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“THE
ADAM-BOMB”
Romans
5:12-21 Or Death Through Adam, Life Through
Christ Romans
5:12-21, “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man,
and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because
all sinned—for before the law was given, sin was in the world.
But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of
Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking
a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. 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, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result
of the one man’s sin: The judgment
followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many
trespasses and brought justification.
For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through
that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision
of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the
one man, Jesus Christ [Yeshua haMeshiach]. Consequently, just as the result of one
trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act
of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through disobedience of the one
man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the
one man the many will be made righteous. The law was added so that the trespass
might increase. But where sin
increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned
in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “This morning, let’s open our Bibles
to the book of Romans. Let’s
open our Bibles to Romans chapter 5, and we’ll begin with the 12th
verse of Romans chapter 5. I’m
going to read the whole long paragraph from 12 to 21.
I’ll explain a little bit as I go because it’s a little bit involved. I’ve been reading it a lot for the last three
or four weeks, so it might be making more sense to me than to you if
you haven’t been reading it currently.
We’re going to focus in on verses 12 and verse 18 as we explain
the Scripture today. But I’ll
read the whole thing now. We’ll
begin in verse 12, Romans 5:12-21, “Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because
all sinned, for until the law sin was in the world.
But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses
even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of Adam’s offense,
who was a type of him who was to come.
But the free gift is not like the transgression, for if by the
transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God
and the gift by the grace of the one man Jesus Christ abound to the
many. And the gift is not like
that which came through the one who had sinned, for on the one hand
the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation,
but on the other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting
in justification. For if by the
transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more those
who receive the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the
one Jesus Christ.”—now verse 18—“So then through one transgression”—that’s
Adam’s sin—“there “resulted condemnation to all men,
even so through one act of righteousness”—the life, death and resurrection
of Christ—“there resulted justification of
life to all men. For as through
the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through
the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.
And the law came in that the transgression might increase, but
where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”—as the King James says, “where sin abounded grace did much more abound…” “And as sin reigned in death, even so grace
might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ
our Lord.” Nearly forty years ago a bomber
carried two bombs that were detonated and forever change the world. The destruction wrought by the atomic bombs
that fell on the two Japanese cities of
So the bad news is Adam bombed, but the good news is you can
come into Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians
15:45 says that when Jesus came, he came as a last Adam.
There was a first Adam, Adam the 1st who lived in
the Garden of Eden and failed in the Garden of Eden, and there was a
last Adam—Jesus Christ—“So also it is written, the first man Adam became
a living soul, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Corinthians
15:45). Then in verses 21 and 22 he says, “For since
by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall
all be made alive”—that is, all who believe in him will be made alive.
[And 1 Corinthians 15 is the resurrection chapter, all about
the 1st resurrection to immortality, cross referenced with
Revelation 20:4,6. For more on
the 1st resurrection to immortality see http://www.unityinchrist.com/corinthians/cor15-16.htm
.] So there’s a first Adam and a last Adam. Adam failed in the Garden, Jesus, Yeshua won
in the Garden. Isn’t that interesting.
Why was it the Garden of Gethsemane that there he struggled with
the will of God. He could have copped out like Adam did. Was it coincidence he was in a garden again?
No. He is the last Adam, he’s retracing every step
of Adam the 1st, and he’s undoing Adam’s mistakes. You ever wonder why Jesus in the boat with the
disciples, and they went into that hurricane [squall] on the lake? Remember the disciples were bailing out, Jesus
was sleeping through it, they finally woke him up—“Lord, don’t you care
that we perish?” Jesus woke up,
he stood up. And what did he
say? The Greek says he said “Shhh, be still” and
rebuked the wind and the waves. Well
what’s that in the Bible for? It’s
showing you that he’s Lord of creation, that the creation obeys him. Remember reading in Luke’s gospel about his
temptation, those forty days Jesus was in the wilderness? And it says “And he went out into the wilderness
with the wild beasts.” I often
wondered ‘What is this wild beasts stuff?
Why add that?’ Well it’s
because the wild beasts didn’t hurt him.
