Original Sin

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Transcript:

If you would, turn with me in your Bibles this morning to Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Over the last several weeks, we’ve been looking at some areas of basic Christian doctrine as they relate to Jesus.

And not for the purpose of just so you can go out of here and feel smarter because you know some facts, although that would be great if you do. but because the basics of what we as Christians believe affect the way we view Jesus Christ. And I hope I’ve illustrated that over the last several weeks as we’ve talked about the nature of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and how each of them impact our relationship with Jesus Christ, the authority of Scripture and how our view of Scripture affects our relationship with Jesus Christ. Is he who he’s revealed to be in Scripture or is he not? As we’ve talked about the nature of man, the brevity of life last week, the fact that we all have an appointment with eternity, and it really should challenge us to consider matters of eternity while there’s still time.

See, what we believe about all of these things affects how we view Jesus Christ and what we’ll do with him. Well, this morning I want to talk about human nature. We talked about the briefness, the brevity of human life last week.

Now I want to talk about what human life is like. And I read something this week that a friend of mine put on Facebook, which is a dangerous place to start a message, I guess. Something they put on Facebook.

She’s a pastor’s wife that I know from Arkansas, and I guess she’d been at a homeschooling conference. And she put down a quote that she’d heard where evidently somebody said, quit calling your children naughty. they’re not brats the reality of that is much much worse they’re sinners and we talk about that in our home you know how to when are they going to grow out of this when are they going to stop this why don’t they do that why why are what are we doing wrong and the reality of it is we eventually calm down and come back to reality and realize it’s the sin nature and the sin nature is alive and well the sin nature is alive and well in each of us the sin nature is alive and well in each of our children.

It’s just the reality of the fact. We don’t like to think about that. We don’t like to think about being born sinners.

As a matter of fact, I got in more trouble and got more dirty looks from older ladies in church the day that I, right after Benjamin was born, sweet little Benjamin, yes he was sweet little Benjamin at one point, and he was a preemie, as a matter of fact, so cute and tiny Benjamin and brought him to church, and I was preaching and said something about, yes even Benjamin’s a sinner and I got more ugly looks. It’s my child, I can say that. But more importantly than that, I didn’t say that God’s word did.

See, there’s a prevailing attitude in our culture, and probably among most cultures as well, that people are basically good. And to an extent, depending on how you define good, that may be true. You know, are most people pathological liars?

No. Are most people going to break into your house and murder you in your sleep? No.

So from a human standpoint, we might look at people and say people are basically good. People are basically trustworthy. But we’re not looking at things from a human standpoint.

We have to look at them from God’s standpoint. And God’s definition of good is very different from man’s definition of good. Man’s definition of good is if you don’t rob me or break in and murder my family, you’re a good person.

God’s standard is much higher. God’s standard isn’t just, oh, you messed up a few times, you’re still basically good. God’s standard is absolute moral perfection.

And not one of us lives up to that. So by God’s standards, there’s nobody that’s basically good. We are basically sinful.

And there’s, again, this idea in our society today that people are basically good. And that the problems we have stem from a lack of education. Or stem from poverty.

or you name it. But if we could just get people into the right programs, if we could just educate people enough, if we could just help them better their station in life, you know, all of our problems would be solved. They say that that’s the, we hear politicians say it, we hear philosophers say it, that those things are the cause of things like war and crime and the breakdown of the family.

Those things may contribute, but they’re ignoring a very important reality that there’s a spiritual dimension to each of these problems. And that spiritual dimension comes in in the fact that we do bad things because we are sinners. And if you came in this morning thinking, well, people are basically good, I have to tell you, and I hate to break it to you, the Bible totally rejects that idea. The Bible totally rejects the idea that mankind is basically good.

A few chapters earlier in Romans, Romans chapter 3, it says, As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. Okay, we’re talking God’s standard of righteousness, not ours. Again, from a human standpoint, I look at anybody in this room that I know and say they’re good people.

But from God’s standpoint, I look at all of us and say none of us are righteous. None of us are good by God’s standard. No, not one.

There’s none that understands. There’s none that seeketh after God. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Describing what human nature is like before God changes us, before we’re born again, he describes it this way when he was writing to Titus.

In Titus chapter 3, he said, For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. And that’s how he describes human nature. Now before you object too much and say, well, I’m not that bad, You’re probably not that bad.

Okay, compare you to Hitler, Mao, Stalin, you probably look pretty good. Okay? I’m guessing.

I’m guessing nobody in here has killed 60 million people. So you’re probably doing all right by human standards. The Bible doesn’t teach that we are as sinful as we could possibly be.

