we come now to Romans chapter 5 verses
12 to 21.
in this great passage grace is brought into
contrast with sin and the obedience of Christ
is set against the disobedience of Adam.
it is placed at the beginning of the
second section of Romans with which we shall
now be particularly concerned and its argument leads
to a conclusion which lies at the foundation
of our further meditations what is that conclusion?
it is found in verse 19 already quoted
for as through the one man's disobedience the
many were made sinners even so through the
obedience of the one shall the many be
made righteous.
here the Spirit of God is seeking to
show us first what we are and then
how we came to be what we are.
at the beginning of our Christian life we
are concerned with our doing not with our
being.
we're distressed rather by what we have done
than by what we are.
we think that if only we could rectify
certain things we should be good Christians and
we set out therefore to change our actions
but the result is not what we expected.
we discover to our dismay that it is
something more than just a case of trouble
on the outside but there is in fact
more serious trouble on the inside we try
to please the Lord but we find something
within that does not want to please him.
we try to be humble but there is
something in our very being that refuses to
be humble.
we try to be loving but inside we
feel most unloving.
we smile and try to look very gracious
but inwardly we feel decidedly ungracious.
the more we try to rectify matters on
the outside the more we realize how deep
-seated the trouble is within.
then we come to the Lord and say
Lord I see it now not only what
I have done is wrong I am wrong.
the conclusion of Romans 5 verse 19 is
beginning to dawn upon us.
we are sinners.
we are members of the race of people
who are constitutionally other than what God intended
them to be.
by the fall a fundamental change took place
in the character of Adam whereby he became
a sinner.
one constitutionally unable to please God and the
family likeness which we all share is no
merely superficial one but extends to our inward
character also.
we have been constituted sinners.
how did this come about?
by the disobedience of one says Paul.
we are sinners not because of ourselves but
because of Adam.
it is not because I individually have sinned
that I am a sinner but because I
was in Adam when he sinned.
because by birth I come of Adam therefore
I am part of him.
what is more I can do nothing to
alter this.
I cannot by improving my behavior make myself
other than a part of Adam and so
a sinner.
do you see the oneness of human life?
our life comes from Adam.
if your great-grandfather died at the age
of three where would you be?
you would have died in him.
your experience is bound up with his.
now in just the same way the experience
of every one of us is bound up
with that of Adam.
none can say I have not been in
Eden for potentially we all were there when
Adam yielded to the serpent's words.
so we are all involved in Adam's sin.
and by being born in Adam we receive
from him all that he became as a
result of his sin.
that is to say the Adam nature which
is the nature of a sinner.
we derive our existence from him and because
his life became a sinful life a sinful
nature therefore the nature which we derive from
him is also sinful.
so as we have said the trouble is
in our heredity not in our behavior.
unless we can change our parentage there is
no deliverance for us.
but it is in this very direction that
we shall find the solution of our problem.
for that is exactly how God has dealt
with the situation.
in Romans chapter 5 verses 12 to 21
we're not only told something about Adam we're
told also something about the Lord Jesus.
as through the one man's disobedience the many
were made sinners even so through the obedience
of the one shall the many be made
righteous.
in Adam we receive everything that is of
Adam.
in Christ we receive everything that is of
Christ.
so we are presented with a new possibility.
in Adam all was lost.
through the disobedience of one man we were
all constituted sinners.
by him sin entered and death through sin.
and throughout the race sin has reigned unto
death from that day on.
but now a ray of light is cast
upon the scene.
through the obedience of another we may be
constituted righteous.
where sin abounded grace did much more abound.
and as sin reigned unto death even so
may grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord.
our despair is in Adam.
our hope is in Christ.
God clearly intends that this consideration should lead
to our practical deliverance from sin.
Paul makes this quite plain when he opens
chapter 6 of his letter with the question
shall we continue in sin?
his whole being recoils at the very suggestion.
God forbid he exclaims.
how could a holy God be satisfied to
have unholy sin-fettered children?
and so how shall we any longer live
therein?
