Romans: Session 7 – Your Position Determines Your Condition

Notes:

Romans: Your Position Determines Your Condition – Rom.5:12-21    See Session Slides Here

Our identity is based upon the one with whom we are identified. Thus, the key phrase of this passage is ‘one man.’ It occurs 12 times in Rom. 5:12,15-19. You and I are in ‘one man’ – either Adam or Christ.  Everything that happens to us in life is the result of either of being in one of these two men.

Our Position ‘in Adam’

1) Rom. 5:12a. In Adam we were made sinners

  • This is not referring to the fact that we got a sinful nature from Adam, Gen.5:3.
  • Adam was put on trial for the whole of the human race. Rom.  5:19. Adam sinned and therefore every person is “made”   i.e. constituted, designated, regarded by God as, sinners.

2)  Rom. 5:12b. Adam’s sin is responsible for our death

Because of sin, death passed upon all mankind because all sinned, when Adam sinned. Proofs:

  • Rom. 5:13-14. Although sin was in the world during the first 2,500 years, from Adam to Moses, it is not imputed, i.e. put to account, when there is no law. Yet, “death reigned”—even over them. Why? Because Adam sinned. See Rom. 5:18.
  • Death comes to those who have not yet personally sinned. E.g. infants sometimes die.

3)  Rom. 5:16&18. God’s judgement of condemnation unto death came upon all because of Adam’s one offence. “In the day that you eat of it you will die.” This is not a reference to eternal damnation. That is a consequence of rejecting Jesus. This is a judgement of condemnation unto spiritual death.

4)  Rom. 5:17. Death reigned as king because of Adam’s sin. It tyrannized the human race.

Rom. 5:14. Adam is called a type of Him that was to come. Jesus, like Adam, is now our representative.

  • Both Adam and Christ were appointed by God as our head and representative.
  • Both are the head of a race of people. 1 Cor.15:45,47.
  • God made a covenant with each one.
  • Each represented his seed. Each passed on the effects or fruits of his work to his seed.

Our Position ‘in Christ’

1)  Rom. 5:19. Just as by one man’s sin we were made, constituted, regarded by God as sinners; so by Christ’s one act of obedience those who received the gift are made, constituted, regarded by God as righteous. His one act of obedience was unto death. I cannot understand how I can be declared righteous by another man’s obedience, but I submit to it by faith.

2)  Rom. 5:21. Just as Adam’s sin was responsible for our death, so Christ’s righteousness is responsible for our life. When Jesus became sin, life departed from Him on the Cross. Christ has given us life. Nothing can cause life to depart from you again because it was totally dealt with. Adam was given life; we have been given eternal life. Eternal life was not, and could not, be given before the cross.

3)  Rom. 5:16. As God’s judgement was for one sin; justification from many sins. How many sins? All.

4)  Rom. 5:17. As sin reigned in death, those who receive the abundance of God’s grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign as kings in life. Grace supplies a power and produces a certainty. When sin reigns it compels us to sin. Because grace reigns it produces the certainty of holiness.

Summary: Our condition does not determine our position; our position determines our condition!


# Answers to this quiz are found in the notes above. Click on quiz to commence. Only correct spelling is recognised. A minimum 70%  correct is required to advance to the next session.