12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. 13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. 14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. What a contrast between Adam and Christ, who was yet to come! 15 And what a difference between our sin and God’s generous gift of forgiveness. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But this other man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God’s bountiful gift. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over us. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.
20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If we take a quick look back through the first five chapters, we see the case that Paul has so expertly laid out before us. (1) We are all called to be children of God, (2) our faith should be obvious to others because of our works, (3) we all instinctively know right from wrong, (4) if we are left to ourselves we will sin, (5) we are all sinners, (6) we need a savior, (7) we honor God by obeying His law, (8) we are made right with God by His Grace through faith in what Jesus did for us and not by obeying the law, (9) we did nothing to deserve it, (10) we were given the law to show us that we are sinners, (11) only through our faith in Jesus can we truly fulfill the law, (12) It is not about religion, it is all about faith in Jesus, (13) our Salvation is guaranteed when we put our faith in what Jesus Christ did for us, and lastly (14) there is joy and purpose in our life when we belong to Christ.
It doesn’t seem fair that God would judge us for Adam’s sin, does it? Why should we be held accountable for something that someone else did? We’re not. We are all held accountable for the sins that we commit. When Adam sinned, we inherited his sinful nature. We sin because we are sinners, and given the chance, we will rebel against God. We have all sinned, and we all – and I mean every human being – are in need of God’s mercy.
In verse 13, Paul recapped some of his earlier teachings: People sinned even before there was a law, because we all instinctively know right from wrong. But, it wasn’t counted as sin because there was no law to break. These people didn’t break a specific law of God as Adam did, but yet they still died. Death was the curse that Adam brought upon the human race.
We shouldn’t become distracted by this group of people that lived between Adam and Moses. They didn’t catch a break, or get a better deal than we did. We are all sinners and will all stand before God on His day of judgment. We need only to be concerned with ourselves and those around us. We live after the law, and after Christ’s atoning sacrifice. We have everything that we need.
In this section, Paul compared two men – Adam the first man, and Jesus the God-man. God created everything that we know as a sign of His love. After all, what good is love if you have nothing or no one to express it to? God created Adam so that He could express His love, and all that He asked was for Adam to love Him in return. It’s unfortunate that our culture has cheapened love to the point that my last sentence almost seems childish. In today’s culture, we read a statement like, “all he wanted was to be loved” and we assume that God must have some sort of inferiority complex, or a fear of being lonely. But, that’s not the case. God can’t be compared to us. We were created in His image and likeness, and that is as close to being like God that we will ever be. He doesn’t have issues. His emotions are perfect. When God loves, He loves to perfection, when He judges, He judges with absolute fairness, and when He expresses His anger, it is in perfect righteous indignation.
We are not capable of controlling our emotions. We say we love all sorts of things, but do we really? From God’s perspective, you can’t love an inanimate object. Love must be shared. Love is something that we do outwardly, not inwardly. Love is a verb – an action word. True love is giving with absolutely no expectation of getting anything in return.
Any of us who are parents know that deep down inside we have a protection mechanism that automatically goes off when we know our child is in danger. Because of the love we have for this child, we would give our life so that our child could live. But could you do what God did? He loved us so much that He gave His child so that we could live.
How can we ever fully understand what God did for us? It would be like finding yourself and your family on a hijacked airplane with 200 passengers. The hijacker grabs your daughter – your precious beautiful daughter, and says, “If you let me kill your daughter, I will let everyone else live!” Would you? Could you? Could you express that kind of love for a bunch of people that don’t know you and probably don’t even want to know you? That’s what God did for us.
Adam’s sin brought corruption to the world. Adam (and the entire human race) was designed to live forever. And, with sin came death. Not just to humans, but to everything.
It didn’t happen overnight. A stumbling block for most new bible readers is the life spans of most of the characters in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis. Genesis 5 gives a summary of Adam’s descendants. Adam lived to be 930 years old, his son Seth died at 912. Enosh passed at 905, and his son Kenan was 910. As time went on, the life span became shorter. Lamech died at 777 years of age. Shem lived to be 600, Araphaxad 438, Shelah 433, Peleg 239, Serug 230, and Nahor 148.
