24 January 2016
I. Introduction
-- turn in Bibles to Romans 5:12-21
Romans 5:12-21 (NIV)
12 Therefore, just as sin entered
the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to
all men, because all sinned--
13 for before the law was given,
sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from
the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking
a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15 But the gift is not like the
trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more
did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,
overflow to the many!
16 Again, the gift of God is not
like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought
condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17 For if, by the trespass of the
one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who
receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Consequently, just as the result
of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of
righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.
19 For just as through the
disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the
obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
20 The law was added so that the
trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more,
21 so that, just as sin reigned in
death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
-- last week we talked about the
hand on the table -- about the time when Jesus was sharing the last supper with
His disciples in the Upper Room and He told them that someone there was going
to betray Him -- when they asked, “Who?”, Jesus responded by saying, “The one
who will betray Me is the same one who has His hand on the table with Me”
-- and every one of them looked
down and realized they all had their hand on the table and they all asked the
same question, “Is it me? Am I going to betray Jesus?” -- and even though they
did not betray Jesus in the same way as Judas, every single man who was there
that night betrayed Him by turning away from Him and abandoning Him in the hour
of His greatest need
-- the hand on the table reminds us
that all of us have betrayed Jesus through sin and it reminds us that our
hearts are all prone to wander away from Him all the time through the choices
we make
-- this morning I wanted to carry
this thought a little deeper and talk a little bit more about sin -- have you
ever thought much about sin? -- you know we use this word in the church a lot
-- we sing about it and we talk about it and we worry about it and, truthfully,
sometimes we ignore it
-- we know that sin is the one
thing that we all share -- look at the person on your left -- they’re a sinner
-- look at the person on your right -- they’re a sinner, too -- look at me --
I’m a sinner -- we are all sinners -- the Bible tells us in Romans 3:23 that
all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
-- we know that sin is what
separates us from God -- it is our sin that condemns us to hell -- and it is
our sin that caused Jesus to come and die on the cross in our place
-- but have you ever really stopped
to think about what sin is? -- did you know that in the Bible there are two
distinct words that we need to consider when we talk about this subject?
-- the first is “sins,” plural --
when the Bible speaks of sins, it is referring to our acts of disobedience --
to the times we have chosen to disobey God’s word -- whether these are the sins
of commission -- our sinful acts -- the things that we do wrong -- or whether
these are the sins of omission -- the times we haven’t done what we know we’re
supposed to do -- sins of omission are typically the times when we choose to
turn away from doing good when we know we should -- sins in the plural refers
to what we do -- we’ll talk about this more in a couple of weeks
-- the second word is “sin,” in the
singular -- when the Bible speaks of sin in the singular form, it is generally referring
to our sin nature -- to our old flesh -- to that part of us that makes us a
sinner -- this internal nature that lives inside of us and that causes us to
disobey God -- it is this sin nature inside of us that we refer to as original
sin -- and that is what I want to talk about today
II. Original Sin
-- the doctrine of original sin is
one of the foundational doctrines of the church -- this doctrine teaches that
when Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, sin entered the world and, as a
result, all of us are born with this sin nature inside of us that causes us to
sin
-- it all goes back to Genesis
2:16-17 when God told Adam that he could eat from any tree in the garden, but
that he must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because
if he ate of it, he would die
-- that always bothered me -- it
seemed like God was setting them up for failure -- I mean, knowledge is good,
right? -- it seemed like God was trying to keep Adam and Eve from getting something
good by telling them they had to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil
-- but I was listening to a message
from Jefferson Bethke the other day, and he pointed something I hadn’t realized
before -- if Adam and Eve were not supposed to get knowledge from the tree,
where were they supposed to get their knowledge? -- from God! -- so the command
to not eat from the fruit of that tree was really a call to intimacy with God
-- it was not a “stay away” command, but a “come to Me” command -- God wanted
them to turn to Him in all things and to lean on Him for their understanding
and knowledge
-- but we know what happened,
right? -- they were seduced by the serpent who convinced them to seek knowledge
on their own apart from God, in direct violation of what God had told them to
do -- in essence by taking the fruit and eating of it, they were turning their
backs on God and choosing their own path
-- and, as a result, sin and death
came into the world, all because of the trespass of one man
-- look back at verse 12-13a
Romans 5:12-13a (NIV)
12 Therefore, just as sin entered
the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to
all men, because all sinned--
13 for before the law was given,
sin was in the world.
