Through Christ, Life, Part B (Romans 5:15–21) | John MacArthur

Previously on grace to you. The proof that we are all sinners we die all of us. No one escapes. Adam by his one act impacted the entire human race. ((music playing)) It is the sin of Adam that explains the world. What in the world makes us so embarrassed about the gospel?

I ((music playing)) determine to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified ((music playing)) ((music playing)) Adam's act was in relation to one sin Christ his act was in relation to countless sins. Let me give you a third eword. Efficacy. Efficacy that's an old word. It's a good word. You say what does efficacy mean?

The dictionary definition would say the capacity for for producing a desired result. When you say something is efficacious, you mean it it produces the desired result. It is effective in the sense that what you intend for it to do and what it purports to do, it actually accomplishes.

And when you look at the efficacy, the contrast between Adam and the work of Christ, you see the difference between death and life. Let's look at verse 17. If by the transgression of the one, death reigned, that that that is the efficacy of Adam's sin. It produced the result of death. and death reigned.

It was the ultimate sovereign over all of human life. Everyone dies. The transgression of one brought about the reign of death. Much more we hear for the fourth time in this chapter. Much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.

Adam and the reign of death. Christ and the reign of life. Much more. Much more. Death reigned because of the sin of Adam. Life reigns or we reign in life as Paul says it by the one act of Christ on the cross. Grace overpowers the results of sin.

The result of the work of Christ overpowers the result of the work of Adam. And therefore it is much more efficacious. Sin in Adam set us against God and death reigned over all of us. Righteousness in Christ reconciled us to God and we reign in life. What does it mean to reign in life?

What is that saying? The language of the New Testament is clear. Listen to it. Ephesians 1:3. Here's what it means to reign in life. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.

In love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved and whom we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished on us.

What does it mean to reign in life? It means to be lavished with all the blessings of heaven. We are kings. We're a royal priesthood. And we have literally been lavished with all the riches of heaven. The language of the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1. Blessed be again, it's a doxology.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away reserved in heaven for you.

An imperishable, undefiled, unfading eternal inheritance. That's what it means to reign in life. That is God's promise to us. Again, Peter writes in second Peter, "Grace and peace, chapter 1:2, be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his glory and his excellence.

For by these he has granted to us his precious and magnificent promises so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature. That's what it means to reign in life. To have everything heaven can possibly lavish on you. You are royal. You rule. You reign. Book of Revelation talks about the fact that one day we will sit on the very throne upon which the Lord sits and reign with him.

Our life is is above. Our life is beyond us. That's why Paul said to the Colossians, you don't set your affections on things on the earth but things above. We reign. So the the one act of Christ is far beyond far beyond the one act of Adam in its efficacy.

All Adam's act did was produce death and condemnation brought about the reign of death. The one act of Christ brought about the reign of life. There's a fourth element to this magnificent comparison. Let's call it essence. Let's call it essence. That is to say, the nature of it.

And that's in verses 18 and 19. So then, as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men. This is kind of summarizing what he's been saying. Even so, through one act of righteousness, that is Christ obediently dying on the cross, there resulted justification of life to all men.

Again, all men refers to all men in Adam being condemned and all men in Christ being justified. But what is the very essence of those acts? Verse 19. 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.

There is the essence that you need to understand. Sin is disobedience. Righteousness is obedience. These revelations show us the very nature of sin. Sin is an act, a thought, a word that is disobedient to God. God is the supreme authority. He establishes the law in the heart as well as written and revealed in his word.

And when we disobey his law, at any point, we manifest our fallenness and our sinfulness. It is natural for unconverted people to be disobedient to God. Again, that's why I say Genesis 3 explains why people reject Genesis 3 because they are disobedient to God. They fight against the word of God, the will of God.

In Adam, we all sin. And what does that mean? We are all disobedient. We disobey the law of God. We dis The New Testament says we disobey the gospel. We're characterized by disobedience. The whole human race is literally characterized by disobedience to God. I'm not surprised that they reject God's morality, God's law, that they reject even God's revelation, even the history contained in scripture.

All who are in Adam are characterized by disobedience. That's what Adam gave them. As children of Adam, we are born disobedient. I think you've seen it in your children. Parenting is about teaching kids to stop disobeying. They don't come in obeying. They come in disobeying, defying, rebelling. It's in their DNA.

One man's disobedience made all who were in that one man, namely the whole human race, disobedient by nature. And that disobedience is basically a disobedience to the law of God whether it's understood from the heart as in Romans 2 or from the written revelation of scripture. So defining is this that in Ephesians 2 verse 2 1 and 2 and Ephesians 5:6 sinners are basically called sons of disobedience.

