Condemnation and Justification for All

Introduction

To be a Christian means to believe that the power of life is stronger than the power of death. This is a seemingly unrealistic optimism that drives our faith. A realist may look at the world and see death all around, death continues. But we may point to the one place where it didn’t, Jesus Christ. His resurrection means the defeat of death, and his promise means the overcoming of death in our own lives.

To go back is nothing but death: to go forward is fear of death, and life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go forward.

John Bunyan

We have a choice: to live in a world where death is certain and nothing more. Or to live a life where life is certain beyond death because the power of death is shattered by the power of grace.

Now let us go to our text and see the glorious comparison of sin’s seeming victory in death, and the sure victory of grace that we have in Christ that bring us life.

Condemnation For All Through One Trespass

We are told that one trespass, one sin, led to condemnation for all men. This is the point that Paul has just defended. We all became sinners in Adam in two ways,

First, through being in him when he sinned and being cursed by death which shows the extent of that curse upon all humanity. In Adam, we partook of the same sin and receive just condemnation.

Second, through becoming sinful in nature. Adam’s sin condemned the human race and cursed us with a sinful nature in which we, as his descendants, partake of sin just as we partake of the death that sin brings.

In this way, condemnation is brought upon all men through the one sin.

Verse 19 expounds on this. “by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners”. John Gill points out that sinner here refers not only to the consequence of sin, but its nature. Through the one man’s disobedience we became rebellious by nature. The Greek noun refers to behaviour, not merely a state. We became those who sin.

In verse 20 we are told that the law came in to increase the trespass. There are two ways of understanding this.

First, the law came with the purpose of increasing the trespass. That is, the purpose of the law was always to make sin abound.

Second, the law came in with the result of increasing the trespass. This is a preferable way to look at it according to Luther, Augustine, and John Chrysostom. It is preferable because the point here is not that the law came with the intention of increasing sin, quite the opposite it came to be obeyed. Yet, in God’s sovereign providence it had the result of increasing sin. The law was given to show the human inability to be saved apart from grace with the result being more sin. Augustine writes, “(the law) was not given to make sinners alive - it is grace alone which by faith makes alive - but to show with what strong chains of sin those are bound and held captive who arrogantly assert that the Law is to be kept by their own power.”

The law and it’s purpose:

Luther writes, “through the transgression of the law came the knowledge of original sin.”

As we saw last time, death reigned even when the law was not there. Original sin still existed, and that is enough to send us to hell, but God gave the law to make us aware of our inability to keep it because of original sin.

Original sin is the sin of Adam active and alive in us.

When the law comes into contact with an originally sinful heart, it is like vinegar coming into contact with baking soda. It is explosive! It shows the true nature of a sinner. The same is true with the conscience of an unbeliever, but conscience is flawed and doesn’t have as clear of an effect.

Israel under the law put on display the shortcomings of the law to save and showed that people, when exposed to God’s law, are unable to obey properly because of their sinful nature. Though they may obey outwardly for a while or in some ways, their hearts will never love God with all their being. They won’t trust God. Their good works are filthy rags because they are never done from a heart seeking the glory of God.

Increasing the sin is the natural result of the law. It proves that we are under sin and condemned to death as such. Death always remains a reminder of that condemnation. “as sin reigned in death” the law showed the cause of the suffering of death; human sinful nature.

In order to understand the Gospel, you must understand that you are not a good person. You yourself, whoever you are, are morally stained and unable to do what God commands of you. Understand that, and you will see your need for the Gospel. Ignore that, and the Gospel makes no sense. The Gospel is the end of a history with the law where sin abounds in the face of God’s commandments. So God must provide a way, by grace, to overcome the sinful nature which reacts so violently to the law and to overcome the death which results from the sinful nature which the law made known.

Paul tells us in Galatians 3:24

Galatians 3:24 ESV

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

The purpose of the law was to guide us to Christ, to show us our need of him by revealing sin. Nature reveals the consequences of sin, the law reveals the cause of death. So now we will see how Christ reveals the righteousness of God through faith.

Justification for All Through One Man’s Obedience

Back in verse 18, the text tells us that just as “one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.”

The universal language does not mean that all people are justified. Rather, it is showing us the contrast of what one sin did in Adam and what one act of righteousness did for us. Just as all who are in Adam are under sin leading to death, so all who are in Christ are under his righteousness leading to life.

Romans 5:19 ESV

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.

This verse restates the fact in a more general way. The point is that Christ has done the sheer opposite of what Adam did. As our federal head, the one act of righteousness in which Jesus gave himself up on the cross for our sins was enough to transfer those who believe from being under eternal guilt to being justified by God and given eternal life.

Notice that, in juxtaposition to many being made sinners, the one man’s obedience makes us righteous.

The Roman Catholic view is that this righteousness occurs at baptism and makes the person completely righteous in God’s sight, but that righteousness must be kept up through the progression of ones life and the sacraments.