Okay? When I say that we’re not basically good, that doesn’t mean, or that you’re born with a sin nature, That doesn’t mean that you’re as evil as you could possibly be. Now, I think there are some people out there who are as evil as they possibly can be.

I watch crime documentaries and see what people do to their spouses, what they do to children. There are people out there who are just evil. They’re evil beyond our comprehension.

And that’s why I think most of us would look at that and we’d be repulsed. That’s how we know we’re not as evil as we possibly could be. Because we can look at evil and still be repulsed by it.

But the Bible does teach that we are fallen, that we are sinful, that we are basically sinners. That is our nature. And despite the fact that we may do good things from time to time, our nature is that we are sinners.

And even though we’re not as evil as we possibly could be, that evil has spread to every part of our being. There’s not a day goes by that there’s not a feeling in my heart sometime during the day that is wicked. There’s not a day that goes by that there’s not a thought in my mind that is somehow displeasing to God.

There’s not a day that goes by that my actions are not marred by this sin nature and that I do something that dishonors him. It’s spread to every part of our nature. And in Romans chapter 5, we’re going to start in verse 12.

He talks about this. Paul talks about this, writing to the church at Rome. And he says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

I’ll read all this and go back and explain what it’s talking about. Verse 13 says, 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 them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

but not as the offense so also is the free gift for if through the offense of one many be dead much more the grace of God and the gift by grace which is by one man Jesus Christ had the bounded unto many and not as it was by one that sinned so is the gift for the judgment was by one to condemnation but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification and we’ll end there I’d encourage you to go read the rest of Romans chapter 5 He continues talking about the same theme that for our purposes this morning we’re going to end in verse 16. What he starts out by telling us in verse 12 is that Adam’s sin and its consequences have affected everyone. Adam’s sin still has consequences for you today.

And it’s important to note he talks about Adam as though he is a real historical figure. There’s a very good reason for that because Adam was a real historical figure. There are some today in churches, and I don’t understand this.

I’ve told you before. When we start getting away from basic things, like the virgin birth, whether the book of Genesis is true, whether Adam was a real person, whether there’s such a thing as sin, whether we’re saved by grace through faith, when we start getting away from these things, I don’t know why we even call ourselves a church or have church, because you’ve undermined the entire basis of the faith. But he explains this as though Adam is a real historical figure.

And it’s important that we note that he is, because Paul here bases the entire case for the sin nature and the need for Christ on Adam’s transgression. And so if we go along with one of these interpretations that Adam was just somehow a symbol or an allegory, they’ll say. Not a real person, but just a story to teach us something.

Then it undermines the entire basis for why we knew Jesus Christ. He says here that Adam is a real person, and it says in verse 12, wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. So he points to him as a real person, and he says this is where sin originated. Now there are some aspects of this story that I don’t understand.

Eve ate the fruit first, why is she not blamed? I don’t know. But the Bible tells us that when Adam then partook of the fruit, then their eyes were opened.

Okay, and people wrestle with that still. What does that mean? I don’t know.

Why did we not fall into sin when Eve ate? I don’t know. But the Bible says when Adam ate, our eyes were opened.

So even though she’s the one who listened to a snake instead of running away like a halfway sane person from a talking snake, she gave him the fruit he ate from it, he gets blamed. Okay, the blame rests squarely on him. And because he made that choice to sin, he’s the place where sin originates.

He’s the one who made that choice that doomed the rest of us. He disobeyed God. It wasn’t just an issue of eating the wrong thing.

There was a matter of disobedience here. And it’s like sometimes dealing with my children. What I asked them to do really wasn’t all that important.

The reason they get in trouble is because if they don’t do it, it’s a disobedience thing. I don’t care whether you go, whether you pick up that toy or not. It’s the disobedience or the obedience.

He disobeyed God. He and Eve both bought into Satan’s lie that, hey, your eyes will be open. You’ll be like God.

It’ll be great. You can be just like him. And ever since then, man has wanted to dethrone God and put ourselves on the throne in our lives and be just like God, at least over our own lives.

He fell for this lie that he could be just like God. And in that moment, he decided, I’m going to do exactly what I want. Wait a minute, over here, God said, you’re not to eat from that.

Because if you do, you’ll surely die. I want to do what I want to do. We all make that choice on a daily basis.

You tell yourself you don’t. But I know myself and I do. And guess what?

God knows you and he says you do. We make that choice all the time. In that moment, in that moment where for the first time, Adam said, you know what?

what God wants doesn’t matter. I want to do what I want to do. Adam was changed and everything changed.

He went from being an innocent creature to being a sinner. He went from being someone who was made in God’s image to having that image marred, damaged. He went from enjoying perfect peace with God to siding with God’s enemy.

