Expound: Romans 5-6:7 - Part B

So, a person born into this world is born under the wrath of God, separated from God.

God is at enmity with Him. If a person says, I believe in Jesus, Jesus is the sufficient work. God makes a declaration that you are right before Him, just before Him, righteous before Him, and He treats you that way. There is a monumental change that occurs when someone gives their life to Jesus. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares about the condition of your life before and after Jesus. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will help you grow stronger in your faith. Joy in the midst of hardship is a hallmark of the Christian life.

But is it really possible? Here's Lenya Heitzig. Sometimes what starts out as a happy trail turns into a really daunting road, and we have to figure out how to navigate. A lot of times God's purpose in allowing trials is to give us opportunities to grow to the point where we genuinely experience joy in the midst of trials. Learn how to face trials with courage, wisdom, and yes, joy with Lenya's booklet, Happy Trials. And when you give $20 or more today to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, we'll send you a special bundle of three booklets by Lenya, Happy Trials, Don't Tempt Me, and Speak No Evil. Get your bundle of three booklets for a gift of $20 or more by calling 800-922-1888. Or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

That's connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in Romans chapter five as we join Skip Heitzig for today's study. You remember Joseph, all the trials he went through, unfairness, could have been very bitter when his brothers finally showed up and Joseph revealed himself to them. And they're freaking out because they think Joseph's going to kill us. He's brought us into his lair, and now he's going to drop the hammer. And he basically said, relax, bros. What you meant for evil, God meant for good to save many people alive.

I'm here by God's grace to come up with this plan to save the world from a famine. Now think back before that little revelation when Joseph's brothers first came to Joseph, not knowing it was Joseph in Egypt. He was the prime minister of Egypt at the time. They didn't know it was Joseph. They need grain. He gives them grain, sends them back, but then says, when you come back, if you come back again, bring your other brother that you left at home, little Benjamin. Because they said, well, we have a guy, Benjamin, but dad won't let him out of his sight because his other son Joseph got killed. And so he won't let Benjamin. He said, well, listen, if you want grain again, you bring Benjamin this time. So they went back home, told dad, and dad said, well, Benjamin's not going. But the famine got worse and worse and worse. Finally, dad said, look, we're going to sit here and die unless you go back and get grain in Egypt.

And I guess you're going to have to bring Benjamin. But then Jacob said something. He said, all things are against me. Everything's against me. Well, Jacob, you can't say all things are against you because you just don't know all things. And it's really not against you because even though he thinks the worst is happening to him, he thinks he's lost his son Joseph, he thinks he's about to lose his son Benjamin, and he says, all things are against me.

This is horrible. He can't imagine the good things God has prepared for him. He can't picture the day when Joseph is going to say, I'm your boy.

And he'll be able to hug his son Joseph again and be reunited with the person he thought was dead and gone. So again, Romans 828, all things work together for good to those that love God who are the called according to his purpose. So yes, we have trials. Yes, we have tribulation.

But one of the benefits of justification is that those things are productive in our lives. I've always loved a little, well, I've always loved the writings of Samuel Rutherford. Samuel Rutherford, if you've heard me talk about him, was a Scottish pastor in Anwath, Scotland, a very tiny little town, small congregation. But he was very faithful to the gospel and thus outspoken for the gospel for Christ and in some cases against the government. It landed him in exile.

He was exiled in Aberdeen and forbidden to do ministry, but he could write letters. And he writes, there's a whole book called The Letters of Samuel Rutherford. I commend it to you if you want good, wholesome correspondence that will edify you. But he writes this great little poem, though it doesn't rhyme, but it's a little work that he talks about trials. And he says this, why should I tremble at the plow of my Lord that maketh deep furrows in my soul? Can you picture it?

Can you picture the analogy? Here's a farmer digging deep furrows in the soil to plant a seed. Why should I tremble at the plow of my Lord that maketh deep furrows in my soul? And then Rutherford said, for he is no idle husbandman, he purposes a crop. He's not some farmer who's just willy nilly digging furrows in the ground. He's digging that furrow deep because he's going to plant something awesome. He wants a crop to come out of this.

He's purposing something great, some fruit to happen. He also said, I love the way he wrote, he said, whenever I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord's choicest wines. Look for the Lord's best when you are at your worst.

And when you do, you're going to start glorying in your tribulation because you'll be going through a trial and you'll start thinking this way, I just got to look around a little bit deeper and see what good thing God might purpose. Because verse five, the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Now, when it says the love of God has been poured out, it's God's love for us, not our love for God. He's speaking about God's love. And God's love has always been difficult for me to understand.

