Session 14 – Romans; Romans 5:12-15: Mark Lanier, 08/31/25

Romans 5:12-15 - Sin, Death, and Grace
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[00:00:00]

Introduction & Opening Question
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Mark Lanier: I am so excited to get to teach this morning. I am so honored that you are here on a Labor Day weekend. A lot of people use Labor Day Weekend as a time to. Go somewhere else or check something else out or, or heaven's, uh, some even sleep in. Um, uh, I, on the other hand, Becky has got me doing so much yard work that I just came straight from the fields and no, I have brought this shovel because I have news for you today.

We are going to dig so deep. Into three or four verses that you're gonna feel like you have a shovel. And so, that's just your, your token reminder [00:01:00] that we're gonna dig today. Now, here's your opening question. Did you ever start a sentence and get caught up on a side thought so you didn't finish the sentence?

Have you done that? I saw this, email from this lady said, without coffee, I'm always walking into rooms and forgetting why I went there with coffee. I still don't remember, but at least I have something to sip while I try to figure it out. Now I tell you that because Paul has done, by the way, the reason I use this picture of Paul today.

I don't know if you know it or not, but this picture is actually in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and yeah, that's a picture of Paul that's attributed to Valentine Day Bologna. Bologna, 1591 [00:02:00] to 1632. It's, he wasn't historically accurate. Paul would not have had books. He had scrolls and parchments. you know, he, he didn't keep his money in a billfold and, you know, but hey, I really like the picture, and I don't know if you realize it or not, but I started a sentence with you and then moved over to a side thought and never finished the sentence.

Guilty. The reason I point that out is because Paul does that in Romans five 12. He starts a sentence and then he gets sidetracked and he goes 4, 5, 6 verses before he ever gets back to what he started to say the first time. And then he has to rewrite the sentence.

Paul's Grammatical Approach in Romans 5:12
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Mark Lanier: Paul starts [00:03:00] out this sentence, and toward the front of the sentence, he uses this Greek word hoer. Paul starts out with the just as this, but he never gets to the, so also.

He gets sidetracked. That's like, you know, in English we'll say on the one hand, and if someone says on the one hand, you kind of expect there to be on the other hand. Or if someone says first, you kinda expect him at some point to say second or next or something. Paul doesn't do that. [00:04:00] He just starts out just as this and then he gets sidetracked.

And he never gets back and finishes that sentence. And there's some significance to this to me as a Bible reader and as a teacher. I wanna give you two different points of significance just from this grammatical interesting approach of Paul. Number one,

Scripture Inspiration & the Holy Spirit
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Mark Lanier: I think this really helps us understand the way Jesus taught us Scripture would be inspired.

We know all scripture is inspired by God. We know that because Paul said that writing to Timothy, but it's a fundamental understanding of the church and of scripture itself. The Old Testament prophets speak, he pee [00:05:00] out on Iy bear because the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. But Jesus, as John noted in his gospel in the last Supper, Jesus sat with his apostles.

And by the way, this is not historically accurate either. they didn't really have tables like this with a tablecloth back there, and it's not like Jesus would've set everybody on this side of the table for a picture. They would've been on both sides of the table. But that's okay. This is just the way our art is.

But Jesus at the last Supper told his disciples, his apostles, that the Holy Spirit would come. Jesus would send the Holy Spirit. And he said, when the Holy Spirit comes, the helper whom I'm gonna send to you from the Father, the spirit of truth, he'll be speaking truth. He'll proceed from [00:06:00] the Father and he will bear witness about me.

The function of the Holy Spirit is to testify or be a witness, a truthful one to Jesus. But. Jesus then says, and you also will bear witness. The Holy Spirit will work through the apostles. The Holy Spirit works through the apostles to bear witness to Jesus. So when the apostles are responsible for scripture.

The Holy Spirit is responsible for scripture. It is the Holy Spirit working with the apostles to bear witness to Jesus. So we must never fall into the trap of thinking that the writers of scripture. Their [00:07:00] hands were just levitating and they could have been sleep writing because the Holy Spirit was moving the pen.

It was always, as Jesus taught, an involvement of the writer and the Holy Spirit. Now the Holy Spirit ensures everything is right and proper. Don't get me wrong, I'm not. I am. I am enhancing the integrity of scripture, not reducing it. Good. I believe that all scripture is inspired by God. I believe that it is, it is an errant and perfect in what it claims and, and, and establishes itself to be if we understand it within its proper context.

