07 Grace Abounds (Romans 5:12-21)

SPEAKER_00: Okay. We are in Romans chapter 5 today. And how many of you have seen the Broadway play? I have no idea how to pronounce it. Leh mis or obless? How do you how do you say that? Lehmes, yes. I have no idea. You know, friends, don't you bet how do you say that? I was close. Good. There's an interesting prologue in that musical that tell well, let me just set it. It's the story of Jean Valjean, who's sent to prison for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. And at the beginning of the story, he's paroled, and he's finding it hard to start over because of all the rules against convicts. He spends the night with a bishop, and when he leaves the next morning, he steals silver from the bishop. And he's caught and brought back before the bishop. And this is often how the story opens. So I'm I was going to play it for you, and then I decided it was too long. So I'm just going to read you some of the uh some of the lyrics. So he's brought back before the bishops, and the constables sing, Tell his reverence your story, let us see if he's impressed. You were lodging here last night, you were the honest bishop's guest. And then out of Christian goodness, when he learned about your plight, you maintain he made a present of the silver, and the bishop interrupts and says, That is right. But my friend, you left so early, something surely slipped your mind. You forgot I gave these also. Would you leave the best behind? And he offers him the rest of the silver. So then he turns to the constable. So, Monsieurs, you may release him, for this man has spoken true. I commend you for your duty, and God's blessing go with you. And the policemen leave, and he turns to Jean Valjean and he says, And remember this, my brother, see in this some higher plan, you must use this precious silver to become an honest man. By the witness of the martyrs, by the passion and the blood, God has raised you out of darkness. I have bought your soul for God. Valjean is so shocked by this act of compassion and grace that he sings this wonderful song in which he basically gives his life to God. And just part of that refrain, he says, one word from him, and I'd be back beneath the lash upon the rack. Instead, he offers me my freedom. I feel my shame inside me like a knife. He told me that I had a soul. How does he know what spirit comes to move my life? Is there another way to go? And he uh turns over his life at that point. And I bring that up because that's essentially the point of our passage today. This this kind of act of surprising grace, this more than you expected comes to you and you you know you don't deserve it, and it's more than you dreamed of. So when the bishop offers him the rest of the silver, he's he's dumbfounded, and that's Paul's point today, basically, grace abounds. So if I was gonna sum up this whole section in two words, that would be it. Grace abounds. So let me just set the stage where we are, and um we'll explain that. We're this is gonna be fun today. Just I'm gonna warn you, we're gonna get into some theology 101 just for the fun of it. And um I'm gonna explain covenant theology to you in a nutshell. Uh, since we're in a reformed church, you might as well know. And then uh what how covenant theology puts this all together. Then we're gonna come back though. I won't lose sight of the main point of the passage, at least I'll try not to. There's some, we are gonna go through basically verse by verse because it's a pretty confusing passage, I think, and it's there's a lot of theological issues raised, but we also will I'll try to remember to put it all back together again. So here's where we are. By the end of chapter four, Paul's made his case that we are justified by faith and not by keeping the law. And then chapter five is his summary of everything he's said up to this point. So he's answering the question, so what? What difference does it make? If everything I've said is true, that we're justified by faith and not keeping the law, so what? Is that just theology or should it make a difference to me? And then the first part of the chapter that we looked at last week, he says, we have a hope of the glory of God, and it's a fully confident, realize um eager expectation that God will indeed make us glorious, holy creatures. And um now he's essentially going to make that same point again, but from a different angle. So if you ever wrote a thesis paper in English, you know, and you get to the end and you have to conclude and you don't want to say everything you've said in the paper up to this point, you kind of summarize your point but from a different aspect. That's essentially what he's doing here. He's basically making the same point he made in the first part of the chapter, but from a different angle. And that point is grace prevails. So what he's saying is in this section is he's contrasting Adam and Jesus, and he's saying essentially in human history there are two events that are really important. That was Adam's decision and Jesus' decision. And all of human history hinges really on those two events. Adam created the problem, Jesus creates the solution to the problem. And for us, that kind of seems trivial for because for 2,000 years we're used to hearing Jesus saves, and there's you know pretty much universal agreement on that among