And at the beginning of Romans chapter 5, it says that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. That means without him and before him, we didn’t have peace with God. We were enemies of God because we sided with, we made an alliance with God’s arch enemy. And he went from this abundant life in paradise that he had been designed to have to an existence of hardship terminated by death.

A lot of consequences came from that one action. But it didn’t stop with Adam. All of creation was corrupted by the presence of sin.

The fact that sin and evil are now, it’s sort of like a genie letting it out of the bottle or Pandora’s box, or trying to squeeze toothpaste back into a tube after you’ve squeezed it all out. Some things just don’t go back in the box. And once sin was out in the world, it corrupted everything.

Sin is the most destructive force in the universe. It corrupts everything it comes in contact with. It spread to everything.

Nothing was unscathed. And the sin was passed down from parent to child. Parent to child is part of human nature, from one generation to another.

Now, this is not a hard thing to understand. Our kids inherit things from us, don’t they? They inherit traits.

They sometimes look like us. They inherit mannerisms. Yesterday, I was unhooking my trailer, and my brother-in-law didn’t realize I have a routine for this, and so he starts undoing the trailer hitch while I’m backing my lawnmower down the ramp, and I didn’t realize he’d undone the trailer hitch. I went down, the front of the trailer went up, and when I finally rolled back off of the trailer, it went back down in the, what do you call it, the part that goes on the hitch?

what’s it called? Cutler. Yeah, that works.

The coupler. Goes down on his foot. Okay.

Surprised he didn’t break the thing. Big, nasty bruise. Okay.

Okay. I have a routine. I do this by myself all the time.

We’ve got to do things in a certain order. I walk in after I get finished putting everything away. I promise I’m coming to a point with this.

He shows me, he takes off his shoe and a sock and he shows me the big spot on his foot. I can’t say if it’s a bruise, a bump, I don’t know. It was nasty looking.

He shows it to me and I do this. I take the back of my hand with my palm out and put it against my mouth and go, oh, and everybody starts laughing. Because while I was outside finishing putting the trailer and the lawnmower and all that away, He had shown his foot to Benjamin, and Benjamin takes the back of his hand and puts it to his mouth with his palm out and goes, ugh.

And we all laughed about, he picked that up from me. Okay, our kids inherit things from us. We inherited mannerisms and behaviors and traits from our parents.

It’s not a hard thing to understand. And there’s something within our genetics, there’s something within our spiritual DNA, that makes us sinners. We caught the bug from Adam.

It was passed down from generation to generation. And just like you passed down your blue eyes or your weird sense of humor to your child, they inherited the sin nature from you. Okay, so mom and dad really are to blame.

No, not really. We make choices, but we pass down the sin nature. And so we’re each born sinners.

I hate that. I’m going to get in trouble again today. Charlie, Charles, when he’s born, is a sinner already.

He’s a sinner right now. Doesn’t know it, but he’s a sinner. And he’s going to be born with that nature.

But it doesn’t stop there because we take that sin and we spend the rest of our lives living up to that job description and earning the consequences that go along with it. The consequences are separation from God in this life and the next. death and eternal condemnation.

See, we’re born with that nature. We’re born with that job description, and man, we just do it to the best of our ability. We go at that sin nature full steam.

We’ve inherited a sin nature, and we follow those instincts. He says in verse 13, 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. Now, at this point, people might be tempted to protest. maybe you’re even thinking this yourself, that it’s somehow unfair for God to punish man for a law that he hasn’t broken, for God to punish man before there was a law. Because Paul even says here that there was, in verse 14, that death reigned from Adam to Moses.

Well, if I remember my Old Testament correctly, the law was not handed down. There was no stone tablets before Moses. And so Paul is admitting here it would be unfair for God to impute sin before there was a law, for God to hold you guilty before there was a law.

As I watch historical documentaries, I understand they had the same trouble that they had to work around at the Nuremberg trials and the Tokyo tribunal. You know, how do we punish people for the waging of aggressive war when it was not against the law at the time? That’s one of the basic foundations of our justice system, is you can’t make a law today and then apply it to something somebody did two years ago, ex post facto law. You can’t do that.

And Paul is admitting even then, you don’t do that. And he says, and yet God did impute sin. That’s what it teaches in verses 13 and 14.

God imputed sin. The reason he was able to do that is because there was a law before it was written down on the stone tablets. God put some knowledge, some understanding of what he wanted and what he expected from us in each of us.

In spite of our sin nature, we are born with some innate understanding of right and wrong. And in Romans chapter 2, he was talking about the Gentiles, but he said, they show the work of the law written in their hearts. The Gentiles were people who, even now at the time of Paul, weren’t really familiar with the Old Testament law.