God has surely therefore made adequate provision that
we should be set free from sins dominion.
but here is our problem.
we were born sinners.
how then can we cut off our sinful
heredity?
seeing that we were born in Adam how
can we get out of Adam?
let me say it once.
the blood cannot take us out of Adam.
there is only one way.
since we came in by birth we must
go out by death.
to do away our sinfulness we must do
away with our life.
bondage to sin came by birth.
deliverance from sin comes by death.
and it is just this way of escape
that God has provided.
death is the secret of emancipation.
we died to sin.
but how can we die?
some of us have tried very hard to
get rid of this sinful life.
but we have found it most tenacious.
what is the way out?
it is not by trying to kill ourselves
but by recognizing that God has dealt with
us in Christ.
this is summed up in the Apostles next
statement.
all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into his death.
but if God has dealt with us in
Christ Jesus then we have got to be
in him for this to become effective.
and that now seems just as big a
problem.
how are we to get into Christ?
here again God comes to our help.
we have in fact no way of getting
in.
but what is more important we need not
try to get in for we are in.
what we could not do for ourselves God
has done for us.
he has put us into Christ.
let me remind you of first Corinthians 1
verse 30.
I think this is one of the best
verses of the whole New Testament.
ye are in Christ.
how?
of him that is of God are ye
in Christ.
praise God.
it's not left to us either to devise
a way of entry or to work it
out.
we need not plan how to get in.
God has planned it and he has not
only planned it but he's also performed it.
of him are ye in Christ Jesus.
we are in.
therefore we need not try to get in.
it's a divine act and it is accomplished.
when the Lord Jesus was on the cross
all of us died.
not individually for we've not yet been born.
but being in him we died in him.
one died for all.
therefore all died.
when he was crucified all of us were
crucified.
of him are ye in Christ Jesus.
the Lord God himself has put us in
Christ and in his dealing with Christ God
has dealt with the whole race.
our destiny is bound up with his.
what he has gone through we have gone
through.
for to be in Christ is to have
been identified with him in both his death
and resurrection.
he was crucified then what about us?
must we ask God to crucify us?
never.
when Christ was crucified we were crucified and
his crucifixion is past therefore ours cannot be
future.
I challenge you to find one text in
the New Testament telling us that our crucifixion
is in the future.
all references to it are in the Greek
aorist which is a once for all tense.
the eternally past tense.
and just as no man could ever commit
suicide by crucifixion for it were a physical
impossibility to do so.
so also in spiritual terms God does not
require us to crucify ourselves.
we were crucified when he was crucified for
God put us there in him.
that we have died in Christ is not
merely a doctrinal position it is an eternal
fact.
the Lord Jesus when he died on the
cross shed his blood thus giving his sinless
life to atone for our sin and to
satisfy the righteousness and holiness of God.
to do so was the prerogative of the
Son of God alone.
no man could have a share in that.
the scripture has never told us that we
shed our blood with Christ.
in his atoning work before God he acted
alone.
no other could have a part.
but the Lord did not die only to
shed his blood.
he died that we might die.
he died as our representative.
in his death he included you and me.
we often use the term substitution and identification
to describe these two aspects of the death
of Christ.
now many a time the use of the
word identification is good.
but identification would suggest that the thing begins
from our side.
that I try to identify myself with the
Lord.
I agree that the word is true but
it should be used later on.
it's better to begin with the fact that
the Lord included me in his death.
it is the inclusive death of the Lord
which puts me in a position to identify
myself.
not that I identify myself in order to
be included.
it is God's inclusion of me in Christ
that matters.
it is something God has done.
for that reason those two New Testament words
in Christ are always very dear to my
heart.
the death of the Lord Jesus is inclusive.
the resurrection of the Lord Jesus is alike
inclusive.
we've looked at the first chapter of 1
Corinthians to establish the fact that we are
in Christ Jesus.
now we go to the end of the
same letter to see something more of what
this means.