Why? Because he’s Adam
the last. Because he’s Lord of
creation. A lion came up to him,
and asked for his tummy to be rubbed, maybe, you know. Nothing to fear. Here’s Adam the Last. He’s in total control of his kingdom, he has
dominion over the earth. [Read
Isaiah 11:6-11 where it shows that when Jesus returns, all the animals
on the earth will become like that!]
Everything Adam lost Jesus regained.
It was at a tree that Adam fell, it was at the cross, the tree,
that Jesus won. You can just look at these things, it was the
sword that kept Adam out of the Garden, it was the spear, the weapon
that went through Jesus heart and opened up the way to heaven for us. Just think about it. All these parallels with the first Adam and
the last Adam. Adam was our representative,
in him we lost, we bombed. Christ
came as a new man, a new representative of man. And he says “you can all be in me, and you can
all win in me, if you’ll come into me and accept me by faith.” [And
then Jesus promises that if we come into him, he and the Father will
come into us by and through the Holy Spirit who will dwell in us, cf.
John 14, combining with, joining with our human spirits, cf. Romans
8.] Now there’s an Old Testament
story that helps illustrate this [representative principle].
We look at 1st Samuel chapter 17.
You have to go way to the left in your Bible.
1st Samuel chapter 17.
You’ll find the story, all of Israel was gathered on one side
of a valley and all the Philistines were gathered on the other side.
1st Samuel chapter 17.
There was a valley in the middle between them. And a strange thing was happening. This huge guy, ten feet tall the Bible says,
was standing on the hill yelling at the Israelis on the other side. And you get by the tone of his voice that he’s
really putting them down. ‘Hey,
choose for yourself a man. A man who can
come and fight with me. Come
on, why should we all fight? Why
should both of our armies fight? You
chose a champion from among yourselves, and I’ll fight with him, and
it will come about that whoever wins, his side will win, whoever loses,
his side will lose and will become the servants of whoever wins.
No use spilling all this blood.
No use having thousands of us die when two of us could fight.’ Well man, that sounds like a great option to
me, but the only problem was there was no one among the Israelis who
could step forward and be the champion.
This dude’s name over here was Goliath.
The Bible tells us he was over ten feet tall.
The Bible tells us that he wore about a hundred and twenty five
to a hundred and fifty pounds worth of bronze armour--state of the art
weaponry in those days. That
he had a spear, the tip of which weighed fifteen to twenty pounds.
I mean, imagine throwing that thing through the air, it could
really get some power behind it and do a lot of damage to what it hit. Couldn’t it?
We’re even told that this dude was so big that he had his shield
carried by a separate person. His
shield was so big that another guy just carried his shield for him,
all you saw was a shield with two feet, you know.
[chuckles] And he’d BOOM his voice ‘CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF A MAN.’ Some of you are too young to remember
the Jolly Green Giant commercials on TV, ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’, you know. So he was laughing at Israel, he thought they
were really funny. ‘Come on,
come on, choose a man. Isn’t there a man in Israel?’ Day after day this went by, and now every time
he said that everybody looked at king Saul, because we’re told earlier
in Samuel that, one of the reasons why those chose Saul to be their
king was, well #1, he was good looking.
But secondly, he was head and shoulders above everyone else.
He was taller than everyone else in Israel. He was the giant in Israel. So the man who should
have gone out to fight the giant, the champion in Israel should have
been Saul. But Saul bombed out,
he failed the test, just like Adam.
So now the whole nation is threatened, and they’re just stymied. It’s really funny, the headlines every day,
‘Israelis chicken out, Israelis don’t make a move, Israelis can’t find
a champion.’ One day this kid,
the Scripture tells us that he had to be in his early teens, named David—he
came onto the scene of battle, sent by his father to bring some food
to his brothers, and he overheard the taunt of the giant. He overheard Goliath’s shout, he overheard Goliath
defying the armies of the Living God, and it made him mad [angry], and
he says, ‘Man if somebody let me I’d go out and I’d do that guy in!’ And of course his older brothers told him to
shut up and go home. But somebody
overheard him say that, and king Saul was so desperate that when king
Saul heard it, he said ‘Send him here.’