But part of the context is understanding who wrote it. That's why Paul uses some vocabulary words differently than Matthew does. It's why you see some uniquenesses in the writing of Luke, in Luke and Acts as opposed to what you may read in the Gospel of [00:08:00] John or in first, second, and third John. So it does help us understand the teaching of Jesus and the inspiration of scripture that Paul starts out with headed this direction and then gets sidetracked and comes over here.

It's not that anything he said is wrong. It is just a reflection of how the Holy Spirit works with Paul and his mindset. But I'll take it a step further and tell you a second reason this is important to me is because

Paul's Pastoral Heart
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Mark Lanier: it reveals Paul's pastoral heart. Anytime you teach, anytime I'm standing up here teaching, I'm looking at you all, and I don't know everybody's story in here.

But I know a number of your stories, and when I look at you, I'm sensitive to where I understand your story to be. And so [00:09:00] sometimes I'll start over here and I'll look over there and I'll think, oh, I need to fix that. Lest it be misunderstood or less, it caused unnecessary anguish. Because I understand where different people are.

Paul's got a pastoral heart where he started in one direction and then thought, wait a minute, somebody's gonna raise this question just as sure as Reign, so I'm gonna deal with it right now. And that's what he does. So we're gonna look at four verses today, God willing, and we're gonna do it with three different points that Paul's makes.

And you'll see what I'm talking about as we deal with these verses.

Three Main Points Overview
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Mark Lanier: So the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about how sin has a universal entry into this world and reigns supreme in this world, like a tyrant. [00:10:00] That's verse 12 of chapter five. Then we're going to look at a second point from verses 13 and 14, and that's the reign of death even before the law of Moses.

Then the third point that we're gonna look at this morning is from verse 15, and that shows the idea that there is a greater gift A, a grace that that surpasses the sin and trespass. He's been talking about. So those are kind of the three marking points and I'll, you'll walk through 'em with me, but let's go through these together and let's see if we can't really dig down deep into these verses and feel like we're walking away saying, I may not understand them fully, but I understand more than I did and I see where I may not have a full understanding right now.[00:11:00]

Sin's Universal Entry into the World (Romans 5:12)
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Mark Lanier: So let's start with Romans five, verse 12. Paul says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sin now he starts this out with therefore dia tau in the Greek. Dia tto are the first words here. Dia is a simple word. It just means generally because, and tto is a word that means of this, uh, in that form.

So he's saying, therefore, or because of this, just his sin came into the world through one man. Well, anytime you see this now this therefore, or because of this, it's gotta cause you to say because what?

Therefore, therefore what? See what went on [00:12:00] before? What's in the past? And scholars disagree. They don't know if he's talking about the last couple of verses. Last couple of ideas. Heavens, is he talking about the whole book? It is hard for scholars to decide because all of those can be acceptable answers.

We don't have to pinpoint what the therefore is in Paul's mind, he's saying, okay, now, therefore, because of what I've said thus far, well, what alls he said in a simple word, he said, Hey, Romans, I want you to know something. There's a righteousness that comes from Jesus Christ's death. To everyone who has faith, and you're never righteous on your own, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile, nobody's good enough to measure up to God's righteousness.

So you're not righteous on your own. You're only righteous through Christ. And don't think this is some new voe thing. Abraham was only righteous by his. [00:13:00] And so God has always said all along that righteousness and justification and being right with God comes from faith, not from works. The law is useful and the law is good, but the law does not get you right with God.

That's what he said for five chapters and 11 verses. Now he says 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. This is his ho spur, this is his. Just as this is that comparison set up, uh, in, in, uh, um,

linguistically you, you've got an a, a. A processis, a poesis. You've got, uh, this, this [00:14:00] conditional language where you say one thing and then the other, and, and this is the one thing. This is the ho. This is the, just as it's the part one of a comparison, but he never gives us the language for the part two in this sense.

So he says, just as we're getting the start of his comparison, just as sin came into the world through one man, now this is our English standard version. On this left side of the screen, on the right side of the screen is Paul's version.

We've translated those first three words. Because of this, or therefore hoer, just as Paul puts at the start of his sentence [00:15:00] through one man, even though our translators bump it down because it reads a little better to an English ear to say, just as sin came into the world through one man, but Paul puts through one man first.

