Please turn in your Bibles this evening to Romans chapter 5 as we continue our study through the Word of God. In our study in Romans so far we have seen Paul show how the whole world is hopelessly lost in sin, none are righteous, not even one! He has shown us how the Law can’t make us righteous before God, how good works can’t make us righteous before God, how rituals can’t make us righteous before God. None of man’s efforts can save us.
It seems hopeless as the whole world is condemned before God but then Paul moves into a section, from Romans 3:21 through Romans 5:21, dealing with our justification or that we are declared righteous before God by grace through faith in Jesus. And in chapter 4 Paul shows us this is not just a New Testament idea, that Abraham and King David were both justified by faith and not by works, the two heavy hitters of the Jewish faith! It is as Paul said in Romans 4:23-25, “Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” In other words, the righteous demands of the Law have been fulfilled by Jesus and we are declared righteous, not guilty before God!
Now, as we move into chapter 5 Paul is going to show us that we can be secure in our salvation, that we can’t lose it. You see, if you did nothing in the first place to obtain your salvation except believe it by faith, then you can’t do anything to lose it. We can not make it a salvation by grace through faith and then add works to it so that we might maintain it! That is a salvation by works! Of this chapter Martin Luther said: “In the whole Bible there is hardly another chapter which can equal this triumphant text.” Thus, with that said, let’s begin reading in verse 1 of Romans chapter 5 and see what the Lord has for us this evening.
VERSE 1
Do you realize that every person who has rejected Jesus as their Lord and Savior is at war with God, they are fighting against Him! Paul said in Romans 8:7-8, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” The war is fought because we want to do our own thing, we think God is some kind of cosmic kill joy who is ruining all our fun, or we can even be neutral about God, but the reality is, if you are not for Him then you are against Him! We tend to enjoy sin not realizing that sin is like a cancer that slowly consumes our bodies!
The good news is our eyes have been opened and we have received Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and by grace through faith we have been declared justified before God, we are at peace with God, no longer fighting against Him because, as Ephesians 2:14a says, “For He Himself is our peace . . .” Jesus is our peace! That is not to say we don’t struggle, as Spurgeon tells us, “I am delighted to find that sin stings you, and that you hate it. The more hatred of sin the better. A sin-hating soul is a God-loving soul. If sin never distresses you, then God has never favored you.” Folks, we are not at peace with sin or the Devil or this world, we are at peace with God which then puts sin, the Devil and this world at war with us!
Now let me also say this, you can never experience the peace OF God in your life until you first make peace WITH God, and, as I have said, that is only done through Jesus. Once we make peace WITH God, Paul tells us “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Or as The Amplified Bible puts it, “Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition ( definite requests), with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God. And God's peace [shall be yours, that tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace] which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7.
What a glorious promise to each of us, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding but is very real in our lives once we make peace WITH God through Jesus Christ! We might not understand it, but when we are going through a difficult time, we can feel it, we know the peace OF God in our lives!
VERSE 2
Not only have we been declared justified before God, at peace with God through Jesus, but we also have access into His grace through Jesus, and again this is through faith. Paul says “we have access” which is in the perfect verb tense indicating this is a permanent possession. It is as Clarke said: “And this access to God, or introduction to the Divine presence, is to be considered a lasting privilege. We are not brought to God for the purpose of an interview, but to remain with him; to be his household; and by faith, to behold his face, and walk in the light of his countenance.”
In other words, we don’t’ stand by our own strength but in the grace of God as Paul said in Ephesians 2:18, “For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.” And in Ephesians 3:12, Paul says “in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.” It is out of that we should see praise burst forth from our lives as our hope is not in us but in Him, which then brings glory to God and not to us! We stand in Him and not in our own strength, praise the Lord!
VERSES 3-4
I can understand Paul saying that we should rejoice in the fact that we can have peace with God; we can rejoice that we have access into His grace by faith, but I don’t know about rejoicing in tribulation! The word that Paul uses for “tribulation” THLIPSIS (thlip’-sis) in the Greek, is not speaking of someone making fun of you but it speaks of being under pressure, like the squeezing of olives in the olive press or to press down upon a grape to produce grape juice! Paul lived that kind of life, one filled with many tribulations as he served the Lord and yet he was able to say “Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” II Corinthians 4:16-18. You see, these things are going to happen, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” II Timothy 3:12. The important issue is how are we going to respond to these things, these tribulations, these pressures? Are we going to let them make us strong or sour? Are we going to let them make us bold or bitter?
