Pentecost 5 Romans 5:12-15
July 13, 2014
Mickey Rooney. Shirley Temple. Phil Everly. Any of those names familiar? Mickey Rooney’s acting career spanned 9 decades! Has anybody here not seen a Shirley Temple movie? And who hasn’t heard the Everly Brothers’ song, “All I have to do is dream?” What they have in common is that they’re all well-known celebrities…and they all died this year.
Whenever we hear that a famous person died, we’re surprised. It’s almost as if we didn’t expect them to die. Why is that? Is it because their music and movies still exist? Or because they are part of what made up our lives as we were growing up and we don’t want to lose that? Or is it something more – like death is closing in on us, chipping away at the security of our lives - family members, friends, and yes, even famous people – and one day soon we will die.
Death is at the core of all our fears and anxieties, but God doesn’t bat an eye in talking about it. In fact, it is at the core of our Christian faith. So far in our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans we’ve reviewed three important words of our faith.God provided atonement – the paymentfor sin. Through that atonement he now declares us righteousness – totally innocent of the charges against us. As a result we are now reconciled – made friends with God again through the death and resurrection of his Son.Today Paul explains how God reversed the devastation of death and gave us eternal life instead.
"Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men because all sinned." Our Creator takes us back to that moment in the peaceful setting of a garden paradise when the human race – all two of them – committed a single, quiet act of disobedience that brought more devastation than anything mankind has ever done. Through them, “sin entered in the world” and disrupted the whole universe, infected and perverted the very nature of man, and brought life to a screaming halt – a life that was supposed to last forever. We were there in Adam's body, when God’s curse came to pass: "Dust you are and to dust you will return."
Sin is an inherited catastrophe. We are “sinful from the time our mothers conceived us.”(Psalm 51). We tend to think of sin as something we do, but what we do is just a symptom of what we are. Even if you don’t do anything, you will die “because [in Adam] all sinned." This is exactly what happened in the thousands of years between Adam and Moses.None of those people were guilty of disobeying a specific, direct commandment from God, as Adam and Eve had done, yet "death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as Adam did." Why? Because Adam’s disobedience was passed down as their disobedience; his death was their death; his hell was their hell.
Unlike the people between Adam and Moses, we know better. God has given us very specific commands to help us see the sin that rages within, and we’ve all brought along plenty of proof that we are sinful. We shudder when we think how easy it is to put other things in God’s place in our hearts. We cringe as we remember those careless words spoken in anger. We are ashamed at our discontent and our selfishness. Adam's sin has ignited the world in disobedience against God. Now if you were viewing it from God's eternal viewpoint, watching that fire rage out of control, what would you do? Wouldn’t your anger and indignation mount with every nonchalant, flippant, careless transgression until your anger exploded with consuming fury?
I know that’s what I have coming from God. But that isn’t what God did. With breathtaking love and tender mercy God instead gave us another Adam to “do over” the lives of all Adam’s descendants and reverse the effects of sin. That second Adam was his own Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus was not born in bondage to death because he was born without sin. During his life he was“tempted in every way, just as we were, yet was without sin." He lived in perfect, cheerful, willing obedience to God as one of us, in our place. He gave his life as a willing sacrifice under God's judgment. He rubbed our sin from the pages of God's memory. He could do all that because he is the almighty, eternal God. He did it for no other reason than that he loved us. It is a gift.
“But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, flow to the many.” If one man could enslave the entire human race to death, how much more couldthe almighty, eternal God set us free us from it? If one sin by one man could produce many sinners, how much more could one righteous life – the life of God’s own Son – cover the vast sea of sins? "If the many died by the transgression of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!" If it is certain that you are guilty because of sin inherited from a mere man, it is even more certain that you are not guilty because of the righteousness supplied by God himself.
Only God’s Word explains why life is so disappointing, painful, filled with regrets, and finally ends in death. That same Word also tells us how God reversed the curse of sin by giving back what sin stole from us, only much, much more. We are not only released from the chains of sin and death. We are put in positions of honor as kings and priests!We are not only holy again in God’s sight like Adam was - we have been given the very righteousness of Jesus Christ – God’s righteousness! – which entitles us to everything Christ has! We not only live with him in this life – we will live with him forever in heaven.
When death comes to us because it must, that’s the last you and I will ever need to deal with it. Jesus has stopped it in its tracks and says, “No farther.” Death cannot carry God’speople – his friends – his children on to itsfinal, eternaldestination in hell because the power of death, sin, has been destroyed.For those who believe in Jesus, the final, eternal destination is heaven. “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.” (1 Corinthians 15:21-23)
Don’t you wish everyone knew that? So does Jesus. That’s why he’s left us here to tell the world.