Because Paul is putting it there to emphasize it. He wants the hearer, the listener, to a Greek letter or speech. The reader of a Greek letter knows that what comes first in a sentence is therefore attention. It's not there for grammar really. And so Paul puts up for attention through one man. This, this is, an important concept for Paul through one [00:16:00] man.

Enos is one through one man, and that word one is so important that over the next seven verses, Paul will use it 12 times. He wants you to get one because it's so important to understand the one death of Christ for everyone, and that's spoiler alert. I've just ruined it for you. That's why the one is so emphatic.

So I wanna change this up a little bit and, and, uh, with due respect to the translators, let's reword this to get it in the right order. Therefore, just as through one man sin came into the world. That's sin came into the world. The verb there, I self end means to come into actually past tense came into.[00:17:00]

Hes tense, excuse me, came into think about that for a minute. Sin came into the world through one man. Now if something's coming in, something comes into this room. It already exists.

Sin wasn't. World, but the concept of sin and disobedience to God's will is already a living, a, a real concept even before Adam and Eve. If you look at it this way, um, this is just, in my opinion, a very useful image for everyone to have about God. the idea is, God, I don't, I don't want to ever put God in a box, [00:18:00] but God is a very real and definite being.

And by that I mean there are things that are God and there are things that are not God. So for example, God is. love.

God is light. God is life. God is righteous.

God is good. God is just.

God is, you know, un unlimited.

Now, if the God really [00:19:00] is, or those traits, if those traits are God, I guess is the right way to say it, then by definition there are things that God is not. So if God is, let's add another one here, God is truth. Well, if God is truth, then outside of God are lies. If God is righteous and good, outside of God, is unrighteous, outside of God is evil.

Outside of God is injustice. Outside of God is death. Outside of God is darkness. Outside of God are limitations. Outside of God is a [00:20:00] selfishness. I think that's a better opposite of love than hate because God hates evil. Selfishness. These are what we could say are ungodly,

that is, which God is not. So if that image is, is a fair one for us to use sin, which is also outside of God. God created this world with Adam and Eve and, and everything. God created this world in his image. He creates the world to be his world, but sin came into his world. This the world fell and the world became ungodly and evil.[00:21:00]

So we can say that sin came into the world because sin ungodliness is just the cancer of who God is. Now, if we're thinking that way, let's take this a little bit deeper.

Understanding Sin's Nature & Personification
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Mark Lanier: Paul then personifies sin. You remember our English class personification? You take something that's inanimate and you make it, treat it like a person.

And you know, like the grim reaper for death, uh, death isn't really a guy with a sickle that walks around in a black hooded robe. Uh, that that's, that's our personification of death. Well, Paul does that with sin. He turn, he, he uses language to. Metaphorically, help us better understand what sin does by [00:22:00] making sin out to be a person.

That does not mean that, that he's talking about demons. He's not saying sin is the demon, though demons are sinful, but he's talking just about sin. The concept of sin. Un holiness before God, and he does it in a way that personifies it. So you've got sin entering like a person enters sin, entered the world.

You've got sin reigns like a king would reign. That's personalizing sin, uh, personifying sin, I should say. You've got sin being obeyed. Like a person personification. You've got sin paying wages. Here's your wages. You've got sin seizing opportunities, you've got sin, deceiving and [00:23:00] killing. All of these are personifications of sin, but they're given to us by Paul and used by Paul to help us better understand the way sin acts in the world and in our life.

And so Paul says, therefore, just his through one man sin came into the world and death through sin. And uh, so we've got and through sin death. See, sin didn't just come into the world by itself. Sin brought a plus one.

Once you get sin, you get everything that goes with it. Unrighteousness, evil lies, injustice, death, darkness, selfishness. This is the world of sin outside the [00:24:00] God of perfection.

And so we have here that death entered the world with sin, and then Paul says, death spread to everybody because everybody sinned. Now,

The Problem of Infant Death & Three Theological Approaches
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Mark Lanier: what on earth is Paul saying here, my Greek readers out there, this Hef ho antes, martone, this idea that all have sinned and death has spread to all because all sin. What do we do with that?

I want you thinking about it. This can should cause you some troubles. What about an infant who dies? Are you saying the infant [00:25:00] sinned, but death can spread to infants. Infant mortality is still, I mean, any infant who dies is a terrible thing.

