The sermon delivered by Jason Dohm, titled 'One Man, the Head of a Race,' explores the theological implications of Adam's role in introducing sin and death into the world. The sermon begins with a contextual reading of Romans 5:12-14, explaining the entry of sin through Adam and its consequences, including spiritual, physical, and eternal death. Dohm emphasizes that humanity inherited a sinful nature from Adam, contrary to the tabula rasa concept, which suggests humans are born as blank slates. Instead, the sermon argues that humans are inherently inclined towards sin due to their corrupted nature. The narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 is closely examined, highlighting how Adam's disobedience led to the fall of humanity and the resulting curses, including spiritual warfare, marital conflict, work-related frustrations, and physical death. The sermon also addresses the reign of death before the giving of the law and argues that even without explicit commandments, humanity was aware of right and wrong through their conscience. Finally, the sermon points to Jesus Christ as the new head of a redeemed race, offering hope and reconciliation with God. By understanding what was lost in Adam, believers can fully appreciate the redemption offered through Christ.

Our sermon text this morning is verses 12 through 14 But we'll be starting in verse 1 and reading down through 14 for context All right, just starting in verse 1 therefore having been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God and not only that but we also glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation. Therefore, just as through one man's sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus 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 to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam Who is a type of him who was to come? Let's pray Most holy heavenly gracious father we do ask for your blessing today Such glorious words these are Glorious words or God that Through one man sent entered the world but through one who was not just man but fully man and fully God grace salvation came.

Oh Holy Spirit come and help us today for your people please open our eyes Lord God to see great and wondrous things. Open our eyes more and more to your glory. Reveal sin. Give us hearts of repentance. Increase our faith.

Increase our love for you. Increase our holiness. Oh, God, would you make us more in the image of your son today? For those in this room that don't know you, oh God, we do pray that today would be the day of salvation for them if it be your will. That hearts of stone be pulled out, hearts of flesh be put in their place.

Oh God that they would be running to you today in repentance and faith. Above all things Lord God may your name be glorified today through the preaching of your word. Give Jason wisdom as he preaches. Give him the words to speak. God bless this time and your sons and we pray.

Amen. The title of the sermon this morning is, One Man, the head of a race. We're Americans, and so we are inclined to think in individualistic terms. Those are terms very different than God views things, than God views His creatures, and especially the crowning of his creation, the creation that bears his image, mankind. He sees us very much in unity.

And the first of our race represented our race in ways that we never would have guessed, but in ways that have profound implications for the world that we see around us. And that's what our text is about. Last week our text was about the love of God, and the demonstration of it by the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. In other words, the love of God is not just his heart that you can't see, but it shows itself in ways that you absolutely can see. And the greatest of those ways is Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross.

Jesus did not die for the lovable, He did not die for the lovely, He died for the ungodly. And he did not wait until we got our act together, but he planned from eternity past to save sinners and to claim a people for his own great name because he has a heart of love and because he has a heart of compassion. The text last week concluded with verse 11. I'll read it now. Not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

So in our text today, we're picking up right on that with Paul's explanation of this reconciliation to us. What exactly went so wrong that the Son of God would have to die to reconcile us to God? We're coming right out of the consideration of the love of God expressed in his reconciliation of the ungodly, who were without strength to himself, what went so, so, so very wrong that it would take the Son of God to reconcile us to Himself. Our text today is really the answer to that question. Let's ask God to help us.

God, we live in this baseline of what humanity is like, of what we're like. So From day to day, often things don't seem so terribly wrong to us. Because we don't know what it's like to be perfectly holy. I thank you for The Apostle Paul bringing us face to face for what has gone so terribly wrong that nothing short of the Son of God coming and living in perfection and then laying down His life voluntarily could bring sinners together with you, could make things right. Help us, Lord, to see things as they are so we'll see the world as it is.

Pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, Let's begin just by the re-reading of verse 12. And then we'll look at verse 12. We're just subdividing in two parts today. The first part is just verse 12.

