Adam and the Reign of Death
Romans 5:12‑14
Well open your Bible and let's look at Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5, and tonight we want to examine the first few verses of this great section in verse 12 through 21. I want to read the section for you so that you'll understand what Paul is saying and then we'll begin to look at it, at least initially tonight, and continue on in the next time we meet.
Beginning in Romans 5:12:
Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for all have sinned:
For until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression who is a figure of Him who was to come.
But not as the offense, so also is the free gift, for if through the offense of one many are dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift, for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification.
For if by one man's offense death reigned by one, much more they who receive abundance of grace of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
Moreover the law entered the offense might abound, but where sin abounded grace did much more abound, that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Many people believe this to be the most difficult passage in the book of Romans. And just having read it to you, you may want to agree with them. At first reading it sounds intensely complex. And in a sense it is. But in another sense it's wonderfully simple and wonderfully clear. And I think by the time we're finished, you'll have that understanding.
But for tonight, we'll look at the first three verses, at least in part and see how far we get in this great text. And I want to call to your attention initially that twice in this passage is repeated the phrase "death reigned." It appears in verse 14 and it appears again in verse 17, "death reigned." In verse 12 it tells us that death passed upon all men. In verse 21 it says sin hath reigned unto death.
Now all of this can be brought together to simply say that what Paul is teaching in these various phrases is that death is king over the human race. Death reigns. Because of sin death reigns over human being. Death is king. That's why the Bible calls death the king of terrors. The whole earth is pock marked with graves to support the fact that death reigns. All men at some time become the subjects of death. Sixty million people, at least, die every year, two of them die every second. Death claims every one of us unless we be taken to glory in the Rapture of the church.
In fact, one Washington D.C. undertaker, I understand, signs his stationery, "Eventually yours." Very true. All the time we are exposed to death. Its painful reality touches our lives continuously. Death is the ultimate obscenity. The orientals say, "The black camel death knealeth once at each door and each mortal must mount to return nevermore." Thomas Gray(?) wrote those famous lines, "The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power and all that beauty, all that wealth er gave await alike the inevitable hour, the paths of glory lead but to the grave."
Shakespeare wrote in Richard II these words, "Within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps death his court and there the antic sits scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, allowing him a breath, a little scene to monarchize, be feared and killed with looks, infusing him with self and vain conceit as if this flesh which walls about our life were brass impregnable and humor thus comes at the last and with a little pin bores through his castle wall and farewell, king."
James Shirley wrote, "The glories of our birth and state are shadows not substantial things. There is no armor against fate, death lays its icy hand on kings." Death is the ultimate king. Death is the ultimate monarch. Paul is right when he says, "Death reigned."
Napoleon Bonaparte said, "I die before my time and my body will be given back to earth and become the food of worms, such is the fate which so soon awaits the great Napoleon, conqueror of the world conquered by death." Death reigns.
Now the question that comes to mind is why? How is it that death reigns in the world? Why is it that everyone must die...whether at the end of a long life or at the beginning, whether dying in the nineties or dying in the first moments after birth, and all in between? Why is it? How did death come to be the reigning monarch of the world?
Well the answer is in our passage. And we're going to see it, particularly in verses 12 through 14 tonight. We'll get the answer to this question and I want to warn you at the very beginning that you're going to have to concentrate and think with me because this is a very very carefully detailed argument by Paul and it's one that plunges us deep into mysteries which we will never be able to understand until some day we get to heaven. But we want to do our best to grasp them.
Now let me confess to you at the very beginning that the intention of the passage is not primarily to teach why we all die. That just comes along with the rest of the things that he's teaching. The major lesson that he wants to teach here is that...now listen to it, this is the message of chapter 5 verse 12 to 21...he wants to teach that one man's deed can affect many. That's the primary principle. Because, you see, he has just described in chapter 1, 2 and the first half of chapter 3, he has described the awful lostness and sin of man. Then beginning in the second half of chapter 3 and in chapter 4 and in the first half of chapter 5, he has told us how Christ has reversed man's lostness. Christ has justified by His death on the cross all who come to Him in faith.
Now the inevitable question that a Jew is going to ask or anyone who thinks with Paul, you say that every man is sinful, every man is lost, every man is doomed and damned and condemned to judgment, and then all of a sudden this one man Jesus comes along, does this thing of dying on a cross and rising and by the one act of one man you say that all men can be justified? The inevitable question is how can what one man did at one time affect so many?
Now in order to show us the answer to that we have in chapter 5 verses 12 to 21 a comparison between Adam and Christ. Because the one man Adam in the one act of sin affected the whole human race. And he becomes analogous to what Christ did in one act affecting many. The sum of it comes in verse 19, as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. And you have here a marvelous analogy where Adam becomes the illustration of how one man's deed can affect many...many. Through Jesus Christ all men can be reconciled to God just as through Adam all men were alienated from God. That's his whole point in the text.