That is how sin works in our life. Yes, we are born with a sin nature, but as helpless infants, we have no capacity to sin. We can’t consciously rebel against God when all we are capable of doing is eating and pooping in a diaper. But it doesn’t take long before the old selfishness switch gets turned on and our sin nature starts to develop. Pastor Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside , CA
The comparison that Paul is offering is the human condition vs. the divine condition. Adam was created without sin. He was the perfect human. Before his sin, Adam knew God personally. He walked and talked with God everyday. Their relationship was, as ours will be with God someday.
We think that being sinful is a requirement of being human, but it’s not. Sin is a curse that has fallen upon the human race. God did not create us with a sinful nature, and for a time, Adam enjoyed the benefits of being 100% human and 100% sinless.
God could have created us all with little pull strings that said, “I love you, God – I love you, God”. But that wasn’t the point. Love has to be genuine. It has to be expressed back and forth in a relationship. Love must be a choice. It must be a decision based on free will. God knew in the beginning that if He gave us free will, we could just as easily choose not to love Him, as to love Him. But, that was the only way He would know for sure.
God knew that we would sin, and He created us anyway. If you knew ahead of time that 15 years down the road, your child would be standing nose to nose with you screaming, “I hate you! I don’t ever want to see you again!” - would you still choose to have this child? It’s almost a mathematical certainty, and yet we still choose to procreate the species. Why? Because we love our kids no matter what. And God loves His kids, too.
Yes, God knew we would sin. And, because He can see the beginning as well as the end, He put a plan in place that would make the way for us to stand before Him as 100% sinless humans, in spite of our rebellion. But, as love would have it, it requires a choice.
God’s redemptive plan from the beginning was always to be in two parts. First, the Messiah would come to teach, to offer Himself as the atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, and to rise from the dead to give eternal life to all who believe. Secondly, He would come again as the conquering king, and set up His kingdom that would be without sin, forever. This plan would put mankind back where it started with Adam in the Garden of Eden. Only this time, all of us who are present will be there because we chose to be there.
The Jewish nation had been oppressed for thousands of years. They so badly wanted to skip the first step and move right into the second step. They wanted to be free from Roman rule. But it couldn’t be that way. The Messiah had to die.
They knew the writings of the prophets, but they chose to ignore them. God revealed His plan through the Prophet Isaiah, 700 years before the birth of Christ.
Isaiah 53
1 Who has believed our message?To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
7 He was oppressed and treated harshly,
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8 Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
But who among the people realized that He was dying for their sins –
yet he never said a word.
He was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
And as a sheep is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
8 Unjustly condemned,
he was led away.
But who among the people realized that He was dying for their sins –
that He was suffering their punishment?
9 He had done no wrongand had never deceived anyone.
But he was buried like a criminal;
he was put in a rich man’s grave.
10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him
and cause him grief.
Yet when his life is made an offering for sin,
he will have many descendants.
He will enjoy a long life,
and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands.
11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish,
he will be satisfied.
And because of his experience,
my righteous servant will make it possible
for many to be counted righteous,
for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier,
because he exposed himself to death.
He was counted among the rebels.
He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels
Yes, this was God’s plan all along.
Adam’s sin brought death to everyone, but Christ’s sacrifice brought life to all who believe. In Romans 5:15-17, Paul described this act of grace as a “bountiful gift”, a “free gift”, and a “gracious gift”. And, like we said earlier, a gift is something that is given at no cost. It cannot be earned.
Paul finished verses 20-21 by, once again, driving home the point that the law was given so that we could see how sinful we truly are. But, here’s the good news: God’s kindness rules over the world instead, giving us all right standing with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Study Questions
Do you see your faith in Christ as a gift?
It should be. Just like getting a great gift for your birthday, God’s gift of salvation should be something that is treasured. Too often, we find ourselves in the religious rut where we feel that our faith is just another obligation in our life. When this happens, try reading through Isaiah 53 and meditating on what the prophet foretold that Christ would do for us.
Do you know that He died for you?
Isaiah wrote, “…But who among the people realized that He was dying for their sins –
that He was suffering their punishment? This was not a promise given only to people that witnessed Christ’s death on the cross, this promise is for all of us who will ever believe in Him. Do you know that He died for you?
Will you accept His gift?
Has the Holy Spirit touched your heart with this message? Do you want to accept the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Pray the Prayer of Salvation below.
If you prayed this prayer, and meant it from your heart, I can assure you on the authority of scripture that you are now a child of God, and that your eternal address will be heaven. Let us know so that we can encourage you in this new walk of yours. Welcome to the family of God.
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