So let me re-read Romans chapter 5, verse 12. Paul writes, Therefore justice through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin. And thus, death spread to all men, because all sinned. Paul says before us in this verse, the ruining of a race, if you're taking notes by filling in blanks, ruining fills in the blank. The Bible teaches that there's only one race, and that it's the human race.

What we often use as race are ethnicities, different family lines from different parts of the world, but we can all trace our lineage ultimately back to Adam. So the Bible only knows about one race, and it's the human race. And it's the human race and Paul is saying that one man plunged the whole race of humanity into spiritual destruction. Paul teaches that sin entered the world through one man at creation. Sin wasn't in the world.

There was a period of time where humanity existed but sin wasn't part of the equation with humanity. But that sin entered the world through one man and that death entered through sin. It was the one man. Verse 14, names the man. It was Adam.

The Rebellious act of Adam in the garden was the entry point of sin before this rebellious act in the garden humanity existed there was no sin and then This rebellious act was that entry point of sin and sin was the entry point of death. Now we're coming to chapter 6 where we'll come to this famous verse that most of us know, 623, for the wages of sin is death, But the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. So sin brings death. Sin earns wages. Paul starts down that track here and he'll continue on it in chapter 23.

What exactly is sin? It's actually a very simple concept. The Greek word that we translate sin literally means missing the mark. What is the mark that gets missed when there is sin? What God is like is the mark.

The law of God, what God says is good that we should do, what God says is bad that we shouldn't do, is just a reflection of who He is. The mark is Christ-likeness, God-likeness. He is perfect truth, So when we say and do things that are out of step with perfect truth, we miss the mark of what God is like. We sin. Perfect good.

And so when what we say or think or do misses the mark of perfect good, what God is like, then we sin. Now let's go look at these entry points. Entry point of sin into the world and sin is an entry point of death. We find all this in Genesis 2 and 3. So turn to Genesis 2 and 3.

I'll just make a bold statement here. If you don't understand what happened in Genesis 2 and 3, you don't understand the world that you live in. And, spoiler alert, most people don't understand the world they live in. Most people have a worldview that is radically disconnected from the world that they experience. They have wishful thinking that doesn't explain anything about their workplace, their home life, their neighbors, the crime that happens around them.

But the things that we experience in this world perfectly fit with God's revelation in Genesis chapter 2 and 3. I'm going to begin in Genesis chapter 2 verses 8 and 9, then I'll skip. Hopefully you're in Genesis 2. Follow along as I read 8 and 9. The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, And there he put the man whom he had formed.

And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." So, God makes Adam, He puts him in a garden with everything he needs to sustain himself, and two particular distinct trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now let's pick it up in verse 15. I'll read 15 through 18. Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.

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." And the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone I will make him a helper comparable to him. And then in the verses that follow Eve is formed. So when God originally put Adam in the garden and when God originally gave the command, Adam was alone in the garden. He gave the command directly, explicitly to Adam And then this one commandment came with a sanction. In other words, if you don't obey this commandment, what will happen?

God commands him, This one tree you can't eat of, and here's what will happen if you eat of it. The day you eat of it, you'll die. And then God made Adam the head of a household. He made him a helper comparable to him. Now let's pick up the account in Genesis chapter 3.

We're going to read verses 1-13. Genesis 3, starting in verse 1. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, Nor shall you touch it, lest you die." Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, Where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat? Then the man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.

And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. What happened here? Adam and Eve are put in a garden paradise where sustaining themselves had none of the hardships and frustrations that we know today. And they were in direct fellowship with God.

If you don't understand those two critical truths, you don't really understand what happened here. They were able to sustain themselves. They were put in the garden to tend and keep it, but the work that they were given to do was completely without the frustrations and hardships that come with the work that's required of us to sustain ourselves. What was that like? Here's the answer.

You have no idea. You haven't lived a nanosecond on planet Earth without the frustrations and hardships that came from the sin that Adam brought into the world. So you don't know what it's like to work with all the Joy of work, sense of accomplishment of work, productivity of work without the frustrations and hardships that come with it. But Adam and Eve did know that because they lived in a garden paradise that had trees for food that were readily available to them, and the work they were given to do was completely without the frustrations and hardships that come with our work. You have no idea what it was like.