You see, Paul is telling us that pressures in our life are working in us for something good if we allow them to. In a sense, it is a picture of Christian maturity, sanctification or it can be a picture of Christian immaturity and a hardness of heart to what God is doing in our lives!
First of all we see that tribulation produces “perseverance” or “patience.” It is the Greek word HUPOMONE (hoop-om-on-ay’) which speaks of cheerful endurance, consistency. It was a term that was used as precious metals were tested for their purity in the fire, such as sliver or gold. The heat causes the impurities to rise to the surface and they are then removed to make the metals pure and the Lord uses the heat, the pressure of tribulations to cleanse us of our impurities.
As tribulation produces perseverance in our lives, that perseverance is building in us character, experience, we are maturing. And it is out of all this we are learning to trust in the Lord more and more which gives us hope, we know He won’t fail us!
If you are struggling in this area, always snapping at people, it is your way or the highway, angry, pouting, and mad at God, losing hope; you need to surrender to God’s Spirit and allow Him to work in you and you will produce fruit in your life. I love olive oil, to me bread and olive oil is a meal! But if there was no pressure upon the olives then there would be no olive oil to partake of. If we fight against tribulations, these pressures, there won’t be fruit in our lives for others to partake of and that maturing process will be on hold until we submit and surrender our lives to the Master Potter, to God!
I may not always understand the how’s and why’s of God as I am going through tribulations, but this I do know, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Or as The Amplified Bible puts it, “We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.” Romans 8:28. My hope is in Him!
VERSE 5
God’s love is not just trickled into our lives, but the Greek word EKCHEO (ek-kheh’-o) speaks of gushing out, spilling over and we can know this because the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to this truth of God’s love in us and for us! Jesus said regarding the Holy Spirit in John chapter 7, “. . . ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” John 7:37b-38. For that to take place you must be filled with the Holy Spirit and then He will overflow in your life as you surrender to Him, allow Him to be in control of your life. The Holy Spirit is the Divine agent who exposes to the believer the love of God!
VERSES 6-8
Notice the picture that Paul is painting for us. Sinful man, whom he described for us in Romans 1:18 through Romans 3:20 and drove home the point in Romans 3:23 when he said, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Now man is in that condition and impotent to do anything about it, he is sick, he is without strength. Then God steps in at the appointed time or the proper time, the perfect time to pay the penalty for our sins, for the ungodly, you and me! Listen to how Spurgeon put it: “If Christ died for the ungodly, this fact leaves the ungodly no excuse if they do not come to him, and believe in him unto salvation. Had it been otherwise they might have pleaded, ‘We are not fit to come.’ But you are ungodly, and Christ died for the ungodly, why not for you?” You see, there is no excuse!
Paul continues on to say that a person may sacrifice his life for the “right kind” of person but God didn’t die for a good person, someone who deserved it, a righteous person, but for sinners and thus, His death on the cross of Calvary is a demonstration of His rich love for us, it is the ultimate proof because we surely don’t deserve it! Again, we have read this verse often, but it is powerful as it shows us what God has done for us. Paul said in II Corinthians 5:21, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” That is God’s love for us!
VERSES 9-10
If God loved us when we were still sinners, how much more will He pour out His blessings upon His children, those who have been reconciled to Him by grace through faith in Jesus! The thing is this; do you really believe that God is going to pour out His wrath on His children? Of course not, but He will pour out His wrath upon a Christ rejecting world who stand in their own righteousness which are like filthy rags before a holy and righteous God! It is as Paul said in I Thessalonians 5:9, “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I like the way that John MacArthur put it. He said:
The thrust of this truth for believers is that our Savior not only delivered us from sin and its judgment, but also delivers us from uncertainty and doubt about that deliverance. If God has already made sure our rescue from sin, death, and future judgment, how could our present spiritual life possibly be in jeopardy? How can a Christian, whose past and future salvation are secured by God, be insecure during the time between? If sin was no barrier to the beginning of our redemption, how can it become a barrier to its completion? If sin in the greatest degree could not prevent our becoming reconciled, how can sin in lesser degree prevent our staying reconciled? If God’s grace covers the sins even of His enemies, how much more does it cover the sins of His children?
