Romans 5.18-21
messenger dox
Call to worship:
OT:
pastor zachary mcguire
Genesis 3.1-7
NT:
pastor Bobby owens
mark 1.9-13
song:
Christ our hope in life & death
Historical:
pastor michael champoux
apostle’s creed
song:
grace greater than all our sin
Confession & Pardon:
pastor michael champoux
song:
come behold the wondrous mystery
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Romans 5.18-21
Introduction
In October I finished reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I had always been told, and it’s true that it’s different for the 1930’s Universal Monsters Frankenstein with which we’re all familiar in pop culture. In the book Victor Frankenstein becomes fascinated with reanimating the dead, so he collects body parts from various corpses to form and imbue life – creating a monster. The result is endless death, destruction, and despair for Victor and those closest to him.
I was thinking about Frankenstein as I was preparing this sermon because I could feel the monster in this passage. Victor Frankenstein desired to play God – in pride he sought to create life, an image of his own, but his pride and idolatry did not bring joy, but despair; it did not bring life, but death. There is a parallel here to another story, a true story, our story. Last week Pastor Kevin led us through Romans 5.12-17, about Adam and Christ. Our passage this morning continues St. Paul’s teaching.
Adam was the original Victor Frankenstein. Adam was created in God’s image and in the covenant of works, Adam was given God’s law. But Adam did not keep God’s law, he broke God’s law. Adam rebelled against God and sinned. In pride Adam believed he knew better than God; Adam desired to put himself in the place of God and the result was death, destruction, and despair.
But there is good news – St. Paul tells us that Jesus is the last Adam. Jesus is the true and better Adam. Jesus fixes what Adam broke. Jesus rights what Adam wronged. Adam is the federal head of humanity, but Jesus is the federal head of a new humanity. In our pericope this morning we see three ways that Jesus slays the monster of Adam’s prideful creation.
Jesus’ Superiority to Adam in His Death
In these 4 verses St. Paul gives us 3 contrast statements between Adam and Christ. Notice the grammatical clues in verses 18, 19, and 21 (as/so…so/also). Like analyzing a diamond and then slowly turning it and studying it from a different angle, St. Paul ruminates on the diamond that is Christ, considering different angles of the good news. While there are multiple ways we can exposit this text, one helpful way is to see the superiority of Christ to Adam in Jesus’ death, Jesus’ life, and Jesus’ resurrection.
Verse 18 shows us how Jesus is better than Adam because of Jesus’ death. One trespass led to condemnation for all men. Like Frankenstein’s monster, Adam’s sin condemned his kin. Adam’s pride resulted in him standing guilty and condemned before God. And not Adam alone, but all his posterity inherits a position of guilt and condemnation before God.
This is called the imputation of Adam’s sin. This is hard for us to understand because we’re all super individualistic and most of us have what we’ve made or accumulated ourselves. But think about those who are born into mega wealthy families, or those who are born into slavery, neither based on anything they’ve done. In an even truer way, we have all inherited Adam’s imputed unrighteousness because he is our father, our representative, our federal head. Because of Adam’s sin we are all born in a position of guilt and condemnation before God.
This is bad news, but the good news is that we’re not enslaved to the sins of our father because so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life. Here St. Paul speaks particularly of the death of the Lord Jesus, or what theologians call the passive righteousness of Christ. Adam’s transgression led to condemnation and death, but Jesus’ condemnation leads to justification and life.
Earlier in Romans 5 we saw that Jesus’ death is the propitiation for God’s elect. Propitiation is the means by which sins are atoned for. Jesus’ death is the true and better mercy seat from the Old Testament. On the cross Jesus took the curse of Adam upon himself – he endured God’s wrath against the sins of the church; he was cursed hanging on the tree outside the camp. God told Adam, “The day you eat of the fruit of the tree you will surely die.” Because Adam ate, Jesus died on the tree.
And on the cross Jesus accomplished the great exchange. He took our sin upon himself, though he never sinned. And now his people receive his righteous standing before God. God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God. In Christ our standing before God has changed – we have a new representative. We are no longer in Adam, but in Christ.
