Transcription
Most Christians would never say this out loud, but you can see it in how they live. Sin isn't taken that seriously anymore. And honestly, Romans 5 almost sounds like it agrees with that. Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So, let me ask you, if grace always wins, what's the big deal about your sin? That's not a careless question. That's exactly where Paul takes you. But if you get this answer wrong, you'll end up justifying the very thing that Paul is trying to destroy. Let's get into it.
Welcome back to Every Word. My name is Nate Solah and today we are studying Romans 5:12 to 6:2. And if this is your first time watching or you've been studying with me for a while, please do me a favor, like and subscribe and that just helps to get this kind of teaching in front of more people. This episode is brought to you by Logos Bible Software.
Let's read together. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned, for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God. And the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if because of one man's trespass, death reign through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it?
In this passage, Paul contrasts Adam and Jesus. That's Romans 5:12-17 and highlights the actions of Christ in light of the consequence of sin which is death. That's verses 18 all the way through 21. Uh he also contrasts sin and grace and ends with a challenging question for the Christian and that's right here. Uh how can we who died to sin still live in it?
Couple of important observations here. Have you noticed yet how repetitive Paul's writing is? So in Romans 1:18-32, Paul shines a bright spotlight on sin and its consequences, which culminates in this statement. They know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die. In chapter 2:12, he broadens the scope of sin to include not just the Gentiles, but all mankind. For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. But then in chapter 3:9, he says it again, for we have already charged uh that all both Jews and Greeks are under sin. And then he brings it up again uh verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. So at some point the listener uh or the reader might be thinking, okay, Paul, we got the whole sin thing, right? He repeats himself like this again and again with various concepts and themes. But if you notice, Paul has different purposes each time that he addresses the same theme. In chapter 2, Paul uses sin to show that the moral superiority of the Christians from a Jewish background is unjustified and hypocritical. In chapter 3, Paul uses sin to show that a person is made righteous, not by their obedience, but by trusting allegiance to God's covenant faithfulness that is revealed in Jesus Christ.
Now, at this point in the letter, uh we have to stop and truly appreciate the fact that Paul is not a 21st century seminary professor uh writing a syllabus on systematic theology to a class. Paul is an ex-Pharisee that is heavily influenced by his Jewish upbringing and his training. That means the book of Romans is not written in what we are used to today, which is a linear fashion, right? Point A, point B, point Z, therefore conclusion. It's actually written in a Hebraic way that retreads old ground over and over and over again. And it creates a very helpful conceptual and theological spiral. Actually, I've heard it said that Paul is not building theology so much as he's braiding theology in Romans. Does that make sense? Hopefully, it does because that explains why Paul is going to circle back around and retread the curse of sin and its consequences. You know, hey Nate, hasn't he already talked about the consequences of sin? Yep. Only this time Paul has an important purpose. He's highlighting the power and the reign of God's grace. So, so whereas before the focus was on sin as something we do, now he's going to talk about sin as a power that reigns and death as the domain that it produces. Why? What is the purpose of this return to sin again? Well, Paul wants to provide another kalva. Okay.
So, in verse 12 and 13 here, it's clear that Paul is continuing a thought that he established previously. Well, how do we know that? Well, right out of the gate, he says, "Therefore," which shows that he's standing on top of prior comments in chapters uh chapter 5:1-11. There were concepts and truths that he revealed uh particularly regarding the grace in which we stand. So, that's uh Romans 5:2. And Paul feels the need to further explain, you know, why is the victory of God's grace so sweet that we can rejoice in the way that Paul describes, right? So that's again, that's verses 2 through 11 of chapter 5. Well, the answer flows out of understanding the pervasive power of sin and death that grace has overcome. And that's the thrust of chapter 5 uh verses 12-21, which is our focus right now.