I mean, he’s a kid, just a kid.
I mean, maybe he’s got a few whiskers, nothing yet, I mean he’s
just a kid. And Saul said, ‘What did you say now?’ And we pick it up in verse 31, “When the words
which David spoke were heard, they told them to Saul, and Saul sent
for him. And David said to Saul,
‘Let no man’s heart fail on account of him, Goliath.
Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.’ And Saul said to David, ‘You’re not able to
go against this Philistine to fight with him, you’re but a youth, while
he’s been a warrior from his youth.’
And David said to Saul, ‘Your servant was tending his father’s
sheep when a lion and bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went
out after him and attacked him and rescued it from his mouth.
And when he arose up again against me I seized him by his beard
and struck him and killed him. Your
servant has both killed the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised
Philistine will be like one of them since he’s taunted the armies of
the Living God.’ And David said ‘The Lord who delivered me from
the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me
from the hand of the Philistine.’ And
Saul said to David, ‘Go! Go!
And may the Lord be with you!’”—(you’re going to need all the help you
can get, buddy.) And he thought, ‘Well, I’ll help him out.’
And he started first of all to give him his armour.
So you read the next verse, it says that Saul took off his armour,
because Saul was the only one in Israel that had bronze armour, because
the Philistines had a weapons embargo against Israel.
And so he put his bronze armour on David, and you can just see
it beginning to weigh poor David down, and David could hardly move,
so he said, ‘Saul, I don’t think this is going to work, I can’t even
raise my hand, I can’t move my head, I don’t think this is going to
work.’ ‘I don’t want to fight
in another guy’s armour. This
isn’t the way the Lord delivered me, it wasn’t through the armour of
man. I’ll just trust God.’ And it says that he took for him, verse 40,
‘He took his stick in his hand,’ I love it, really arming himself, with
a stick, ‘and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, put
them in the shepherds bag which he had, and took his sling which was
in his hand, and he approached the Philistine.’
Now talk about a foolish thing, talk about a stupid thing, talk
about a weak thing, but you know, the Scripture says elsewhere that
God has chosen the foolish things, God has chosen the weak things.
God has chosen those things which are not, in order to confound
the wisdom of this world [1 Corinthians 1:26-29], and to show his glory. And so David went forth and when he stepped
forward, and here’s Goliath, ‘Hey, why don’t you chose a MAN to come and fight with me!’ Flexing
his muscles once in a while, you know. Out comes this little shrimp, David. Goliath is incredulous! He says, ‘What?!? I’m I a dog that you come to me with sticks?! Little boy, before this day is over I’m going
to chop you up into little bits and feed you to the birds!’ I love David’s reply, verse 45. David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me
with a sword, a spear and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of
the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you’ve taunted. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands,
and I will strike you down and remove your head from you, and I will
give the dead bodies of the armies of the Philistines this day to the
birds of the sky and to the wild beasts of the earth—that all the earth
may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may
know that the Lord does not deliver by sword or by spear, for the battle
is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hands.’
And you can imagine the scene, man, the Philistines know it’s
a wipeout, they’re going to cream him!
They know, and they’re all ready, ‘All right!
All right! Go for it!’
because they know as soon as David gets squashed, they’re going
to rush in and take Israel captive.
‘Ha, ha, ha, ha’ –they’re almost salivating they’re so excited. And the Israelis, on the other hand, they’re
looking like ‘Oh no! Oh no’ just
barely peeking through their fingers, and they’re sort of like this,
you know—‘As soon as David gets squashed, every man for himself!
Run!!!’ So here’s the
Philistines, ‘Alright!’ David
marches forward, and it says that Goliath was coming down, I don’t know,
the earth might have even shook, you know, as he ‘Boom!
