Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Rom 5:12-19 Dear Christian Friends and Fellow Believers: On the 28 of June 1914, a Serbian named Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife heir to the throne of the Austrian empire, the old Hapsburg Empire of Europe and triggered the beginning of World War I. Austria backed by Germany declared war of Serbia; followed by France and Russia declaring war on Germany and Austria. The action of this one man caused a domino effect ultimately touched the lives of everyone in the world at the beginning of the 20th century and ultimately laid the foundation for World War II. Our Old Testament lesson today reviews the action of the first man created by God at the beginning of time. He sinned. He disobeyed God just once. His action that day brought sin into the world and all of its ugly consequences. But on the same day that Adam sinned, a second Adam was promised, one whose actions would also affect all mankind, his name was Jesus Christ. Let us mediate on our text using the theme: Sinful in Adam - Righteous in Christ! 1) All people are guilty because of Adam’s one sin. 2) All people are declared righteousness because of Christ’s obedience. 1) Never underestimate the power of sin. One sin has the power to corrupt a whole race of people through and through. Adam’s fall was not a slow decline. Just one sin, a sin that seems to be small from a human point of view changed Adam’s nature. It changed the whole world. Now neither Adam nor his descendents could do anything good; Adam had lost his free will; he had lost the image of God; he was no longer righteous and blameless in God’s sight and all Adam had done was to disobey God once: He ate something God had forbidden. Behold the terrible power of sin. What Adam did affected the entire human race after him. It is like Adam was a representative of all people. When he sinned, it was as though everyone had sinned. And God condemned them all, including you and me. Adam didn’t corrupt the human race through a lifetime of sinning, from God’s point of view he corrupted the world through one sin. The result: universal guilt for everyone. People after Adam were sinners now even if, strictly speaking, they didn’t break a direct command of God as Adam did. The Law had not yet been given on Mount Sinai; nevertheless, people died because they all sinned. Death follows sin, sin and death are closely tied together. Can’t have one without the other. Cain died, but so did Able. The people of Noah’s day died in the flood but so also did Noah and his family eventually. All people died, they died because they were sinners; they all died physically and so will we. Here we are not really talking about actual sin, we are emphasizing the power and guilt of sin. From the moment of conception people are infected with the germ of sin and it holds them fast in its grip. They cannot break free. Even in the womb they are subject to death because of sin. And they will remain subject to death until the grave claims them. What Adam did affected the entire human race including all yet to be born. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin and in this way death came to all men because all sinned.” And death here does not just mean physical death, it also means spiritual death in hell, Through Adam’s sin every one of us became prisoners of hell like Satan and the evil angels. Just like each child in a family is included in their father’s will and each receives a share of the estate, we all have received this damning legacy form our father Adam. And we have no choice in the matter. It all happened before we were ever born. Some might say “Send Adam to hell, not us.” But Adam’s sin rendered the entire human race “unable not to sin.” We are under the power of sin the moment we are conceived. If we demand Adam to go to hell; we are demanding that each of us must also go to hell since we have the same fallen nature as Adam While sin is not a part of our essence, it so thoroughly infects our nature that we, since Adam’s fall, cannot not sin. As one hymn writer has said, “All mankind fell in Adam’s fall, One common sin infects us all; From son to son the bane descends, and overall the curse impends.” This doctrine of Original Sin is so offensive to natural man, he resists it every step of the way. How can God condemn all humans because one man ate a piece of fruit he shouldn’t have. But at the same time it is equally offensive to natural man that God should forgive all people because one man died on Calvary’s cross. Our text is not reasonable to the human mind; it is not logical but it is revealed in God’s Word and is comprehended by faith. The doctrine of Original Sin makes people hate God even more but that in itself is enough to convince us that by nature we deserve hell. How important it is to baptize little babies as soon as possible after they are born. They desperately need the forgiveness they have in Christ connected to the Baptism. What a tragedy for millions of babies around the world to be aborted in the womb each year. While it is impossible to say for certain what happens to babies who die before they are baptized, we have no right to assume that all babies are innocent before God and will automatically go to heaven especially in the case where their parents are not believers. No one by nature is innocent; all are guilty; all are under the power of Adam’s first sin. “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many (that is the all) were made sinners; so also through the obedience of the one man (Jesus Christ), the many (that is the all) will be made righteous. 2) Yes, the action of one man started WWI. And Adam’s one sin affected the entire human race, but it is also true that the actions of the one man Jesus Christ also affected the entire human race. Because of the obedience of Jesus Christ all people are declared righteous in God’s sight. Jesus is sometimes referred to as the second Adam in the Bible. Not that Jesus is therefore equal to Adam. That is not taught in the Bible; Jesus is true God, Adam was only a mortal. But what Jesus did far outweighs what Adam did. The gift of righteousness from Jesus is so far greater than the reign of death caused by Adam, that no one can blame God if they are not saved. There is more than enough righteousness to go around. The work of Jesus as our substitute made Paul so happy. It was the antidote to original sin. Yes, although the entire human race was condemned in Adam but it was also declared justified in God’s sight for Jesus sake. All of mankind is made righteous in Christ from God’s point of view. Jesus did die for the sins of the entire world, did he not? Jesus kept God’s law for the whole world, did he not? All those who by the work of the Holy Spirit have come to realize that Jesus has paid for the sins of the world and therefore their sins, have made the fact of their justification in God’s sight their own. Those who believe that Jesus died only for the sins of believers have not understood the words of our text and have robbed themselves of the comfort that could be theirs through the doctrine of universal justification. Jesus did die for the many, that is, the all. Adam infected all; Jesus earned righteousness for all but that does not mean all will be saved. Those who have no faith in the obedience of Christ as our substitute don’t benefit from it. Universalism is not a teaching of God’s word. Unbelief forfeits the blessings that Christ has won for everybody. While we were made sinners in Adam, we were made righteous in Christ. Both are true. We had nothing to do with either but praise God that the imparted righteousness of Christ is so much greater that the imputed sin of Adam. The results mean life for us as Paul says. In Christ we receive more blessings than our fathers’ lost. Praise be to Jesus our substitute, our representative, our Savior. Amen.