in 1 Corinthians 15 verses 45 and 47
two remarkable names or titles are used of
the Lord Jesus.
he is spoken of there as the last
Adam and he is spoken of too as
the second man.
scripture does not refer to him as the
second Adam but as the last Adam.
nor does it refer to him as the
last man but as the second man.
the distinction is to be noted for it
enshrines a truth of great value.
as the last Adam Christ is the sum
total of humanity.
as the second man he is head of
a new race so we have here two
unions.
the one relating to his death and the
other to his resurrection.
in the first place his union with the
race as the last Adam began historically at
Bethlehem and ended at the cross and the
tomb.
in it he gathered up into himself all
that was in Adam and took it to
judgment and death.
in the second place our union with him
as the second man begins in resurrection and
ends in eternity.
which is to say it never ends.
for having in his death gone away with
the first man in whom God's purpose was
frustrated he rose again as head of a
new race of men in whom that purpose
shall be fully realized.
when therefore the Lord Jesus was crucified on
the cross he was crucified as the last
Adam.
all that was in the first Adam was
gathered up and done away in him.
we were included there.
as the last Adam he wiped out the
old race.
as the second man he brings in the
new race.
it is in his resurrection that he stands
forth as the second man.
and there too we are included.
for if we have become united with him
by the likeness of his death we shall
be also by the likeness of his resurrection.
we died in him as the last Adam.
we live in him as the second man.
the cross is thus the power of God
which translates us from Adam to Christ.
but to say that all that we need
comes to us in Christ by free grace
though true enough may seem impractical.
how does it work out in practice?
how does it become real in our experience?
our crucifixion can never be made effective by
will or by effort but only by accepting
what the Lord Jesus did on the cross.
our eyes must be open to see the
finished work of Calvary.
some of you prior to your salvation may
have tried to save yourselves.
you read the Bible, prayed, went to church,
gave alms.
then one day your eyes were opened and
you saw that a full salvation had already
been provided for you on the cross.
you just accepted that and thanked God and
peace and joy flowed into your heart.
now salvation and sanctification are on exactly the
same basis.
you receive deliverance from sin in the same
way as you receive forgiveness of sins.
for God's way of deliverance is altogether different
from man's way.
man's way is to try to suppress sin
by seeking to overcome it.
God's way is to remove the sinner.
many Christians mourn over their weakness thinking that
if only they were stronger all would be
well.
the idea that because failure to lead a
holy life is due to our impotence, something
more is therefore demanded of us, leads naturally
to this false conception of the way of
deliverance.
if we are preoccupied with the power of
sin, with our inability to meet it, then
we naturally conclude that to gain the victory
over sin we must have more power.
if only I were stronger we say, I
can overcome my violent outbursts of temper.
and so we plead with the Lord to
strengthen us that we may exercise more self
-control.
but this is altogether wrong.
this is not Christianity.
God's means of delivering us from sin is
not by making us stronger and stronger, but
by making us weaker and weaker.
that is surely rather a peculiar way of
victory you say.
but it is the divine way.
God sets us free from the dominion of
sin not by strengthening our old man, but
by crucifying him.
not by helping him to do anything, but
by removing him from the scene of action.
for years maybe you've tried fruitlessly to exercise
control over yourself.
perhaps this is still your experience.
but when once you see the truth you
will recognize that you are indeed powerless to
do anything.
but that in setting you aside altogether God
has done it all.
such a revelation brings human self-effort to
an end.
the normal Christian life must begin with a
very definite knowing.
which is not just knowing something about the
truth, nor understanding some important doctrine.
it is not an intellectual knowledge at all,
but an opening of the eyes of the
heart to see what we have in Christ.
how do you know your sins are forgiven?
is it because your pastor told you so?
no, you just know it.
if I ask you how you know you
simply answer I know it.
such knowledge comes by divine revelation.
it comes from the Lord himself.
of course the fact of forgiveness of sins
is in the Bible, but for the written
word of God to become a living word
from God to you, he had to give
you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in
the knowledge of him.
