The Great Contrast — Death In Adam, Life In Christ

Romans 5, from verse 12 onwards, from verse 12 to 21. Romans 5, verse 12 to 21. “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 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 reigned 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 of all men, and so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by 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.” Let’s pray. Father, we want to thank you for this word that you have given us, and as we meditate upon it Lord, and now we pray, just open our eyes to understand your word, and Lord help us to apply to our lives and live in such a way that will bring glory and honor to your great name, and in Jesus’ name we pray, amen. So from this passage we’ll be looking at this great contrast. So if you have ESV three Bibles, you’ll have a heading there that says, “Death in Adam and Life in Christ.”

And I did not see that before. So we will see a great contrast where we see how death entered into this world through Adam, but then life entered into this world through Christ. Last two times we have seen the benefits of justification in the previous passage, or the previous passages. Peace, grace, joy, Christ-like character and assurance. These are the things that we have seen.

Last week we saw how Christians can rejoice, how Christians can rejoice even in the middle of sufferings as they have purpose in our lives. For God uses those sufferings to make us more Christ-like, and they give us hope and assurance that we belong to God and that in the coming future we will spend our eternity with God. Moreover, we also saw that we rejoice not just in the blessings of God, but in the blesser himself, that is, in God himself. Let us never forget that it is Christ Jesus who made this justification, reconciliation and glorification possible for us.

Without him, we are doomed to eternal hell and nothing else. So let us be ever grateful to God for what he accomplished for us in and through Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour King. So today, we will turn to the next passage and see what God has in store for us. Romans chapter 5, verses 12 through 21. To put it in one simple sentence, what Paul is saying here is, one man’s sinful act brought great damnation to humanity, but one man’s righteous act brought great deliverance to the lost humanity.

So one man’s sinful act brought great damnation to humanity. But one man’s righteous act brought great deliverance to the lost humanity. So we’ll look at the first section in our sermon, that is death in Adam. Death in Adam. So verse 12 starts off with, “Therefore, just as.” “Therefore, just as.” I think Paul is the greatest theologian who wrote much of the New Testament. Do you agree with me? He simplifies things and clearly explains a lot of theology. However, to follow his writing style is another thing.

Peter himself says in 2 Peter 3, verse 15-16, he says, “there are some things that Paul wrote that are hard to understand.” Probably this is one of those passages. Paul starts off in verse 12 with the word therefore, and it drifts into the thought of sin, and then comes back in verse 18 and finishes his thought with therefore again.

So if you just read verse 12 to 17, you might not get the point, because the main point is in verse 18. So what he started in 12, he just finishes it in 18. So what Paul was trying to say is, now because of the reconciliation Christ brought to us — that’s in verse 11, or from 1 to 11 we see the concept of reconciliation, right? So because of the reconciliation Christ brought to us, grace reigns subduing sin and death and leading us to eternal life. That’s Paul’s thought in this passage. So because of the reconciliation Christ brought to us, grace reigns subduing sin and death and leading us to eternal life.

And that is how Paul closes this section in chapter 5. So verses 12 to 21 is a conclusion of Paul’s thought on justification by faith. In chapter 1 and 2 and the first half of chapter 3, Paul showed that both Jews and Gentiles, all of them, are sinners. In the second half of chapter 3 and the whole of chapter 4, Paul shows that only by faith in Christ a person is truly justified, that is, made righteous. In chapter 5, Paul talks about the blessings of justification.

And concludes the topic of justification there in chapter 5. That does not mean that he stopped talking about justification by faith. I believe that Paul constantly taught and reminded people about this great doctrine of justification by faith. I think no other person gave more weight to this doctrine like Paul. It is by the grace of God and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul penned these words in the Bible.

Through Paul, God gave us all the clarity about how he saves his people from their sins and reconciles them to himself. So let us thank God for raising up Paul and for using him for our good and for his glory. Coming back to our passage, we can see that Paul structured it in a particular way.

So think in terms of threes. Think in terms of threes. In verses 12 to 14, Paul shows three things. First, he shows how sin entered this world through one man. Then, he shows that using sin, death entered this world. And finally, he shows that death spread to all men, reigning over them all. If we go back to the beginning of history, in the beginning of the Bible, we see how God created Adam and gave him a commandment. Genesis chapter 2, verses 15 through 17. So Genesis chapter 2, verses 15 through 17, we see this: the Lord God. That’s a commandment that God gave Adam.