- John MacArthur
VERSE 11
Thus, God has declared us justified, He has cleansed us from our sins, we are His, we will always be His, we have escaped His wrath that is to come and will be with Him for eternity because we have been reconciled back to God through Jesus and that should cause us to rejoice!
In the Old Testament the Hebrew word for “atonement” is KAPHAR and it speaks of a covering. You see, the sacrificing of bulls and goats could never take away a persons sins, it only covered them for a time, until they sinned again. Now as we come to the New Testament, the Greek word for “atonement” is KATALLAGE (kat-al-lag-ay’) and it speaks of “making one” or better put, reconciliation. Think of it like this, at-one-ment! You see, what the Old Testament sacrificial system couldn’t do, Christ has come and has done for us, paying in full the penalty for our sins and thus, our sins are cast as far as the east is from the west to be remembered no more! We should rejoice over that!
Listen to how John Stott summarized this section for us. He said:
We should be the most positive people in the world. We cannot mooch round the place with dropping, hang-dog expression. We cannot drag our way through life, moaning and groaning. We cannot always be looking on the dark side of everything, as negative prophets of doom. No, ‘we exult in God.’ Then every part of our life becomes suffused with glory. Christian worship becomes a joyful celebration of God and Christian living a joyful service of God. So come, let us exult in God together!
- John Stott
As we move on we are now going to see Paul show us the ruin of mankind in Romans 5:12-14; the rescue of mankind in Romans 5:15-19; and finally the reign of mankind in Romans 5:20-21.
VERSE 12
Notice, Paul believed that Adam was a historical figure not just a story to promote a spiritual truth. Now, when you come to a “therefore” ask yourself what it is there for! Obviously it speaks of all that Paul has spoken of so far, but I also believe it takes us back to Romans 3:23 where Paul said “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Now he is going to explain how we have sinned, where it came from. He tells us that through Adam’s sin, all have inherited Adam’s genetic makeup, not only his physical nature, but also his spiritual nature by birth. It is as David said in Psalm 51:5, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.” That is true of all mankind! Now some would like to deny this fact but every grave is evidence pointing to the spread and the reign of sin since the time of Adam for as the Lord said, “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.’” Genesis 2:16-17. Thus, sin is universal, affecting all of mankind and thus, death is also universal! The death rate is still one per person! And not only does sin affect our physical bodies but also our spirits, as we have been separated from God by sin and the spirit nature is dead, allowing the body to be controlled by its fleshly appetites. The only solution is to be born again, and then the spirit is alive and it is in control of our body!
If you still are having a hard time with this, think of it this way. You don’t become a horse thief when you steal a horse; you steal a horse because you are a horse thief! You see, it just shows what you are! Thus, a person doesn’t become a sinner when he sins; he sins because he is a sinner! In fact, the verb “sinned” is in the aorist tense which tells us that it is a completed action in the past - no exceptions – we all have inherited sin from Adam, our spiritual nature just as we have inherited Adam’s physical nature!
One last point before we move on, and listen to what Bruce has to say regarding this section. He tells us: “To Paul, Adam was more than a historical individual, the first man; he was also what his name means in Hebrew – ‘humanity.’ The whole of humanity is viewed as having existed at first in Adam.” The point being is all have sinned, Adam’s sin is the sin of all, and as we sin we just are showing our nature, we are just showing that we are sinners!
VERSES 13-14
The Law just makes clear what God desires, what He demands but that does not negate mans responsibilities before the Law was written. You see, God has placed in the heart of man what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil. Thus, as we do wrong, as we do evil we are guilty before God and the Law, as it was written just shows us how guilty! Thus, before the Law man still died because of the affects of sin upon the human race ever since Adam sinned and it continues on today!
