SERMON STRUCTURE: If By One Man …

Romans 5:12-21

CIT (Central Idea of the Text): “…Just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men.” (5:18).

SERMON FOCUS: God’s grace is indeed greater than all our sin.

MO: Doctrinal

SO: Rejoice in the grace of God, and in the justification God offers all of us through the one Man Christ Jesus.

TITLE: If By One Man…

Then … the completed sermon should be evaluated in terms of how well it adheres to the CIT and SF, and accomplishes its SO.

INVOCATION

OUTLINE OF ROMANS 5:12-21 (NRSV)

1. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all, because all have sinned — ” (5:12)

2. “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift of grace in the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.” (5:15)

3. “Therefore, just as one man’s trespass was condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” (5:18)

4. “So just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (5:21)

MAJOR SERMON POINTS

Introduction

Scripture

Exposition

1. Summary verse: 5:18

   1. Great evil through one man (the “first Adam), great blessing through the other (Christ as the “second Adam”)

   2. Modern examples: for evil, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin; for good, MLK, Jr., Mother Theresa

2. The nature of sin: 5:12

   1. Sin came into the world — an impersonal force, not (as Augustine held) a biological inheritance. The physical act of human reproduction does not transmit “original sin.”

   2. Sin came into the world through one man — not because of one man. The Greek is anqrwpoV, “anthropos,” human-kind, rather than male gender

   3. And through sin came death, even before (and apart from) the law (which does not itself define sin, but makes it known).

3. The power of sin compared with the power of grace: 5:15

   1. The gift is not like the trespass: it brings forgiveness and justification

   2. The power of grace is greater than the power of sin: read Barth

   3. Grace leads to justification: “just-as-if-I’d” never done it

4. Conclusion: 5:21

   1. the result of grace is “justification leading to eternal life”

   2. Romans 6:23: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.”

Conclusions

1. SERMON DEVELOPMENT

If By One Man…

Romans 5:12-21

Introduction

1. Have you ever thought of writing a letter to God?

1. What would you write about?

2. What would you say to God?

2. This past week a good friend sent me an e-mail containing letters that children have written to God. I’d like to share two or three of them with you this morning.

1. The first one says, “Dear God, thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. /signed/ Joyce.”

2. Another one says, “Dear God, I bet it’s hard for you to love all of everybody in the whole world. There are only 4 people in our family and I can never do it. /signed/ Nan.”

3. And finally, this one: “Dear God, please put another holiday between Christmas and Easter. There is nothing good in there now. /signed/ Ginny.”

3. Today is the first Sunday in Lent, a time when we focus on our human mortality and on our need for, and our desire for, a closer relationship with God through confession and repentance.

4. The paraments, or coverings for the altar table and the pulpit for Lent are purple in color. They remind us of the penitential focus of this season in the church year.

5. And perhaps like Ginny, the young lady who wrote to God, you too may be feeling that this season is not a “good time,” or at least, not a time to feel good about yourself.

6. But I hope to persuade you that there IS good news in this season of Lent.

1. And the good news is that God’s grace is greater than our sin and our guilt.

2. And while Lent is a season for penitence, it is also a season of renewal and re-creation in our relationships with God and with each other.

Scripture

1. The Apostle Paul wrote quite a few letters to the early churches, and his letters, and those of several other people have come down to us in what we now know as the New Testament.

1. Most of those letters were written in response to specific circumstances in the early churches, to instruct believers in the faith, and to warn them of dangers in their lives as Christians.

2. And some of those letters are easier to understand than others.

3. In particular, parts of Paul’s letters can be very difficult.

4. Even the apostle Peter commented on this difficulty when he himself wrote

¹⁵“… So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, ¹⁶speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.” (2 Peter 3:15, 16 NRSV)

2. Our Scripture this morning comes from one very difficult part of Paul’s letter to the Romans.

1. It is a letter in which Paul explores the relationship between human sin and God’s grace.

2. It is a passage from which we can draw great encouragement.

3. But it is also a passage that demands close attention as we try to discover what Paul is really saying to us.

3. So let’s read our Scripture passage together. I’m reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

[Read here Romans 5:12-21 (NRSV).]

4. OK, if you’re like me, the first time you read this, you think, “Huh? What? What is Paul saying here?”

5. But I think we can get a clearer view of what Paul is saying if we focus on just one verse: verse 18.

1. Perhaps you might want to mark or circle that verse, either in your Bible, or on the Scripture insert in your bulletin.

2. Here’s what that verse says,

¹⁸Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.

6. The good news in this verse is that grace of God in reconciling us to Himself in Christ Jesus is more powerful the sinfulness of our human nature, which comes down to us from the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

Exposition

1. The central metaphor in this whole passage of Scripture is a comparison between the sinfulness of the first Adam (and Eve) and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, who Paul describes as “the second Adam.”

1. We can see that metaphor most clearly in a parallel passage from 1 Corinthians 15:21, 22:

   1. ²¹”For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; ²²for as in Adam all die, so in Christ will all be made alive” (NIV, NRSV).

2. The first part of this metaphor is easy to understand: how great evil can come about through the actions of one person.