So, so what are we saying here? The infant sinned? I mean, how, how have all sins so death spread to everybody because all sin. Now this idea has produced among the ages about three different approaches to what Paul might be saying. The first approach I want to give you is one that many of you will have heard, maybe even been taught, maybe even taught to others.

It's the approach of Calvin and Luther and other reformation. Fathers, uh, and other people as well, but as John Calvin said, Adam corrupted Vitiated, some of you will wanna look that word [00:26:00] up, depraved and ruined our nature. We have therefore all sin because we're imbued with natural corruption. It's just made us who we are.

An illustration that I like. Is, ah, I'm gonna save that illustration for a minute. So the idea being when sin came into the world through Adam, everybody's now depraved and our nature is such that we're all sinners, and so death is spread to everybody.

Please understand. I think that that's a legitimate. Theology to hold. I am just not sure that's what Paul's meaning here. So second option. We all eventually sin. Give us enough time and we will. [00:27:00] Each of us has been the Adam of our own soul. All of us have chosen somewhere along the lines to sin. So death is appropriately shoveled on us as well.

And if we're not thinking about a, an infant in the womb or an infant who is born, maybe we can say that. Uh, it's certainly true for everyone who's old enough to be conscious and aware of sin, but I don't think that's what Paul means in this passage, even though it's got a great deal of theological truth.

I wanna suggest to you to consider Paul meaning option three.

The Corporate Identity in Adam
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Mark Lanier: Option three. Paul is using this Jewish idea that each of us were in Adam when he sinned. Well, that seems like a weirdness. Yes. [00:28:00] It seems like a weirdness to us in Western civilization where we believe in individual responsibility. But that is a very Western modern idea.

If you go back to the time of Paul, and you go back to the new Old Testament times, communities would be visited with judgment. If someone in the community did wrong, families would be visited with judgment. When someone in the family did wrong, there was a corporate sense. And so if we look at the Jewish thinking here, here it is, we've got Adam, now, Adam Sins and sin comes into Adam and into the world, and Sin had a plus one who's the plus one death.

But Adam, this fellow right here, he's responsible [00:29:00] for his whole family, everyone. In the Jewish mentality, all of us, everybody was found in Adam's loins.

All of us are in Adam's loins.

Lemme give you a passage to illustrate this. This out of Genesis 46 26, it says, all the persons belonging to Jacob who came into Egypt. Who were his own descendants, not including Jacob's sons wives were 66 persons in all. So this is not counting as sons, these are his descendants that came in, grandchildren, that type stuff.

Read it. Got it. Do you know what the Hebrews says? It says who were in his loins. It's just translated who were [00:30:00] his descendants, because that's the way we understand it, but it's, these are people in his loins, his grandchildren were in his loins. That's, that's what it means in his loins. Look at this passage outta Hebrews chapter seven.

One might even say that, Levi. Now Levi is the father of the Levitical priesthood. The priesthood of Levites that Moses installs on Mount Sinai, Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham to Mel Ek. Look at this. Don't, don't miss the chronology of this. You've got Abraham.

And Abraham goes to Melek

after [00:31:00] he has rescued lot, and Melek is a high priest and Abraham pays a tithe

to Melek, and the writer of Hebrews is saying Melek is a more important priest. Then all of the priests that came from the Old Testament law of Moses, because all of those priests are Levite priests. And he says, if Abraham basically humbles himself to Mel Zeek, inside Abraham's loins are all of the other priests that come from Levi, all of the Levites.

All of the Old Testament priests, when Abraham did, made himself humble [00:32:00] before and and showed grandeur to Melek, all of the Levite priests that are in his loins was doing the same thing. They were doing the same thing. Sorry. I love it. Came out.

That's what the writer of Hebrews is saying. One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham because he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Mel Ek met him. See, this idea then is in Adam. Everybody was in his loins. So when Adam sins and death spreads to all men, it's 'cause we're all in his loins.

Paul is saying that we are sinners by nature, but we're also sinners by choice. There's no doubt about that. Alright, lemme give you one more illustration and then we gotta move on 'cause otherwise we're going too deep. Um, [00:33:00] uh,

The Cholera Illustration & Universal Contamination
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Mark Lanier: I wanna talk to you about, uh, if you ever go to London, you can go to the John Snow Pub and on the side of the John Snow Pub, I think it's uh, this side right over here.

