In
Romans 5 we confront an issue unlike the issues in the first 4
chapters. The topic up to this point is our sin before God. The point is
that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Paul's
statement is that those who hear those words will be defensive.
He
overcomes every argument that is raised and uses the word of God in the
Old Testament to make clear that there are no exceptions. Romans 5
speaks to human misery. Death has power in our lives, and because death
reigns we are not just guilty, but we are miserable too. We live in
anguish and fear.
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world,
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men,
because all sinned-- 13 for until the Law sin was in the world,
but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death
reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned
in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the transgression.
For if by the transgression of the one the many died,
much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man,
Jesus Christ, abound to the many.16 The gift is not like that which came
through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from
one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand
the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.
17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned
through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of
the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.
18 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men,
even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification
of life to all men.19 For as through the one man's disobedience
the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of
the One the many will be made righteous. 20 The Law came in so that the transgression
would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,
21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through
righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 5:12-21 (NASB)
The
reign of death, properly understood, in the Bible represents more than
just taking your last breath. Death includes having no purpose in our
daily existence, walking aimlessly, and breathing without really
functioning, existing with no excitement, hope, joy, beauty or love. It
is a kind of emptiness in which there is not anything to look forward
to, and there is a pain that is carried everywhere. This is the death
Paul is relating to us. Additionally, the Scriptures talk about the
reign of death as something that produces bad behavior in us. Hebrews 2
confirms that it is because people are so afraid of death that they are a
slave to the devil their entire lives. There are people every day who
are imprisoned by uncontrollable, harmful, devastating behavior in which
they hurt themselves and others and can't seem to stop; they make the
same mistakes over and over again.
The
tacit question contained in these verses is this: Is the fact of Jesus'
death and resurrection good enough to remove my sin, and leave me in
right standing before God, and can it heal my heartache as well? Also,
Can it resolve the pain of sadness and isolation that I feel? Can it
actually make me right with God?
The answer to all of these questions is yes it can. Beginning in Romans 5:12 we can begin to understand why the answer is yes,
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world,
and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
This
is not just an unwavering, reasoned argument Paul uses to prosecute the
guilty. It's the loving answer of the minister who is concerned for the
needs of people around him and who wants to let them know there is an
answer to the problem of misery and anxiety.
Verses 13-14 give a glimpse
of hope:
13 for until the Law sin was in the world,
but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death
reigned
from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the
likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
So
far Paul has said, "death reigned" in verse 14; it is repeated in verse
17 and again in verse 21 as well. The authority of death is the problem
we face, and Paul is articulating some essential things to help us
understand it.
In the opening chapters of Genesis sin enters the world when Adam rebelled against God. Genesis also reveals how man was made to have the knowledge of God, the intimacy with God, the opportunity to commune with God, and a life indwelt with God. He was placed in an abundant garden. God gave him one restriction to
obey, and man rebelled against God with his eyes open, knowing exactly
what he was doing. The result was that sin entered his experience, and
because of that death reigned. Sin is the companion of death, and everywhere there is sin there is death.
Now the particular thing that Paul is pointing out here is not only did
Adam's sin affected Adam, but that because of Adam we are all equally
culpable of sin. That doesn't
necessarily mean that we all have knowingly sinned in our lives, but
that we all sinned in Adam somehow, and from God's perspective we were
present in Adam. Every one of his descendants was present with him and sinned when he sinned.
There
are a few observations about the fact that we sinned in Adam that need
to be made. The first observation would have to do with all the
arguments that are brought into the world today through the lens of
multi-culturalism, a dangerous worldview in which everybody advances
their ethnicity, cause, or group, and the broad attempt to arrange
people so that equal advantage is given to all groups. It seems that any
attempt to do this is predictably going to result in smaller and
smaller groups; as soon as some group defines itself versus the rest
because it wants equality for itself, then shortly a subgroup within the
prior group will define itself the same way and so on, because all of
us have the same root problem of sin.
The second observation would be the fact that sin pits people against
each other. Adam and Eve's first two sons were born quarreling with each
other, and Cain killed his brother.
Another observation could be summed
up in the cliché, "There but for the grace of God go I." There are
certain people who intensely disgust you and from whom you are prone to
withdraw, because their choices, associations, habits, and lifestyle
occur to you as remarkably bad. What must be recognized is that they are
the way they are because they are victimized by the reign of death and
enslaved by the fear of death just like the rest of us. Apart from the
grace of God in Christ we are all in Adam and we are who the Scriptures
say we are, "Nevertheless, death reigned." Unless something happens to
break the reign of death, we are no different from those who repel us.
Finally,
Paul comments about the law in verses 13-14. He is trying to make clear
to us that the reign of death does not take place because of any
particular thing we do. Adam was given an exclusion, a rule to abide by,
and he broke it by eating from the tree anyway. Paul writes that there
is a long time between Adam and Moses, to whom the law was finally given
on Mount Sinai so that we would have a clear direction as to what God
said was absolutely right and absolutely wrong. It was not relevant that
prior to Moses there was no law; death reigned anyway. It reigned not
because people were doing specific acts of rebellion, but because they
already had the disease when they were born.
The law was given to help
us see what we couldn't see previously. It's like looking into a mirror
and noticing you have pores in your skin, only to discover when you use a
magnifying mirror you discover you skin is nothing but a bunch of pores
stuck together. Once we use the magnification of the law of God to
examine the problem of our sin, we realize it's much worse than we ever
thought it was. The law enlarges our understanding of sin. We live in a
time that has more in common with the pre-law period than any other age
in our nation's history.
As each year goes by fewer people know what the
Bible really says. Fewer people have any awareness that there is a
personal God who is in control of our universe and He has made Himself
known to us. We live like the
people before Moses who didn't know God’s instruction relating to human
behavior. People are absolutely ignorant; they are not intentionally
disobeying God's law, but they are oblivious to the fact that God has
spoken at all. And the fact remains that yet death still reigns. That is
why we run into so many people with fundamentally good intentions who
are making an awful mess of life.
They want to be supportive, but in
trying to help they are adding to the pain and damage. Very few people
purpose to make life bad for everybody around them, but many
unintentionally do just that.
"Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®,
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977,
1995 by The Lockman Foundation Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)
TJ