They knew direct fellowship with God. He came to walk in the garden and be with them in the cool of the day. What was that like? Here's the answer. You have no idea.

You haven't lived a nanosecond on planet Earth enjoying the direct fellowship with God that they had. Face to face fellowship with God. This is the context for their breaking of the one simple commandment. One simple commandment. And they weren't inclined out of their nature towards things that displeased God and they weren't dull out of their nature towards things that please God.

Meaning that they didn't have any internal craving for things that dishonor God and dis please God. And they didn't have any internal resistance towards the things that honor God and please God. Well, what's that like? Here's the answer. You have no idea.

You've never lived one second, one nanosecond on planet Earth in that condition. No inclination towards things that dishonor and displease God. No backwardness, dullness towards things that please God and honor God. Eve was deceived by the serpent she was lied to, and she chose to believe those lies rather than to trust God. The serpent totally contradicted what God said, cast doubt on what he said, and so she has to believe one or the other, and she believes the serpent.

She ate the forbidden fruit. And she also gave it to Adam who the text reads like he's right there. She ate and she gave to Adam who was with her and he ate of it too. But when God came and demanded an account, God called for Adam. This is incredibly important and incredibly relevant.

She ate first, she gave it to him, he ate, God comes to demand an account for what has happened and he does not call for Eve. Even though she ate first, he calls for Adam because he gave the command directly to Adam and he made him the head of his household and Adam is responsible. Verse 9, then the Lord God called to Adam. It is Adam who is cross-examined first. Paul confirms this in our text in Romans.

Through one man, sin entered the world. He's the head of that household but not just that household. He's the head of our race. I'm the head of a household, I'm not the head of our race. Adam was unique as the first person created by God.

Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent, God doesn't accept any of the excuses. They are guilty. Eve giving it to Adam doesn't let Adam off the hook. The serpent deceiving Eve doesn't let Eve off the hook. Humanity is plunged into spiritual destruction.

Because sin has entered the world. Let's continue reading. Genesis 3, 14-19. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

Then to Adam he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake. Entoiled you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you are taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." The serpent, the woman, the man are cursed.

Included in the curse is spiritual warfare. There's going to be unending warfare between the seed of the serpent, the seed of the woman. Marital conflict is part of the curse. A woman desiring to usurp the authority of her husband, and a husband ruling his household with a heavy hand. Frustration and difficulty are part of the curse, and In work are part of the curse.

Pain in childbearing is part of the curse. And then it ends in the promise of physical death. You came out of the dust, you're going to return to the dust. Now let's talk about death. Chapter 2 verse 17, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

Here's the question, did that happen? Did that happen? Did they eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Yes. Did they die that day?

If you believe that the Bible is the Word of God and that God cannot lie, you have to answer that question, yes. Yes, they died that day. Then how is it that they died? Here's what Scripture teaches. Death isn't a single thing.

It is a category with three distinct but inter-related elements. So we think death, somebody dies, we have a funeral. But the Bible teaches that death includes that, but it's more than that. It's actually a category that wraps together three things. One, spiritual death.

Adam and Eve were made spiritually alive with the ability to have direct fellowship with God, to walk with God, and talk with God in a garden paradise in the cool of the day. But though they were made spiritually alive in that way, that day they became spiritually dead. And no longer able to have that face to face direct communion with God. Two, physical death. Physical death actually follows as a consequence of spiritual death.

So these things are totally interrelated. They're part of a category of death that doesn't begin with physical death, it actually begins with spiritual death. And when you have lived a life in spiritual death, that you die a physical death, it follows as a consequence. Now, The world wants to wiggle out of this. If you go to a funeral today, even a Christian funeral, you might hear something like this, death is a natural part of life.

Birth is a natural part of life, and Death is a natural part of life. Birth is a natural part of life, and death is a natural part of life, and everything that occurs in the middle is a natural part of life. That is not what the Bible teaches. Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin. God didn't make the world with death being a natural part of life.

Death is a natural consequence of sin, not a natural part of life. God didn't originally make us to weep over graves. We did that. It isn't a natural part of life. May it never be said at a Christian funeral to give Christians and non-Christians alike the wrong idea about what is playing out before their eyes in that casket.