So, um, also notice verse 13, Paul mentions the law again. Okay, why? Well, remember Paul's not linear. He's spiral in thinking, right? He's still concerned about something that he said back in chapter 3, verse 20. For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in God's sight. Right? Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Well, that's weird. Paul, are you saying that the law uh that is the Torah exists to define and reckon sin within a covenant framework, but doesn't actually have the power to stop or redeem it? Yep, that's exactly what Paul is saying. All right, watch the spiral uh from chapter 3:20 to 5:12 and 13. Again, look at this. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. Okay, wait, stop for a moment. If there was no Torah and thus no violation of Torah, right, before Sinai, why are people dying in history, right? Why was death reigning before Moses appeared and Torah was established? The answer is because sin was a real enslaving power and death its domain long before Torah. That's the point that Paul is making. There's something much more ancient going on here than violation of Torah. Torah came after sin was long in the world. Right? That means a proper perspective on Torah obedience uh entails understanding that one of Torah's primary functions was to uh formally define and reckon sin within the Sinai covenant. It was not to make someone righteous or justified in the sight of God. That's what Paul means when he says this. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given. But sin is not counted where there is no law. Okay? Without Torah, sin cannot be counted or reckoned as uh Sinai covenantal violation. And yet before God's word was written and established on Sinai, before uh sin was even reckoned as covenantal violation, sin and death were already a real powerful presence in the world. That's the point that Paul is making here.
Now in verse 15, Paul gives a kalva. Okay, look at this again. But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. So remember uh kalva is a rabbinic teaching method of arguing from the lesser to the greater. So in other words if something is true on a smaller scale it certainly is also uh true on a much larger scale. Paul has already uh sort of utilized Kalva in chapter 5:9-11 in order to show that since God's people have been justified through Christ and not through their own effort, they can rest assured in their reconciliation and salvation through the same thing and that is Jesus Christ. Now Paul's going to do it again, right? Since sin and death have proliferated to all men because all sinned, much more can God's people rest assured that the grace of Christ leads to righteousness and uh life for eternity. This is why Paul says uh in verse 20, look at this. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. All right? Now notice the different verbs here. Uh but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Can you see that? So in other words, where sin increased, grace super exceeded it decisively. This is not Paul saying that uh both sin and grace get bigger, right? Or they get big, but that grace overwhelms sin. You with me so far? This also helps to explain Paul's use of uh pleonasm uh or increase in this statement. Right now, the law came in to increase the trespass. Okay? He's not saying the Torah forces people to sin, ladies and gentlemen. He's saying that Torah uh its function is to cause sin to multiply in visibility and accountability so that grace can overwhelm it.
Now in Romans chapter 6:1, does this sound familiar? So in light of Paul's teaching, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may uh may abound? Right? This is Paul spiraling back to chapter 3. Do you remember the question from chapter 3? But if through my lie, God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? Remember this. Why not do evil that good may come? Okay, that's Paul's doing here. He's spiraling back. Now, why is Paul spiraling back to chapter 3? Well, because of the connection that Paul just made between increasing and abounding. Can you see that? Because grace overwhelms sin in such a manner, he wants to circle back around and meet the same human objection on a deeper level. All right, you with me? I realize I'm going a little quickly. Hopefully, this is landing for you. The more that we move forward into Paul's letter, the more that we must remember what came before so that we can appreciate these spirals of thought.
So the connections to the Old Testament in this passage are interesting. All right. It appears that Paul is fixated on Adam and yet there are layers here to discover. So so let's go through them. So in Romans 5:12, Paul says that sin came into the world through one man, Adam, and death through sin. Okay? He's not only talking about the fall in the Garden of Eden, he's also referencing God's warning beforehand. Okay, so remember in Genesis 2:17, God warns Adam of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." And then Adam and Eve uh they eat of the fruit, right? Genesis 3:6. Thus disobeying the Lord, and then they are punished. Look at this. Adam uh's punishment sounds like this. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Well, in chapter 5:14, Paul makes an interesting link. He says, "Death reigned from Adam to Moses." Okay. Well, that's interesting. Why wouldn't he just say death reigned from Adam to Christ? Right. Um, what does Moses and Sinai have to do with Adam? Well, did you know that Israel is portrayed in the Old Testament as a corporate Adam and that their role as uh witnesses to the Gentiles actually echoes Adam's role in the Garden of Eden? Did you know that? This explains God placing them in Canaan like he did with Adam in Eden. And it explains why God gave uh their priests responsibilities to work and to keep the temple. Well, guess what? God did the same thing with Adam, to work and keep the Garden of Eden. But those of us who know our history, right, we know our Old Testament, we remember that Israel failed to obey God multiple times over and over again, right? And their failure to obey is a recapitulation of Adam's failure as well. And guess what happens next? They are exiled from the land just like Adam and Eve were. Okay. So, are you seeing the pattern? Now, this is a rabbit trail. So, you know, I can't go too much farther with you here. I got to stay in Romans, but you can explore this rabbit trail and I encourage you to. So, a great book that highlights these connections is The Temple and the Church's Mission by GK Beale. Fabulous book. Highly recommend it. Uh, go take a look at it when you can. All right.