the Christian churches. So for us, the more intriguing questions are things like, well, exactly how did he save us, and who was he, and how did we know that he exists, and and what exactly did he usher in. But put yourself back in Paul's time for a minute. In his environment, the given was the law says that what if you want to follow this God Yahweh, what you need to do is strive to be obedient to all the Mosaic law and follow the rules and the rituals and do what the rabbis tell you. So from them, their perspective, the solution to the problem is the law. And for Paul to come along and say, wait, there's a different solution to the problem is is really radical. It's like it's this whole new concept. To say that God's answer to the problem of sin is not to supply the Torah, his answer is to supply a Savior, that's new. That's unusual. For us, it doesn't seem so new, but it it would have been for them. Alright, so turn to Romans 5 if you aren't there already. We're gonna start in verse 12 and go through the end of the chapter. And I'm gonna read from the English Standard Version. Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death for sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned, and then most translations you'll notice there's a dash here. That's because Paul never finishes the sentence. He starts it, he interrupts himself, and he never completes it. He's interrupted by his own thought. So what he's saying, I think by sin here is he's got in mind more than just uh breaking the law, but this whole principle of being fallen, of being a rebel against God. And so he starts by saying, okay, uh, with Adam, you had this phenomenon of rebellion that was introduced into the human race, and death death followed on the heels of that. Now remember how we've defined death from chapter one. It's not just that our heart stops beating, it's all the effects of sin and the fall. So it's the restlessness, the cruelty, the laziness, the jealousy, envy, strife, um, depression, the sharp tongues, resentment, greed, all that stuff is a direct result of sin. And Paul's saying, sin came into the world through Adam's decision, and right on the heels of that, death came in and spread to all men because everyone sinned. And before he finishes that point, he says, wait a minute, I have to clear up a confusion. Because his readers or his the Jews of his day are going to go, wait a minute, there's no law yet. So how can there be, how can you say that sin has entered the world through Adam? They'd say, We know that death is the penalty for the curses in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and it's all the do this and you'll live, and don't do this and and you'll die. So, how can you say that death is in the world when the law hasn't been given yet? So that's the confusion he's gonna try to clear up before he goes on. The assumption that if there's no law to break, there's no sin. So what he's gonna answer in 13 and 14 is basically saying sin is more than just law breaking. So let's look at that. For sin in 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 even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. So he's saying, okay, wait, there was sin in the world even though there was no law. And how do we know? Because there was death in the world. So he's saying it's no surprise that people from Adam to Moses experienced death because they were sinners. And sin is more than just breaking the law, it's not just explicitly, you know, here's a command, I'm not going to do it. It's this principle of rebellion or fallenness. So when he says sin is not counted with there is no law, I think he would say it's not explicitly chalked up as rebellion. It's not transgression in that sense, but you're still morally guilty. So if they, for instance, if they make adultery legal, which they essentially have in our society, I haven't broken any laws if I commit adultery, but I'm still morally guilty because adultery is still wrong. So God has a standard of right and wrong, and whether it's explicitly written down, it's still there. It's still in effect. And remember from chapter one, he told us everyone has enough evidence to know that God exists and to know that there's right and wrong. And one, what's the evidence we have? Some of it is death. You know you're doing something wrong if the consequences are things like anger, depression, bitterness, um, broken hearts, broken feelings, broken relationships. All that stuff is the clue, this isn't a good thing. And with our children, we tried to point this out when they were little, you know, and they would refuse to share or something, and everyone was mad and in tears. Say, this is what happens. See, the direct result of being selfish is now everyone is unhappy. Everyone is is mad. And we tried to teach them this connection between sin and death, even though not using those words, by saying, look at the results. When you're selfish, when you're bitter, when you're angry, look at what happens. Look at how people get hurt, people are mad, broken, people are upset, the the re the atmosphere is spoiled, the day's been ruined. So you can make those connections even with young children, and Paul's saying we should know that. We should look around us and be able to tell that these things are wrong because the consequences of them are death. So