We Are From Adam
This is an exegetical sermon on Romans 5:12-14 titled, We Are From Adam and challenges our worldviews as well as giving an accurate and honest view of sin and the gospel. This sermon was originally preached by Pastor Duane Smets on August 12, 2006 at The Resolved Church in San Diego, CA. Audio unavailable.
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:: The Resolved :: Sunday, August 12, 2006
Duane Matthew Smets (elder)
“We are From Adam”
Romans 5:12a
Intro
Good morning. The title of my message this morning is, “we are from Adam” and our text is from Romans 5:12-21. we are really only going to deal with the first part of verse 12 this morning, but I want us to read all of 12-21 so we have a feel for this whole section.
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let’s pray…
God, this book, the Bible, is an amazing book…in a sense it almost reads us. I pray this morning that you would insight into its words as we strive to understand and rejoice in what it says. as a group of people and as individuals there is much we do not grasp about who we are, why we are the way we are, where we have come from and where we are going. help us, teach us, enlighten our minds, thrill our souls, and mature us as people as we attempt to just deal with a few of these words and the story that you give us. Amen.
Review – the gospel sermons, the theme of Romans, and 5:11
It has been 6 weeks today since we have been in Romans. in our time away we have been looking at the life of Jesus from the gospel accounts so that we can better understand what Paul, the author of Romans, is saying about what all this stuff about Jesus means for us and our lives. In that time we watched and listened as the gospel writers told us about what Jesus was like.
We saw how Jesus was an amazing teacher who fulfilled all the Jewish expectations of what the coming messiah. We witnessed his miraculous power as he healed a blind man, a deaf guy, and raised Lazarus from the dead. We heard him make divine claims and give very compelling evidence of his deity. And we read about how he would stand up to the religious leaders and invite the outcast screw-up’s of society into his ring of friends. So you have this wise sage miracle working religious holy man social revolutionary. But he gets himself killed and all his followers are dismayed. But three days later he rises from the dead appearing to them and several other hundred people. And then he starts the church, which has grown and spread across the world for two-thousand years in many different forms and variations.
here’s where the book of Romans fits in to this story… one of the people Jesus appeared to after his resurrection was Paul and about 60 years later Jesus has him write this book to help Christians understand the gospel and greatness of God and what was accomplished in his the life and death. And for five chapters now Paul has systematically been doing that. The way Paul writes is like a lawyer making a case in a courtroom and his main argument has been that faith alone in Jesus Christ is the answer to the spiritual dilemma of human beings who are estranged from God and as a result are messed up internally and socially.
The last verse of Romans that we studied was Romans 5:11 which says that joy is the benefit of being reconciled, or brought near, to God through Jesus Christ. the verse triumphs that for the real Christian there is a deep seated satisfaction and confidence and joyful peace in believing in the gospel and being connected to God through belief in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The point of 5:12-21 – Christ is greater
So in this section that we are entering for the next few weeks, Paul is continuing that thought. The thought that Jesus Christ is the greatest thing that ever happened in the world for us. He is an amazing gift and through him comes life and joy, and he solves the main problem that human beings have been having since the beginning of their time. Verses 12-21 which we read at the beginning of this sermon are all about comparing Jesus Christ to Adam. And Paul’s compares and contrasts these two figures and the conclusion of each comparison is that Christ is greater.
Christ’s obedience is greater than Adam’s disobedience. Christ righteousness given to us is greater than Adam’s sinful unrighteousness he gives us. The life that comes from Christ is greater than the death that comes from Adam.
But before we can really get this whole comparison and feel its weight we have to know something about why he would make such a comparison and who this Adam guy is. So let’s re-read the first sentence of vs.11 and spend some time talking about the reasons why Paul is launching into this thing and let’s look into who Adam is in the Bible.
Verse 12a – the need for a worldview
Romans 5:12 “therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man’s sin. “The “just as” is setting up the comparison Paul will make between Adam and Christ. But the rest of that sentence is a very powerful sentence. Listen to it, it is a strong statement. What Paul does here by making this statement is he asserts a specific worldview…what is a worldview?