In other words, that is the defining reality of their progeny. They were born disobedient. They are sons of disobedience. That's their characteristic. Paul in describing all of us in Adam says this. For we were also once foolish ourselves, disobedient, disl deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in evil and envy, hateful, hating one another.

All of us, that's that's what it means to be in Adam. You get Adam's nature. The flood of sin pollutes the whole human stream. One man's disobedience made many sinners. Look back at verse 19. It made many sinners. We literally were made sinners. Not accounted sinners, not designated sinners, not forensically dubbed sinners.

We were made sinners. It gets passed down. I understand you can't find sin in the DNA. You can't find sin in the chromosomes. But in that human material, there is embodied sin and corruption and death and disobedience. And we've all been made sinners. But on the other hand, by the obedience of one Christ and his one act of obedience on the cross, the many will be made righteous.

It doesn't say we will be declared righteous. That's true. That's that's justification, a forensic declaration that we are righteous because God grants to us his own righteousness as we put our trust in Christ. We are made righteous. In the same way that we were born sinners, we are born again righteous.

So that in Adam disobedience is the normal function. But in Christ, obedience is the normal function. In the sixth chapter of Romans, if you look ahead to verse 16 and 17, you can see it there. When whenever you present yourselves to someone as slaves, it's for obedience. Your slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, obedience to sin is disobedience to God, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.

Then verse 17, thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. That is not forensic. That is not a declared righteousness.

That is an actual righteousness. Literally, we have been regenerated, born again, made new, given the life of God so that we are obedient. We've been transformed in nature and we are basically saved. Ephesians 2:10 unto good works, obedience. So the essence, the essence of Adam's one act is disobedience.

The essence of Christ's one act is obedience. Adam's disobedience made all of us sinners. Christ's obedience is making all of us righteous. That full complete righteousness. So if we're talking about effectiveness, Christ's work is greater than Adams. If we're talking about extent, Christ's work is greater than Adams.

If we're talking about efficacy, Christ's work is greater than Adams. If we're talking about essence, Christ's work is greater than Adam's for obedience is greater than disobedience. A final point, let's just use the word energy to keep our ease. Power in Adam, there is power. Adam had power.

His sin unleashed a power in the world that cannot be stopped. It can't be stopped. In fact, when God sent the law, that didn't stop it. Look at verse 20. It did the opposite. The law, talking about the law of Moses in Moses time, when God revealed from heaven specifics in the law, the law came in so that the transgression would stop.

Is that what it says? Says the opposite. The transgression would increase. So if you think you can be saved by the law, which is what all false religions teach, you're exactly opposite the truth. There is power in fallenness. But there is only power to get worse. And even when you bring the law in, the law actually increases that sinfulness.

You say, "How does it do that?" It does it two ways. Number one, by spelling out in detail all kinds of sins that we would never have thought of, such as love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. No, the law increases sinfulness.

And secondly, not only does the law increase it by defining it in larger categories than we would expect, but the law increases our sinfulness by seducing itself by its very prohibitions. When the law says don't do something, there's something in that that becomes seductive. Oh, I shouldn't do that.

That's what I want to do. There's something in the human heart that lusts for the forbidden realities. So look at verse 20. The power in the law is the power to increase sin. That's because the power in Adam unleashed in the human race can only produce sin and sin and sin.

And there is nothing in that power to stop it. And there's not even anything in the law to stop it. It just increases it. That's why any religion based upon keeping moral laws, religious laws, ceremonial laws is a lie and a deception. And that's every religion, by the way.

That's every religion other than the gospel of Christ. The law has never been a part of redemption. God didn't look at the world and say, "Boy, this world is a mess. I drown them all back in Genesis 6. the whole globe a survived and it's it's it's going the same direction.

I think I'll give the law and that'll stop this. No, the law was never a part of redemption. The law has no saving power. The law has no power to change the human heart whatsoever. The law makes demands that it cannot empower. What it does is the opposite of that, as I've pointed out, it just energizes corruption.

In Romans chapter 3 verse 19, Paul said, "We know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. What the law does do is show you your sin.

But verse 20, by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight. For through the law comes the knowledge of sin. Not just the knowledge of it, but the solicitation to it. So what is the power unleashed from Adam? The power of increased sin.

The Bible says evil men get worse and worse and worse. That's cumulative through human history. It's not going to get any better. It's getting worse and getting worse and getting worse all the time. That is the power. That is the energy released in the one act of Adam.