death reigned between Adam and Moses because there was sin in the world. It was fallen, people were fallen. So, let's see, where did I? I'm skipping around in my notes. So sin is not counted, it'll sometimes some translations say reckoned or imputed. The idea is your rebellion is not explicitly chalked up as rebellion until you have something to rebel against. Nevertheless, your heart is still sinful. There is still it's still wrong. The other interesting phrase then is this even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who is that? What does that mean? And I think what he's saying is, in Adam, he had an explicit command that he rebelled against. So he was in the garden, God said, You can eat of every tree except this one. He had an explicit given command, and he broke it. Then when you get to Moses, the commands are spelled out in great, beautiful, exquisite detail, and we break them. So Adam had specific commands to break, Moses had specific commands to break, and the people after him, the generations in between didn't have that. God had not spoken in the same way. So they didn't sin in the same way in that they weren't breaking an explicit given command, but they were still sinful. So I think those are the people he has in mind. Those who had not sinned like Adam sinned, they were still sinners, but they didn't have an explicit given command to break. But again, he's already told us from chapter one, they have enough evidence to know that what they're doing is wrong. So it's like, you know, if I take this pen and I drop it, it's going to fall every time because of the law of gravity. It's never going to hang in the air. From Paul's perspective, if you sin, you will experience death in some form, just like the law of gravity. It's a given. It will happen. So all these arguments, you know, our children, our teenagers give us, well, but you know, if I sleep with my boyfriend, nobody's going to get hurt. It's a given. Somebody will get hurt. There will be consequences. There always are, if it's wrong, there is always death. So when the law comes, then it puts an end to those kinds of rationalizations because now it's explicitly spelled out. This is wrong, this is right, I can do this, I can't do this. So it takes away our excuses. When uh my son Brendan, when he was little, he he was pretty adept at figuring out what we were going to get upset about. So even if there wasn't explicit command, he could look around and think, hmm, this might incur the wrath of mom. So his answer was not to not do it. He would say, Mom, don't look. And then he'd do it. It's like, okay. Or he'd say, Mommy, could you leave the room? Okay, we know that we're about to do something we shouldn't here. So uh we know, even without an explicit command, even young children know or can guess when something's wrong, but we do it anyway. Okay, the other interesting phrase in this in this verse is Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. Uh he's referring to Jesus, and the question is, what does he mean by a type? How is Adam a type of of Jesus? The word he uses is a word that comes from pottery. When you you take a mold, now unfortunately my kids have grown up and I gave away all my play-doh stuff. I was I was looking around for it. You should have brought your play-doh, yeah. You know, when you have these molds like Cookie Monster, you know, Big Bird, and you stuff the play-doh into the mold and then you pull it out. The mold and the is a type of the clay, in that where one goes in, the other goes out, where one goes out, the other goes in, they they correspond, they fit together. They're not identical, but they correspond. Or, you know, you have jello molds and bread molds and those kinds of things. When you take the clay out or the bread or whatever, it is the opposite or the image of what was in the mold. And that's what this word is. One is a type of the other in that sense. So they correspond. Adam created the problem, Jesus created the solution. Adam disobeyed, Jesus obeyed. They correlate, but they're not identical. In fact, the other place you see this word in the New Testament is when Jesus has resurrected and he appears to the disciples, and Thomas says, I want to see the marks in your hand. It's the same word. The indentations, the impressions left by the nails, you know, where one came in and the other was out. So that's that's the idea. It's the thing that leaves a mark or an indentation. So Adam anticipates Jesus in that his actions create the need for a savior. He defines the nature of Jesus' role. He defines the problem, and that's the kind of correspondence he has in mind. So having said that Adam is a type of the one to come, I think he realizes at this point that his audience may think in terms of similarities, but he's thinking in terms of contrasts. So in 15 and 16, he immediately says, here's how they're not alike. And I think this is the heart of the passage and the point he's trying to make. So let's look at 15 and 16. That the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through the one man's trespasses, much more have the grace of God and the free gift of grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded to the many. For the free gift is not like the result of the one man's sin, for judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. So