Matthew Arnold, the poet, wrote this, “but often in the world’s most crowded streets, but often in the din of strife, there rises an unspeakable desire after the knowledge of our buried life. A thirst to spend our fire and restless force in tracking out our true original course. A longing to inquire into the mystery of this heart which beats. So wild, so deep in us – to know whence our live come and where they go.” One other person wrote that a worldview is a collection of beliefs one uses to try and understand and make sense out of the world and life and through it they interpret and judge reality.”
A worldview has to do with story. As we grow older and mature as people you begin to ask yourself questions. Sometimes they are those lonely moments, often there are in painful moments, other times they are in happy pondering moments. but it seems that all people, all of us, have questions and at one point or another we come to places where we ask ourselves why we are the way we are and who we are and where we came from. And based on that we begin to plan and think about whom we want to be and where we want to go in this life. It is story. We try to discover our human story and how our personal lives fit into it.
Here in this sentence of Romans Paul says that there are two essential elements to the human story: sin, and the one man, who he says in the following verses is Adam.
Sin - missing the mark, irreligion, transgression, iniquity, rebellion,
Treachery, perversion, abomination, unsatisfaction, evil, guilt, trouble.
First let’s consider this word “sin.” Its one of those negative words that isn’t fun to talk about. Our society emphasizes having a positive attitude about things and this word falls in that violates this law about not speaking about anything negative. We don’t like to think of ourselves as bad persons with evil or sin. And the Freudian psychological notion that guilt is an irrational feeling we shouldn’t have.
What is sin? Let me give us a brief biblical survey of all it encapsulates in the different words and translations that occur. One, it is intentionally missing the mark (Jdg 20:16). if an archer was in a battle and raining arrows down upon his enemies, if he decided to commit treason and start shooting his fellow soldiers this would be missing the mark. Two, it is irreligion (Rom 2:12) where one attempts to live their life by deliberately ignoring the sense of God in their mind and heart. Three, it is transgression (Deut 17:2), where we cross over boundaries which we know to be wrong, transgression is purposely crossing the line. Four, it is iniquity (Lev 19:15), which is one deviates from the path they are one and goes along a path they know deep inside is the wrong one. Five, it is rebellion (Is 1:2). It is used to speak of children’s disobedience of their parents, of treason against a kingdom or empire by deliberately working against it. Six, it is treachery (Lev 26:40). Treachery is the breach of trust like when a husband or wife cheats on their spouse or steals from a close friend. Seventh, it is perversion (Is 21:3). Perversion is to be bent, twisted, or warped. It is when you start thinking crookedly about everything. Eighth, it is abomination (Deut 12:31). Abomination is sickness, things that are reprehensible and make one nauseous like raping children. Ninth, it is unsatisfaction (Is 57:20-21), a restless agitation and lack of peace. An inner turmoil or worry about consequence one knows are coming. Tenth, it is evil (Deut 30:18) and is considered the root of all that is corrupt and deadly like disease and intentional harm. Eleventh, it is guilt (Js 2:10). An agony coming from knowing that you did something wrong and/or a confirmed verdict of wrongdoing. Twelfth, it is trouble (Prov 22:8) and means that difficulty, misery, sorrow will surely come. And lastly, all of these aspects are summarized by not loving God (Mk 12:30), which is enjoying him and having him in the supreme place of our lives.
This is a stark description. It is dark. And the biblical worldview is that there is something of each of these aspects of sin inside every one of us. That is what that “in the world” means here. It means into the world of humanity. Sin is our world; it is our story and contains a history of sin and an experiencing of all these different emotions and states of being. That description makes me feel pretty broken. that I intentionally miss the mark, am an irreligious transgressor full of iniquity and rebellion who commits treason and is perverted and abominable, never satisfied, evil, soaked in guilt, awaiting trouble, and a hater of God. no one wants to think of themselves like that so we usually reason it away saying we are not that bad and convince ourselves by comparing ourselves to someone else who looks worse than us on the outside.
But even if it is true why ever bring it up; shouldn’t we just try to do better? And why bring this up now in the book? Paul was just talking about rejoicing in God the verse before this one and now has set out to say how great Jesus Christ is, so why mention sin here? I mean sin is pretty much all he talked about for the first three chapters of the book. Every time we came to church it felt really depressing for awhile hearing that we suck week after week.
Well, I think there are two reasons why Paul brings this up here. one is the same reason we have given before and that is the more we know the depth of our own sinfulness the more we will know the depth of our salvation in Jesus and thus we are able to have a great great joy in it. The second reason is I think Paul wants us to ask the question why? Why are we like this? Where did sin come from?