On this side wall, you'll find the death pump that's called the death pump because there was an outbreak of cholera in 1854 in London. Cholera is a, um, a virus disease. Um, it, you get it from un unclean hands from. Uh, rats from feces, from, uh, not rats, uh, unclean hands, feces things. Here's what happened.

There was a baby who died from cholera. His name was Francis, or her name was Francis Lewis and her mother Sarah, after her baby was dead, her mother washed the baby's clothes and the baby had died of cholera, but she [00:34:00] took the water and poured it into the cesspool there by her home, and it polluted the groundwater there.

And it polluted the water well. And so over a 10 day period in September, August, September of eighteen fifty four, six hundred and sixteen people died of cholera and there was a doctor named John Snow. Um, if you study the field of epidemiology, he's famous. This is the first case of epidemiology being used to advance medical science that most people accord.

He got a map out and he plotted where all of these 616 people lived, and he determined that all of them were getting their water from this water pump.

And the people who didn't get their water from the water pump weren't [00:35:00] getting cholera, so he convinced the authorities to take the handle off the water pump so nobody could use it, and the cholera died out almost immediately. They were all from one pump, not because they were doing anything wrong, but that one pump.

Just like Adam caused a universal contamination, whether people were at fault or not, whether people were good or bad. This is all part of what happened. And so I think when we look at this passage about sins, universal entry and rain, we need to understand it affects all of us because all of us were in Adam.

There's nobody who gets away from this. There's not a person in here that's going to escape death if God doesn't come to their [00:36:00] aid. So then, now

Death's Reign Before the Law (Romans 5:13-14)
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Mark Lanier: let's look at this, the reign of death before law. This is part of what got Paul sidetracked because Paul's thinking, okay, everybody's gonna be thinking, well wait a minute.

You know, I don't just compare Adam, uh, and his sin to Jesus and the cross, because somebody's gonna say, well, what about the law wasn't, didn't, didn't you? You can't really count sin until the law's there. So Paul says, indeed sin was in the world before the law was given. He's talking here probably about the law of Moses, but sin is not counted.

Where there is no law, sin was in the world before the law was given. We know that Adam sinned. It's fundamental to the story, but Paul's dealing with this potential objection where [00:37:00] people may be saying, well, wait a minute. You can't just say sins everywhere. Because until the law was there to tell us what sin was, we didn't know.

And Paul said, no, sin was in the world before. The law was given, before Sinai. And, and he, he uses the word in, uh, Hain is the, the,

he uses the word a, which is, uh, um, an imperfect form of the verb to be. And because it's in an imperfect form, it's got this idea, not just of was, but it, it's got a, it makes it a vivid dialogue. It's, it's a tense that's being used to tell a vivid story, but it's also given this idea that it was just this ongoing event.

I mean, it is just, it was happening. It was happening every day. It was happening every night. It was happening every hour. It was happening every minute. It was happening [00:38:00] every second. Sin was all over the world. Sin was in the world. The world was under sin. Sin came into the world when death or or death came into the world when sin was in the world.

But sin came in, didn't wait for the law, but he's got then this weird statement. Sin is not counted. Where there is no law, alo, gati is the word for counted, and it's an accounting word. And some people say, Hey, this means if you don't know the law, your sin doesn't count. No, that's not what Paul's saying.

Paul's made it abundantly clear in Romans that nobody's got any excuses of, well, I didn't know it. Not my fault. God didn't tell me. We don't need to worry about someone who doesn't know. Ignorance is no excuse. Amen. [00:39:00] This is just saying that the sin you, you may not be registering it as a sin, but that doesn't mean it's not sin.

I was coaching my, uh, kindergarten baseball team of our son will. And, um, will was, uh, it was T-ball. And at the time my parents lived in Lubbock and they had come in for a T-ball game. And my dad was one of the most competitive people you'll ever meet in your life. And, um, coach, you'd have liked my dad. He, he was as competitive as you are.

Maybe. And we go in there and, and we go to the game and dad, mom are there. And dad says to me, who's, who's the scorekeeper? And I said, well, dad, this first T-ball game, they're not gonna keep score. And he said, well, [00:40:00] how do you tell who wins? I said, well, I think the goal here is for them to have a good time and kind of learn the rules and kind of figure out what's going on.