Now, um, here's the Old Testament connection to Paul in Romans 5:14. It's Hosea 6:7. Okay. Look at this. But like Adam, they transgressed the covenant. Well, wait a second. Who does the Lord uh say was like Adam? Israel. That's what he's talking to. That's what he's talking about. Israel is a corporate echo of Adam and they inherited his vocation. But where Adam failed, they also failed themselves. Okay? This is why the life of Jesus replays and fulfills not only Adam's story, but Israel's story. Okay? We hit this a lot in our study of Matthew. If if you went through Matthew with me on this channel. Okay.
Now, in Romans 5:15, uh Paul suggests that one man can represent the many. Okay. Look at this. But the free gift does not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God, and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. Well, hey, where does Paul get this idea that one man can stand in uh or represent the many? Well, the answer is the Old Testament. So, in Leviticus chapter 16, Aaron uh who is the high priest is instructed to make atonement for himself uh and for the entire assembly of Israel. Look at this. Leviticus 16:17. No one may be in the tent of meeting until Aaron comes out and has made atonement for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel. Okay, this concept is picked up later for the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. Okay, look at this. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, uh he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. Okay, this plays out in other ways as well. For example, in Joshua 7, uh we learn of the sin of a man named Achan. You remember this story? Who stole the spoils of Jericho uh even though he was explicitly commanded not to by God. But actually when God uh punishes Israel, Achan is not uh the the sin of Achan is not attributed to Achan alone. Uh look at how God puts it. Joshua 7:11. Israel has sinned. That's what he says. They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them. Once again, the one stands in for and represents the many. This is a thoroughly established biblical concept. All right? Some of us today refer to this as federal headship.
So if you're tracking what we just did, right? So you know, we went to Adam, Israel, we talked about representation, right? Corporately speaking, all these connections across the Old Testament, this is exactly why I use Logos Bible software, cuz you're not going to see all of that just reading straight through. All right? Logos lets you play, and that's what I love. There's so many rabbit trails to go down with the scripture. Um, you can pull up cross references, you can look things up, original language tools. The search feature actually is phenomenal cuz it lets you deep dive into the meaning of texts. As a matter of fact, if you search up why did death reign from Adam to Moses, right? Which, by the way, is a great question. It's going to tell you that death's reign demonstrates humanity's corporate participation in Adam's transgression. But if I follow up with search assistant and ask a question, right, what is corporate participation? It's going to walk you through the concept so that you're not just reading the Bible. You're actually understanding the argument. Okay? If you want to study scripture at that level, go to logos.com/everyword and try it out right now. Two months free. That's what they're offering just so that you can play. And I encourage you to because there's so much to glean from God's word. Again, that's logos.com/everyword. Check it out today.
All right. Now watch what Paul does next. So in Romans chapter 5:16, Paul says, "For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification." Well, this actually connects to Deuteronomy 25:1 where Moses talks about how a dispute should be adjudicated. If there is a dispute between men and they come into court and the judges decide between them acquitting or justifying the innocent and condemning the guilty right there it is condemnation and justification. Can you see it? As we noted earlier in our study of Romans, justification is God counting or reckoning a person righteous not on the basis of their own works but on the basis of the righteousness of Christ. Again, that's Romans 3:23-24. This connects to God doing the same thing in the past. Okay, take a look at Genesis 15 and Psalm 32.