They hadn’t grown up in it. And yet he said, they show the work of the law written in their hearts. their conscience also bearing witness.

So he’s saying their own consciences testify against them and their thoughts demean while accusing or else excusing one another. Even if you never step foot in church, to hear about God’s righteousness and what God expected from you, there is still some understanding that we are born with of right and wrong. God has engraved his word, his law on our hearts.

That’s why most cultures around the world know that murder is wrong. That’s why we know that lying is wrong. That’s why we know that stealing is wrong.

There are some things that we know are right and some things that we know are wrong. And even the things that we know instinctively are right and wrong, we violate that conscience all the time. And our conscience nails us.

It tells us it’s wrong. And God’s word says it excuses or else accuses us. And so the people from Adam to Moses, Paul is saying here, making the case that, sure, they didn’t have the law written on stone tablets, but they had it right here.

They had it on their hearts. Folks, that’s an important thing we can’t overlook. As we continue to have, just on that note, as we continue to have debates in this state about the Ten Commandments monument at the state capitol, my position on it has always been, what’s the big deal whether we have it or don’t?

We can have it engraved up there on stone tablets or not. I don’t care as long as we’re ignoring what God has engraved on our hearts. Let’s get that straightened out first. God has placed his word.

God has placed his law in our hearts. The moral law is engraved there and yet we choose to disobey. In Romans 1, Paul said, Because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful.

It became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened. There’s something within us that even though we know whatever we know about God, we don’t want to do it. We as Christians have access to the entire 66 books of God’s written revelation and don’t want to do it.

And there are people in parts of the world who’ve never heard the name of Jesus, who’ve never heard the gospel spoken, and in their hearts they have just a little glimmer. of knowledge about God that he’s put there of what’s right and wrong, and they don’t want to do it. Our human nature is to take whatever we know about God and despise it and to disobey.

He says in verse 14, so he said that this law is here and has been from the beginning even before it was written down, and from the beginning man has despised it and disobeyed it. And he says in verse 14, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. He says this is true even of those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, even after those who have not sinned similarly to Adam.

So he says this condemnation, this sin nature, hangs over even those who have not made this conscious decision to disobey like Adam. So I don’t understand the Bible to teach that there’s some point in a child’s life at which they become a sinner. We’re born with it.

Well, how can you call them a sinner when they haven’t made the choice to sin? Okay, God’s Word calls them sinners because they’re born with that nature. We’re not sinners because we sin.

We sin because we’re sinners. I didn’t figure that out until I was in high school, but that’s an important distinction. We are not sinners because we sin.

We sin because we’re sinners. There are certain things that we do because it’s our nature. So we’re all born with this, and eventually we will make the choice to sin.

Given enough time, every person born with a sin nature will sin. I’ve lost three children to either miscarriage or stillbirth. They never breathed air outside of the womb.

They never made a conscious decision to sin. but I know that they were born with a sin nature. And I believe up to a certain point when the understanding is open that God exhibits a special grace toward children.

I’m not saying that when we lose children they go to hell. I don’t believe that’s the case. But they’re still born with a sin nature and I know that if Jordan or Joseph or Micah had lived long enough and had lived outside the womb and had gotten older that eventually they would have sinned.

because they had a sin nature. God sees the future and understands it in a way that we can’t possibly. God looks at all of us, and so we try to second-guess God’s judgment and say, well, they didn’t.

We look at things in the Old Testament. What about these people? They didn’t do anything.

God knew what they were going to do. In our human justice system, we can’t punish people for what we think they’re going to do because we don’t know. But in God’s justice, he sees and knows what we would do.

So his judgment is perfect. so this sin nature is there even in people who have not made the conscious decision to sin so what this means is that every one of us is born with a sin nature every one of us is born with this tendency to look at what we know and understand of God and his will and to reject it and that God looks into the future and knows our hearts knows our nature and knows that given enough time and given the opportunity we would reject him and we would disobey him and we would defy him. And so this sin nature and the sin that we commit because of this sin nature separates us from the Holy God.

As I’ve explained it before, some things are pure and have to be kept pure by keeping them away from dirty things. And I come back to it all the time. You’re probably tired of this illustration, but it’s the one that sticks out in my mind from recent life of going into the gas station to get a hot dog in an area that’s supposed to be kept clean and somebody brought a filthy dog into the gas station.

You keep the food area clean and you keep the dirty animals down there or outside preferably. I love my dog but I’m not going to take him into a restaurant or a place where they’re serving food. Some things have to be kept pure.