he's going to say, okay, Adam is a type of Jesus. He corresponds to him in some ways, but here's how their difference. And his point is judgment is restrained and grace is lavish. So it's not like God looks and says, we've got a 50-50 option here. Okay, we've got judgment on the one hand because Adam sinned, and we've got mercy and grace on the other hand because Jesus obeyed. And let's see, we put them on the scales and they're they come out equal, and which one should I go with? That's not the situation. What he's saying is grace prevails, grace abounds, grace triumphs over his judgment. So the um in 15 he says abounded for the many, or um let me try to paraphrase it. So he's saying it's n God could have condemned us for just one sin. It only takes one, we're guilty. Because that's the that's the standard. So the fact is we've committed hundreds and hundreds of sins, and yet we are we are judged for any one of them. But grace covers all of them, more than covers. It enfolds them, it triumphs over them, it abounds to them. So it's not like there, you know, you're covered by grace, but then you go one sin too many, and now you're back under wrath. This will never happen. Um his point is the prevailing, the triumph, the triumphantness. So God's judgment is restrained, it's reasonable, it's equitable, but his mercy is lavish and overwhelming and um abounding, prevailing. And his grace covers them all. So they're not of equal measure, I think is his point. Grace prevails or abounds. Then he says he summarizes that again in 17. If because of the one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more, and I'd add certainly there, much more certainly will those who receive the prevailing abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. So again he's saying God's not torn between two equal options, judgment or mercy. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, his mercy triumphs over just his judgment. It prevails, it abounds. And that I think is the point of the passage. And that's how it ties back into the beginning. Remember in the first twelve verses, his point was your hope will not disappoint you because God loves you. You can have absolute, utter confidence that he loves you enough to get you to your inheritance, to get you to the finish line. He's making that same point another way, saying his grace abounds over his judgment. You don't have to worry that maybe he's going to take it back, or maybe there's one sin that just he can't forgive, or it's just too many, or it won't be covered by his grace. His grace abounds. So the point is you can be absolutely, utterly confident that you will get to your inheritance, that having started this process, God is not going to abandon you now. He is his grace triumphs, it's the more compelling force, it's limitless. And that's an insight into his character. You know, we we think of, oh, this incredibly impossibly high standard he set, that you have to keep all the law with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and it only takes one transgression to be judged guilty. And that's an impossibly high standard. How can anybody reach that? And it makes us look at God as this kind of, I don't know, stern taskmaster or somehow um you know scary, I don't know what the word to use. The point Paul's trying to make is there's another side of his character that is his grace and his mercy and his compassion, which is lavish and unrestrained and abounding and prevails and it triumphs over his judgment, and that's the heart of the gospel. So that those are the dissimilarities. He says Adam is a type of the one who's coming, but they are different in that grace is the much more compelling, uh strong, overwhelming force in God's view. Now he's going to say in 18 essentially how they're similar, and they're similar in that Adam is the single source of the problem, and Jesus is the single source of the solution. So let's look at 18 and 19. 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. And notice the tense shift. The one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, but by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. He's going to pick that up again in chapter 8 and talk about how we only have a taste of that righteousness now. The full installment is coming. So the one transgression in 18 and the one man's disobedience in 19, he's saying this was Adam's choice to rebel. And the result of that was condemnation to all men. On the other hand, you have the one act of righteousness in 18 and the obedience of the one in 19. Those are the act of obedience. Of Jesus' part. When Jesus faced the decision in the garden to follow God's will, he agonized over it, but it was a choice he made voluntarily to sacrifice himself on our behalf. That ushers in our salvation. So, okay. One more thing, and then we're gonna we're gonna talk covenant theology then. The look at 20 and 21. The obvious objection here for his audience is okay, if Adam created the problem and Jesus created the solution, why did God give us the law? So what was this thing in the middle with the Mosaic law? What you know, didn't that have some role to play? Why would he give us that? So that's what he's going to answer in 20 and 21. 