Funerals. If anywhere on earth should make us sober minded about what's happening in life and where all this is going and why, The funeral ought to be the one place where we can't wiggle out of it. And statements like, death is just a natural part of life, gives us the ability to wiggle out of what actually is true, and the Bible teaches. Three, the second death. So, one was spiritual death, two is physical death, Three is the second death, which is eternal death.

Eternal separation from God, eternal torment, as the penalty for our sins. God's justice being exacted. You'll find the term the second death in Revelation 2-11, Revelation 20 verse 6, Revelation 21 verse 8. I don't think it's in the Bible outside the book of Revelation. But the second death is hell.

Spiritual death, physical death, the second death. Eternal death, always dying, never dead. Death. Eternal death. All was dying, never dead.

Turn to Ephesians chapter 2. I think I owe you some backup. That they really did die that day. I think you find the backup or the foundation for that in Ephesians 2 among other places. Ephesians chapter 2, let me read verses 1 through 6.

And you, Ephesians, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, According to the Prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Can we agree that Paul is writing to the physically alive? He's writing to the physically alive.

But he says, you're dead in trespasses and sins. They're spiritually dead to God. They have to be raised up in verse 6 when it says, and raised us up together. He's not talking about physical resurrection. He's talking about spiritual resurrection to life.

It is what it means to be born again. It is to be spiritually alive when you had been spiritually dead. Paul puts himself in the same boat with everyone else, says we were sons of disobedience. Not we were disobedient, we come from a line of disobedience. Slavishly serving our cravings, which are all wrong.

Why is it that we crave the wrong things? This is the explanation. It says, we're by nature children of wrath. I've talked about this a lot. It's worse than you sinned.

It's that you're a person who is Drawn to sin. It's what you're like in your core. You're all wrong in your core. God loves certain things. You don't love what he loves.

God hates certain things. You find yourself drawn. Sometimes it feels like it's overpowering. Draw to things that dishonor God and displease God. Why is that?

Because that's what you're like. So you're by nature, before you even start doing things consistent with that. You were like that before you started doing those things. This is what happened in Genesis 3 when Adam is the head of our race, brought sin and death into the world. In Genesis, you see it right away.

The first two siblings, one of them kills the other. It doesn't take long to see the manifestations of growth in corruption, the spread of corruption, and the growth of corruption. By Genesis chapter 7, God is wiping the human race off the earth except for eight people. So you see it right away. Adam and Eve have two children, one of them kills the other.

And it continues until today and beyond. Understand, when a person is born today, when a person is born, there is only a single option. One, that person has a nature handed down from the head of our race, and that person will be a center. I can predict with 1000% certainty, I know you can't get a higher than 100%, just want to drive home the point, 100% certainty, not 99.999999%, 100% certainty, a baby is born, that baby only needs time and opportunity to start being selfish, to start being proud, to start stealing, to start lying. Why is that?

Because of what we're like. We got that from Adam. Our nature was corrupted in Adam and he passed that down. That's what King David said of himself when he was caught as an adulterer and then a murderer. He says this in his Psalm of Repentance, Psalm 51 verse 5, Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me." You could read that as sort of a version of the devil made me do it.

I was brought forth in iniquity. In sin my mother conceived me. What do you want from me? My family heritage made me do it. I think what David is actually saying in Psalm 51 is, I've been caught in adultery, I've been caught in murder, I'm like that.

It's just a reflection of who I am in my core. I mean, he's pouring out his heart confessing his sins to God. And he knows his sins are great, but he knows that the core of the problem is he's like that. He'll steal a man's wife and then kill the husband because he's like that. His nature, by nature he's like that.

The MacArthur study Bible has this in the notes. I thought it was very profound and I thought it's exactly right on. Listen. Humans are not sinners because they sin. They sin because they are sinners.

Just stop and think about that. Humans are not sinners because they sin. Meaning, it's not that we're just upright. We're good. But then somehow or another, we sin, and so we become sinners.