Here is a commandment with a consequence. If you eat, you’ll die. So if Adam obeys that commandment, then he can enjoy eternity with God in God’s presence. If he disobeys, then the punishment is death. Both physical death as well as spiritual death. We know what Adam did, right?

Siding with his wife, he chose to disobey instead of leading his wife into obedience to God. As a result, what happened? They brought upon themselves curse and death punishment. They were supposed to die immediately that day itself. However, we see God spared them and let them live by His grace and mercy.

So even in the garden, immediately after sin, God showed His grace and mercy to Adam and Eve. However, they immediately died spiritually and fallen short of the grace of God, the glory of God. If Adam would have been by himself and for himself, that would not have affected anyone else.

It was his sin, he will pay the price for that, if he was by himself. However, since God made him, that is God made Adam, the federal head or the covenantal head or the representative of whole humanity, his actions affects the whole human race. And that’s what happened in the garden. There was no sin before in this world, but through this one man sin entered into this world. So Adam became a means for sin to enter into this world, as if sin is a person and Adam is a door of an entrance. Following sin, death entered, using sin as a means. Again,

as if death is a person and of entrance, that’s what we see in these verses. So once it entered this world, once death entered this world, it started to spread like a virus. We know how the coronavirus began in one place and spread across the whole world, right? There might be people who were not affected with corona, but there are none who did not get affected with sin and death. It spread to all men, says Paul. This is a gender inclusive noun. So Paul meant to all men and women in the entire world, and that includes you and me as well. Not just in

Adam’s time or in Paul’s time, but at all times this is true, that every human on the face of this earth was and is or will be born in sin with a death penalty on him or her. The moment we are born, we have a death penalty on us.

Paul says that death spread to all men because all sinned. Look at these verses. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Now, this prayer, this phrase could be misunderstood. Paul is not saying, it is not saying that because we all sinned, death came to us. So it is not because we all have acted sinfully get death came to us. Again, it is Paul writing in a hard way. He used the word sinned there in a singular event in the past, but joined it to the word all, which is the present plural. It is, it is more of a theological construction than just a grammatical note.

Here the word sin here refers to Adam’s act of sin, and all refers to all of humanity. What Paul is saying here is that all humanity has Adam’s sin, or in Adam all have sinned. This is another union terminology. All humanity is in union with Adam by default as he is the federal head of humanity, as he is a representative of all humanity.

united to him in that. He represents all of us. So in that sense, we all participate in Adam’s sin as we all came from him. Adam’s nature was corrupted with sin once he disobeyed, and we all, sorry, and we who came from him got that sinful corrupt nature along with him. That is why we sin, and that is why we all die in this world. There are some movies in which when a virus attacks a person, he becomes a zombie and spreads that virus to others. So those zombies are like dead people walking, right? Even so, people who are affected by sin are spiritually dead, walking in this world. We are like zombies in this world, spiritually dead. So spiritual zombies. Or take for example our Indian cricket team. If

the team loses the final cup, the captain takes a full responsibility. But it is not just the team, right, who feels like losers, but the whole country. They say in the news, “India lost the cup,” not just the team. One man represents the whole country. Adam represents the whole human race and he is responsible for his actions. And in him, we all are too.

Verse 13. It says, “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.”

These verses are a bit confusing if you do not get it right. Simply saying that even before God gave the written law through Moses, there was sin in this world. That means there is law in the hearts of the people of this world. If there was no law, then nobody is accountable to anybody, and thus there would be no sin or punishment. But we clearly see that death is ruling, pulling everyone from Adam to Moses and beyond. That means there must be a law even before Moses handed it down to the people of Israel.

And Adam had a law in the Garden of Eden and he disobeyed it. Adam’s sin was different as it had its effect on the whole humanity because Adam is a representative unlike any of us. That’s why our sin is different from his. Adam, as a representative, points to someone who will come in the future, who will represent the new humanity, whom he will redeem and restore. And that’s why he’s called his type. “Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” So Adam is pointing out to another person who will come in the future, who will take over the responsibility of representing God’s people.

So having said that, let us get into the next section and see how Paul contrasts the work of Adam to the work of Christ. So look at the next three verses, 15 through 17, 15 through 17, and we will see this, the life in Christ being highlighted here in this, in these verses. “But the free gift is not like—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.”