Sin is increased, escalated. Galatians 3:19 asks the question, why then the law? It says it was added because of transgressions. But in verse 21, it says the law is not able to impart righteousness. The law is not able to impart life. Then verse 24, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ that we may be justified by faith.

Can't be justified by works. All the law does is condemn you and escalate your sinfulness by expanding the categories and becoming literally a solicitation to do evil. The law increases the reality of sin, increases the awareness of sin, and increases the desire to sin. That's completely contrary to what religions of works tell you, that somehow there is in you the power to overcome your adamic fallenness and do good, good enough to please God.

That is the devil's big lie. But on the other hand, look at the end of verse 20. Where sin increased, grace what? Abounded all the more. Here we find the same verb perisuo used at the end of verse 15 only it has a preposition at the front of it and it's hooperisuo hyper which is an expanded view of this verb as if he's saying it is far far beyond way way beyond infinitely beyond how powerful then is the one work of Christ in grace on the cross that wherever the law goes And it increases sin.

Christ comes and increases grace far beyond, way beyond, over and above to cover it all. However powerful, however powerful sin is unleashed by Adam, grace unleashed unleashed by Christ is far more powerful. It covers, it forgives, it removes guilt. It transfers you from condemnation to justification. The law simply puts depravity on display, stimulates sin, dooms the sinner.

But the law has no power to change the heart. Grace puts love and holiness on display, stimulating obedience. And grace has the power to change the heart. The grace of God is supernatural. The sin of Adam is natural and has in its own essence nothing that can change it.

So every way you look at the one act of Christ on the cross compared to the one act of Adam, the one act of Christ triumphs over Adam. Paul comes to a final conclusion in verse 21. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

That's it. How can what one man does affect so many? One man brought the reign of death, the first Adam. Another man, the second Adam, has brought the reign of life. Christ, grace in him meets sin and defeats it. Christ and grace in him reigns and that it becomes the controlling power of our lives.

Christ and his one act unleashes grace that produces righteousness, forgiveness, justification, adoption, conversion, and one day glorification. The one work of Christ transfers the sinner from death to life. The one work of Christ and the grace that it unleashes carries the justified, reconciled sinner into heaven. And this is the only way.

All through this chapter, it's by Christ. We have peace because of him. We have adoption because of him. We have reconciliation because of him. We have justification because of him. And there is no other name. Now, that was the introduction. Here's the point. Okay, I get it that when Adam did what he did, it affected us all.

He was acting for us. He was our representative. And in a sense, we were there in Adam when he acted. But how does Christ's resurrection, a historical fact affect us the way Adam's sin affected us? The answer is to keep reading. Go to chapter 6:3. Do you not know that all of us who have been literally immersed into Christ Jesus, placed into Christ Jesus, have been immersed into his death?

Wow. Now we know we were in Adam in his sin. Now we find out we are in Christ in his death. Therefore, verse four, we have been buried with him through that immersion, placing us into him into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

We were in Adam when he sinned. Listen to this. when he disobeyed and we all died. We were in Christ when he rose and we all live. Verse five, if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Do you understand that? When Adam sinned, we were all there. When Christ died, we were all there. We died in him. We rose in him. That's true of all of Adam's people. That's true of all of Christ's people. He goes on to say, "Our old self," verse six, "was crucified with him in order that a body of sin might be done away with so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

For he who has died is freed from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. Verse 11, consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Why did Adam's sin affect all who were in Adam?

Because God designed it that way. He was our representative. He was acting for us. We were in him when he acted. How could Christ's death and resurrection affect us? because he is our representative. He is our head. And when he died and rose again, we ((music playing)) were in him.

We were in Adam naturally. We were in Christ spiritually. ((music playing)) This is why the resurrection is so important. We celebrate the resurrection not merely as a historical fact, but as our resurrection. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. We live in him. We are alive because he is alive.

And through his death and resurrection, we are in him. And we possess life everlasting. Over these past few weeks, we've seen that though one act of Adam brought death into the world, one act of our loving Lord brought life to those who would believe. Christ died for you and me.

And yet, that isn't the end of the story. He also promised to one day victoriously return. For further study on Christ's ((music playing)) promised return, I want to recommend to you Pastor John's book, Christ Triumphs Over Sin and Death. This book guides you through Daniel 9 and Daniel's prayer and prophecy as you build certainty about the future.

Christ triumphs over sin and death, which is from Pastor John's series on the great chapters of the Bible, is available by visiting shop.gty.org. That's a direct link to shop.gty.org ((music playing)) or by giving us a call at 888-57 ((music playing)) grace. If you do give us a call at that number, please also let us know how we ((music playing)) can be praying for you or someone in your life.

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