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 - 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but
sin is not imputed when there is no law. 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. 15 But the free gift is not like the transgression.
For if by 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 to the many. 16 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. 17 For if by the transgression of the one, death
reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance
of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life
through the One, Jesus Christ. 18 So then as through one
transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so
through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of
life to all men. 19 For as through the one man's disobedience the
many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One
the many will be made righteous.

An Implication for Men

This is not a Father's Day sermon. But with one slight twist of
the dial it could be. What Paul does in this paragraph is compare
and contrast Adam, the first man and the father of humanity, with
Jesus Christ, the second Adam and father of the new humanity. The
passage begins in verse 12, "Therefore just as through one man
[Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin . . ."

What this implies for fathers - though it is not at all Paul's
main point here, and it won't be mine - is that Adam, the first
man, had a unique burden of responsibility for leadership when he
was created which Eve did not have. The reason we say this is that,
even though Genesis shows that Eve was the one Satan picked to
tempt, and in one sense she broke the specific commandment first
not to eat of the tree, that made no difference to God or to Paul;
they held the man accountable. When God came to call the couple to
account, Genesis 3:9 says, "The LORD God called the man, and said
to him, "Where are you?" And when Paul talks about how sin entered
the world and how we are all now sinners because of that first sin,
he looks straight to Adam and not to Eve as the head and
responsible one.

None of this is incidental. It is woven all through the Bible.
The point is not that women aren't responsible or have no dealings
with God directly. The point is that God holds men responsible for
a unique role of leadership and protection and provision. So men,
boys (who will become men); God designed you for this burden of
responsibility. It is your calling. And if you fulfill it with
humble, sacrificial love, it will be your glory as well.

Now that is not the point of the text. It is a subordinate
implication.

Christ Is Far Greater Than Adam

The main point of the text is that what Christ has done for all
who are in him is far greater than what Adam did for all who were
in him.

• The obedience of Christ is parallel, but vastly superior, to
  the disobedience of Adam.
• The righteousness imputed to those who are in Christ is
  parallel, but vastly superior, to the sin imputed to those who are
  in Adam because of his disobedience.
• The life that comes to us who are in Christ through that
  imputed righteousness is parallel, but vastly superior, to the
  death that comes to those who are in Adam through that imputed
  sin.

The point of the paragraph is that the obedience of Christ - the
obedience unto death, as Paul says in Philippians 2:8 - is the
foundation of the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ
in the act of justification. In other words, the overarching theme
of the letter to the Romans from 1:17 onward has been the doctrine
of justification through faith apart from works - that believers
are declared to have a right standing with God not on the basis of
our inherent righteousness, but on the basis of Christ's
righteousness received by faith alone. And now, in this paragraph,
Paul draws this same teaching to a climax by explaining it more
fully through the comparison and contrast between the effect of
Christ's obedience and the effect of Adam's disobedience.

Why would he do this? Why involve himself in such a complex
argument as we find in this paragraph?

Adam Is a Type

Before I try to answer that, let's be sure you see for
yourselves that Paul does indeed intend to draw out a parallel here
between Adam and Christ. Look with me at verse 14. Don't worry for
the moment about the context here. We will work on that next week.
I just want to get one crucial preliminary point from verse 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." Now that last phrase is what I want
you all to see. That is the hinge on which the whole paragraph
swings. Adam is a "type" of him who is to come. Adam is a type of
Christ.

What does "type" mean? The NIV says "pattern." Adam was a
pattern of Christ who was to come. He was an example, or a
foreshadowing, or a prefiguring of Christ. Let me see if I can say
it so that the children can understand it. Sometimes when we want
to understand something better we compare it with something like
it, but not totally like it. For example, if you come to my house
and I say, "Look at my dog, Sable, and tell me what you see," you
might say, "She's black with white paws and brown eyes and a tail
with a white tip." And that may be about it. But then I go get
Pastor Livingston's dog, Lady, and put her beside my dog and say,
"Now how is my dog different? What do you notice that you didn't
notice before?" Then you might say, "Well, Sable is bigger, and
Lady seems to be friskier and Sable is sort of laid back, and
Lady's tail kind of hangs down and Sable's curls up. And Lady has
long hair and Sable has short hair. And Lady's nose is thinner." So
do you see what happens: you notice new things about Sable when you
compare her with another dog that is different - the size, the
temperament, the curl of the tail, the length of hair, the
thickness of the nose. So one way to see something better is to see
it alongside something like it but different.

That is what Paul is doing in this paragraph. In verse 14 he
says he is going to view Christ in comparison and contrast with
Adam. That makes Adam a type or a pattern. And the aim is to see
more clearly and more fully and more deeply the work of Christ and
how he became the foundation of our justification.

Now why? Why take this approach? There are probably other ways
Paul could have explained justification more fully and deeply. Why
bring in Adam, the first man, and talk about his sin and how it
affected the whole human race, and then compare that to Christ and
his righteousness and how that affected all those who are in him?
Why this approach?

Adam Is the Father of Every Person

There is more than one reason. And they are all woven together.
Let me mention one and you will see others woven into it. Paul
explains the obedience of Christ as the remedy for the damage done
by the disobedience of Adam, because he wants us to see that the
doctrine of justification by grace through faith is not limited to
any one people group or any one place or any one time period of
history, but is relevant and essential for all people in all times
and all places. Wherever there are descendants of Adam, there is a
need for the truth of justification by faith. The damage done by
Adam's sin affects every human being in every place in all times.
And now we see by this comparison in Romans 5:12-21 that the
obedience of Jesus Christ and imputing of that obedience to all who
believe is the remedy for the damage done to all human beings
everywhere. There is no other remedy. There is no other salvation
for the fatal damage done through Adam to all human beings.