-- because of Adam's disobedience,
sin and death -- both physical and spiritual death -- came into the world
-- Paul tells us the same thing throughout
this passage
-- verse 15 -- "if the many
died by the trespass of the one man"
-- verse 16 -- "the result of
the one's man sin -- the judgment followed one sin and brought
condemnation"
-- verse 17 -- by the trespass of
the one man, death reigned through that one man"
-- when Adam disobeyed God and
chose to seek knowledge on his own by eating of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, sin and death came into the world -- and sin and
death changed Adam and Eve -- it became a part of them -- and it became a part
of who we are today
-- because of Adam’s disobedience
and trespass, we all became sinners -- we are all born sinners because we all
come from Adam -- to use the Biblical term for it, we are “in” Adam -- that is
the doctrine of original sin
-- now this concept always caused
me a problem -- you see, one of the principles that we learned in biology was
that physical changes to the body were not inherited -- only genetic changes are
inherited
-- there was a biologist many years
ago named Heckel who proposed a theory called "hopeful monsters" --
in this theory, he said that the way the different animals came about was that
a physical change happened to them and that that change was inherited by their
offspring
-- for instance, the evolutionists
tell us that whales came from animals who used to live on land and have legs --
Heckel would say that something happened to one of these animals who lived on
land -- their legs were injured or were cut off -- and then those physical
changes were inherited by their offspring -- so, if an animal or person had an
accident and lost a leg, then their babies would be born missing a leg --
according to this theory, over time, whales evolved because of these inherited
physical changes
-- this theory of Heckel's was
quickly discounted -- we all know that if a person has an accident -- if you
lose a limb or have some other physical problem -- then that physical change is
not passed on to our children -- physical changes do not affect our offspring
-- so this left me confused about
original sin -- how did the physical act of disobedience by Adam -- how did
eating the fruit in the Garden of Eden -- cause sin to be inherited by all
people?
-- this bothered me for years and
years -- for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how Adam eating from the
fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil caused me to be born a sinner
-- how could a physical act done by Adam be transferred to me?
-- the only way for this to work
would be if the original sin actually changed who Adam and Eve were -- not only
spiritually, but physically -- and that this change in them was inherited by us
-- but if it wasn’t a change to their DNA that was then inherited by us, what
changed in them?
-- science tells us that some
diseases -- especially some viruses -- can be passed on to us from our parents
-- we inherit the disease from them
-- for instance, we now know that
the AIDS virus can be transmitted from infected mothers to their children --
there are many babies born every single day infected with AIDS -- who have AIDS
simply because their mother had it and transferred it to them
-- we see the same thing with
rabies -- rabies can be transmitted from an infected mother to her offspring --
a few years ago I read about rabies being transmitted from a mother cat to her
litter of kittens -- the kittens were not bitten by a rabid animal, but they were
all infected with rabies because their mother was infected -- and it resulted
in their new owners being at risk for rabies
-- this scientific principle holds
the key to understanding how we have inherited our sin nature from Adam -- this
explains how sin and death came into the world through him and lives on in us
-- when Adam and Eve disobeyed God
and ate from the fruit, sin came into their bodies like a virus -- now
understand I’m not saying sin is a virus -- I’m just saying it acted like a
virus -- it infected Adam and Eve with its poison, and this sin nature became a
part of who they were -- it was passed on from them to their children and then
to their grandchildren and their great grandchildren until it finally passed on
to us
-- it was through their infected
blood that sin and death entered the world and entered each of us
-- God tells us in Leviticus 17:11
that the life of a creature is in its blood -- and, I think it follows, that
the death of a creature is in its blood as well -- we are all sinners because
we have within our veins the infected blood of Adam
-- Ted Dekker picked up this theme
in his Christian fiction trilogy -- Black, Red, and White -- in these books,
the entire world becomes infected with an airborne virus -- everyone on earth is
destined to die because a virus has entered the world through the actions of
one man -- this is exactly what happened in the Garden of Eden
-- everyone on earth is destined to
die because of the actions of one man brought the sin virus into the world --
we are all sinners because we have inherited this great infection -- this sin
nature -- from Adam
-- we are sinners -- not because of
what we do -- but because of who we are -- as Watchman Nee wrote, "the
trouble is in our heredity and not our behavior"
III. The Origins of a Sinner
-- this is a Christian concept that
always gave me pause -- how can someone say that a precious little baby who has
just been born is a sinner? -- that little baby has done nothing wrong -- they
haven't disobeyed God -- they haven't sinned their actions -- they haven't gone
out and broken any of the ten commandments
-- the answer to how a baby is born
a sinner lies in the great infection that we just talked about -- you are not a
sinner because you sin -- you are a sinner because you are born with this
infection in your blood -- you are a sinner because you have inherited this sin
nature as a virus from your parents
-- its just like a baby born with
AIDS -- that baby has done nothing wrong -- it hasn't had unprotected sex -- it
hasn't shared needles when it did drugs -- it was just born infected with a
virus because its parents were infected before it
-- Paul tells us here in this
passage that sin and death entered the world -- it entered all of us and
infected all of us -- because of one man's trespass -- because of Adam's
disobedience, we are born infected with a sin nature that causes us to want to
sin -- that causes us to want to do things that God does not want us to do
-- now this is an important concept
to grasp -- you are a sinner because of who you are -- not because of what you
do -- you are a sinner because you are a child of Adam -- you are “in” Adam -- you