Now in this analogy there are many many details that Paul presents that basically we'll be able to understand. And there are many that we will not be able to understand. And I hope you can accept what is clear and what is comprehensible and leave the infinite mysteries to the infinite God for the time when we have greater capacity to understand these things. And may I say this, that it isn't that they are not understandable, it is that we can't understand them. And there's a difference. It isn't that they cannot be explained, it is that we cannot understand the explanation. It is not the fact that they cannot be resolved, it is that we are inadequate in understanding the resolution. So the problem lies not with God but with us. And some day that problem will be resolved.
The verse that begins the section, verse 12, begins with "Wherefore." And that's because it ties in with the end of verse 11. Verse 10 says we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. And then it says, verse 11, through our Lord Jesus Christ we have received the reconciliation. So it is through one individual that we have been reconciled to God. And the question comes immediately: well how can one individual do that? And so he says, "Wherefore as by one man's sin entered into the world," and then the rest of the section he goes on to say, "so by one man can righteousness enter into the world." Do you understand now the context? But in the process of saying that, he answers our question as to where death came from and several other questions that we'll have answered as we move through.
Now let me say something else by way of footnote. The analogy is an antithetical analogy. It is an analogy of opposites, not an analogy of likes. In other words, it is that Adam is analogous to Christ only in the sense that one man could affect so many. Everything else about the analogy is an opposite. In Adam you have sin and condemnation and death. In Christ you have obedience, righteousness and life. So that the factors of the analogy are absolutely antithetical or opposite. The only analogous point comes in the one man affecting so many.
Now there is a word used in this section, the word is "one." And it is used 11 times. So the emphasis is on the impact of "one...one...one..one...one." Eleven times it's used. The word "reign," r‑e‑i‑g‑n is used five times. So this one individual has a whole kingdom, he reigns over a whole dominion. Adam reigns, as it were, over the kingdom of sin and death. Christ reigns over the kingdom of righteousness and life.
And there's another common word here, it's the word or the phrase really, "much more." And it's used five times. And it is to say that everything lost in Adam is gained and much more in Christ. So that gives you some perspective on the analogy. We are looking then at the influence of one man so that he dominates a whole flow of human beings by his one act. Because of Adam's sin, all men are condemned. Because of Christ's obedience, all men are offered pardon.
Now let's begin by looking at Adam and the reign of death. And then we'll go on to Christ and the reign of life. "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for all have sinned. For until the law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned over the similitude of Adam's transgression who is a figure, tupos, of Him that was to come." Now there you have the idea that Adam is analogous to Christ. He's a picture, a figure, a symbol.
But as we look at these three verses I want you to notice four elements, or four phases, four steps in the logical progression of Paul's argument relative to Adam and the reign of death. Let me tell you something, folks, right here we're going to lay bare the root of human history. You want to know why the world is like it is? You're going to find out right now. It's right here. Here is the key to history. This is the key to understanding everything. It tells us why man is the way he is. It tells us why death is the dominant monarch. It tells us why human history has gone the way it's gone. It's a tremendously essential understanding.
Now the first point. Sin entered the world through one man. That's what it says in verse 12. "As by one man sin entered into the world." Now note that carefully. It does not say that Adam originated sin. Sin had already originated prior to Adam. For the Bible says the devil sinneth from the beginning. Now I don't know what beginning that was, it was certainly the beginning of his sin. But it predates Adam. So Adam didn't originate sin, he learned it from the one who originated it...the devil. He merely introduced it into the human realm. That's why it says as by one man sin entered not into existence, but into the kosmos, into the human system, into mankind. And Adam was acting as an introductory point. He was acting as an agent for Satan. Satan made the product, Adam just introduced it into the marketplace. First John 3:8, "He that commiteth sin is of the devil for the devil sins from the beginning...from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifest that He might destroy the works of the devil." So Adam was merely a pawn in the devil's attack on God.
Let's go back to Genesis 2 and see how it happened. Genesis 2 verse 15, amazing, "The Lord God took the man, put him in the Garden of Eden to till it to keep it." It's the garden of paradise, perfect environment, without flaw, no sin. "And the Lord God commanded the man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely...what?...die." Very simple prohibition.
Then you come to chapter 3. "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, Yea, hath God said...questions God's word...you shall not eat of every tree of the garden, did God really say that? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has said you shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it lest you die." Now we don't know whether she added that or whether Adam added that to her when he told her about it just to make sure, you know, like what you say to your wife..."We've got to be ready by 7:30," when you really mean 8:30 but you know her very well. Now we don't know whether Adam is hedging on the deal when he told her that or whether she just threw that in. But she knows that she's not supposed to eat that. In fact, she's gotten the word not even to touch it, or at least she's adding that from her own vantage point.