He says, yeah, but how do you know who wins? And I said, well, they, they don't want us to know who wins. He says, well, how can you ever learn to be a good winner and a good loser if you don't know who the winners and losers are? That's one of the most important things you can learn in sports, is how to be a good winner and a good loser.

So who's gonna teach 'em that? I said, well, dad, we're here to teach the, you know, hit the ball. Run that way, not that way. You know, catch the ball, try to get the runner before they get to the base, you know? And he says, well, that this is not a game. This is practice

to my dad hits or hits and runs or runs, whether they get tallied or not. And I could tell you at the end of the game, the kids were great. They had fun. They're running over. My dad leans into [00:41:00] me and says, we won nine to three. You can't look. Just 'cause you don't keep score doesn't mean that the hits weren't hits.

Doesn't mean the runs weren't runs. If you play golf and you hit the ball into the water and you decide you don't want to count that you're gonna take a mulligan and you're gonna hit it again, that's fine. But you can't say you didn't hit the water. You did. You just didn't count it on the scorecard. So Paul's not saying there's no sin, he is just saying it may not be counted on the scorecard.

Where there's no law, but it's still sin. And that's the reason we know it, because death reigned, even from Adam to Moses, sin brought death. If you don't have sin, you don't have death. But all of them died. So sin was here and sin reigned from Adam to Moses. Even over those whose [00:42:00] sinning wasn't like the sin of Adam.

Who was a type of the one to come see Death reigned. That's a king word. Death is a tyrannical king. Everybody is under the foot of death. Death reigns. Supreme death reigned from Adam to Moses. It reigns whether you're over you, whether you're old, whether you're young, whether you're an infant. Any offspring of Adam will face death.

It reigns absent a divine intervention. Enoch, Elijah, absent a divine intervention, death reigned. Even those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam. Even over those, like an infant who, who, or, [00:43:00] or, or like. You know, someone who is not understanding fully or someone, I mean, we all have different levels of sin.

Even someone who didn't hear God's direct command, don't eat that tree. You know, our, our sin may not be the identical sin, but it's still sin. It is still doing something ungodly. It is still outside of the nature of God.

And so death reigned from Adam to Moses. Those over sinning, not this transgression. And then he says of

Adam as a Type of Christ
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Mark Lanier: Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. Now this is an interesting Greek word. This is the Greek word. Two posts. Two posts. We get the word typed from it. Two posts means type or a pattern. You can see it used in [00:44:00] ancient Greece to refer to something that's been produced by a, a, a, um, a mark of pressure.

For example, it's used for a footprint that's left in the soil. Um, the what's left from a seal or a stamp a, an impression. What Paul is saying here is that Adam is a type, an impression of a pattern of what is to come. Adam is a type, an impression of what is to come in Adam. We will see similarities and differences because a type can be a type and an anti type.

But this is what Paul's saying when he is talking about the reign of death before law. And then that type is the transition into verse [00:45:00] 15, this greater grace where gift is greater than the trespass.

Greater Grace Surpasses Sin & Trespass (Romans 5:15)
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Mark Lanier: So let's look at verse 15, but the free gift, Adam is a type. Of what's to come. The free gift is not like the trespass.

There are differences between Christ and the trespass. If many died through one man's trespass in Adam, everybody dies in Christ. What happens to the people in Christ? They live. We have eternal life. In Adam, they died. If the free gift is not like the trespass, 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, then abounded for many.[00:46:00]

Paul starts out, his first three words is, but not like, um, Allah strong, but, but, but.

Um, uh, uh, not like that's what it means. So Paul just puts it right out there in the front. Paul's saying, not like the trespass in this way is the grace. Our translators are trying to make it sensible in English, so they'll say, but the free gift is not like the trespass. That word for free gift is just the word grace.

Charisma, but not like para potoma is, is uh, uh, trespass, um, but not the trespass. In this way [00:47:00] is the grace, the gift, the cross. And, and, and we gotta remember with Paul, that word grace always has this overlay. Almost always, unless it's used in a greeting or something like that. This overlay of the cross, that's the real gift.

That's the free gift God gave you. He died for your sins. So the trespass isn't the same way as the cross. Don't think that they, they're the same. Not like the trespass in this way is the cross. If many died through one man's trespass, much more have the cross, the grace of God, the free gift by the grace, the cross of that one man Jesus Christ.