We have moved from condemned to justified. We have moved from death to life. When God looks at the church, God does not see Adam; he does not see sin; he does not see guilt; he does not see condemnation. When God looks upon his elect, he sees Christ; he sees justification; he sees righteousness; he sees life.
How can we know that this is true of us? How can we have this peace, this assurance? Scripture says through faith in Jesus alone. Do you have faith? Do you know that God is your holy creator and that you are guilty before him, and that the death of Jesus is your only way to be declared righteous before God?
Knowledge is the beginning of faith, but there’s more to faith than mere knowledge. Do you assent to the validity of this truth claim? Do you acknowledge that the gospel is true? Do you confess it and not deny it?
If so, do you trust this message? Do you rest in Jesus Christ? Do you believe what Scripture reveals about the Lord Jesus? Trust is the key and final component of faith, but you can’t trust what you don’t know and understand, so I invite you even now to work out your salvation in fear and trembling – do you have faith in Christ?
If you do, you will repent of your sin. When God gives you the gift of faith, repentance follows. Are you humbling yourself? Are you confessing your sins – here at church every week during our time of confession, but also as the Spirit brings conviction, or when a brother or sister in Christ confront you in your sin – do you confess your sin? And do you turn from your sin? Do you practice the discipline of turning from sin, or do you move from confession to confession with no intention of turning? Repentance is not what justifies us, but it is the fruit of our justification, as the great reformer Martin Luther said, “We are justified by faith alone, but not a faith that is alone.”
Jesus’ Superiority to Adam in His Life
Jesus slays the monster of Adam’s sin through his death his death, but Jesus is also the true and better Adam because of his life. In verse 19 St. Paul slightly shifts the focus, turns the diamond to analyze the Adam/Christ typology from our standing to our practice. By Adam’s disobedience, we are made sinners. Adam practiced sin, he broke God’s law and so, not only is his unrighteous standing imputed to us, but we also inherit his original sin, and the result is that we practice sin in thought, word, and deed.
We have a sin nature. We are not born innocent until we knowingly sin, there is no biblical warrant for an “age of accountability.” Sin is inside us and working its way out of us from conception. If you’ve spent any time with children at all, you know you don’t have to teach a child sin; you must teach a child righteousness. They know how to sin inherently; they can’t help it. It’s who we are in Adam; we’re sinners.
But the good news is Jesus is the true and better Adam – Adam’s disobedience made many sinners, but the obedience of Christ makes many righteous. Jesus is righteous in our place – this is what we call the active righteousness of Christ. Jesus does not naturally descend from Adam. Jesus was not born of man and woman, but Jesus was conceived by the Spirit and born of the virgin. Jesus did not inherit Adam’s original sin and Jesus did not practice sin in thought, word, or deed.
Jesus never broke any of the 10 Commandments – God’s law. Jesus was obedient to God – always loving God with his whole heart and always loving his neighbor as himself. This is the righteousness that is imputed to us. And Jesus’ righteousness not only justifies us, not only declares us righteous before God, but now because we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we are sanctified – we are progressively made righteous as we hate our sin more and the fruit of the Spirit, genuine good works are produced in us out of genuine love for God.
We must always be humble as we consider such things. Our righteousness, our obedience, our good works are never pure. They are always tainted by our sin. The Bible will not allow us to preach Christian perfectionism. But lest we veer too far to one side of the road, we ought not downplay that sanctification is real. Good works are the fruit of a heart regenerated by the Holy Spirit. If we are not concerned with obedience to God’s Word, love for God and neighbor, humility, faithfulness in marriage, hospitality, generosity, repentance, and the other good works clearly commanded by Scripture, it is not because of our Reformed doctrine of sin and depravity; it is because we are excusing our sin – continuing in sin that grace may abound. And that is a fearful place to be because Jesus slays the monster of Adam’s sin through his life.