trace your heritage back to him -- and, as a result, you are infected with this
great infection -- you are born with this sin nature inside of you
-- this explains Romans 3:23 where
Paul writes that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God -- this
explains how that little baby who just took its first breath is a sinner --
this explains how that good ole boy you know -- the one who really doesn't do
much wrong and tries to live a good moral life -- is still a sinner
-- it's not about what you do --
it's about who you are -- and you are a sinner because you are infected with
sin
-- the important thing to remember
is that “Sin is not so much the activity. That's just the evidence of the Sin
nature. Sin is the nature of every man born of Adam” [Precept Bible Commentary,
http://preceptaustin.org/romans_513-21.htm#5:13]
-- think about an alcoholic --
based on scientific studies, it appears that alcoholics are born that way --
they are not alcoholics because they drink and can't quit -- they are
alcoholics because that is who they are -- it is part of their nature -- I am
sure today that there are many alcoholics walking around who have never taken a
drink in their life -- but if they ever do, then their disease kicks in and
turns them into someone who drinks to excess most of the time
-- I have a friend in Tennessee
just like that -- he comes from a line of alcoholics -- his father and his
grandfather were both alcoholics -- they were both held in bondage to alcohol
-- and my friend knows that he was probably born an alcoholic, too -- for that
reason, he has chosen to never drink, for fear that he might follow in their
footsteps
-- it's not about what you do --
it's about who you are
-- that's why you can't get to
heaven on your own -- that's why you can't work your way to heaven -- that's
why you can't be good enough to earn your way to heaven -- even if you never go
out and disobey one of God's commandments, you are a sinner because you are
born in sin -- as David wrote in Psalm 51:5, "I was sinful at birth --
sinful from the time my mother conceived me"
-- we have a disease -- this sin
nature in our hearts -- and it is this sin nature that is keeping us from
heaven
IV. The Answer to Sin
-- so, what can we do about it? --
what is the answer to this raging infection in our souls? -- this sin nature
that has become such a part of us that we are born sinners?
-- well, what would you do if you
were sick and infected with a virus? -- you'd go to a doctor and get a shot --
you'd go get an antivirus -- something that would kill the virus within you and
make you clean again
-- and that's exactly what we have
to do with this sin infection in our life -- we have to receive an antivirus
and make ourselves clean and whole again
-- we call this antivirus
"grace" and it comes about through the blood of Jesus -- the blood of
Jesus is our antivirus -- it is the only thing that can remove our sin -- our
sin nature -- our great infection -- and offer forgiveness of our sins
-- in other words, this antivirus
-- the blood of Christ -- not only forgives us of all of our wrongdoings -- of
all of our disobedience -- but it also overcomes and destroys our sin nature --
that inherent part of us that causes us to be born sinners and give in to
temptation
-- look at verse 15-17
15 But the gift is not like the
trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did
God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,
overflow to the many!
16 Again, the gift of God is not
like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought
condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17 For if, by the trespass of the
one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who
receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness
reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
-- Paul tells us here that God is
offering us the gift of righteousness and life through Jesus Christ -- now
that's an important thought
-- God's offer is not like the
trespass of Adam -- when Adam fell in the Garden of Eden and was infected with
this sin nature, we all became infected, whether we wanted to or not -- we had
no choice -- it became part of who we were -- and, as a result, we were born
sinners
-- but the blood of Christ that
washes away our sins is a gift -- it is something that we have to accept -- it
is something that we have to choose in order to receive it
-- if I am sick and go to the
doctor and he offers me a shot with an antivirus in it and I say, "No
thanks," then I don't get the healing and protection that that shot offers
-- the only way for me to get healed is to accept his offer and receive the
shot
-- in the same way, if God offers
us an antivirus through the blood of Jesus, the only way to be healed is to
receive the treatment -- to accept God's gift and to be covered with the blood
of Christ
-- there is nothing else we can do
-- there is nothing else we can take -- home remedies won't work -- being extra
good won't work -- living a perfect and moral life from now on won't work --
the only thing that will work to remove this infection from our lives is to
receive this free gift of grace from God -- to accept the death of Jesus on the
cross on our behalf
V. Closing
-- Paul tells us here that God's
gift is all sufficient and that it can lead all of us from death into life
-- God's grace is greater than our
sin -- through the obedience of Christ -- through His sinless, perfect life,
God's grace has overflowed to all of us and made it possible for all of us to
be made righteous and clean and whole
-- the only way to erase original
sin is to receive the gift of life from Christ -- we call this salvation or
justification -- our bodies and our souls are made clean and we begin a new
life with Christ -- we die to Adam and are born again in Christ -- we change
from being people who are “in” Adam to being people who are “in” Christ -- and
we inherit from Him His righteousness which cleanses us for all eternity
-- next time, I want us to talk
more about the other sin word in the Bible -- sins, plural -- the things we
choose to do that are not what God wants us to do and what we can do about them
-- but for now, I want to encourage
you to take a moment and examine your life -- is there a moment in your life
where you can remember making a personal decision to receive the gift of new
life from Christ? -- a moment where you asked Him to forgive you and to be your
Lord and Savior? -- a moment when you know that you were saved by Him?
-- if not, then I want to encourage
you to do that right now -- to choose to receive this gift that Paul tells us
about in this passage -- the gift of new life and the cleansing of our bodies
and our souls and our spirits
-- let’s pray
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