Abounded for many. For if agar, for if. Many much more. If you recall last week we talked [00:48:00] about the rabbinical way of arguing up because Paul's done this in the last few verses. He argues from light to heavy or heavy to light. If you can lift 200 pounds, you surely can lift 50 pounds. That type of reasoning, that's what Paul's doing right here.

He's doing the same thing he is saying here it is the same thing. Pallo, Pallo Malone. Many died through Adam's sin. Much more say, wait a minute, everyone, how it can be much more. Uh, much more doesn't always mean numbers. It means a lot of different things, but through the grace. So here's what he's saying.

There was one sin that led to death, and there was one death that led to life. See you got a type here, but the type is different because Christ is much more in what [00:49:00] way? Look at the effect. Which effect would you rather have? Would you rather have the effect of Adam's sin or the death of Christ? Would you rather have, you know, Adam's sin is one that causes darkness and delusion.

And pain and sickness and fear and intimidation and worry. All of that is part of Adam's sin. And all of that is part of, of what we battle, as we battle that sin nature. All of that is what God's promise to redeem us from when this is over, because we have in the death of Christ a new life. [00:50:00] And we're gonna see this in the verses that come.

Our goal next week is to take the rest of this chapter and to chart through it. But I just knew I couldn't get through it today, but I wanna show you what's coming from it, and then we'll do our points for home and we'll be through.

Paul says, let's get it focused.

But the free gift is not like the trespass if many died through one man's trespass. Much more have the grace of God and the free gift abounded for many, so it's a much more quality. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man sin because the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, [00:51:00] but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification, brought us being right with God.

If because of one man's trespass death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace. We've got the much more again and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. This is the beauty. Of Paul's writing. It's, it is powerful. It connects and it spans this meta-narrative of scripture that goes back to creation and comes all the way through to eternity.

Yes.

Points for Home: Understanding Reality & Grace
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Mark Lanier: So here are our points for home. [00:52:00] I really think we need to understand reality. One of the things when I talk to, to people who don't believe in God, one of the things I'm, I, I always wind up going to with them is how do you explain reality? I, I mean, the Bible explains reality to me. The Bible explains to me why sometimes things I want to do I don't do, and sometimes the things I don't want to do, I do.

The Bible explains to me why there's sin in this world. The Bible explains to me that sin came into the world through one man and it spread to everybody. I'm not stunned when people sin. I'm not surprised when the Unregenerate people, people lie and steal and cheat.

[00:53:00] And, and it shouldn't surprise any of us.

Reality is that sin is something that, that brings death, and it's something we should all try to, to walk in victory over by the power of Jesus, through the death of Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, but understand reality. And if we understand reality, then we can marvel at grace because just as horrible as sin is, that is spread to everybody and is endemic to who we are.

Much more. Has the grace of God abounded to many? It is. It is so much higher. It is so much better. It is so much deeper. The grace of God, the death of Christ. Is the solution to the eternal problem of humanity. Absent [00:54:00] God's grace, without the cross of Christ, we have no hope. We are all under the boot of death and sin, but with the cross of Christ, there is therefore, now no condemnation.

Romans eight. There's no condemnation. It's done. The price has been paid. And, and we can marvel at that. And part of that marvel is us rejecting despair and pride. We should never despair that we aren't good enough for God because good enough for God does not get found in the life of any human being that's not wrapped up in Jesus Christ.

Yeah. And the reason we're good enough for God wrapped up in Jesus should not give us [00:55:00] pride 'cause we're only good enough for God because of what he's done, not because of us. Right? So you leave it to me. All of sin, every one of us. Don't despair though, because there's a free gift by Grace, the cross of Christ.

Now I really want to get into this in great detail. Next week we're gonna try and finish the chapter, so stay tuned. But when you go home today, you embrace the love of your Lord who has worked for eternity to save you because it is that awesome. Okay.

Closing Prayer
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Mark Lanier: Lemme bless you in the name of Jesus Father, I don't know who's listening to this, uh, on the internet, and I don't know where you, you're pricking hearts right now, but it is my prayer that we will all grow in understanding your grace, that your work in Christ Jesus on our behalf.

[00:56:00] Father, help us get past pride. Help us with despair. Help us with worry. Help us with all of the baggage that comes with sin. We pray, not just for eternity walking with you, but we pray for the here and now that you will make us more like you. Let our focus be on your goodness as we watch you transform us day by day, more like the image of Jesus Christ.

Through whom we pray. Amen.