Jesus’ Superiority to Adam in His Resurrection
Before we get to the 3rd typological statement in verse 21, St. Paul gives us some explanation about the Law in verse 20. The moral law that has been true and present since the covenant of works with Adam was made explicit in the moral law or the 10 Commandments. The Law came in to increase trespass. This increase of trespass is not in sense that humanity was more guilty after the giving of the 10 Commandments, people were always as guilty as ever, but the trespass increased in that they knew God’s law more explicitly and they more knowingly broke God’s law.
There is a point in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where the monster pleads with Victor Frankenstein to create a female to be his companion. At first, out of sympathy, Victor agrees, but is later resolved that all the evil perpetuated by the monster will minimally be doubled, if not compounded by a female creation. Victor sinned by creating the monster – death, destruction, and despair was the result – but even though his first experiment was fueled by pride and idolatry, one could argue that he did not know the extent of the ramifications, but if he had created another after seeing the death precipitated by the original, would he not be even more guilty?
The law increased the trespass in the sense that we know the moral law of God and yet we continue to sin. We know the 10 Commandments, and we break them in thought, word, and deed. We break them by what we do and by what we leave undone. We have no excuse.
But thanks be to God where sin increased grace abounded all the more. As the sinfulness of humanity is more clearly revealed throughout redemptive history, God’s grace is shown to exceed. God sent his only begotten Son when the time was right to be defeated by this sinful world, but what looked like defeat was actually victory. Through his death and resurrection, Jesus defeated the kingdom of darkness and overcame Satan, sin, and death.
The 3rd typological statement in verse 21 teaches us that sin reigned in death. Death is the kingdom, the realm of sin. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the monster of Adam’s sin leaves nothing but death, destruction, and despair in its wake. Our world is broken – evil governments, natural disasters, poverty, disease, injustice, abortion, murder, racism – to name a few, all the kingdom of death.
But it’s not just out there when things are broken, it’s in here. Our hearts are broken in sin. We think evil things. We say evil things. We do evil things. We hurt people. People hurt us – all the kingdom of death.
Satan still prowls like a lion looking to devour Christ’s church. Satan is bound from deceiving the nations from the gospel, but he is like a wounded animal looking to devour anyone he can. If you give him a foothold, he will gladly bring death, destruction, and despair on your life, your home, our church. Sin is a kingdom of death.
But in the gospel grace reigns through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The righteousness leading to eternal life is the kingdom, the realm of grace and it’s all through Jesus. Jesus’ righteousness justifies us before God. Through the Word and the Spirit, we begin to practice righteousness in our hearts, our homes, our church, and in the world. And the world has experienced Jesus’ righteousness over the centuries as the church has practiced righteousness in rebellion to the kingdom of death.
Even now we can see that where sin abounds, God’s grace still exceeds, it abounds all the more. When sinners repent through the preaching of the gospel. When converts are baptized into the church in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When poor and needy sinners come to the Table and hear that the body of Christ was broken for them and the blood of Christ was shed for them. When, in humility, we utter those words: Our Father in heaven…or dare to confess together: we believe in God the Father almighty…
When a Christian man and a Christian woman make a covenant to be faithful “‘til death do us part”. When they have babies and catechize them in the fear of the Lord. When single Christians give of their excess time for ministry instead of self-indulgence. When the church serves the poor, the sick, the imprisoned, the elderly, the widows, the orphans. When our hearts in unity sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs together – we can still see that in the world, or even in our hearts where sin abounds, God’s grace abounds all the more!
Conclusion
We all live in a Frankenstein world. But our problem is the monster is not just “out there;” the monster is in here. The monster of sin that leaves nothing but death, destruction, and despair. But the good news is that the Lord Jesus came to slay that beast. In the novel it is ultimately the death of Victor Frankenstein that brings an end to the monster’s reign of terror. Through his own death and resurrection Christ has ended sin’s reign of terror and brought us from condemnation to justification, from sin to righteousness, from the kingdom of death to the kingdom of eternal life. Hear the good news friends – Jesus isn’t dead; he’s alive, he’s alive!