Ouline / Clarification of Romans 5

Romans 5:1-11 – Paul briefly rephrases what he has been building up to and then expands this into implications about our confidence

• In light of all that he just said, Paul clarifies to the church in Rome that whoever has trusted in God has already had the good declaration of God pronounced in their favor…
• meaning that now we (believers) are in a state of peace with God
• achieved through Jesus the true Kingly representative of Israel and the master of the world
• through whom we have obtained access to the undeserved generosity in which we now stand
• since we have nothing of our own to celebrate, we celebrate in the hope of sharing again with God the vice-regency of earth, the stewardship of creation
• We also celebrate our suffering because
• Suffering produces endurance
• Endurance produces character
• Character produces hope
• This hope is not going to let us down… we trust this is so because God has poured His love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which we have received.
• Here is how it happened…
• While we were still weak (with nothing to offer for ourselves), and at just the right pregnant moment in history, the representative (and king) of Israel died for the ungodly (Israel & the whole world)
• It is rare that someone would die for a worthy / righteous person
• Perhaps for a really good and “worthy” person someone might sacrifice one’s self
• But God shows Himself to be far beyond any reasonable expectation… demonstrating extraordinary generosity and love for us because He sent the faithful representative (and king) of Israel and all humanity to die for us while we were in active rebellion against God and deeply caught in sin
• Since God engaged in this ridiculous act of love, we can be confident that we will be rescued from God’s final judgment since we have been declared in the present to be right / vindicated by Jesus life / death
• If while we were enemies of God we were brought back into relationship with God through the death of His Son, we can be can be fully confident that we will be rescued from judgment by His resurrection life – the ultimate vindication of Jesus which includes all of us who trust Him.
• Even more than this confident assurance, we can celebrate our relationship to God through Jesus our Master and representative – the one through whom we received this incredible gift of reconciliation

Romans 5:12-21 – Paul lays out the two representative archetypes of humanity: Adam and Jesus

• We know how this sin, hostility to God entered onto the stage of the good world God created…
• It came through the archetype of humanity: Adam
• Once Adam sinned, its power was loose in the world resulting in spiritual death
• Which spread universally because everyone who came after Adam chose to follow in his footsteps. He set the table and poured us the cup of poison, but we drank it
• Sin was in the world before the Torah made it vividly evident, but it wasn’t handled the same way by God – being charged to the account of someone who knew better all the time
• Still, because sin results in spiritual death, death exercised authority and domination from Adam to Moses in spite of the fact that these people’s sin wasn’t like Adam’s sin – Adam disregarded a very clear command of God given to him, these people didn’t have that level of clarity.
• Adam was the archetype of humanity in the same sort of way that Jesus would be
• Representative Archetypes: Adam versus Jesus
• Action: Adam’s Sin (trespass) vs. Undeserved Grace
• Result: Many died vs. Grace of God (many receive free gift)
• Verdict: Judgment (condemnation) vs. justification (vindication)
• Consequence: Death Exercises Dominion Through Adam vs. Righteousness Exercises Dominion In Humanity Through Jesus
• Summary: One man’s trespass (rebellion against a specific command of God) led (eventually) to condemnation for all… in the same way, one man’s act of faithful righteousness leads to (the possibility) of vindication and life for all. Through one man’s disobedience “the many” were made sinners… through another man’s obedience, “the many” will be made right.
• Paul: notice, the Torah is not a part of the ultimate solution… in fact, it came into the picture with the result that intentional, “fully aware” sin actually increased exponentially.
• But here is the great news regarding this issue: Where sin increased exponentially (Israel), grace erupted exponentially all the more
• The bottom line: Just as sin exercised domination and authority through death as its chief weapon, so grace exercises domination and authority through the verdict of vindication (and the resulting right-being) – which leads to life everlasting through Jesus our representative and king.