All right. I think we have what we need to determine a lesson for the original audience. After Paul lays down some serious theology in chapter 5, he asks a rhetorical question in anticipation of some pushback. He says, "What shall we say then? And are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means." Right? So, so we have to ask why would Paul anticipate this kind of question. It's because he just got done laying the groundwork for two spiritual regimes. The regime of sin and death and the regime of grace leading to eternal life. Paul says sin and death has reigned this entire time from Adam's rebellion to Jesus. But only Jesus could inaugurate a new regime that has the power to overwhelm sin and death. This is what he meant when he said in chapter 5:20, "where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. Okay? So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Paul is revealing this interesting dynamic between grace and sin. In other words, grace is never outmatched by sin. Even when sin increases, grace proves stronger. Jesus makes a similar point when he gives the parable of the wheat and the weeds in Matthew chapter 13. In the parable, Jesus uh talks about a master who noticed that weeds, you know, some of our translations say tares, right? They were growing alongside the master's wheat. One day the servants come to their master and they ask, master, do you want us to go and gather the weeds? Right? But he said no, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. The point is the kingdom of heaven will spread in a world and amongst a people that are beholden to a different kingdom. It's not minimizing the seriousness of sin. It's emphasizing uh God's patience until the final separation.
Now, let's rephrase this the way that Paul is saying it in Romans chapter 5. Those who live under the reign of grace will be constantly surrounded by those who live under the reign of sin. So, what does the Christian do about this? Right? Well, Paul asks a truly dumb question in order to highlight a a deeper issue of the heart. Right? So if grace is going to spring up alongside sin, why not continue in sin so that grace can do its thing? Right? Why treat sin as serious at all? Underneath that, I believe, is a deeper issue. If sin interacts so closely to grace and vice versa, right? What's the big deal about sin? Maybe another way to say that is, you know, is holiness that important if we're going to live so closely to sinners? Can can you see the flippant nature of the question? Can you see the casual attitude towards sin that the question exposes? You know, this leads to a lesson for the original audience. Are you ready? Christians live in a world where sin reigns, but they must not live as if sin reigns over them. Think about that. In chapter 6, Paul is going to go on and make a forceful case as to why sin no longer reigns over Christians. So then, why should a Christian continue to live in sin? You know, and by the way, this is not about perfection. This is about perception. Christians are no longer under the power and the reign of sin and death. But what happens when a Christian acts like they are? Will they not look like the world? Will the distinction that sets them apart become blurred, perhaps even disappear? And here's one concrete uh sort of implication, right? When God's people live as though sin still reigns over them, they begin to relate to one another the same way that the world does, with suspicion, uh, with comparison, with judgment rather than mercy and forgiveness. Amen. That kind of behavior does not come from grace reigning. It comes from forgetting who reigns. Amen. It's not hard to see traces of this problem. in the church in Rome where you know confusion about sin and law and grace produced division and clash judgment right and even mistrust between believers there's a lot to think about here and this certainly spills over into our own circumstances today does it not at the core of Paul's writing uh I see a simple message with deeply profound implications. Paul wants us to live our faith like we actually believe it's true. In other words, we need to think and speak and act out of the overflow of the faith in God that we profess that we have. Now, at first blush, this lesson seems so simple, you know, uh to a lot of us, I'm sure, that it's almost too trite, right? Uh too cliché even. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, Nate. You know, sin doesn't reign. Got it. Right. And yet, how often do we screw this up? How often do we forget this simple concept? And before we know it, we start looking like the world instead of being not of the world. Why? Because we're not being thoughtful and intentional about stewarding our own faith relationship with the Lord. Does this still teach today? You bet it does. You bet it does. And that's good because this is where I'm going to leave you to uh to chew, to ponder, to think, and to pray, and to understand how these biblical truths come to bear on your life. Amen.
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Next time, friends, Paul is going to give us the key to overcoming sin. It's a mind uh uh blower, a game changer, right? And once you see it, you'll never be able to unsee it again. As always, keep your eyes on the scriptures, stay close to the Lord, happy reading, and bye for now.