Boom!’ armour bearer running ahead of him, ‘Boom! Boom!’—raising that javelin, you know, to run
it through David, ‘Ahhg!’ with that sort of horrible expression on his
face. David didn’t lose any time,
David ran, and he ran, and he ran (forward) and he took his stone out,
put it in the sling and began to swing his sling around and around and
around and around, and he let go!—and with perfect aim he hit the giant
right in the forehead. The giant fell. Everyone was amazed. The Philistines said ‘Oh no!’. The Israelis said ‘All right!!’ And David took the sword out of the sheath of
Goliath, he took Goliath’s sword right out of his sheath, he lopped
his head off. It’s interesting,
the very sword Goliath was going to use on him, that ‘sword of death’,
he took the death itself and destroyed him who had the power of death
with his own weapon. And you know what? All of Israel began to shout ‘We’ve won! We’ve won!’
What do those chickens have to do with anything anyway? And all those Philistines began to shout ‘Oh
no, we’ve lost! Get out of here,
run!!’ It was the battle of Representatives.
Israel fought and won in one man, their good shepherd, David.
The Philistines lost in one man, the evil Goliath. We lost the first battle in Adam. When he fell and bombed, we all bombed with
him. And when the last Adam came,
he fought and won. And though
we at the cross were going ‘Oh no, what’s happened to him?’ ‘Oh, what a terrible defeat!’ We see three days later the glorious victory,
and he slew him who had the power of death, that is the Devil, with
his very own weapon [i.e. death] Hebrews chapter 2 says.
And Jesus, Yeshua won the victory, and now even though I wasn’t
at the cross and I wasn’t at the resurrection, and I didn’t have anything
to do with what Jesus did, I can shout today “I’ve won!”
The Scripture says we can say “Thanks be unto God who gives us
the victory. Through our Lord
Jesus Christ we have the victory.” And
so before you today there’s a decision.
There are two men, there’s two Adams.
You’re born into Adam’s family.
You need to get out of it. That’s
why the Bible says you’ve got to be born again [cf. John 3].
You’re born into this family, and all you inherit is death.
You’ve got to leave this family, you’ve got to leave the family. And the only way you can be saved is get into
the last family Adam’s family. So
let’s take his name tag, this is no longer Adam the first now, this
is the last Adam. And here you
are, you want it, you want to be saved, and all you’ve inherited from
Adam the 1st was death. And
you hear the Word, you believe, you know you’re a sinner, and you want
to be saved. You want to have your guilt taken away. You want to get the sentence of death taken
off of you. You don’t want to
feel homeless anymore, that emptiness inside.
You want to know heaven [the kingdom of heaven] is your home. You want to have your guilt taken away. What do you do? Jesus said, and these are the words of Jesus,
he said if you want to see the kingdom of God you must be born again. Because if you’re born into Adam’s family you’re
dead. The only way to be saved
is to be born another time into Me, into My family [Jesus, Yeshua says]. You see that’s why we talk about the ‘new birth’.
Because you’ve got to get out of the family you’re born into
and get born into the right family. And so if you accept Christ, you come into Christ
you see. And now you’re in Christ’s
family, a forever family! A family
that’s won the victory, you’re going to heaven [for some, into the kingdom
of heaven, which the book of Revelation reveals will ultimately be established
on earth]. Your sins are forgiven.
You’re right with God. You have a home now. Everything Adam lost Jesus, Yeshua has regained.
You can have it in Christ. But
there are two choices, two men, they’ve done two works.
You’re born into one, without a choice.
But you can choose to come into Christ this morning.
How do I do it, Mark? I’ll
tell you very easily. You believe
what I’ve told you. You already
believe that, you already know you’re a sinner.
Then you need to ask Christ [Yeshua haMeshiach for our Jewish
readers] to save you. The Bible says whoever calls upon the name of
the Lord will be saved. This
morning you can call on Jesus, you can say ‘Lord, save me, I want to
be born again.’ The Bible says the new birth is a mystery.
It actually happens. You can’t watch it. But you can see the results of it. It’s like the wind. You can’t watch the wind, but you can watch
what the wind does. [cf. John
3:1-8, look it up and read it.] And
the Bible tells us that the way you get born again is like you’re looking
to Jesus, Yeshua to save you. Like
a man who’s drowning in the waves, and there’s somebody whose reaching
out to him, and you grasp that hand, and they pull you out of the waters
that you’re drowning in. That’s saving faith, and if you’re able to
do that today, then I want you to pray a prayer with me.
