Angelic Conflict part 274: Defeater of death – Rom 5:12-21; 3:12; Isa 1:5-6; Heb 12:2; Col 2:14; 1Sa 2:8.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 274: Defeater of death - ROM 5:12-21; 3:12; ISA 1:5-6; HEB 12:2; COL 2:14; 1SA 2:8.  

 

Romans: Expositions of Bible Doctrines © 1966 by Donald Barnhouse.

 

 

ROM 5:12 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 — 

 

ROM 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed [charged to their account] when there is no law.

 

ROM 5:14 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.

 

ROM 5:15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many [all humanity] died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.

 

/"For there is no comparison between that offense and the free gift of God. For if through 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 for many." [Barnhouse]\

 

He wrote something similar:

/ROM 8:18

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.\

 

We could say that the evil and death brought into the world through Adam is not worthy to be compared with the righteousness and life brought into the world by Christ.

 

A spit ball of death is not worthy to be compared with a ballistic missile of life.

 

ROM 5:16 And 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.

 

About a year before Paul wrote the epistle to the Romans, he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians in which he spoke of the Lord Jesus as "the last Adam," and "the second man."

 

/1CO 15:45

So also it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living soul." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.\

 

/1CO 15:47

The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven.\

 

There he presented, in outline, the truth on which he elaborates in Romans.

 

/1CO 15:22

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive.\

 

/He presents death as an enemy to destroy; and He presents Christ as reigning, and continuing His reign until all things, including the subversive reign of death, are put under His feet.

 

1CO 15:26

The last enemy that will be abolished is death.\

 

In Romans, this theme is greatly enlarged and its implications made plain in practical application to the Christian's daily life and walk.

 

/Here, in the argument of this epistle, we are at a turning point, for it concerns the active Christian life and the life of Christ flowing through us, that we may know constant triumph in Him.\

 

ROM 5:16 shows that there is no comparison between the grace of God in Christ and the offense of Adam and its sinister consequences. These were permitted by God in order to prepare the ground for the revelation of His grace and mercy in salvation.

 

/This passage emphasizes the important fact that for only one transgression the sentence of condemnation in death was passed. \

 

God did not allow man to commit many sins and then show His divine displeasure. The moment one sin was committed, He put the law of sin and death into operation. There could be no doubt that death was the sentence, spiritual death followed by physical death and there was no way out of it.

 

God didn't broker a deal or give Adam time off his sentence for good behavior. The sentence was final and the penalty most severe.

 

God had to do this because He is perfect Justice. Man had to be separated from the Garden of Eden, the tree of life, and from God. He would toil and live in conflict his entire life, away from his creator and then die, likely in pain. Perfect righteousness cannot have anything to do with sin. God must judge it and He did, but not against man - He judged sin in Christ.

 

When mankind wants to work for the relief of even some of the sentence, in good behavior, in moral superiority, etc. they fail to see the true beauty of God's solution and they miss the grace of God with the result that they continue in the slavery of Adam and under condemnation and fear of death.

 

/God did not take a halfway measure against it; He proceeded with the full weight of His condemnation.\

 

Our legal system, as most, have adopted a scale of aggravation. We have misdemeanors, felonies of different classes, capital crimes. Stealing is against the law, but the sentence will vary depending on how much a person steals.

 

No court in the world would inflict the death penalty on a man who stole fruit from an orchard, not even if he stole all the fruit.

 

/Yet our text reminds us that for one act of disobedience God passed the death penalty against Adam, and all his posterity to the remotest generation.\

 

Not only was the sentence of condemnation passed, but it has ever since been executed against every member of the human race, so that its effects may be seen even in babies that have been born less than five minutes.

 

God had solemnly warned Adam if he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that death would result.

 

God manifested His immediate, instantaneous, and complete hatred of sin in any form. Sin is sin to God and all sin brings death; spiritual death, physical death, and for the Christian; walking death when not in fellowship with God.

 

The original sin lead to billions and trillions of offenses against God in individual personal sins. Cain commits murder, the whole human race becomes so evil that God starts over with Noah and his family, Nimrod builds a tower to oppose God, and man spread all throughout the earth, transforming his appearance through procreation into European, African, Russian, Asian, American races but not being able to change his inner appearance - he is a sinner and full of evil no matter how far he immigrates from the Middle East nor for how long. He never got better and his great evil was manifested in world wars, ethnic cleansing, greed, all kinds of lusts, and outright depravity.

 

/ISA 1:5-6

Where will you be stricken again,

As you continue in your rebellion?

The whole head is sick,

And the whole heart is faint.

From the sole of the foot even to the head

There is nothing sound in it,

Only bruises, welts, and raw wounds,\

 

/ROM 3:12

All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

There is none who does good,

There is not even one.\

 

When the Law was given by Moses sin increased. But none of this stopped the grace and mercy of God. This is why the issue is the one sin of one man. This is what condemned us completely in death and judgment, whether it resulted in 100 more sins or 100 trillion.

 

/The trillions of personal sins that resulted from the fall did not hinder the grace of God one bit. Yet all sin had to be judged and Christ took the judgment for every one.\

 

We certainly look at stealing sugar substitute packets differently than murder, and rightly so, and Christ paid the penalty for every one, smallest to greatest, not forsaking any one of them.

 

What if God said enough is enough and began the day of the Lord before you could be born? He did not shorten the list of "the many" of Adam's progeny because of the great increase of personal sin.

 

/HEB 2:10

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many [polus] sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.\

 

Since the many sins did not even minutely hinder the grace of God, the issue of our condemnation is from one sin of one man, but the grace of God showed it has no bounds by not only atoning for Adam's first sin but all the sins of all mankind. Christ paid a heavy price for many, many people.

 

ROM 5:16 And 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.

 

/"justification" - dikai,wma[dikaioma] = a concrete expression that a person is righteous. A legal claim to complete acquittal and vindication.\

 

Every one of Adam's progeny would add to the long list of sins committed. As the list got longer and longer the vindication of every man became more and more costly.

 

/Adam committed one sin, but Christ would die for trillions of sins in order to offer justification to all men, and therefore the free gift is beyond compare.\

 

Just precisely that sin is sin to God, the ocean of sins that resulted from Adam's one sin demanded a proportionate flow of justice. All had to be judged. Either all are justly condemned or the love of God calls for the cross of Christ, and several hours upon it in darkness, judgment, and spiritual death.

 

Without this flow of grace and mercy we are lost completely without hope. It is much like the exodus in the wilderness without water. There are over a million people and all need water, just like there are millions of sinners and all need grace. Paul used just this as an example.

 

God instructed Moses to go to a particular rock and strike it. The one strike represents the one sacrifice of Christ for all. This produced a deluge of water for a multitude just as the cross provided grace for all mankind.

 

/Rock - Christ; Strike - our sins; deluge of water - God's grace.

 

1CO 10:4

and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.\

 

If God's love had not done this then we would all have remained spiritually dead and condemned just as the Jews would have all died of thirst in the desert. Moses' strike was the strike of all our sins upon Christ.

 

Adam makes one willful sin that opens the flood gates of personal sins, a list which is extensive to say the least, and the beyond comparable gift of Christ is to cleanse us from every one of them. He never got off the cross, though He had the power to do so. He didn't know when it would end, but He remained.

 

 

/COL 2:14

having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.\