No, we're sinners. We are by nature deserving of God's wrath because of what we are in our core, because of what we're like. And then all we need is time and opportunity to prove it. To prove it. And all of us in our turn will prove it, and prove it, and prove it, and prove it, and prove it.

We're not falling from being good. Adam did that for us and then we receive the corruption that came into the world by that sin. This is what Paul is teaching. Have you ever wondered what is wrong with us? What's wrong with us?

The Bible tells us with great clarity what is wrong with us. It's way worse than we thought before the Bible taught us this. It is way worse than you thought before The Bible taught you this. Nobody comes up with this scheme on their own about what's wrong with me. But if it's true, we ought to know it.

This is true of the human race, meaning it's true of me and true of you. We're better to know it because you can't cure the disease until it's properly diagnosed. What's the real problem here? What's wrong with us? You have the wrong answer to that question.

You seek the wrong cure. That's what's happening in the world around you. People are answering the question, what's wrong with us? The wrong way, and so they go to the wrong thing to cure it. Have you ever heard the phrase tabula rasa?

We're going to learn some Latin today. It's a Latin phrase meaning clean slate. It's literally scraped slate. The slate is scraped clean. In the old one-room schoolhouses, we would all have a slate in our chalk and we would write on the slate.

When we were done, we would wipe off the chalk and the slate would be ready for more. So blank slate, nothing written on the slate, clean slate. The Latin phrase is used to express the notion that human beings are born basically good as a blank slate, and we either become good or bad as a result of what we learn and or what we experience. So, if you come to a point in your life where you don't like what's on the slate, you attribute it to we learn the wrong stuff and we experience the wrong stuff. We've got to change what we're learning, we've got to change what we're experiencing so that then we'll be good.

But what the Bible teaches is that we're not born a tabula rasa. We're not born a blank slate. We're born inclined towards wrong things and slow towards good things. But if you take this other world view, this other framework, and you're trying to fit things within that framework, well we're basically good. And it just depends on what we teach and what we experience.

So let's change what we teach and what we experience. But that's not really true. If what the Bible teaches is really true, then you'll have education theories with a fatal flaw built in, and it won't matter what you do. You'll never be able to fix it because you have the fatal flaw built in and you'll have political theories with a fatal flaw built in and you won't be able to ever have political solutions because you have you built in a fatal flaw and you'll have criminal justice theory with a fatal flaw built in and it won't be better how much you tweak it, how much you adjust it over time. It can never work because the fatal flaw is built into it.

That explains so much of what you see around us Because the Bible's framework for the world has been rejected in favor of tabula rasa. We're basically good. We just need to teach different things and have our children experience different things and then things will be well. No, we'll still kill each other. We'll still steal each other's wives and kill the spouses.

Because the problem isn't just what we learned, it might be part of the problem, or just what we experienced. It might be part of the problem, but The real problem, the real core of it is what we're like. The real problem is the corruption that came into the human race when Adam was handed that fruit and he ate. As the head of our race. Before we move on, I have to point out one thing which is incredibly important, even though it isn't explicitly in the text, but it is an inescapable implication of the text.

Meaning there's no wiggling out of this one. You won't find it in the bare words of the text, but you can't wiggle out of the implication. It's this. Paul viewed and handled Genesis 3 as accurate literal history. And his teaching is meaningless if he was wrong about that.

Throw it away if he's wrong about that. I can't believe I did that either. Paul believed that Genesis 3 was a literal man, a literal woman, there was a literal serpent, used of the devil, we find that out in the Bible. None of this was mythological to him, none of it was figurative to him, and the whole scheme breaks down. Well why would we care?

Because the gospel breaks down if the whole scheme breaks down. But you believe the gospel part, but you don't believe the part that diagnoses the disease? You believe about the cure, but you don't believe what diagnoses the disease. By the way, Jesus handled these early chapters in Genesis exactly the same way as accurate literal history. And the people who deny that don't have the same view of Scripture that Jesus had or that Paul had.

Verses 13 and 14. Verses 13 and 14. Parenthesis, verse 13 starts with the parenthesis. We won't even get halfway through the parentheses today. It goes all the way through verse 17.

