Sermon text: Romans 5:12–19
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
When deciding to purchase an item — especially the bigger and more expensive items that there are — it’s helpful to compare and contrast different products. For some of you, doing that online is really simple. For others, like us, this generation, it’s a little more difficult for us to do that compare and contrast. So designers have tried to make it easier for shoppers to pick the kind of item they really want. There are still many websites that let us pick a number of products and put them in columns side by side, with check marks of their various features, so we can decide what kind of car we want to buy, or appliance, or computer, or piece of equipment to purchase. One has heated seats, the other doesn’t. One has a good suspension system, the other doesn’t. You see, each feature indicated by a check mark along the list indicates that it’s the kind of thing you can buy and have.
In the text this morning — it’s kind of complicated — but what Paul is doing is doing a compare and contrast between Adam and Jesus Christ, and the benefits or the disadvantages of each of these men. Paul uses the phrase “much more” to present a degree of difference as well between Jesus and Adam, as he weighs the benefits and disadvantages to following after the path of each one. Fortunately, in all cases, Jesus turns out to be the winner all the time. He always wins the contest. As a result, grace, righteousness, and life are ours in Jesus Christ, and the old Adam is drowned daily.
In the first Epistle for this first Sunday in Lent, Paul depicts the two most influential men in all of human history: Adam and Jesus. He compares and contrasts the effects of their actions, which have affected all people in every time and in every place in human history. He also measures this degree I’m referring to between the two of them by using the words “much more.”
Now the work of Christ is greater than the sin and death brought by Adam. Paul wrote, “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.” Paul begins by referencing the fall into sin. Our reading this morning: Adam’s sin and the entrance of sin into God’s perfect creation brought death and its consequences. Suddenly, Adam and Eve were subject to death — moments before they had not been — because they allowed sin to intervene into God’s perfect and great creation.
Here Paul makes his first comparison, which actually does not involve Jesus. Actually: Adam sinned and died. Like Adam, we all sin and we all die. For the wages of sin is death. Therefore, death reigns over all people. The decision of one affected all. One died, therefore all died. One sinned, therefore all have sinned.
Verses 13 and 14 tell us sin is not counted where there is no law. It’s a very confusing passage. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses. Adam, you see, did have a specific command of God. God said to Adam, “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” Adam was given a specific command: don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But he did. He transgressed the law. He knowingly sinned against God. But God didn’t give His Ten Commandments to the world until thousands of years later, when He gave them to the world through the prophet Moses. So Paul goes on to contrast those folks who lived in a time before the Ten Commandments.
But just because they lived before the articulation of the Ten Commandments does not mean they received a free pass on sin. We have a saying: ignorance is no excuse or defense against the law. That’s the basic idea. Paul’s primary point in these verses is that people are still accountable for sin, even though they may not have ever learned of a specific command given by God with which they were to comply. So just because there is no revealed law does not mean sin is impossible.
They didn’t transgress in the strictest sense of the word. Now, the word transgression means stepping over a revealed boundary line. Just because God didn’t articulate it doesn’t mean it’s not right or wrong. Rather, we still engage in acts of sin, even though we haven’t been told a specific command. They didn’t have to have clearly laid out boundaries to violate, but they still committed all kinds of sins against which they knew in their conscience to be right or wrong. And the proof of their violation is the fact that death exists at all. Everyone except Enoch lived and died. Enoch walked with God and was no more. The Bible says he walked himself right into the heavenly realm. And how about the flood? It killed nearly every single person on the planet, even though the Ten Commandments were still thousands of years off.
What Paul says about those living in this interim period between a revealed law and an innate one, it’s significant for all throughout time who have not heard nor seen the revealed will of God in commands and in promises. There are still people around the world who’ve never heard the Ten Commandments, but they’re guilty of sinning against conscience and creation. Thus they die, and the death is the evidence of their sin.
Paul explains it further in Romans 2:12–16: “For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.” Notice how that’s said. Read it again: “For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.”
People may not have a direct and clear command from God that one thing is a sin and the other is not. But they know, by virtue of conscience and this thing we used to have called common sense, the difference between right and wrong.
But the free gift, verse 15, is not like the trespass. Here, Paul contrasts the results of Adam’s trespass with God’s gracious free gift. Paul isn’t just stating the obvious, the very bad versus the very good. He’s using an old rabbinical formula to compare things by degrees. Paul states: Adam’s trespass brought death to many. How much more will God’s grace in Christ overflow to those who receive Him? So Christ’s work is so much greater than Adam’s disaster.
Verse 16: “And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.” That is: one trespass to many trespasses. It only took one trespass of Adam’s to bring judgment and condemnation on the whole world. But astonishingly, many trespasses — every trespass ever committed by Adam, by Eve, by St. Paul, by you, by me — were answered in the one gracious gift of God our heavenly Father, leading to a judgment of righteousness. You and I and the whole world have been declared righteous. The Greek word for this group of words, righteous and righteousness, is rendered in the English with that wonderful, good Lutheran word: justification.
Verse 17: “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Remember the rabbinic formula used before: the trespass of one Adam led to death reigning. How much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and undeserved gift of righteousness reign in life? All of this, of course, is through the one person, Jesus Christ.
The first Sunday in Lent, you see, especially focuses on what scholars call the active obedience of Christ Jesus. Jesus’s active obedience means He actively, willfully, knowingly, perfectly kept God’s law in all He said and did, every day of His life on earth. Where Adam failed us all, Christ won the victory for us all. This keeping of the law by a man was necessary before that man could finish His observance — that is, His passive obedience: going obediently, passively, to the cross.
Scholars break down the work of Christ into two categories. An active obedience: that is, Jesus willfully, consciously complying with the law every moment of the day in every circumstance presented. To His passive obedience: that is, letting — allowing Pilate and the Jews to crucify Him for the sins of the world. Thus the King of the Jews. His passive obedience, on the other hand, is seen in His passive submission to the cross, which is a manifestation of His righteousness. We receive this righteousness and abundant life simply by faith.
Condemnation for all; justification and life for all. Adam’s one trespass compares with Jesus’s one righteous act. Because Adam’s act led to condemnation, condemnation for all. And Jesus’s act leads to the righteousness of life for all. This is also called objective justification. You have active and passive obedience. You also have universal or objective justification and subjective justification. This objective justification is for all people of all times. That is, Jesus Christ paid for the sins of the whole world — not just a small group of people in the world. Now this justification for all is received subjectively by faith. Salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, for Christ’s sake alone.
Sadly, a great many who have indeed been justified objectively will nevertheless be lost, because they do not believe in the free gift given to them in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.
To summarize: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Paul once more compares the disobedience of one person, namely Adam, which established many sinners, Adam’s descendants, and the obedience of Jesus makes many sinners righteous. Memorize that, because we live by it in faith. For in fact, we do live by it: the disobedience of one person, Adam, established many as sinners. The obedience of Jesus makes many sinners righteous.
What Adam did that fateful day by a tree in the Garden of Eden has fatally affected every single person ever born on this world. Adam sinned; death is universal, and it’s inescapable. But by Christ’s perfect active and passive obedience, to a tree of His own, He has done something greater. He overcame Satan, sin, and death. That too is for all people. All people, whether they acknowledge it or not, stand with Adam as sinners. The question is whether or not they also belong to Christ.
Verse 19: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Thanks be to God: you have been made righteous by the one man’s obedience, namely Christ. Thus Christ is the greater. Your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.