Romans 5:12-19

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— for sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam, who is a pattern of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Sermon Text

It’s hard to talk about Sin, because a lot of our language around it is insufficient. Sin is a thing we do or a thing we have, but neither of those descriptions really tell the whole story.

Sin is not the violation of rules; many people sin boldly but never violate any written law in the process. Sin is also not just a condition, a sickness, it is something that we can practice and get good at doing. Sin cannot either just be defined by whether or not something bad comes of something we do. Sin is bigger than that – a spiritual reality as much as it is a physical one. Sin if we are to speak of it honestly, is the spiritual and physical antecedent to death. It is the foundation of decay in a world that was meant to be eternal. In sin, all chaos and pain is allowed to reign in a world that awaits redemption.

The exact nature of sin is less important than its consequences. The most obvious one, as we will discuss a bit more in depth later in our series, is that “the wages of sin are death.” When humanity first disobeyed God sin was given a space in the universe. It was allowed to fester and grow. Nowhere in the Garden of Eden is sin mentioned, because it had not yet been born. Yet, when first humanity worked against God, against the source of life, then that force was allowed to grow. The first use of the term “Sin,” is used to warn Cain that he must put away his jealousy toward Abel. This warning was ignored by Cain, and we are told that from his murder of Abel until the flood, humanity learned nothing but war and violence.

Sin, though not a conscious force, is a pervasive one. It “crouches,” around every corner and seeks to infect everything we touch. The most well-intentioned person can, with just a little twist of their mindset, find themselves doing things that harm the people around them, that diminish their own humanity, all because sin is able to twist their perception of what is good. Sin speaks in our own voice, affirms our own righteousness, and allows us in the name of that supposed goodness, to work against God’s goodness.

Within our scripture, Paul sets down the basis of his argument for how Christ’s sacrifice cleanses us of sin. Scripture does not give one single, coherent explanation of how Christ saves us. The scriptures instead provide several images that, when stacked on top of each other, give us what we need to know about our salvation. Romans, however, is one of the most complete explanations within scripture.

Here, Paul says that sin is more than just a violation of law – whether God’s law or another law – because sin existed before any command of the law was given. Humans were initially told to tend a garden, have children, and not eat from a single tree. If their violation was only in eating the tree, Paul would not be correct. Yet, Cain shows us that humanity developed other patterns of sin almost immediately. Sin, then, is not defined by the letter of the law, but by the evidence of its presence. Sin leads to death, as Cain killing Abel shows, and death is everywhere that sin is.

Sin is not just a thing that kills outright, but one that diminishes. Cain was able to kill his brother because he had been robbed of his love for his brother by sin. When we sin by hating other people, we diminish our humanity by viewing their humanity as lesser. When we lose self-control we lose the fortitude that God gave us to make good and right decisions. Sin does not just kill outright, but by a thousand small cuts it perverts the image of God within us and lets us do more and more inhuman things. To be subject to sin is to follow the path of death. To follow the path of death is to be made lesser with each passing day, until death swallows us up.

If Paul left his argument here, then he would leave us all, not only without hope, but completely without a path forward. If death is this all-consuming thing, then what are we going to do?! The answer is, we can do nothing, not on our own, but Christ can do a great deal in our place.

Paul argues, across his writings, that Jesus was not just a person, but the most human person to ever live. Christ, even more than Adam, embodies what humanity is meant to be. The humanity that Jesus shared with us, as it was perfect, was therefore sufficient to take the place of all humanity. Christ as the perfect human, in contrast with the flawed Adam, came and lived perfectly, died shamefully, and rose triumphantly, so that we could be put back together fully. Sin is an all-consuming reality of the universe, one that eats and destroys and corrupts, so the only thing that could destroy it was an even greater reality beyond the universe, one that gives life, and creates, and purifies.

It is important to establish that, as we said last week, Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. The next step in our understanding needs to then be that Christ died for all sin, in all places, at all times. That means that Christ died for your sins, in their totality. In other words, no sin is so great that Christ could not redeem someone. If you are someone trapped in guilt and lost in grief over something you have done, then you need to know that Jesus has already forgiven that sin. More than that, all of human sin in all time was not too much for Christ to handle, so yours will not be so large or so horrible that Christ cannot forgive, cannot redeem, cannot set you on the right path.

This is not a blank check, as we will talk about more next week. Christ’s all sufficient sacrifice does not mean that we get to sin as much as we want, nor does it give us an excuse to not grow in holiness. I am not telling you that Christ has forgiven all your sins so that you can feel justified to do whatever you want. I am telling you this so you can know that you are free. Free from the ultimate consequence of sin, of death and of decay. You do not have to be held down by guilt, to hold yourself down in the mire because of your wrongdoing. Accept the grace of God to start anew… So that we may grow from the ashes of our sin. – Amen.