I accept it, I rejoice in it, I'm really stoked about it, but I don't get it. Remember as a kid, was it called the Frog Princess? About the frog who has a conversation with the princess, the princess discovers that this frog was actually a handsome prince and would be converted back into a handsome prince if she would kiss the frog, right? Is that how the story goes?

What is it? The princess and the frog. Okay, did I say the frog princess? Okay, it was the frog prince it was called. It's called the frog prince, right? So yeah, I've got to get my frogs right. So the princess is the chick, the prince is the frog. They have a conversation and so it's a beautiful story. She bends down, she kisses the frog and he turns into a prince.

But you know, when I was a kid, I would read that and I would think what princess in her right mind is going to put her lips on a stinky old toad. And yet God kissed the toad. God is so inclined that way. The love of God has been poured out, shed abroad, poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength in due time or just in the right time, in the nick of time, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. We know what that is like if you're in law enforcement, if you've been in the military, you know the kind of risk you are taking that you might have to stand in front of a bullet and protect life.

You are willing to do that for the greater good, a good cause. But verse 8, God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The Apostle Paul is describing our helpless condition when we were without strength. We were helpless. In fact, we were dead, right? You as he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sin. I've seen a lot of corpses. I've never seen a corpse able to help itself, able to change its condition. It lacks capability.

It lacks capacity. You and I were dead. We were helpless and we couldn't do anything, but Christ died for us much more than. Now there's a phrase that Paul uses quite a bit in the rest of the paragraph, the rest of this chapter.

He uses much more because he's wanting to make a strong point. Much more than having now been justified, declared, and thus treated righteous, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, there's the second much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Once again, never forget the first part of the book of Romans, because if you don't get the first part, you'll never get the second part. The first part is the wrath of God. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven, Romans 1 18.

Ephesians 2, we were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. When a person is born into this world, they are born guilty. To use even more spiritual terminology, they are born dead. They're born, they're alive, but they're the walking dead before God. So, Jesus said in the Gospel of John chapter 5, most assuredly I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. That's salvation.

That's what happens when you are born again. But, a couple chapters back in John chapter 3, verse 36, it says, he who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. So, a person born into this world is born into this world, is born under the wrath of God, separated from God.

God is at enmity with him. If a person says, I believe in Jesus, Jesus is the sufficient work. God makes a declaration that you are right before him, just before him, righteous before him, and he treats you that way. And you go from death to life.

You have the life principle, the life of God in you. Verse 12, therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, thus death spread to all men because all sinned. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. That's a parenthetical statement, which you remember a couple weeks ago, we gave you the example of the speed limit. If there's no speed limit postings on the freeway, you can't get a ticket for breaking the speed limit. There's no law that says you have to do 65 miles an hour. You can't get pulled over by an officer saying, you went over the speed limit. There is no speed. There's no law. But when the law is posted, when they finally hang that sign out there that says, you can't go over 65, now you realize, man, I've been breaking the law my whole life.

I haven't been doing 65 on the open road. In fact, some of you don't do it even with the sign. Nevertheless, verse 14, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of him who is to come. But the free gift is not like the offense, for if by the one man's offense many died much more, there's another much more, much more, the grace of God and the gift by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, for the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.

For if by one man's offense death reigned through the one much more, those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. Okay, let's unravel that. Maybe this falls in the category that Peter was speaking about. Paul wrote some things hard to understand. First of all, notice the repetition of the words one man.

It is used 11 times in this section. He is talking about one man versus one man, mano a mano, one and one, Adam and Christ. One man, one sin, one wrong choice brought condemnation versus one man, one sacrifice, one right choice brought salvation, justification.

So he's comparing one and one. Adam, what Adam did, and the repercussions of that, by one man sin entered the world, death through sin, death spread, versus Jesus Christ, the last Adam he is called. So one becomes the type of the other, Adam becomes a type of Christ in that he did one thing and a lot happened because of that. So by one man sin entered the world and death through sin. I remember thinking when I was a younger believer, I thought, man, if I ever meet Adam, I think I'm going to punch him.

I think he deserves that probably from everybody, right? It's like, dude, what were you thinking? What you did made billions of people suffer. And then I got to thinking about Adam. I think if I was Adam, I would probably do exactly what he did. In fact, I have done exactly what he has done many times over.

You have, too. Because, he says, because all sinned. Now, we sin because we are sinners.