I’ve said it before but I’ll interject it here again. I believe asking questions is crucial to us coming to a real faith. Being honest about where we are and what we currently think is necessary if we are ever going to really get to know God. Rob bell in his book “velvet elvis” says this, “a question by its very nature acknowledges that the person asking the question does not have all the answers. And because the person does not have all the answers, they are looking outside of themselves for guidance. Questions, no matter how shocking or blasphemous or arrogant or ignorant or raw, are rooted in humility. A humility that understands that I am not God and there is more to know…central to the Christian experience is the art of questioning God. Not belligerent, arrogant questions that have no respect for our maker, but naked, honest, vulnerable, raw questions, arising out of the awe that comes from engaging the living God.”
You know how I start out studying for every sermon? I start asking questions and doubting everything the text says and thinking of all the other possibilities. I usually end up with a couple of pages of questions and then I start studying and trying to find the answers. It is not wrong to doubt what the bible says. It’s just stupid if you just doubt and question and don’t try to seek out answers.
So let’s ask some questions… what are some ideas about where sin comes from? It’s all around us. They’re having a blowing each other up contest in the Middle East right now. Half the kids at my work have been sexually molested by their parents or their parent’s lovers or friends. Ten year olds in Uganda are being given m-16’s and ordered to slaughter any other kids who don’t join the rebel army. It is in our own heads at the slightest shift of a thought to what we could do or are capable of. There is example after example. So where does it come from?
One answer is it is just biology. Humans are animals and thus possess an animal nature and thus will do anything to survive, “the survival of the fittest” as Charles Darwin stated. One answer is it is just sociology. We have simply learned sin from our respective cultures and have received bad education. One answer is it is just economy and sin is the result of oppression, possessions, and power. What do you think?
What does the bible say? “…sin came into the world through one man.” Let’s turn to genesis and read the biblical worldview Paul asserts here about how sin entered our reality.
One man – Adam
Genesis is the first book in the bible. The word genesis means “beginning” and starts out from the beginning of time when God’s creates the universe, the earth and all the animals, and humans. According to Jesus, Hebrew tradition, and indicators within the text, genesis along with the other first five books of the bible were written by a man named Moses. Moses was a Jew who was became well educated by growing up in the house of the Egyptian pharaoh around 1500 B.C.
Genesis isn’t the only story in ancient literature about the very beginnings of time. Also coming from this time in ancient Mesopotamia is the enuma elish account and the atrahasis epic. These stories were the sources of other worldviews back in that time. But the genesis one is the only one that has stuck around until now.
Why? From the very beginning of the bible there is a concern for truth. What actually happened and what is really true about God and his people. Thus you get a lot of weird details that you don’t get with other ancient stories. Details like the names of people and description of physical places that you only get in real historical accounts.
You also get this concern for truth in that the writing of genesis reflects an awareness of these other stories in literary style and the contrasting theological points it makes. Obviously Moses wouldn’t have been around for all the time periods he writes about but the bible teaches us that God instructed him about these earlier times and then he takes what God tells him and records the events in a way that would familiar to the people and teach them about their true history.
And these ancient people were so convinced that these words were actually from God and represent actual history that they have fought to preserve these documents and thus became known as people of the book. Now you may not believe that God actually communicated these things to Moses. That’s ok. You don’t have to believe that to be a Christian. But at least listen to the worldview that is presented here in genesis about Adam and where sin came from. Let me read to you for a few minutes the story from genesis chapter two and three and you can see what you make of it.
“8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. 14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
“1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. 8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” 16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” 17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.
And that is the bible’s story of how “sin came into the world through one man.” There is a lot we can learn from this story. A lot that we could talk about but for today I just want to point out a few things that relate to this phrase “one man” in Romans.
What about this “one man” Adam? Adam here obviously refers to a specific individual historical person. Interestingly, the name Adam is the same word in Hebrew for all mankind. “Adam” is like saying “humans” in Hebrew. So what’s happening is Moses is using a poetic device to tell us that Adam was the representative and father of all mankind. Next week we’ll get more specific about our connection with Adam but this week I just want us to get this story of our first parents in our heads.