"And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die for God doth know that in the day you eat thereof your eyes shall be opened and then you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw the tree was good for food and that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit of thereof and did eat, gave also to her husband with her and he did eat." That's disobedience, folks. That's the Fall of Man. Their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked. Sewed fig leaves together, made themselves aprons. They were self‑conscious, they were embarrassed. They wanted to hide from God. They tried to run and hide but He found them and He cursed them in verses 14 and following. He cursed them. He cursed their marriage. He cursed them individually. And that's the Fall.
Now listen. Let me give you a perspective. God only gave Adam one command, just one. And that is the only thing that kept Adam in a point of submission to God. I mean, that's the only thing that differentiated between Adam and God. I mean, if there were no commands and no prohibitions, then Adam would have had the same right to rule as God had. But by giving him just one prohibition, He put him at that one point under Him, didn't He? And He said you're man and I'm God. And I'm only going to give you one little thing to show that it's so.
But there's something about man that can't stand to be ruled, even at that one small point. And he wants to be like God and that was the temptation, wasn't it? Satan knew that one well, by the way, because that's why he fell. He said, "I will exalt myself, I will be like the Most High God," that's always where man is, competing to be like God. And so Satan who wanted to be like God came and tempted Eve to want to be like God and Adam to want to be like God and to not be under anything, not even that one prohibition that was the only thing that separated Adam, as it were, from God, or made him distinct from God in terms of authority and dominion.
And so, at the core of Adam's sin was selfishness...self. Self is at the core of sin always as it was with Lucifer when he fell.
Now when Adam sinned something terrible happened. Go back to Romans chapter 5. When that man sinned, and believe me Eve is embodied in the sin of Adam, though Adam was the head of the race, the first one created, and Eve taken from his side, when that one man sinned, sin entered into the human stream. That's what Paul is saying. His sin brought a constitutional change of unholiness into his soul. That which had been pure, unstained by sin or disobedience, that which had been innocent of any guilt factor at all was now stained and corrupted instantly.
Now would you notice it says in verse 12 that by one man sin entered the world...not sins. It's not talking about acts, it's talking about the nature, it's talking about character, not deeds. When Adam sinned the sin principle, the corrupt decaying principle of sin entered into the human stream. And just like Adam passed on to his posterity a nose, and eyes, and ears and arms and legs, he passed on the corrupting principle of sin. Sin entered the human stream.
You see, that's because God made us as a procreating race so that what we are is passed on to who we bear. And you have Adam and Eve, as well, sinners with a corrupting defiling principle in them. And when they procreate, they will procreate sinners and more sinners and more sinners and more sinners and here we are. And it all started when Adam sinned. The world of mankind was corrupted. John Dunn was right when he wrote, "No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod is washed away, Europe is less as well as if a promontory were or a manner of thy friends. Every man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." And what he is viewing in that piece of English prose is that man is seen as a solidarity. Man is seen as amass. And Adam was duly constituted mankind. When Adam sinned he was the whole human race. He was mankind sinning. And in his loins was the seed that would bring forth every human life...every human life. When he was polluted, it guaranteed that everybody born out of his loins would be polluted. In fact, the pollution intensifies through history and Paul says in 2 Timothy that evil men get worse and worse. Instead of evolution it's devolution, it gets worse and worse, it's degenerating, it's breaking down. The whole of mankind was in the loins of Adam. And all human history is encapsulated in Genesis chapter 3.
Now the Jews understood this concept of what we call corporate personality. We don't understand it quite as well as they did. So let me see if I can't help you. The Jew never thought of himself as an isolated individual. He didn't see himself that way. He thought himself a part of a tribe, a part of a family, a part of a nation. And in the Old Testament God treated people as whole units. Many times, for example, we see God destroying a whole nation of people because of a certain number of unrighteous people in that nation. Or God acting in judgment against a whole group of people though a few of them would be initially guilty. For example, you have Achan and Achan when the children of Israel are going into the land does exactly what God told him not to do when you go to Jericho, make sure that you don't take any spoil. And he did. And God judged Achan and God not only took the life of Achan but he took the life of everybody in his family. And when Achan sinned at Jericho, all Israel paid at Ai at the next battle. Because God treated the family and the nation.
In Genesis 18 God says to Abraham in his prayer, "If you can find ten righteous people in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, I'll spare their judgment." In other words, the whole city will survive if there are ten righteous. So sometimes a minimal number of people become, as it were, the righteousness of a whole nation. Other times a