Let's just sort of unravel the conundrum. Are we sinners because we sin? Or do we sin because we are sinners? Do we sin because we are sinners? The answer is we sin because we are sinners. It's not like we became sinners when we committed the first sin. We were actually born in sin.

That's what David said. I was conceived in iniquity. I came into the world speaking lies. It's the default of all human beings. Now, every parent who's raised any child, you don't have to convince them of this. You never have to teach a child a lie or to hide or to do wrong. You always have to correct a child because the natural recourse of that child is to do wrong.

That's our nature. It's like my dogs. I have two little Welsh Terriers, Mac and Maisie, and they bark.

Now, Maisie is the younger one. Mac is the older, gruffer, kind of mean old man. Mac doesn't like something or like what he sees. He barks. Maisie started out being very docile and not barking, but she noticed that Mac barks, so she barks. Now, she barks more than Mac. She just barks a lot. Now, is Maisie a dog because she barks, or does she bark because she's a dog? That's it.

The second one. It's not like, well, she barks, so therefore she's a dog. I bark. I can bark like a dog. I won't do it.

I've done it. But instead of barking, I can articulate a sentence like, you know, I don't like that because I'm human. That's my nature to communicate that way. So a dog's nature, because it cannot articulate, can't do a lot of things, is just to bark.

If it's upset, bark if it likes something, bark if it's excited, because it's his nature. We have a sin nature, and because we have that nature, we are sinners by nature, sinners by birth, as well as sinners by choice, based on that nature. That's sort of a theological construct, but it's important that you understand that's our nature. And the reason it all started, as Paul makes the point, is because of what one man did.

One man made a choice. Sin entered. Death entered. The world had not known death, but God said in the day that you eat of the fruit, you will surely die. So death entered.

Death spread to all men, became part of our nature, because all sinned. But what Adam did in the garden is he acted for humanity as what we call the federal head. The federal head meaning he did something and everybody else therefore did it as well. He acted as the federal head.

For a modern example of that, if you're familiar with the movie Hunger Games, and in the show, the premise is that Katniss Everdine, the main character, is a substitute for her sister Prim, right? So that she, Katniss, will act as the federal head, not only for Prim, but for her whole district. If she wins the gladiatorial games, the Hunger Games, then her whole district will be rewarded with food, with feasts, for like a whole year. Okay, so she acts as the federal head. What she does, everybody else gets the benefit or loss.

So Adam acted as the federal head. You go, well that's not fair. You're right. It's not fair. We're not talking about what's fair. We're talking about what is.

And I'll explain this. It is not fair. Jesus dying on the cross for your sins is also not fair. He didn't do anything. He didn't commit anything.

But here's the equity. Because God consigned the whole world guilty because of what one man did, He can now forgive because of what one man did. By saying you're all guilty, He can say you can all be saved if you come through that one man, Jesus Christ.

You see how that works? So that's the powerful lesson that He is teaching. For by one man's death, verse 17, or one man's offense, death reigned through the one much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation.

Even so, through one man's righteous act, the free gift came to all men resulting in justification of life. Now again, notice the much more. The much mores of this chapter. Verse 9, much more than. Verse 10, much more having been reconciled. Verse 15, for if the one man's offense, many died, much more the grace of God. Verse 17, if one man's offense, death reigned through the one much more. And then also in verse 20, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound where sin abounded, grace abounded, much more.

I have a question based on what we just read. How much grace is there? Well, let's at least say plenty. Enough. Enough for you. Enough for me.

It'll never run out. Much more. Yeah, Adam did this, but Jesus did that much more. So, whatever was lost in Adam is gained in Christ much more. That's his point.

He's making an emphatic point. That's Skip Heitig with a message from the series Expound Romans. Now we want to share about an exciting opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's Word even deeper. Think taking classes in biblical studies can't fit your life? Here's Calvary College student, Cresta. After years of wanting training in ministry, I found Calvary College. Now I can deepen my walk with the Lord and I can go as little or as often as my schedule allows.

The classes are great and the schedule definitely works around my work and family life. Learn more about God and the Bible on your schedule with Calvary College. Apply today at calvarychurchcollege.com. The global outreach of Connect with Skip Heitig is only possible with the support of listeners like you. Your generous partnership keeps the Bible teachings you love on the air for you and so many others. So, please consider partnering with this ministry today with your gift to take God's Word to even more people around the world. To give, just visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or you can call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitig shares about the clean slate and fresh start you can have in Christ. You don't want to miss that. Connect with Skip Heitig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.