what you needed was to know Christ in
that way, and it is always so.
so there comes a time in regard to
any new apprehension of Christ when you know
it in your own heart.
you see it in your spirit.
a light has shined into your inner being
and you are wholly persuaded of the fact.
what is true of the forgiveness of your
sins is no less true of your deliverance
from sin.
when once the light of God dawns upon
your heart, you see yourself in Christ.
it is not now because someone has told
you, and not merely because Romans 6 says
so.
it is something more even than that.
you know it because God has revealed it
to you by his spirit.
you may not feel it, you may not
understand it, but you know it, for you
have seen it.
once you have seen yourself in Christ, nothing
can shake your assurance of that blessed fact.
if you ask a number of believers who
have entered upon the normal Christian life how
they came by their experience, some will say
in this way, and some will say in
that.
each stresses his own particular way of entering
in, and produces scripture to support his experience.
and unhappily many Christians are using their special
experiences and their special scriptures to fight other
Christians.
the fact of the matter is that while
Christians may enter into the deeper life by
different ways, we need not regard the experiences
or doctrines they stress as mutually exclusive, but
rather complementary.
one thing is certain, that any true experience
of value in the sight of God must
have been reached by way of a new
discovery of the meaning of the person and
work of the Lord Jesus.
that is a crucial test, and a safe
one.
and here in our passage Paul makes everything
depend upon such a discovery, knowing this, that
our old man was crucified with him, that
the body of sin might be done away,
so that we should no longer be in
bondage to sin.
so our first step is to seek from
God a knowledge that comes by revelation.
a revelation that is to say not of
ourselves, but of the finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
when Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China
Inland Mission, entered into the normal Christian life,
it was thus that he did so.
you remember how he tells of his long
-standing problem of how to live in Christ,
how to draw the sap out of the
vine into himself.
but he knew that he must have the
life of Christ flowing out through him, and
yet felt that he had not got it.
and he saw clearly enough that his need
was to be found in Christ.
I knew, he said, writing to his sister
from Qingqiang in 1869, that if only I
could abide in Christ, all would be well.
but I could not.
the more he tried to get in, the
more he found himself slipping out, so to
speak, until one day, light dawned.
revelation came, and he saw.
here I feel is the secret.
not asking how I am to get sap
out of the vine into myself, but remembering
that Jesus is the vine, the root, stem,
branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit, all indeed.
then in words of a friend that had
helped him, I have not got to make
myself a branch.
the Lord Jesus tells me I am a
branch.
I am part of him, and I have
just to believe it and act upon it.
I've seen it long enough in the Bible,
but I believe it now as a living
reality.
it was as though something which had indeed
been true all the time, had now suddenly
become true in a new way to him
personally.
and he writes to his sister again.
I do not know how far I may
be able to make myself intelligible about it,
for there is nothing new or strange or
wonderful, and yet all is new.
in a word, whereas once I was blind,
now I see.
I am dead and buried with Christ.
I, and risen to, and ascended.
God reckons me so, and tells me to
reckon myself so.
he knows best.
oh the joy of seeing this truth.
I do pray that the eyes of your
understanding may be enlightened, that you may know
and enjoy the riches freely given us in
Christ.
oh it is a great thing to see
that we are in Christ.
think of the bewilderment of trying to get
into a room in which you already are.
think of the absurdity of asking to be
put in.
if we recognize the fact that we are
in, we make no effort to enter.
if we had more revelation, we should have
fewer prayers and more praises.
much of our praying for ourselves is just
because we are blind to what God has
done.
let me remind you again of the fundamental
nature of that which the Lord has done
on the cross.
I feel I cannot press the point too
much, for we must see it.
the finished work of Christ really has gone
to the root of our problem and dealt
with it.
there are no half measures with God.
knowing this, says Paul, that our old man
was crucified with him, that the body of
sin might be done away, that so we
should no longer be in bondage to sin.
knowing this, yes, but do you know it,
or are ye ignorant?
may the Lord graciously open our eyes.