However, the text has been telling us that it is faith in Christ which justifies. This isn’t accomplished through the taking of sacraments, but through the simple faith we have in Christ.

The righteousness in which we are made righteous isn’t just justification here, however. When we are justified, we are made righteous in God’s sight and that is the primary idea in Paul’s mind since he mentions justification in verse 18. But we are made righteous in our lives also through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who causes us to walk in righteousness until we are made fully righteous in glory.

For this text to be meaningful to us, we must desire righteousness. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” There are many, even many who call themselves Christians, who do not desire this righteousness. They desire many things that they imagine God will give them. They desire wealth and prosperity, they desire heaven, they desire freedom from the oppression of sinful behaviour, but they do not desire righteousness. That is, they do not desire the purity and godliness by which it is possible to know God and dwell with God. The desire for righteousness is a desire for God himself, to have him dwell with you, and to be united with him through Christ in glory.

The Increase of grace

In verse 20 we are told that with the increase of sin that came through the law, grace increased all the more. That is, grace abounded far more than sin did, so that grace not only matches sin’s power but overcomes it entirely.

Next week we will look at how this doesn’t lead to a continuation in sin, but rather the progress of a holy life.

But what we do see here is that the more we sinned under the law, the more condemnation was heaped upon us and the more the sentence of death was justly deserved. But the more that penelty was deserved, the more grace overtook it on the cross. This means that the work of righteousness by which Christ saves us was more powerful and effective than both the original sin which caused our fallenness and the multiplication of sin that came with the law. The many sins were not enough to overcome grace, in fact the more sin increased grace increased and God was glorified through that grace.

God loves saving great sinners. He loves saving murderers, the sexually immoral, the most wicked, the persecutors, the twisted and vile. He loves saving them because their increased sin increases his grace and glory. When they are saved, they die to sin so as not to live in sin any longer, as we will see next time. But God loves to save sinners, he is glorified by saving those whose sins have multiplied under the law. He loves saving those sentenced to death.

Hebrews 2:14–15 ESV

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

In this he is glorified and honoured in the sight of all creation, in the eyes of angels, and in the eyes of his own person. There is nothing that gives God so much glory as when the worst of sinners switches from being under Adam to being in Christ.

So just as sinned reigned by bringing death to all those guilty of being sinners, grace now reigns in the life of believers through righteousness.

This grace, bringing righteousness on the guilty, now leads them to eternal life. Why? Because the gift of God is what erases the curse of death. All sin is gone. The curse of Adam is but a memory and a shadow erased from reality.

It is clearly through Jesus Christ our Lord that this takes place. He is the one who worked righteousness for us. It is his merit alone by which we may stand free from sin. Sin has lost its victory because it is overcome with grace given in the form of the man Jesus Christ who died to give us the righteousness by which we overcome sin and death.

Death and Eternal Life

One question we may have is, well if I am delivered from sin and death, why do I still sin and die?

We still sin because the work of salvation has not been completed in us. We have been justified yes, our destiny is to be united with God in righteousness yes, but our current state remains in these bodies where are still under sin. Christ died to save us from this earth, including from this sinful body, and give us a new redeemed body. The process is ongoing, which is why the Spirit drives us to deny our flesh since we are in the flesh of death.

And since we are still in this body of flesh and death, in Adam this flesh will die, but the soul will be saved and united again to a new body in the resurrection. This resurrection is our ultimate hope, where we will have new bodies which are righteous and undying. Immortal and incorruptible.

Because we live in a state of hope, faith is needed. We are like Abraham in the wilderness with one boy who is the one chosen to bring about all of God’s promises. We live in a state in which we must trust that God will fulfill his plans in us. We must live by faith and not by sight. Faith tells us that, although we feel the effects of sin and death in us, we are awaiting a new day and a new creation. We have enough evidence in Christ and through the Holy Spirit’s work in us that he will bring his work in us and in the church to completion, but we will not lay hold of it until we have passed beyond the curtain of death into immortality.

Conclusion

Paul has successfully proved his point that, though the power of sin is strong enough to bind our flesh and body to death, grace is stronger still to bind us to God in Christ. So, what shall we take away from this glorious truth?

Be reminded that the blood of Jesus Christ has enough grace to take away your sin in its entirety.

Be reminded that the power of death, which is in sin, is overcome by the life of Christ and unity with him.

Be reminded that the law does its work by showing you your sin in order that you may bring it to Christ and be justified.

Be reminded that the Spirit works the power of Christ in us to overcome sin and death by life through righteousness which is given in Christ.

Be reminded that grace works in you to accomplish your salvation, but you must not let it alone. Feed that grace, welcome it, accommodate it, live for it.

Use the grace of God, not as a cover-up for sin, as if we should keep on sinning so that grace may abound, but as a means of righteousness. Following the law will not make your righteous, but following Christ will.

As in all Scripture, use this text to behold the mystery of God’s salvation. His love for sinners extends to a sinner like you. Keep your eye on that grace and trust in Christ to defeat sin and death in you and look to the promise of eternal life.