Paul uses the words free gift five times in these three verses, if you count it. Now, what is this free gift? The first four times he just says free gift, but in the last he says free gift of righteousness. So the gift is righteousness and it is free. In this chapter and the previous one Paul talked about justification by faith, that is God declaring us righteous by giving us the righteousness of Christ as a free gift to us. It is a gift of God. Paul is comparing that gift of righteousness with the trespass or sin that Adam committed and saying that they are both different.

So actually he is contrasting here those two things. Adam disobeyed and that was his selfish choice, and by making that choice he put many in danger of hellfire. However, Jesus Christ selflessly obeyed God even to the point of death on that cross and put many in the grace of God and in right standing with God. You see the great contrast, see? And what Adam did was not glorious but a stupid thing, to disobey. Every time we sin against God, every time we break those commandments, what we are doing is not a glorious thing. It’s a stupid thing, it’s a foolish thing, right?

We all would have done the same thing if we were in Adam’s place, so do not think the other ways. But what Jesus had done was not an ordinary or a common thing. It was unique and special and glorious and wonderful. Jesus spreads his righteousness to many who believe. Many, to many who believe. He spreads his righteousness. Just think about it. Which job is a better one? Killing people or saving lives?

Who are better people, murderers or doctors? We cannot even compare them, for they are quite opposites. Right? Murderers are not little better and doctors are more better. We don’t see them in that way, right? So one is the worst and the other is glorious.

If that is so in this life, how much more glorious is Jesus and his saving work? It is infinitely glorious. Do you see that? Oh, praise God for Jesus our Redeemer who gave us life beyond measure. Verse 16, it says, “And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin, but the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.” Now Paul goes one step ahead and talks about the result of sin. The result of sin, which is the judgment and condemnation which followed. Again he contrasts one man’s sin and the judgment of sin with the free gift of righteousness. Here both yielded different results, condemnation and justification respectively.

So for sin there is condemnation, for righteousness there is justification. The difference between them is like the difference between heaven and hell. Justification is too glorious to be compared to condemnation. Too glorious. The result of Adam’s sin was destructive while the result of Jesus’ work was redemptive. That’s a massive difference, isn’t it? Death is what we all earned in Adam. The result of Adam’s sin is death to all humanity. Sin is the cause and the effect is judgment and condemnation. But the life in Jesus is a gift, and we cannot earn it or grab it or steal it or bribe it.

God will not save you because you’re putting 100 rupees in the offering bag. You cannot earn it in any way. It can only be received by faith in Jesus and his finished work on the cross. Though there are many sins on its way, still this free gift reaches as many as were appointed to eternal life. That is, to many. That is what Paul is saying here. One man’s one sin led everybody to eternal hell, condemnation. But then one man’s righteous act, even though there are many sins, brought life that is eternal to many.

To understand the difference, just imagine yourself standing in a court before the judge. Broke the law and there is clear evidence of it. Your audio file was leaked and there is CCTV footage for you committing sin. Do not ask me what that sin is. But then the judge looks at the facts and declares you guilty of sin.

He hands down a just sentence of punishment to you. That is condemnation. That is condemnation. Suddenly a friend of yours steps forward, takes your place and pays the price for your punishment. The judge looks at you again, and because your friend paid the price he declares you not guilty.

He treats you as if you never broke the law. That’s justification. By default, we all were in a condemned state because we all participated in Adam’s sin. However, Jesus steps down to this world and takes up humanity and represents his people. He perfectly obeys God on behalf of his people and takes their punishment on him and pays it in full. The wrath of God that was to be poured on us, Jesus takes it upon himself.

He experiences death on that cross and raises us up again on the third day. Now all those who repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus and his work on that cross, Jesus represents them before his Father and reconciles them with his Father. God the Father, for the sake of Jesus, forgives them and declares them righteous because of their faith in Christ. Thus they are admitted into God’s kingdom, into heaven, into God’s presence. Dear friend, is your name in the list?

Will you go to heaven if you die today? Are you seeking to enter into God’s holy presence by your own righteousness, which is self-righteousness, and which is nothing but sin in God’s sight? You cannot. You just cannot do that. You need Christ’s righteousness to cover you to enter into God’s presence. For that you need to repent of your sins and put your faith in Jesus. You just need to trust him and he will take care of the rest.

Think about it today if you haven't. Verse 17, “For if, because of one man's trespass, death will 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 that one man, Jesus Christ.”

Paul now elaborates on his third point that death reigns over all, but contrasts it with the grace which reigns supremely through Jesus Christ. God gave Adam a command to rule over the world and subdue it in Genesis chapter 1. But Adam through sin handed that rule into the hands of death or the agent of death, that is Satan himself.

So it is death that reigns over all through that one man Adam. Death had become supreme in this world and nobody can even think of escaping it. Long ago for some years I practiced martial arts and at that time I dreamed of becoming the toughest man in this world.

Now there is quite a contrast. Rest then I dreamed, then I dreamed of beating the strongest man in the world and becoming famous like Bruce Lee. Some people call me Charlie, though it rhymes, but it's a different thing though. But this thought to become unbeatable dominated my mind. At that time I was young, I was foolish. But one other, the thought changed my whole perspective, this thought: if you face death, can you beat it? If you face death, can you beat it? I do not know where the thought came from, but then it just troubled me like anything. I knew I cannot beat it and I must die one day.

So I lost confidence in myself and soon left martial arts too. We cannot even think of overcoming death, right? No doctor can save us from it. Death rules this world. It is because of Adam's sin and since we all participated, death even rules over us.

But thanks be to God, there is someone who is greater than death and who through his death now rules over death itself, that is Jesus. And through this one man all those who are objects of God's grace and righteousness reigns in life. That's what Paul is saying here. Look here, what Paul is not saying, he's not saying that life will rule over them in contrast to death ruling over them. No, they will rule in life. They will rule in life. It's not life ruling over them. So in Jesus we receive much more than life itself. We become more like him and we reign with him

in his kingdom. Who can imagine that? It is not like going from rags to riches, but from rags to kings and queens in God's kingdom. He gives us not a little more than we ask, but much more than we can even imagine. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9.

Paul says here, “But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.'” On this side of heaven, we can't even imagine that. We don't even know what God has prepared, but it is glorious beyond measure, and we will one day experience that thing. We will enjoy those glorious things. The amount of grace that we who believe have received is far too greater than the justice for our sins. The sentence condemnation that we all receive, the we all received for our sins, is exactly what we deserve.

But the quantity and quality of grace that we have received instead of it is far too great for nothing that we have contributed. We are receiving it simply by faith and it's a free gift and we have not contributed to it in any way. All we brought to God is our sin and it takes our sin and gives us his glorious grace.

We have freely received it. It is only because of God's sheer goodness we have received it. Our God is good and gracious, generous and lavish towards his people. Tim Keller wrote a book called The Prodigal God. We all know about the prodigal son, right? So what does the prodigal son do? Takes all the property, his money, goes and lavishly spends it off for unnecessary sinful pursuits. But then Tim Keller wrote a book called Prodigal God. And prodigal is the one who spends very lavishly all his riches. So his point is God pours out his riches of grace very lavishly upon us through his son Jesus Christ. So in Christ we are rich, infinitely richer than Elon Musk or Warren Buffett.

Right? So God is lavishly pouring out his grace and that’s why Tim Keller calls him the prodigal God. So we’ll come to conclusion in verses 18 and 19 if you see. Verse 18 and 19. So here Paul draws some parallels to Adam and Christ. Verse 18: “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 one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Now in verses 18 and 19 Paul concludes what he has been saying in the previous verses. The thought he started in verse 12, he finished it here. His point is just as one sin or one man’s sin led to condemnation of many, so also one man’s righteous act leads to

a justification and life for many people. We need to be careful in interpreting the words all men and many here. So Paul uses them interchangeably in verses 18 and 19. In the first case, condemnation for all men or many were made sinners means the same.

Here all men or many means all human beings who came from Adam and Eve, all men and women, everybody in this world. In the second case it is not the same as this. Their life for all men or many will be made righteous in these two verses means the same, but the difference is that unlike in the previous case, all or many does not mean all but just many. How do we know this? Other scripture portions that are clear on this topic clarifies this point. All human beings came from Adam and are in Adam. So everyone sinned in Adam.

However, not all are in Christ like they are in Adam. Only those who repented of their sins and had their faith in Jesus are in Christ. That is in union with Christ. And these alone are justified or made righteous. For the past, present and future generations, this is the same.

So though Adam and Jesus are not equals in any sense, Paul draws some parallels as Adam acts as a type of Christ. Just as Adam is a representative of all humanity, Jesus is a representative of many who believe or will believe. Adam’s sin was imputed to all of humanity, while Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to those who trust him for their salvation. At the cross, we can see that there is double imputation. Our sin is imputed to Jesus, that is legally charged to him as if it is his, while righteousness is imputed to us, that is legally declared that it is ours now.