We're only going to go through 14. But the parentheses says, I think the translator did right by putting the parentheses here. Verse 13 starts with the word for, so this is all an explanation of verse 12. He's unpacking verse 12 for us. Verses 13 and 14.

For until the law was in the world, for until the law was in the world, excuse me, okay, I see it now. For until the law, sin was in the world. But sin is not imputed where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who was a type of him who was to come. These two verses, Paul teaches about the reign of death even before the giving of the law.

So if you're taking notes on the handout by filling in blanks, rain fills in the first blank, giving fills in the second. The reign of death even before the giving of the law. I want to begin near the end of these two verses with the phrase, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam. I think once you get your mind around what is being communicated there, the whole portion makes sense. What does that mean?

Even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam. Paul is describing the people who lived before the written law was given in Exodus 20. So the people who lived between Genesis 3, the entry of sin into the world, and Exodus 20 when Moses went up on Mount Sinai and came down with the Ten commandments and the rest of the law, those people. It represents a time span of about 2500 years. So Adam to Moses, sins entering into the world, to the actual giving of the written law is about 2500 years.

What about those people? Paul says that sin was in the world, but that people were not sinning in the likeness of the transgression of Adam. What is the likeness of the transgression of Adam? Adam had an explicit commandment. He heard the voice of God say, Don't eat from that tree.

If you do, this is what will happen. Explicit commandment and sanction what will happen. So the people who lived from Adam to Moses did not have that. Explicit commandments from the mouth of God with the sanction of what would happen. Did that mean that sin wasn't in the world?

No, Paul says sin was in the world. Verse 13, for until the law sin was in the world. And remember, Paul has already addressed this state of being. Flip back two pages, at least it's two pages in my Bible, to chapter 2 verse 12. I'm going to read 2 verse 12, just the beginning part of it, and then I'll skip to 14 and I'll tell you when I do it.

Romans 2 verse 12, for as many as have sinned without law, he's speaking of written law, for as many as have sinned without law will also perish without law. Skipping to verse 14. For when Gentiles who do not have the law, again written law is what is meant here, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them in the day when God will judge the secrets of man by Jesus Christ according to my gospel Everyone reading Paul's letter to the Romans just read that We've been going slow didn't take them months like it's taken us. It took them minutes. They just read that a few minutes ago.

Everyone living between Adam and Moses between Genesis 3 and Exodus 20 lived in exactly that state. In one sense they were without law, but in the ultimate sense they still had this inborn sense of truth versus falsehood. Right versus wrong. What is good versus what is evil. So we see some of God's greatest judgments against sin and rebellion during this period.

Is that true or false? The flood happens during this period. The rise of corruption and sin to where God repents of having made mankind and he wipes everyone off the earth, kills everyone except Noah and his family. That's Genesis 7. The destruction, the total annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah because of the rise of corruption and sin during the lifetimes of Abraham and Lot happens in Genesis 19.

From Genesis 3, sin entered into the world, and Exodus 20, the giving of the written law, the wages of sin was still death. You have this drum beat in the genealogies, and he died, and he died, and he died. The wages of sin was death. Sin was in the world. Then what does Paul mean when he says, but sin is not imputed when there is no law?

That's in our text. But sin is not imputed when there is no law. First, the Greek word translated imputed is different from the Greek word Paul has been using all along to say over and over again that faith is imputed or accounted or accounted or reckoned as righteousness. He uses one Greek word all along to say that over and over. Faith is accounted as righteousness.

And he chooses a different Greek word here. It's only used twice in the New Testament, here in Emphylemion. It's translated, imputed, but it's not the same Greek word. This is more of a commercial term, like transactions. Think put in the ledger.

Think precision. I see this one thing, so I log it in the ledger. I record it in the ledger. Second, we've already seen that when Paul says without law, he only means in the sense of not having the written law. That everyone born has written on their heart sufficient sense of right and wrong to hold them guilty.

Listen to what Rob Ventura says. I think he really gets to the bottom of what Paul is communicating here. Rob Ventura says, sin is not imputed or was not being reckoned, charged, or invoiced to one's account in a point by point way. The term is a commercial metaphor indicating that sin would be registered in God's official law book as transgression. When there is no law, which is to say, while men were still guilty for sin, there was no standard of legal assessment officially existing in codified form to set it forth as such.