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, great grace might also reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So his point is the law came in to increase the trespass, not that it made us more sinful, but that it made us more aware of how sinful we are. So the purpose of the law was not to save us, it was to show us you're not making it. This is the standard, and it's high, and you're not there. So it doesn't make me any more rebellious, it just makes it more obvious how rebellious I am. And that's, I think, the point of the law: to take away our props, to take away our blinders so that we realize I need a savior, I need a different answer to this problem of sin, and we start looking outside ourselves. Okay, now, just for the fun of it, this is one of kind of the classic passages that uh people point to for covenant theology. So I'm gonna explain that to you. So you can debate theology with the best of them. How's that? This chart was put together by Bill Wilder. He's a teacher at the Center for Christian Study, and he's an excellent teacher. If you ever have a chance to hear him, you should go hear him. And um I asked him if I could steal it, and he said, Great. Unfortunately, I didn't see it before I put your booklets together, or I would have just put it in your booklets. But this is how um covenant theology, I'm in the way for some of you, aren't I? Here. Oh, I have the microphone. Now you're in trouble. This is like a power trip for a teacher to have a handheld mic, you know. It's like, oh, I've got it, I've got the floor now. Um I'll try to refrain from getting overwhelmed. Let me come to this side. Okay, this is how the Reformed churches, any church in the Reformed tradition, I think the Anglican church would also put it together, and that is that there's a contrast between Adam and Christ. So where Adam disobeyed, he breached God's law in the garden, that brought the curse, and that was transferred to all humanity. So they talk about three imputations. The first one is Adam's sin to all mankind. So Adam disobeyed, that brought in the curse, and that was imputed to all mankind. And just the doctrine that corresponds to that is original sin, and we're going to talk about that. On the other hand, Christ obeyed his commands, that ushers in the blessing, and that is carried to the church. So there's two imputations. The first one is the imputation of Christ's sin to the church. So the covenant theologians will talk about two, the active and the passive obedience of Christ, and they see them both as necessary. So the passive obedience is his death on the cross. Our sin was imputed to him, and that's just your fancy, you know, five-dollar word for counted or reckoned or put on his shoulders. And because of his obedience on the cross, that solved our judicial problem. Or to continue the legal metaphor, that brought the scale to zero. Now our debt to justice has been paid, and we're back at zero because of Christ's death on the cross. However, he also fulfilled the law. That's his active obedience. And then his righteousness is imputed to his church. That tips the scale into our inheritance. So now we're rich beyond our wildest measure. So his passive obedience paid the debt to justice, his active obedience ushers in the inheritance and the full blessing of the kingdom. And then you have these three imputations. Adam's sin to all of us, the church's sin to Christ, and the the five-dollar theological word is his substitutionary atonement. That's what they mean. And then the imputation of his righteousness to the church, and that's justification by faith, although strictly speaking, justification by faith covers both of these imputations. Yeah. How's that? Now, this is often called bicovenantalism because there's two covenants there's a covenant of works and a covenant of grace. And Adam and Christ were under a covenant of works. And after the fall, everyone else, the rest of us, are under a covenant of grace, is how it's put together. Adam's covenant will sometimes be called a covenant of creation and Christ's a covenant of redemption, they mean the same thing. They're talking about the facts that they either had to keep the law and one failed and one didn't. So where do have I said everything? Any questions on this so far? SPEAKER_01: How can you call it passive? How is death on the cross passive? SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's the contrast to taking the penalty versus actively keeping the law. So you could say, yes, this is an act of obedience and therefore active, but they're they want to make a distinction between paying the price and being righteous. So for instance, you know, when he when we get to the Mount of Transfiguration and Jesus is shown in his glory, that's a confirmation that he was perfectly righteous. And because he never failed in the law, then he is qualified to pay the price. If he'd sinned, he was no longer an acceptable sacrifice. Now there is some controversy in the PCA. There's a thing called the New Perspective on Paul, and they're talking about mono-covenantalism, and I'm not going to get into that. It's going to shake out eventually. The bottom line is we're still justified by faith, whichever one is right. So, all right. So, covenant theology sees two covenants, covenant of works and a covenant of grace. Adam and Jesus were under a covenant of works. Adam failed, Jesus didn't, is the simple answer. From the fall forward, we are under a covenant of grace. Okay. Yes. SPEAKER_01: Adam, why is it a covenant of works at all? SPEAKER_00: Um, because Adam and Christ were both under a covenant of works. Just those two people. And Adam, sometimes you'll see Adam, it'll say Adam was under a covenant of creation. They mean the same thing. Or Jesus was under a covenant of redemption. That's what they mean. Um the choice for him was ushering in redemption. SPEAKER_01: Yes. SPEAKER_00: Yes. And then after the fall, grace. Right. So the question was, was a covenant of works before the fall? And yes. So Adam would have been under grace after the fall. But he was under works before. See typically how it's put together. SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh. SPEAKER_00: We're all under a covenant of grace. So the when does the question is when does the covenant of grace kick in? From the fall. From immediately after the fall. Right. Right. As soon as we were on our own, and we needed a better answer. Other questions? The question was, what is the non-reformed tradition? Well, there's more than one. So there are different perspectives. I don't know that I can get into that in ten minutes. Because I do want to talk about original sin, but I will try to get an answer for you because I think actually I have uh a chart that kind of contrasts the different views. So great question, but sorry, I don't have time to answer it. Uh-huh. SPEAKER_01: Where Adam's sin is what really put in our sin is almost irrelevant after that because it was Adam's sin that it was. SPEAKER_00: Okay. Good question, because that's exactly what I want to talk about next. So thank you. Yes. Um, let me there are two questions I think this raises, and one is the one Gina just brought up. What what the heck is original sin, basically, or what difference does it make if we're all guilty because of what Adam did? What does that mean? Right. Right. And the flip side of that is, I mean, when you say it's not fair that we're condemned because of Adam, well, it's really not fair that we're saved because of Jesus. I mean, you've got the same, it's a flip side of the coin. The one act of grace saves us. Well, what how fair is that? We didn't do it. So, but we're going to talk about that. Um, briefly, though, before that, in 18, there's another question raised where he says, Therefore, as the one trespass led to the condemnation for all men, so the one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. Some people say, Ah, Paul is teaching universalism, and that is that's a big fancy word for the fact that everyone is saved. And they point to this verse and say, it leads to justification and life for all men, therefore, everyone is saved whether they want to or not. Because Paul says right here, all men. Well, just as a Bible study exercise, I wanted to bring that up because I don't think that's what he's arguing. When you put this verse back into context, and if you want to in your small groups, notice as he goes through the passage when he uses many and when he uses all in this section, he flip-flops between them as if they are synonyms. So you will see if you go through this section, he'll say the many, then he'll say the all, then he'll say the many, then he'll say the all, and he seems to be using them to mean the same group of people. So I think just from this passage alone, we can say he's not teaching universalism, he's teaching election. Those who have faith will be saved. But think back to what we've talked about in the first four chapters and what he said about you know, everyone who is a Jew physically is not a child of Abraham. Only those who have faith like Abraham had faith are a child of Abraham. And the other, if you go back through the first four chapters, you can see he's made it very clear that only those who have faith are saved. Did did you have a question on that? unknown: Do they really translate many and all? SPEAKER_00: They do. They do. They do. The the question was, do the words in the Greek translate many and all? And they do. But um he is slippery. I mean, if I might say everyone in the room is pregnant, well, strictly speaking, that's not true. But what I mean is there are a lot of women in the room who are pregnant. So, you know, or everyone there had a great time. Well, maybe one person didn't. So we use language flexibly, and I think that's what's going on here. Um let me get to original sin and then I'll let you ask more questions. Because that's a hard concept, I think, for a lot of people. The question is, how can God blame me for something that I didn't do? If I wasn't there, why? And Paul's pretty clear about the one act of trespass led to condemnation for everybody. Well, how fair is that? So there's different theories of exactly what that means, and I'm going to give them to you saving what I think is the right one for last. So the first one is called imputed guilt, and you'll probably never see a theologian or a scholar argue for this, but I think it's the popular understanding, and that is Adam sinned and I get blamed for it. So he did it, but somehow I'm held to blame. So his guilt is imputed to me. Um and that I think seems blatantly unfair, and it is, and I don't think that's the um we could object to that on moral grounds. And in fact, in God's own law, if you look in Deuteronomy