His obedience is counted as ours while our sin is counted as his. On that cross. We thus are justified or declared righteous because of imputation which only happened because of our great and gracious representative Jesus Christ. Finally Paul brings in Moses again, not our Moses, it’s the Old Testament Moses. So when I say Moses I mean the law. They are interchangeably used in the Bible. Verse 20 and 21: “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin is increased grace abounded all the more. As sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

So by saying that law came to increase sin, Paul does not mean that the law is helping people to sin more. That’s not what he is saying. Rather, the law is showing what sin’s real face is. It is not spreading sin more in the world, but then it’s showing the power of sin or the intensity of sin.

Romans chapter 7 verse 12. Romans chapter 7 verse 12. Paul says, “So then the law is holy and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.” Law defines what sin is, reveals sin to us and condemns sin for what it is. That is what law does. And law is good. It is not evil. So law is like a magnifying glass that shows the sinfulness of sin.

Do you remember the first time you told lies to your parents when you were children? Did you feel the shivering inside while lying or felt guilty about it? That’s while being children, but ignorant of the law. So, after hearing the Ten Commandments later in life, have you thought about your past lies?

If so, how did you feel about it later? More guilty for doing those things? After coming to the knowledge of the law, we realize that our sin is greater than we thought it is. Isn’t it? This is true not just in the case of lying, but all other sins as well. For every sin, be it idolatry, dishonoring God and others, cheating, stealing, covetousness, adultery and murder, both in thought and deed, and you name it, whatever sin it is, guilt is greater after the law was given.

So in that sense sin increased when the law came. So we can understand when children ignorantly sins. But there are adults who are still ignorant of God’s law. For example, there are people who do not know that abortion is murder. And they’re casually committing it.

Surrogacy is sinful as well and even so IVF. This might be shocking to many. So how so? So we believe that life is created when a sperm joins an egg, right? In the process of surrogacy and IVF, many eggs are collected and are mixed with sperms in the lab.

Mature eggs successfully fertilize and become embryos and from those that survive in the lab for a few days, only one or two are planted in the womb of the woman. All the remaining embryos are either stored up for the future use or donated or discarded.

So many people in this world choose to discard them and discarding those embryos which has life is nothing but murder because there is life in embryos. People are still ignorant of this. In surrogacy you go a step further and use a person who carries the embryo as an object for your selfish purpose.

That’s sin. That’s evil. So dear brothers and sisters, let us know what the commandments are. Let us study the law so that we might walk according to the law of God. Paul’s point here is no matter how much sin increases in this world, God’s grace increases much more than sin. There is a greater measure of grace than sin in this world.

God is not overwhelmed by the sinfulness of sin in this world. It doesn’t take him by surprise. Paul is not minimizing sin here but is showing that before the super abounding grace of God sin has no power. Jesus nailed it to the cross and where sin reigned, that is death, Jesus went there through the death and through his death he reigned over it and subdued it and he overcomes it. So he delivers all those who trust in Jesus from the power of sin now and from the presence of sin in the future.

Paul says here, “Grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The greatest sinful act in the history of mankind is putting Jesus to death on that cross. It’s the greatest act of sin. But God sending Jesus to die on the cross for our sins is God’s lavishing, is God lavishing his grace and mercy to the undeserving people.

If we were, if we lived 2000 years ago, by the time of Jesus, we would have been in that crowd probably crying out, “Crucify him, crucify him,” right? But through that same event God is showering his grace, lavishing his grace upon us through the death of his son. So the later is much greater than the former. It is this grace that God shows us through Jesus Christ, and this grace reigns in us, overthrowing the reign of death in us and giving us eternal life.

The righteousness that we receive will become a means for grace to rule over us. Once we are in Christ, sin and death has no power over us and cannot rule over us. Christians might fall into sin but they will rise up again. The sin cannot control them because they are under the rule of Christ and his grace. Only the grace of God rules over us. We are standing, or we are installed, are fixed in that grace now. So even, not even, death can move us now from this state of justification.

We are justified by faith in Christ, period. Nobody can erase this. Nobody can change this. So let us rejoice and hope in God, dear brothers and sisters. Let us thank Him and praise Him for all His goodness and grace that He showed upon us. Let us keep reading His word and let us know His ways and commandments so that we can walk in righteousness to please Him and not grieve His heart by sinning against Him.

Let us be quick to confess our sins and slow to commit them. This gospel is the only hope we have, the world needs it. So let us proclaim this wonderful plan of salvation that people might find their joy in God and that they might with us for eternity enjoy God.