Adam’s World (Part A)

I do strongly believe that when Paul is dealing with these issues in Romans, it's because he was dealing with them with people. If Romans is complicated to you, it's because people are complicated. Sin is in everyone, whether there's a Bible or not.

Bottom line, that's what he's getting at. Death proves it. But there's more to the story than just death. Is the life that continues on from Adam to Moses?

Well, Jesus defeated the supremacy of death, but death is still here. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Romans.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Romans, Chapter 5, with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Romans, Chapter 5, verses 19 through 21. Verse 19, for as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one man's obedience many will be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

So that as sin reigned in death, even so, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is just written by a man so full of the spirit. He's primarily addressing the Jewish believers, but it applies to us all. I find this section, verses 12 through 21, a little bit of a difficult read, yet there's so much here as we begin to open it. The message is entitled, Adam's World, and it is basic Christianity for us, which is always helpful, keeping us, our skills sharp so that we can share the faith with those who don't have the faith. And he has already been dealing with the outgrowth of sin and how it harms and separates from God, and now he deals with the root of sin.

Where does all this come from? It goes back to original sin, and of course he's going to bring up Adam. Genesis 3 is the only way you can explain this life in this world.

Where else do you, I mean, how, well, you know, it just, there's where the explanations are. And the great truth of verses 12 through 21 is Christ's coming on behalf of men or mankind. So we look now at verse 12, therefore, just as through one man's sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Well, if you've been around Christianity for a while, that's a very easy section to understand. That therefore links of course what he is saying now with everything that he has been saying. No chapter and verse divisions in the letter originally, that was something that was added by men.

It was a good thing that they put it in there because we need coordinates to reference, to go back. The Bible is also a reference material, but Adam, he brought death into creation and the defective life that goes along with it, but Christ by his death brought eternal life. So the contrasts are going to be throughout this remainder of this chapter. Adam represents the ruin of humanity in contrast to Jesus, the redeemer of humanity. And you don't have to reach very far. The alliterations are all over the place, like the ruin versus the redeeming, they're there.

You don't even have to stretch much to find them. In Adam, all men are sinners. In Christ, in Christ, all men are saved.

The differences that the world is unmindful of, and hopefully we get to share some of these things. Adam turned men into sinners, Christ turns them into saints. When Adam sinned, he fled from God. God reached out for Adam. He searched for Adam.

Adam, where are you? That's what we're told in Genesis 3. Jesus comes and said, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save. I'm still doing what I was doing in Eden, because that's still what is necessary. We are in Adam's world and his work to be done. And that work has to do with reaching the lost and being strong as believers. And many, many heartwarming internet videos are there, easy to find on the internet, of humans rescuing animals, even at risk of their own lives. But who cares about Jesus dying for people?

Who finds that heartwarming? Well, the righteous do. The spirit-filled do. That's why when we sing, you know, sometimes the spirit begins to move, we lift our arms up. We love the Lord so much. If you've not ever been filled with the Spirit, if you've never had that burst from on high, come up after the end of service to the pastors and say, pray that I would receive the Spirit, that there would be more to my Christianity than an education, than an intellectual grasp, but that I may love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and sometimes may it pour out in a very visible way. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

I'm now one of the saved ones. Death through sin, he says here in verse 12. Well, mythological theories have always been around, created by men, such as today, the evolution of the species. It's a mythology, and science knows that, but doesn't want to admit that.

They'd rather cling to unscientific information than give Christ the satisfaction of admitting that there is a creator, especially that he is him. Anyway, there could be no dying of creatures apart from original sin. And this is the problem if you have a Christian that says, well, I also believe in the evolution of the species.

Well, wait a minute. The evolution of the species involves death. Death comes only through Adam, there in the garden.

Natural death did not exist until the fall of man, which led to the fall of creation, and all creation groans and suffers because of this. Men do not die because they commit sin. They die because they are sinners.

And this is well, otherwise babies would never die. They don't get a chance to sin. They die because of sin, because we are all born sinners. We don't have to wait to commit the act of sin to be classified in heaven as a sinner. We're not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. That is our identity before the throne of God, but we can be sinners saved by grace, which is where this is going because we're sinner bounded. Grace did a whole lot more according to God. So knowing that we're not created with a sinful nature, we are now born with one on behalf of mankind.

That is the fact. It is our nature to sin. And you put us under pressure or the right temptation and it comes out. And thus, he says here in verse 12, death spread to all men because all sinned. Our sinful nature is hereditary.

There's no way to opt out. This is confirmed by honest observation versus indoctrinated spins which hate honesty because honesty goes against indoctrination of those who are dishonest about God and themselves. We live in a time where we have people trying to tell you insanity is sane and what is sane is insane. Sin is technically creation's only problem. For it is the source of all the problems. Take sin away, take it out of the picture.