chapter 24, he says you cannot hold the father accountable for the sins of the son, and you cannot hold the son accountable for the sins of the father. So even in his own law, he spells out you can't blame one person for another person's sins, so I don't think he would then break that law on his own and say, well, except for Adam, and then you're all guilty. So even though that's kind of the popular understanding, I don't think that's what's going on, and you won't see many scholars arguing for that. Okay, so if it's not imputed guilt, another theory is temporal priority, and that is he was the first person to sin, Adam was, but as soon as each of us get the chance, we sin too. So he was first chronologically or temporally, um, but then each of us, as we are born and get into this world, we make a choice and we follow his sinfulness. The problem with that is this passage. It it doesn't make sense of the language he uses, say in verse 18, the one trespass led to the condemnation for all men. Well, if he was just first, how is how does his condemnation have any bearing on me? In that case, condemnation would result from each and every one of our transgressions, millions of them, not just one sin. So Paul seems to be making a link in this passage between Adam's disobedience and the rest of us. So there are denominations though that will hold to that, um, but generally not the reformed tradition. Okay, so we've got imputed guilt, temporal priority. The next one is called sometimes called mystical participation, or um there's another name that's escaping me. But the idea there is I was mystically present when Adam sinned, and therefore I'm guilty. So, like in his DNA or something was the seed of the entire human race, and so technically I was there when he sinned because I was there mystically or genetically, and so I'm guilty too. The problem I have with that interpretation is how does it make sense of the language he uses about the people who didn't sin in the likeness of Adam's offense, in whatever verse that was, 15 or 16. So, under that theory, we were all there, we all sinned by breaking an explicit law because we were all present. So, who is Paul talking about in that earlier verse when he says there were some people who didn't sin like Adam? So that's mystical participation. The next one is federal headship, and that is Adam was my representative. So when he sinned, I sinned because he represented me. So I wasn't mystically present. That's the distinction between the view I just gave you. But God designed my relation to Adam such that he was making a choice on my behalf. So when he sinned, it made it my choice too. Um I have two objections to that one. I'm not sure it I mean uh it doesn't line up, I think, with God's own law in Deuteronomy. It's it seems too close to making the father accountable, uh holding the father accountable for the son's, no, it would be the son accountable for the father's sin because the father would be the representative. Um so I'm not sure it really succeeds in solving that moral problem. And um I don't think God would ever hold you accountable for the sins of your representative. It does, it just doesn't make sense to me. And the other objection is verse 14 again. Who were the people that didn't sin the same way Adam did if he was our representative? So that leaves us again with the last option, which is the traditionally kind of reformed view, and the one I think makes the most sense of everything in the passage, and that's usually called inherited rebelliousness. And that is, I am born with the same rebellious nature that Adam had. So when Adam sinned, what it introduced into the race was the fall or the tendency to fall, so that now when I am born, my nature is already broken. I am already the kind of person who will rebel against God. Um then we each do our own rebelling and we are accountable for that. But the the broken nature, the fallenness of being a rebel is something I inherit from Adam. Now, that accounts for verse 12 in that through one man's sinning into the world, what was entered was this nature, this fallen nature, this rebellious nature. Um, but it is linked to Adam because that's where it came from. It also accounts for verse 14, the people who didn't sin in the same way Adam did, because we don't have specific law breaking, those people between Adam and Moses, but they have the same nature, they have the same brokenness. And then it I think also speaks to the moral objection of being accountable for another person's sins. The condemnation is against me justly because I am a sinner, not for how I got to be a sinner, but because I am a sinner. Now that's a sticking point for a lot of people. It's gonna come up again in chapter seven, so we're gonna talk about it more there, and then it's really gonna come up in chapter nine, and you're not gonna like the answer, sorry. But so I'm not gonna go into that now, so if you have lots of questions on that, save them for chapter seven and chapter nine, we are gonna come back to it. But the idea here is that I'm not condemned for choosing to be a rebel, I'm condemned because I am a rebel. That's who I am. My nature is broken. The thing inside me that makes me like to go shopping and not like um Russell Sprouts or like uh whatever, whatever makes me me is broken so that when I have the chance, I choose to sin. And that needs fixing. Um, that's our situation. Now, the analogy Paul's gonna use later on is say you have a chemist and he has a compound and it becomes impure. He he might throw it away. Now, the compound can't say, well, don't throw me away. I didn't ask to be impure, but he says it doesn't matter how you got that way, you're impure. I can't use an impure compound. The fact is it's wrong, it's ruined. Now, my analogy breaks down in that condemnation is a moral action, throwing away a chemical compound is not. But I'm trying to make the point that we are we are broken. We are evil, and that evil is worthy of punishment, and we inherited that evil from Adam. Now, at this point, if you're getting lost in the theology, don't let it overwhelm you. Because remember what the main point of the passage here is. The passage is so what? So I'm justified by faith, so what? And his point is the free gift is not like the trespass. There was this one, you know, that judgment is restrained and and held back and reasonable, but grace is abounding and triumphant and prevailing over God's wrath. So you can have absolute utter confidence that yes, we have this problem of a broken nature, but God has solved it, and he will solve it. And you cannot sin one too many times. Um, just to return to my opening of lay mez, however you say it, at the end of the story, there's another character who comes face to face with his guilt, and that's Javert, the policeman, who has been hunting Jean Valzan throughout the story. And he is the law. He sees himself as the I'm going to demand the eye for the eye, and I am going to demand the rigorous pieces of justice, no excuses. So near the end of the play, Valjean has given the chance to kill Javert, and in an act of grace, he lets him go. And at this point, Javert is undone, and he sings a song to the same tune that Valjean sang when he converted. Only Javert sings to the same tune and says, I cannot accept this grace. I was going to play that again, but I thought it would be too long. But let me just give you an excerpt from it. He says, Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief, damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase. I am the law, and the law is not mocked. I'll spit his pity right back in his face. There is nothing on earth that we share. It is either Valzon or Javert. And then the music changes and he begins to doubt, and he says, And my thoughts fly apart. Can this man be believed? Shall my sins be forgiven? Shall my crimes, oh, I'm sorry, shall his sins be forgiven? Shall his crimes be reprieved? And he can't accept it. He ends up committing suicide. Paul's point is, grace prevails. You don't want the response of, now there's a law, we're going to cling to it, I'm going to cling to justice and mercy. What he wants is the response of God's grace is overwhelming. It prevails. It's beyond your wildest dreams. It is so good you can't even imagine it. You need not fear that you might accidentally tip the balance back in favor of God's wrath. In fact, in the servant songs of Isaiah, when he's talking about the servant who will come and cover the sins of the world, he uses this word that refers to a blanket being folded. So you know you fold a blanket and now it's doubled and you fold it again and it's doubled again, and if you fold it again, it's doubled, and you keep getting this each time it doubles and doubles and doubles again. He uses that word to say that's how grace covers sin. It doubles and doubles and doubles and doubles again. So if your sin is this much, grace is this much. It prevails, it triumphs, it covers every aspect of it. And his point is for you that means hope. Absolute, utter confidence that you will get the inheritance God has promised you, and that you will be a kind of person who is holy and beautiful and good and loving, and it's guaranteed it's coming. The problem of your sin has been absolutely and completely solved. And that's his point. Grace prevails, grace abounds. So this is the end of the first name section of the book. Next week we're going to get into chapter six, and it's like there's a coffee break, and he comes back and he's going to take questions and answers. And so from six to the end of eight, he's basically answering objections. If everything I've said in one through five is true, okay, here what would you how would you object to that? How would you um what questions do you have? And so he's but they are the questions of people who would disagree with him. So they're they're another fun section of the book. Let me pray to close this and then I'll give you some time to ask questions. Father, thank you that you are a God of love and mercy, and that your grace abounds and triumphs and prevails over your wrath. And I pray that as we go through each day that we would be um mindful of what you've done for us, and that as we face the frustrations and the tragedies and the crises and the and the minor disappointments or the major disappointments, that we remember that your hand is in it all, and that your grace is behind it all, and that no matter how hard it gets, no matter how crazy the world seems, that there's a point to it, and that point is to bring about your glory and your inheritance and work your will in our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen.