law so that sin was not charged as sin. However, the natural law condemned sins of people and death reigned over them. After the law was introduced, sin was charged based on the law, the law condemned sins of people and death came to all people. This is the life in Adam. But God was merciful to sinners. He sent a new Adam, Jesus into this world. Through him, everything was turned upside down.
- Life in Jesus
Look at verse 15. Can we read verses 15? “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” In Romans 1, even though people knew God, when they did not glorify him nor gave thanks to him, God gave them over to their sinful nature. God just let them sin and perish. There was no hope in such a life. But God intervened. He gave hopeless sinners his gift. Gift is the same meaning as grace. Gift or grace is basically you do not deserve to receive it but by mercy, you have it. Since we are enemies of God, we do not deserve to receive God’s gift. But God by his own mercy gave us his gift. In the meantime, what is trespass? The original meaning is to enter someone’s property without permission or across a boundary. Again, in Genesis 2, God set the boundary to Adam: you are free to eat from any tree but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Adam violated it. That is trespass. The trespass brought death over him and all people after him. But the gift of God is different. Here in verse 15, grace appears twice: God’s grace and the grace of the one man, Jesus. Here, God’s grace is that God does not give sinners up. His grace shows how much he has compassion upon us who are under the power of sin and under the power of death. About the grace of Jesus, we can see how he showed his grace in the NT. He healed the sick. He drove out demons. He forgave sinners. He even allowed a robber on the cross to enter the kingdom of God while he suffered himself.
In verse 16-17, Paul explains about the gift of God in details. Can we read verse 16 and 17? “Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”
The gift of God cannot be compared with the result of Adam’s sin. What was the result of Adam’s sin? God’s judgement and his condemnation. In Genesis 3, God condemned Adam: by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food; for dust you are, and to dust you will return”.
Also in verse 17, the result of Adam’s sin was that death reigned through him and all human beings. What does it mean that death reign through people? This means that not only we die in some time but also while we live in this world, until we die, the power of death rules over our life. In Genesis 3, what did Adam do first after he sinned against God? He hid himself from God’s face as he heard of God’s walking. At that moment, he did not die physically yet. But the fear of death seized him already. When God asked him, “where are you?”, God actually asked him to help him, but filled with fear of death, he assumed and blamed Eve and God as well. In the past, the love of God reigned over his heart but after he sinned, the power of death, the fear of death reigned over him.
Not only Adam but also we, Adam’s descendants, are reigned by the power of death as we have sinned. Knowingly or unknowingly, we all are under the power of death. When M. Ruth saw tombs in her little age, she thought no matter how I study hard, no matter how I succeed, eventually I will die. What is the point of working hard? From that moment, death reigned over her and did not find any meaning in her life until she met Jesus. My case is totally opposite to her. When I realized I have only one life on earth, as the Bible says “let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die”, I wanted to live a life of enjoying funs and pleasures. So I liked going to nightclubs. However, deep inside my heart, I was also searching for something meaningful, something eternal, and something valuable.
These days not only in 20s but even in 10s, some of them lose their hairs. One of the main reasons is stress (fear). They are young, healthy, and have no family to take care of. Yet, they are anxious and stressful. Stress, fear, anxiety are signs that people are reigned by the power of death. In the NT, a young rich man came to Jesus. In his early age, he already achieved his success. What else did he need more? Yet, the fear of death reigned over him. Even if he was rich and young, he could not free from the power of death. What a miserable life!
But the gift is totally opposite. In verse 16, the gift of God covers many trespasses (many sins) and brought justification. In verse 17, through Jesus, God’s abundant grace and the gift of righteousness began to reign in our life. As we learned last week, when we are justified by faith in Jesus, God grants us peace. This peace is not the same peace the world provides. In God, this peace has nothing to do with our circumstances. God also grants us access to him. Without fear of death, we can come to God in anytime and from any place. God grant us also hope even in sufferings. God also grants us the Holy Spirit who helps us in our weakness and prays for us. In the Bible, many people boasted about God’s grace and victory over the power of death. David confessed in Psalm 23. It says “Even though I walk through the darkest valley,I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
King Solomon said in Proverb 24:16 says “for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.”
In Isaiah 40:1,2, Isaiah also “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” Isaiah praised God that Israel received double, more than enough money to pay for their sin from God.
When I studied computer science at the University of Maryland, I was literally so busy: studying, family, part time job, yet attended all meetings, fishing, 1:1. I was afraid of failure in school study. But at the same time, I did not want to give up fishing and 1:1. While I was stuck, Esther 4:16 came up to my heart. It says “if I perish, I perish”. Then, God helped me to overcome fear of failure in study and with the attitude of “if I fail, I fail”, I was able to live a victorious life in the end.
When Kemmons Wilson started Holiday Inn in 1952, he wanted to run his business with Christian belief. At that time, almost every hotel had bars, disco clubs, slot machines to make more profits. But when he opened his hotel business, he told his partners he would not have any such things. His friends and partners tried to persuade him, but failed. Some partners actually left him. He was very anxious about what if I fail in my business. But at the same time, he said “trust in God and obey the ten commandments”. Then the grace of God reigned in his life. He overcame the fear of death and made his hotel business very successful.
Look at verses 18 and 19. Let’s read verse 18 and 19. “Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous”.
Adam’s one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people. Why did Adam’s one sin bring condemnation for all people including us? It seems unfair. The condemnation should be limited to only him? The condemnation came to all people, because Adam is the representative of all humans. He was the first man. He is the pattern of the one to come after him. In a family, father is like a representative of family. When children are born, they follow their father’s last name because he is the representative of his family. So when he does bad things (let’s say murdering someone), not only people condemn him as a murder but also call his children as children of murderer. In this way, when our representative Adam sinned, the condemnation came all the way to us too.
Similarly, Jesus’ one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. Now Jesus is our new representative of all human beings. Before God’s eyes, what Jesus did is the same as what we did. When Jesus paid for our sins on the cross, in God, we paid for our sins too. When he rose from the dead, in him we were raised to life too. So through one man Jesus, we are justified before God and receive eternal life.
Look at verse 20 and 21. Can we read verse 20 and 21? “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The law came back again while Paul spent lots of time in comparing the life in Adam and the life in Jesus. Adam messed up. But Jesus came and fixed it. Then, why was the law given between Adam and Jesus? verse 20 says “the law was brought in so that the trespass might increase”. We can see here “aha, the reason God gave the law is not to make people feel righteous but to help people see their sins through the law”. Finding ourselves as sinners is not easy at all. From the first day of our life, we have lived in sin. Since we are too familiar to sin, our conscience is not sensitive to sin at all. It is like these days people are accustomed to coronavirus, not many people wear masks on campus these days. So God gave the law to wake up our sleeping conscience of sins: through studying the law, people find themselves in sinning against God and search for a Savior. So the law itself is good and holy.
As a conclusion, so far we learned differences between life in Adam and life in Jesus. There are sin and death in the life Adam. In the life of Jesus, there are God’s grace and eternal life. When we live our life in Adam, the power of death reigns over us. But when we live our life in Jesus, God’s peace reigns our heart. Hope and love reigns over us. Forgiveness and justification reign over us. Should not we choose the life in Jesus? Thank God for our new Adam: Jesus. I pray that we may remain in Jesus’ love and his words every single day.
Let us read key verse 17. “For if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”