We won't have the problems we have and that is what heaven is. Now some sins are comparatively minor, but no sin is meaningless to God because any kind of sin will separate the sinner from God and it will do it forever without a savior. For verse 13 he continues, and now this is a parenthesis and it lasts through verse 17, which is Paul's way, you know.

He just pours out what he's saying and he goes down these helpful rabbit trails. He says, for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Well, I'm not a fan of the word imputed. I wish the translator would use the word charged, but that's how it is and I'm not going to change it. Sin is not charged when there is no law.

That's my language. Where he's going with this is the dissimilarity between Jesus and Adam and Adam is the representative of mankind and mankind is sinful by nature, inherited sin. Again, whether you get the chance to commit it or not, Scripture puts the full blame for human sin on the shoulders of the first human, Adam. All the unborn people were in Adam, for without him there would be no one else. No one else would have been born, but he's the first one. And we have to remember, if you were put in Adam's place, in Adam's garden of Eden, you would have done the same thing. It would be a mark of self-righteousness and ignorance at the same time that would stand up and say, I never would have gone to that tree.

You would have done something else. Anyway, all the born-again people are in Christ. All the people who were born in sin are in Adam.

All the people who were born again are in Christ. And without Christ, no one would be saved. Without Adam, no one would be born.

This is the system that belongs to creation. Adam's descendants do not bear the image and likeness of God anymore. Man was created in the image and likeness of God.

But that's been ruined. Now man is born in sin and subjected to separation from God. In the image and likeness of fallen Adam.

Do you believe that? Do you believe that people are born in the image of Adam? Well, the Bible says that, Genesis 5, verse 3, Adam begot a son in his own likeness after his image. It's almost as God says, you know, I'm going to get back to that, chapter 3 in Genesis.

I'm going to get back to this, and then by the time chapter 5, he makes sure that gets in there. That Adam had a child in Adam's likeness, in Adam's image, because when you look at someone, you are not looking at entirely what God created us to be. Of course, through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, through salvation, it is Christ's likeness that we return to. The pursuit of it, the quest to be like Christ, to be like God, without ever becoming divine. Adam is what man turned himself into.

I hope you understand you're at war. That war was declared in Eden, where his seed will be against yours. And God made it clear, it's on to fight for souls.

Christ is God returning man into the image of God. Now back to this man turning himself into something other than what God meant them to be. As for these so-called transgenders, we're not to hate them. That might enrage them all by itself. We're never to hate them, nor to give up on them.

If you have any of them in your life, don't give up. You fight that fight on your knees. Nor are we to enable them or advocate or support or send mixed signals or wrong signals. We have to be very clear about what sin is concerning this especially, because it's right there on the surface. This is not one of those, you know, well it's a gray zone.

What's a gray zone? Well, you know, can people kill in wartime? You know, I believe they can, if the cause merits. But someone else might be a little, you know, foggy on that. Well, love is not only brave Christian love, it is smart. And I think a lot of Christians understand love is brave. Agape love is brave. Without it Christ would not have gone to the cross. But do we forget that it's also smart that dumb love does not honor Christ. In fact, it lets heresy in the church. Well, we got to love them.

Well, we do love them, but maybe not what they're about. Philippians chapter 1. And this I pray that you may love, well, let me reread that. This I pray that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment.

You didn't want them dumb. You know, you just don't have the right to, well, I just feel it. It has to grow more and more in the knowledge and discernment.

It has to be able to x-ray into the spiritual world. If I'm going to sing songs, I'm going to sing in the Spirit and I'm going to sing with understanding. Ignorance does not bring honor to God.

What do we say? What does the scripture say? Grow in the grace and the knowledge of God. The grace is the outcome of that smart love.

Keeps knowledge in check because Paul said, Spirit speaking through him, knowledge puffs up. Love makes better. But that love is not without knowledge. The story of Adam and Eve is no myth. Being human history, it should be taught worldwide as human history. From the first that a child can understand human history, it should be taught. Now, Christian parents do this. Teach their children from the very beginning the things of the Bible. To Adam was given one simple condition of obedience.

Not a day, but a tree. These are the lessons that we have to share. Genesis 2 17, of the tree, of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. Genesis 3 4, then the serpent said to the woman, you're not going to die. That's when she should have whipped out the kung fu, right there. Nothing in the commandment said she couldn't karate chop the dude. Wouldn't that have been nice if Eve just said, I'll be right back. And comes back with Adam and both of them have a stick. Adam and Eve spiritually died instantly when they took of that tree.

But physically, they died many years later. And so God told them, for dust you are and to dust you shall return. It's all changed now, Adam.

