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Title: The State of Sin
I’ll be honest with you this morning. This was a difficult text to prepare to teach. Not only is the message difficult, but the text itself can be somewhat confusing, and, in truth, the sermon for this text should be verse 12 all the way through verse 17, but to preach that correctly would take over an hour, so I’ve decided to break this passage into two sermons.
How many of you have parentheses from verse 13-17? This is because what Paul says in v.13-17 essentially is his own running commentary on verse 12, which is a statement so profound that Paul wants to explain himself as fully and carefully as possible.
If we were to read the passage without the parenthetical diversion, we’d read straight from verse 12 to verse 18 and we see how much more naturally it would flow as a discussion. But Paul pauses to explain verse 12 with a rather lengthy discussion in verses 13-17 and I want to take two weeks to soak in all that Paul is wrestling with in his explanation of verse 12.
So today we will deal with verses 12-14, and next week we’ll tackle verses 15-17.
I. Paul’s Understands “Adam” in two ways
v12 “Therefore…” Okay, here we see our first textual clue that what Paul is about to dialogue about concerns what he’s been discussing previously in chapter five.
The main idea he’s expressed so far is that Christ’s sacrifice for our sin was done:
1. Before we knew him
2. While we were weak
3. According to God’s perfect plan and timing
Taking that into consideration, Paul then uses Adam and his events in the Garden of Eden to say that we are all guilt of sin. (Next week we will see the comparison that Paul uses to compare Adam as “one man” and sin entering through him, to Christ and life entering the world again through “One man.”) For today, however, our discussion will focus on Adam.
So when Paul says “Adam” we must understand Paul’s perceptive. For Paul, Adam is two things:
1. He is a real, historical figure, who was held responsible for the first sin.
*(Side note on why Eve wasn’t held responsible)
2. He was the representative for all of mankind, and the consequences of his actions inevitably affected every human who came after him.
Keep in mind, these statements are not my ideas, I’m just reminding you what happened in the third chapter of Genesis. When God found Adam and Eve naked, he held Adam responsible, even when Adam, like a lot of men today, tried to “pass the buck” and blame Eve. Through the sin of Adam God hands out three curses, the worst of which was to Adam. Namely that man was now mortal, and that death would reclaim him, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
After Adam, the naturally inclination of all people’s hearts was to sin. Simply, sin became our nature after the fall. Now if this troubles you theologically, look at your own lives. As soon as you were able to make decisions, you were able disobey. And what Paul says here isn’t a profound statement as much as an objective observation of the nature of human beings. We all sin. We all die. Outside of Elijah, Moses, and Christ, all of which were supernatural events, every human dies.
Nobody, not a Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, or Christian would argue that. What the Christian will say, what Paul is saying, is that these two things are linked. Our sin, and our physical death are eternally connected. Because of our sin, we die. That was the result of the fall of man.
II. Objection: I thought we were sinners because we broke the Law?
V13/14 These two verses can be very confusing if we don’t understand the objection that Paul is attempting to answer and clear up. For the Jews of Paul’s time, their understanding of sin and righteousness was tied to the law.
If you kept the law, you were righteous, if you broke the law you were a sinner.
And what Paul attempts to do is bridge the gap between the time of Adam, when the fall of man occurred and sin entered the world, and the time of Moses, when the law was given.
If we don’t understand that point, verse 13 and 14 become downright scary. If “death reigned” from Adam to Moses, then does that mead that Biblical figures like Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph all ended up in Hell?
Certainly No!
What Paul is saying to Jews is this: Look deeper. You are trying to see sin as a result of you own personal disobedience to the Law, but it’s deeper than that, sin is a result of your nature, not just your actions. Put aside the Law for a moment and ask yourself, if sin is only a result of disobeying the Law, how did God judge those people before he gave Moses the Law?
Some of you are catching on to a theme in Paul’s writing that is reminding you of his discussion in Chapter four about Abraham. In chapter four, you may remember, Paul destroyed the Jewish thought that faith and righteousness was tied to the Law, and his main O.T. example was that of Abraham. He basically said, Abraham was counted as righteous and didn’t have the Law.
Now, Paul addresses the topic of sin and says, look beyond Moses and the Law, why do you really sin, look to your nature, look to Adam.
And I think Paul is calling us to do the same. Too much of our discussion, prayer, and meditation of our own sin is based on what we’ve done, or not done to displease God. When we focus on sin only in this way, the danger is that we somehow say, “Okay if I’m more disciplined, and sin less, then I won’t be so bad.”
But that is not Biblical.
Biblical is not only focusing on how we’ve sinned, but looking at the much, much more difficult question of why we sin.
And that answer is, sadly, we sin because we are sin. And sin, then makes perfect sense. We are only doing what our natures are inclined to do. That doesn’t make us innocent by any means.
Some of you are most likely very depressed by this notion, and you should be, it’s a depressing topic. The glory of the gift of forgiveness, grace, and salvation, which we will discuss next week is the only thing that makes the depressing message of today bearable.
But you know what?
It’s worth it to dwell for a bit in who you were before Christ, so that you can understand, and better appreciate what he has done for you in salvation. He hasn’t not just forgiven acts of sin against him. He has changed your nature from hating God to loving God. That is greater than any pardon for transgression.
(Story of how I forced the kids at W.O.C. in 1998 to dwell for an entire day in their sin before sharing the hope of the Gospel.)
Today we dwell in what we were before Christ. Tomorrow we rejoice in what He’s make us.