God by his nature is pure and cannot be corrupted by sin. The sin has to be kept over here apart from God because God would have to destroy it. We are separated from God by our sin and by our sin nature.

And we’re not only separated from him in this life where we’ve made ourselves enemies of God, but we’re separated from him in eternity, which means we cannot go into his presence. And the only other option other than spending eternity in the presence of God in heaven is spending eternity separated from God in hell. And that’s where our sin nature gets us.

And yet, fortunately, God is loving enough that he didn’t leave it that way and say, well, that’s the only option. You see, it says in verse 14 that, talking about Adam, that he’s the figure of one that was to come. Adam was an imperfect representation of Jesus Christ. Adam was not the only one who would change the course of humanity.

Jesus would change the course of humanity just as decisively. I was reading this week, there’s the 18th century Baptist theologian, John Gill. He wrote, as the one conveyed sin and death to all his seed, meaning Adam, as he conveyed sin and death to all of his seed, all of his descendants, so the other, meaning Jesus, communicates righteousness and life to all that belong to him.

All those who are born of Adam receive sin from Adam, and all those who are born again through Jesus Christ receive his righteousness and his life. Only Jesus, only Jesus can save us from the condemnation of sin. We can’t fix it by educating ourselves, by bettering ourselves, by working harder, by helping people with poverty.

None of these utopian ideas work. Only Jesus can save us from the condemnation of our sins. What Adam messed up, Jesus is the only one who can fix it.

And then in verse 15, Paul says, But not as the offense, so also as the free gift. So Paul begins explaining the comparisons he’s making. He started making a comparison between Adam and Jesus.

And he explains these comparisons saying there’s some similarities here, but there’s also some differences between Adam and Jesus. Thank goodness there’s some differences. He says in verse 15, For if through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded to many.

He says, here’s the similarity. They’re similar because the actions of one affected everybody else. In Adam’s case, as I’ve already mentioned, Adam brought sin and brought condemnation and brought death upon everybody who came after him.

But Jesus, by his sacrifice, affected everyone as well. Jesus, by his sacrifice, purchased forgiveness and the end of condemnation for all who would believe. For all who would come after Jesus, he purchased the forgiveness of sins and the end of condemnation, the end of separation from God.

And here’s the difference, verse 16. That’s the similarity. They both affected everything.

And the difference is, it says, but not as it was by one that sins, so is the gift. For the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. Through one act, through one act, Adam condemned the entire world.

Through one sin, we inherited this sin nature from Adam. But Jesus’ sacrifice doesn’t only cover one act. It doesn’t only cover one act.

It doesn’t only cover the sin nature that we inherited from Adam. It says that it covers many offenses. Many offenses, right there in verse 16.

For the judgment was by one to condemnation. The judgment came from one act that Adam committed, but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification. God is willing and able to forgive not just the sin that I inherited from Adam, but to forgive all of my sin.

The sins that I took and because of this nature I had, I then committed sins. I made the choice to disobey him. God is willing and able because of the one act that Jesus Christ did on the cross.

He’s willing and able to forgive that sin. That is an important distinction to understand because there are churches, there are churches in our community today, and I can drive you to my neighborhood and point them out where they are and show them to you. There are churches in our community today who teach, who teach as a matter of doctrine handed down from their headquarters, that Jesus’ sacrifice was to pay for the sin of Adam and to wipe your slate clean so that then you could work off your sins through good works.

That is absolutely false according to what the Bible teaches. That is absolutely incorrect. The Bible does not teach that Jesus merely atoned for one sin.

It teaches that he atoned for many offenses. What he did on the cross covers the sin that I inherited from Adam and every stupid choice I’ve made every day since then. There’s nothing in the Bible that teaches you have to work and try to do good things so that God will forgive you and God will love you.

The fact is all of our righteousness is as filthy rags. All the good that we could ever do amounts to nothing before God. If we could earn our forgiveness, then what Jesus did on the cross was unnecessary.

No, folks. Jesus died once for all to pay for the sins of mankind. And only Jesus can save you this morning from the condemnation of your sin through his one act.

Because of our sin nature, Jesus had to die. Because of our sin nature, we sin, and Jesus died for those as well. and this morning you’re presented with the choice just as with every message every morning you’re presented with the choice whether to believe that and accept it or not whether to recognize your sin and the fact that you could never do enough good to get God to love you or forgive you and to accept the fact that you stand desperately in need of a savior and that only Jesus Christ could do it and to recognize that when he went to the cross he took responsibility not just for Adam’s sin but for yours as well and he was nailed to that cross, and he shed his blood, and he gave his life, not because of any sin of his own, but because of ours.

He paid for every bit. Now God offers salvation and forgiveness as a fr

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