The implications of this are staggering. One is that Jesus
Christ is very great and worthy of our greatest admiration and
trust and love and praise. Great is the Lord and greatly to be
praised and his greatness is unsearchable. He and he alone has
lived and died in such a way that it can remedy the deepest problem
of sin for any human being anywhere who trusts in him.

Another implication of this comparison between Christ and Adam
is that Jesus Christ is not a tribal deity. What this means for
missions and evangelism is immense. Jesus Christ is not a Christian
god alongside the Muslim god and the Hindu gods and the Jewish God.
He is the universal Lord and Savior, and there is no other Savior.
The point of the comparison with Adam is to show that there is one
fundamental problem in the human race that began with Adam at the
beginning: Sin. And the burden of this text, expressed over and
over and over again,
is that the problem with humanity is not most
deeply our individual sinning that might seek out individual
remedies; but our problem is the connection that we all have with
Adam's sin.

• Verse 15: "By the transgression of the one [Adam] the many
  died."
• Verse 16: "The judgment followed one sin and brought
  condemnation."
• Verse 17: "By the transgression of the one, death reigned
  through the one."
• Verse 18: "Through one transgression there resulted
  condemnation to all men."
• Verse 19: "Through the one man's disobedience the many were
  made sinners."

So the problem with the human race is not most deeply that
everybody does various kinds of sins - those sins are real, they
are huge and they are enough to condemn us. Paul is very concerned
about them. But the deepest problem is that behind all our
depravity and all our guilt and all our sinning, there is a deep
mysterious connection with Adam whose sin became our sin and whose
judgment became our judgment. And the Savior from this condition
and this damage is one Savior, who stands in Adam's place as a kind
of second Adam (or "last Adam," 1 Corinthians 15:45). And in one
great life and death of obedience he undoes what Adam did. In Adam
all men were appointed sinners (verse 19), but all who are in
Christ are appointed righteous. In Adam all received condemnation
(verse 18), in Christ all receive justification.

Now let's drive this home for our missionaries and for all our
evangelism here at home. Do not think that the doctrine of
justification by grace, based on the imputation of the obedience of
Christ through faith apart from works, is a mere concoction of a
western European worldview that got off the ground with the guilty
conscience of a monk named Martin Luther. That's not true. It can't
be true, because it is the historical remedy in the person of Jesus
Christ for the historical damage in the person of everybody's first
ancestor.

The doctrine of justification by grace through faith cannot be
replaced by a redemptive analogy. If Paul had merely said for
example, "Sin is like drowning in the ocean, and salvation is like
being pulled out of the water into a boat by a strong man," then
you might go to a people group somewhere far from oceans and boats
and say, "Sin is like sinking in quicksand and salvation is like
being pulled onto a firm rock by a strong man." That's fine. But
you can't do that with this doctrine of justification - not now,
not after Romans 5:12-21.

Why not? Because now Paul has connected it with Adam. And Adam
is the historical ancestor of every people group on the face of the
earth. This is not a myth; it's not an analogy; it's not an
illustration. It is historical fact. Adam, the first human being,
sinned and in him all human beings sinned, and all died and all are
condemned. And the remedy for that is another historical Person -
the God-man, Jesus Christ, who came in space and time to undo what
Adam did. He trusted and obeyed God perfectly, so that all who are
in him by faith have that obedience imputed to them and become
right with God forever.

Jesus' Righteousness Relevant to Each of Adam's Children

That historical truth is relevant and applicable to every people
group on the face of the earth and every person you know in the
United States of America. Someone might say, "But what if you come
to a people group that has no categories or thought forms for
understanding this sort of thing - a corporate connection between
humanity and its ancestors, or the possibility of our sinning in
the sin of another, or our being counted righteous with the
righteousness of another? You know what? We are that people group.
We don't have any categories for that in modern America. Many third
world peoples would have far less difficulty with this text than we
do.

I expect that before I am done with this three-part series on
this paragraph some of you may say - or feel like saying - no way!
We can't sin in Adam. We can't be identified with him in his guilt
and condemnation. Somebody else can't obey for me to make me right
with God. We can't have the righteousness of another imputed to
us.

So the last thing I want to say this morning is this: It is the
task of every missionary - and every pastor and evangelist - not
only to accommodate Biblical teaching to cultural categories where
possible and helpful; but it is also our task to create Biblical
categories where no others will carry the Biblical truth
faithfully. So, very personally, some of you have heard this
morning:

• that the Bible says that your deepest problem is your
  connection with Adam's sin and condemnation - that you share in it
  as part of the human race;
• and that the only remedy in all the universe for this
  condemnation is the justification that comes by the work of Jesus
  Christ who was perfectly obedient even unto death;
• and that faith in Christ is the one and only way to be united
  to him and justified and accepted before God.

But you say, "I don't understand this. I don't think this way. I
don't have any categories in my brain for holding this." Please do
this: embrace it as you see it; and tell God that you receive his
way of salvation in Christ; and ask him with faith that he give you
the fuller understanding that you need. God loves to save humble
sinners. You don't have to understand it all to benefit from it
all.

A closing appeal to the dads and all men. We want to pray for
you this morning. If you take seriously the burden of your
responsibility as spiritual leader in your family and church, then
every one of you has burdens that could be made lighter by prayer.
Come and let us pray for you after the service. A kind of Father's
Day gift.