This is now your world. And Satan is the god of it. Now, of course, that does not subject our God to Satan. It just means that the evil has gained the upper hand in creation for as long as it will take until Christ comes back. Adam was a victim by his own choice and his own action.

Sobering, sobering lessons from scripture. And the man whom God had formed opened himself to now be formed by Satan. And we see it all the time. We see those again, back to those who are saying, insanity is sane.

This is normal. I'm talking about these blatant sins of this generation. We know that they're being shaped and formed by Satan. And to this condition of man, the message of salvation addresses itself. The question is, are we passionate about the message? Are you passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ reaching lost souls? Are you passionate about saying, look, I don't want to get my theology wrong. I want to understand scripture. A lot of Christians, I fear, they don't want a Bible teaching church.

They want to stay dumb because they might have to do something. They might have to change something in their life if you start preaching the word to them. Because what does the Bible say about the scripture? It washes and it cleanses the preaching of the word. It washes and it cleanses.

It deals with things that need to be dealt with. But the nature of the sinner, without the Holy Spirit, does not want this. He says here in verse 13, until the law sin was in the world.

Well, there was a work written in the hearts of men. He talked about that in chapter 2 verse 15, where he was saying, look, before the mosaic law, there's still right and wrong. Romans 2 15, he says, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, those without the law of Moses, their conscience also bearing witness and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. Sin according to the likeness of Adam. We get that in verse 14. Before the law of Moses, well, was there sin before Moses' law?

Of course. Cain, the antediluvians, those who perished in the flood of Noah's day. There's Babel, Sodom, and Gomorrah. These testify to sin, to known sin, and to the consequence of sin, God's wrath against it. And it existed apart from Judaism, apart from what we call the Old Testament. Cain knew not to murder Abel, and so did those around him. A lot knew Sodom was wrong.

Peter talks about that in 2 Peter 2 verses 6-8. But back to Cain, he said, I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. He was saying society is going to get me because I did wrong and they know it. And that was his fear. And it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me. Genesis 4 15, and Yahweh set a mark on Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.

Stay of execution. No formal Mosaic law, but there were laws. The law of Hammurabi, there were other societies had rules, had laws, else society would have perished.

It would have become chaotic. There's a such thing as common grace. That is the goodness of God upon even lost people.

Jesus said it rains on the just and the unjust, otherwise nobody would survive. But man has the ability to wipe himself out. And that's why there are these laws in the conscience of men put there by God. Jesus said this concerning the last days to show you that we, mankind, in Adam's world, could wipe ourselves out if it weren't for God. And the only thing restraining this is the Holy Spirit, as Paul talks about in 2 Thessalonians 2. Jesus said, for then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved.

But for the elect's sake, those days will be shortened. Yeah, because they wiped out the Jews, and then themselves. So man, in this fallen world, he knows what sin is. Will he conform to the one who defines what sin is? Well, that's the separation between the sheep and the goat. Those who want to reinvent humanity and morals in the age we live in, they're not coming under the law of Christ. They want to make a law unto themselves and it won't work. But sin, he says here in verse 13 at the bottom of the verse, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

So if there's no law, there's no charge. He's reasoning with the people. But people still died because of original sin. So the evidences of sin were still there. As I mentioned, you know, the infants that perish before they're out of infancy, before they've sinned, are testimony to original sin.

That we are born in iniquity. Adam broke the law. Don't eat from the tree, Adam. He did. And he knew what he was doing.

And Paul points that out. Eve was deceived. Adam willfully went into this.

There's a saying, you know, a happy wife, a happy life. Well, it didn't work for Adam. Be careful about that. Well, in the same way that Abraham demonstrated faith apart from the written scripture that we have, Adam demonstrated the existence of sin apart from the written scripture that we had. This takes away a lot of excuses that people like to offer to God.

God is going to say to many people at that great white throne, you knew it was wrong and you continued in it because you didn't want to come to me. The law did not introduce sin into the world. It identified the sin as a charge against the guilty. Adam introduced the sin. Verse 14, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of him who is to come. Well, I do strongly believe that when Paul is dealing with these issues in Romans, it's because he was dealing with them with people. If Romans is complicated to you, it's because people are complicated. Sin is in everyone, whether there's a Bible or not.

Bottom line, that's what he's getting at. Death proves it, but there's more to the story than just death. There's the life that continues on from Adam to Moses. Well, Jesus defeated the supremacy of death, but death is still here. And if you want more on that, Colossians 2 verses 13 and 15, Jesus triumphs over death. He says here in verse 14, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

And there are the infants right there. They didn't get a chance to sin like Adam, to disobey God. They didn't get a chance to even learn a language to hear what God had to say.

But it is inherent sin. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans, here on Cross-Reference Radio.