That’s the way you call on God’s name.
You pray. Prayer is just a fancy name for talking to God.
You say, ‘I’ve never talked to God before.’
That’s OK, you can pray words that I pray.
It’s kosher, God thinks that’s OK.
You don’t know what to pray. Then just pray a prayer with me. There’s nothing holy, sacred or miraculous in
the words. But there is in your
faith. There is in the Savior
who’s drawing near to you right now.
Jesus says ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock.
And if anyone will hear my voice and open the door, I'll come
into him and I’ll be his friend forever.’
Do you want that relationship with Jesus?
Maybe you’re a Christian and you don’t know if you’ve been born
again. Jesus didn’t say ‘You must be a Presbyterian,
you must become a Roman Catholic, you must become a Baptist’. He says ‘You must be born again.’ He doesn’t care about your label. He didn’t say ‘You must be confirmed.’ He didn’t say ‘You must be baptized.’ I tell you, without the new birth, confirmation
is nothing. It’s just confirming
you in your sin. Without the
new birth baptism is just getting wet.
[There are some Sabbatarian Churches of God who follow the early
book of Acts format for accepting Jesus into their lives, by repenting
of their sins (i.e. making a turn-around) and then being baptized, accompanied
by the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit.
This method, ancient as it is, is Biblical. It goes back to the 1st century church,
as recorded in the book of Acts. But
those of us in these Sabbatarian Churches of God were also aware that
God was calling us to conversion, drawing us, as evidenced by our coming
into a very strong understanding of Scripture not held by those in the
world. The enmity the world has for the things of God
was vanishing from our lives. Obedience
by way of the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit, bringing spiritual
transformation was evident in baptized believers as well. So accepting Jesus via this method also was
(and is acceptable) for those members of the Sabbatarian Churches of
God.] Without the new birth Communion is nothing but
bread and juice [or wine]. You
see, before any of those things, you must be born again, the new birth
is what saves you. Jesus said
it, he knows. You want to see the kingdom of heaven? You want to be sure you’re going to heaven [into
the kingdom of heaven]? You must
be born again. Do you want to
ask God to save you? Do you want
to ask Jesus to come into your life?
Do you want to ask him to be your Savior and to birth you into
his family? If this is what you want to do, then I want
you to pray with me right now. Let’s
bow our heads. Let’s close our
eyes. In Jesus Christ you can win today. In Adam you’ve bombed. But in Christ you can win. It’s the most important moment in somebody’s
life, right now. It’s not a coincidence
you’ve come. Truly God brought
you here for a reason. Maybe
you’ve wondered all your life ‘What is this new birth stuff all about?’ ‘What is this born again stuff all about?’
Now you understand. Maybe you’ve been a Christian all your life
and never understood what the new birth was all about and now you do. And maybe you know as a Christian, you’ve been
a Christian in name, but you haven’t been born again. If you want to call on the name of the Lord,
then let’s do it right now. You
can pray with me, and I guarantee that if you pray this prayer from
your heart, Jesus Christ will save you.
You will be born again, you will come into the kingdom of God,
heaven [or the kingdom of God, wherever it ends up being] will be your
home [when you die]…Pray with me. You don’t have to pray loudly now. You don’t have to draw attention to yourself.
But you have to pray loud enough so that you know what you’re
saying. OK, pray with me right
now. “Lord, I know that I’m a
sinner. And I believe what you’ve
said today in your Word. I know
I need a Saviour, and I want you to be my Saviour. Please, accept me just as I am. Please forgive my sins. Please Lord, wash me, make me clean. I want to be born again. Save me Jesus (Yeshua). I believe you died for me. I believe you rose from the dead for me. And I believe that you won for me. I leave my old family, I leave Adam’s family
Lord right now, and I enter into you by faith.
I accept you as my Saviour, in Jesus (Yeshua’s) name, Amen.”
” [This is a transcript of Romans 5:12-21, a sermon
given by Pastor J. Mark Martin of Calvary Community Church, P.O. Box
39607, Phoenix, Arizona 85069.] end |