Look at genesis 3 verse 9. “The LORD God called the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” Notice how God holds the man responsible. This is the same thing Paul is doing in Romans when he says sin entered the world through “one man.” You may say like Adam did, but eve sinned first. It entered first through her. But the text here makes it clear that God holds the man responsible. Why?
It is not that women are not responsible or have no dealings with God directly but rather that God holds the male figure as responsible for a unique role of leadership and protection and provision. That is something we are real big on here at the resolved. We are a young church for the most part and we are about making boys into men. God designed men to have a special burden of responsibility and we have a resolved to strive to fulfill our God given calling and to fulfill it with a humble sacrificial love for our women. When we don’t fulfill this call then the errors of chauvinism and feminism arise.
Listen to what Mark disco says, “Adam failed to lead and so with what were likely good intentions Eve stepped up to fill in the void in well-intended naïveté. But though eve sinned first God held Adam responsible as the head of his family by calling out his name to give an account for the sin in his family, chastising Adam for listening to his wife when he should have listened to God, and pronouncing a death sentence on Adam and all of his descendants for original sin.”
Notice the sin in the story. They eat the wrong thing…aiming at the wrong mark. They ignore God…irreligion. They do something they know is wrong…transgressing. They go to the tree…iniquity, that going down the wrong path. They listen to the snake…rebellion against God. They aspire to become God…treachery. They twist what God said about the tree…perversion. They cover their nakedness…sexual abomination. All the gifts of Eden are not enough…dissatisfaction. They are cursed as a result…evil ensues. They are ashamed before God…guilt. Painful childbearing, hard work, and death…it is trouble.
This is the worldview Paul presents. The story he finds himself and all of us in. “Sin entered the world through one man.” Next week we’ll study the next couple verses in Romans 5 about the consequences of this sin and how it is connected to us and how Adam is related to Christ. But I want to conclude by pointing out something kind of cool in this genesis story that also connects it to Romans five.
The protoevangelion – Christus Victor
Look at verse 15 of genesis chapter 3 where God is talking to the snake. God says “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Many theologians and bible commentators for hundreds of years now have recognized this as the protoevangelion, which means “first gospel.” This story of the fall is dark and sad and here in the middle of it is good news about a savior who would come, Jesus Christ.
Look at the verse again. Enmity is hatred between two enemies. God says that both the snake and the woman will have offspring. But they will be at odds, enmity. but out of “her offspring,” the woman’s, a “he” will come who will bruise, some translations say “crush” the serpent’s head, that’s death…a fatal blow to the skull. And the way he will do it is that you, the snake, will bruise or crush his, the man of the woman’s offspring, his heel…not a fatal attack. thus many see a picture of the gospel here foreshadowing what Christ dies on the cross, the bruise of the heal, but rises again victoriously defeating Satan, crushing his head and thereby gives us new life. Thus Jesus is known as the Christus Victor, the victorious Christ!
Now, maybe that’s pushing that verse a little two far. Maybe not. But either way Paul’s point in Romans 5 will be clear. Jesus is greater. Jesus did something to undo all that was done in the beginning in Adam and now we can have new life in him. There is joy and victory through a life of believing in Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
So here is some application for us. Ask yourself some questions. What’s your worldview and why? What is sin? Is it just a bad attitude or is it something more? Consider your own sin, how you may fall into each of those aspects and then throw yourself upon the mercy of Christ.
Where do you think sin came from? What is our story as a human whole? Pursue Christ and believe the gospel. He is great. In Romans Paul points back to genesis as reason for why we are the way we are. That alone leaves a dark picture. But the beauty of it is that in Christ God did something significant in the course of human history to undo all that had been done. Maybe you feel like your life is a mess. Maybe you feel lost and broken and ruined. Look to Christ. Put your faith in him. Pursue him with all your might. He is victorious over the dark powers of sin.
Let us as a church worship and adore Christ, our victorious savior who saves us from our history, from our ugly past. Let us sing with affectionate hearts. Let us seize the grace he offers in the cup and the bread. Let us worship him with our money and give to help sustain and increase the gospel kingdom. Let us give of our lives and our time to people, loving them and caring for them, and befriending them. Let’s spread this message. People everywhere feel sin deep inside. They don’t know why. We need to share the story of genesis, of the one man and what Jesus Christ did about it. They need a friend who will come alongside them and love them the way they are no matter what.