   1. We need only to remember the great harm and destruction that came to millions of Jews in Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, or the death of millions of Cambodians under the leadership of Pol Pot and his Khumer Ruge communist government, or the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians under the reign of Idi Amin of Uganda.

   2. Recently the economic news has centered on losses of billions of dollars by a French brokerage firm due to risky investments on the part of one, or now possibly two, employees.

3. The second part of the metaphor, how great good can also come from the actions of one individual, is sometimes harder to see, but if we look carefully, there are examples.

   1. Martin Luther King, Jr., is still regarded by some folks as a controversial figure, but there is absolutely no doubt that the racial reforms that he helped bring about have resulted in positive social change for our whole nation.

   2. Mother Theresa’s self-sacrificing care for the poor of India is an outstanding example of the power of love and benevolence in alleviating human suffering.

4. With these examples in mind, we can understand Paul’s insistence that if by one man great evil can come into the world, likewise by one man even greater good may be manifest to all people.

5. We remember the angels’ words to the shepherds at Christ’s birth; they proclaimed “good news for all people” (Luke 2:10).

2. In our passage for today, Paul makes his argument in three stages.

1. His first point is in verse 12:

   1. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all, because all have sinned —”

   2. In Paul’s thought, sin is an impersonal force in the world, a kind of illness or disease that is endemic to human nature.

      1. It is part of our human nature not because it is genetically transferred, nor because

      2. The act of human reproduction is inherently evil, nor because

      3. It transmits what Augustine called “original sin.”

   3. Therefore sin is a universal human condition, an inescapable part of our human nature.

   4. And sin came into the world through one man —

      1. Note that Paul does not say “because of one man.”

      2. The word “man” here is the Greek anqrwpoV, “anthropos, ”from which we get our word “anthropology,” the study of human kind. So this word denotes human beings in general, not just males in particular.

   5. But human sin has eternal consequences.

      1. Paul wrote, “death came through sin, and so death spread to all, because all have sinned — ”

      2. And the consequences of sin are universal in our human nature, “because all [of us] have sinned”

2. Paul’s second point is in verse 15:

   1. “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift of grace in the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.”

   2. At first it may appear that Paul is offering the grace of God as a power that merely offsets the power of sin, a kind of plus-one to offset a minus-one, resulting in a net sum of zero.

   3. But there’s a clue in what Paul says here:

      1. First, “the free gift is not like the trespass,” and

      2. Second, “much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift of grace …abounded for the many.”

   4. One of the great theologians of the last century, Karl Barth, has argued very persuasively that the contest between good and evil, between human sin and eternal life in Christ, is not a contest between equals.

      1. In the worship bulletin today, there is a short excerpt from Barth’s commentary on this passage. I will leave it to you to read his words

      2. Unfortunately, Barth’s reasoning is almost as hard to follow as Paul’s, but he does say,

“Adam and his many are meant to stand by the side of Christ and his many merely as a parable. He precedes Christ merely as a shadow and an example. He [i.e., Adam] is only apparently the first. The first is Jesus Christ. He is in possession of the reality which the other can only copy, and must copy in all his complete difference and kind.” ¹

1. Barth’s conclusion affirms that “much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift of grace …abounded for the many.” (5:15).

1. So Paul says, and Barth affirms, that God’s grace is indeed greater than all our sin.

2. Those thoughts are captured in the hymn “Grace Greater Than Our Sin” that we will sing as our invitation in a few minutes.

1. And Paul concludes his reasoning in verses 15 and 18, where he says,

“Therefore, just as one man’s trespass was condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” (5:18), and

“So just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” (5:21)

1. Here Paul recapitulates what he has said already: that just as “one man’s trespass” resulted in condemnation for us all, so “one man’s act of righteousness” leads to justification and life for us all” (5:18).

   1. But he adds here another element he hasn’t yet included: the matter of ‘justification.”

   2. Now justification is another topic that is best left for later. For now, a brief definition will have to do.

   3. “Justification” is a matter of being put right with someone else, a matter of being absolved or acquitted of wrongdoing.

   4. But it’s also more than that. It’s not only being acquitted or absolved; its having one’s record wiped clean altogether.

   5. An easy way to remember what this word means is to think of being restored to a state or condition that is “just-as-if-I’d” never committed the offense in the first place.

2. And that’s what God does for us in Christ Jesus.

   1. He wipes our record clean.

   2. And I then shall stand before him — and you shall stand before him — “just-as-if-I’d” never committed the offense in the first place.

Reflections and Conclusions

1. Do you know this grace that God offers to you in Christ Jesus?

2. Do you know that you have been “justified” in God’s sight?

3. If you’ve never made the decision to accept God’s grace, and enter into a personal relationship with God through Christ Jesus, today, this first Sunday in Lent, is a perfect day to do it. The Scriptures say, “See, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

4. As we all enter into this season of Lent, let us be mindful of our own faults and shortcomings, to be sure, and let us sincerely seek God’s forgiveness and justification.

5. But let us also celebrate and rejoice in the grace of God that is greater than all our sin.