Paul is now making a transition into the next section, the rescue of mankind in Romans 5:15-19 as he tells us that Adam is a type, a resemblance of the One who is to come, and that is Jesus! Think about it, both were sinless men from the beginning and by their actions it affected all of mankind, one in a bad way and the other in a good way!
VERSES 15-17
Some like to argue that because they were not in the garden when Adam sinned, in fact they were not even born yet, so how could the sin of Adam affect them? Think of it like this, you were not there when Jesus was placed on the cross of Calvary as He died for our sins, but by faith we have been crucified with Him. You were not there when He was placed in the garden tomb and rose from the dead on the third day and yet, by faith we believe we were not only buried with Him but were also raised with Him. Thus, if this principle were not true, that in Adam all died in sin, then it would also not be true that in Christ all are made alive. Of course that is wrong for as Paul said in I Corinthians 15:21-22, “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.” Thus, Adam’s sin has brought condemnation to all of mankind, and we have also seen the sacrifice of Christ has brought to us justification to all who believe!
Listen carefully to this, it is important. The power of sin, which is death, not only physical death but also spiritual death, can be broken by the free gift of God, by Jesus! On the other hand, the power of Christ, our salvation which is a free gift, can not be broken – we are secure in Him and thus sin has no power over our lives, we are set free from its power. It is as Paul said in II Timothy 1:10, “but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” What assurance we have in Christ, we can rest in that!
VERSES 18-19
God placed Adam into the Garden of Eden with all its beauty and gave him only one rule, one law to follow, don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And what did Adam do? He ate of that tree, he disobeyed God, and through his disobedience the judgment of God came upon all of mankind, all were born sinners. But, on the other end of the spectrum we have God sending His only begotten Son into the world to pay in full the penalty for our sins and the Son obeyed, and through His obedience He brought to us life. It is as Jesus said in John 17:4, “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.” Yes, death reigned through Adam’s sin but life reigns through Christ!
Thus, through Jesus mankind has been rescued. Now, in Romans 5:20-21 we see the reign of mankind.
VERSES 20-21
We have already seen that the Law doesn’t save us, it doesn’t justify us, “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.” Romans 3:20. Now Paul tells us that the Law shows us how our sin abounds. It makes our sin clear as we contrast it with the holiness of God and what His Law requires of us, something that we can’t keep. Now if sin abounded under the Law, which it does, then grace abounds even more under Jesus. That phrase “abound much more” in the Greek is HUPERPERISSEUO (hoop-er-per-ispsyoo’-o) and it speaks of super-abounding, more than you can imagine, more than you could ever think. Talk about your amazing grace, for when we would expect God’s anger or judgment we see His grace super-abound to us!
As I close this evening let me leave you with these words from John Bunyan’s book, Pilgrim’s Progress. One of the characters in the story, who is on his way to the Celestial City, was Mr. Honesty. In his life, Mr. honesty saw many things, growing up in the town of Stupidity. He saw people start out strong in the faith and then get distracted, discouraged by all kinds of obstacles that got in their way. He also saw some start out weak in the faith but in the end, finished strong. He saw it all and at the end of his life he said the following:
Then Mr. Honesty sent for his friends and said to them, “I am going to die, but I shall make no will. As for my honesty, it shall go with me. Let those who come after me be told of this.” When the day came for him to go, the river overflowed its banks in places. But Mr. Honesty, in his lifetime, had asked one Good Conscience to meet him at the river and help him through the deep waters, which he did. And the last words of Mr. Honesty were, “Grace reigns!” So he left the world.
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress In Today’s English, p. 253
As we have seen the greatness of our ruin, sinners separated from God, born in sin, we then moved to the greatness of our rescue, which is given to us by grace through faith in Jesus, not by the Law or good works. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us! And lastly, the reign of God’s grace in our life, making us into men and women He wants us to be. We not only stand by Grace but we also walk by Grace! It is as Paul said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Ephesians 1:3-6. May we leave here tonight rejoicing in all that God has done for us, not what we have done for Him! Yes, sin entered the world through one man, and death spread to all because of sin, but the Man Jesus came with grace in His hand and stretched out His arms to all, for all who receive it will be free from sin and death and enter into life with Him. Praise God!