So God wasn't there with the ledger. You did this in violation of this law, this is the sanction because the law hadn't been given in that form. The point is, even in the 2500 years between Adam and Moses, even before the written law was given, sin was in the world and death was raining. The flood, Sodom and Gomorrah. Sin came into the world through Adam and death through sin.

And thus death spread to all men. That's what verse 12 says. This is the explanation of that. It spread to all men. There was no exception.

Finally, verse 14 concludes with these words. Adam, who is a type of him who was to come. This introduces next week's text. Adam is the head of the human race, was a reality that pointed to or foreshadowed a greater reality. That's what a type is.

Something that's real, but it's actually pointing to something that is the greater reality. It's to teach us about a greater reality. Adam was a reality that pointed to or foreshadowed the greater reality being the head of another race, the Lord Jesus Christ. He said there's only one race, the human race. Yes, but there is another race in the Lord Jesus Christ.

All are born in Adam. I was born in Adam. He was the head of my race. And I received this twisted, warped, corrupted nature because of the entry of sin through my family had Adam. You did too.

Everyone who was born is born that way. But many are born again in Christ. So the head of their race goes from Adam who passed this corrupt nature to Christ who gives a new heart New affections and And just as I received so much from Adam, I receive all the more of Christ. That's really where we're headed next week. Applications, I'll give you three.

Number one, understand scripture as Paul understood scripture. To Paul, Genesis 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on was just accurate, literate, literal history. Accurate history, literal history That you could build a theology of sin and redemption out of. You just think of the Bible exactly the same way. That's what the Bible is.

Don't get talked into these early chapters being mythology or figurative. Paul didn't understand it that way neither did Jesus. Number two, understand human nature after the fall so that you understand reality. When you look through this lens, everything that's happening in the world makes sense. If you look through the lens of the tabula rasa, the clean slate, you're like, but wait a minute, we do teach different stuff, and then we change the experience of things, and We get the same old results.

Why is that? The Bible tells you. This clean slate theory that mankind, we're basically good if we're just taught the right things. If we just experience the right things and all would be well, no. That's not true.

Until we understand the disease, we will never seek the right cure. These people keep shifting the ground. Oh, well, now we're still not teaching the right thing. We're still not experiencing the right thing. That's their interpretation from the fact that the results aren't what was predicted, is that we're still not teaching the right thing.

We're still not experiencing the right thing. That's their interpretation from the fact that the results aren't what was predicted, is that we're still not teaching the right thing, so now this is the right thing. We're still not experiencing the right thing, so now this is the thing to experience. But they can shift the ground a thousand times and they're going to get the same result because they've misdiagnosed the problem. They've misdiagnosed the disease.

They're not going to the right place for the cure. But in a world like that, people who know what the real cure is are indispensable. It's a great time to be a preacher of the gospel. And I don't mean somebody who stands behind the pope, but I mean someone who has the words of life on their lips. It's a great time to be a person who has the words of life on their lips.

Number three. Understand the love of God and reconciliation with God in light of this. Paul is trying to get us to do this by stringing along the argument this way. By building the flow of thought in this way. He is trying to get us to understand the love of God and the reconciliation with God in this light.

Listen to what John Calvin says. Since Christ came to redeem us from the calamity into which Adam had fallen and precipitated all his posterity with him, we cannot see with so much clearness what we have in Christ as by having what we have lost in Adam set before us. This is what Paul is doing here. To see what you lost in Adam. To get you to see the magnificence of all that has been reclaimed and then some in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You have to understand that desperate condition. Last week's text, for when we were still without strength, this explains that position of being utterly helpless and without strength. Christ, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. This explains that condition of being an ungodly person totally without strength to do anything without it. And now Paul brings us to Christ so we get the sweetness of what Christ has done for us.

You will never appreciate all that is gained in Christ until you understand all that was lost in Adam. God, thank you for this text. And I pray that you would help us to see the world rightly through the lens of Scripture. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen.