GOD'S GREAT NEWS for MAN'S GREAT PROBLEM - Romans 1-8

Worldview

I love to follow current events, and I have been impressed lately with the magnitude of the so-called "culture wars" raging in our country. In the presidential debates last Sunday, two men stood on opposite sides of the stage. One represented a liberal legacy that says that man is inherently good, but not good enough to thrive without government assistance. The other represented a conservative view that man is inherently flawed, but through faith, hard work, and good old-fashioned character he can rise above his flaws to thrive in a competitive world. That stage was the latest battleground of the culture wars.

The media is the main battleground of the culture wars. I read TIME magazine's treatment of the late-term abortion veto by the President, and it was classic. They quoted the "experts" as saying that only about 600 late-term abortions are performed annually in this country, thereby supporting the veto because the small numbers ought to render it almost a "non-issue." There was a certain smugness in even having to write the article. Yet the same week I read the TIME article, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times. Being an expert himself, he did his own homework. He discovered that in the state of New Jersey alone there were actually 1,500 late-term abortions performed last year. Using the New Jersey figure to represent what may actually be going on in this country, you arrive at an estimate of a possible 75,000 late-term abortions performed nationwide annually. There is a huge gulf between 600 and 75,000, and the truth probably lies in between. God alone knows how many little babies have died under this legalized infanticide, but they are undoubtedly casualties of these culture wars.

And the culture wars have even embroiled Disney, the former chief purveyor of family-friendly entertainment. I grew up loving to watch the Disney TV show every Sunday night. Today, Disney is in the forefront of the radical gay agenda in this country; its CEO is pushing for characters that are blatantly sexual or lustful as were two of the main characters in the recent animated show The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Disney's liberal agenda has prompted widely-based boycotts, by groups as large as the Southern Baptist Convention. Even when we take our kids to a Disney movie these days, we find ourselves on a battlefield of the culture wars.

But I think the chief battle here is not over "culture," but over "worldview." It is the clash between "tell 'em what they want to hear" vs. "tell 'em the truth." It is the conflict between glitz and substance, Hollywood vs. the heartland. In this conflict, large questions remain to be answered: Who is man? Is he born with a penchant toward good or evil? Is science the final word of authority on man? Does sociology give the final word on human societies? Where can truth be found in an age of disinformation? Your worldview will guide how you answer these important questions. Never in the history of our nation has it been more important to understand and proclaim a Christian worldview. Today we will study one of the most important passages in the Bible, where Paul explains God's comprehensive worldview in a sparse ten verses, in Rom. 5:12-21. If you want to be equipped for living Christianly in the midst of these culture wars, thoroughly studying and understanding this passage can be your bootcamp.

A Solid Foundation

Over the last two weekends, I have been learning about how important a foundation is. We have been trying to construct a room and a bath in our garage, and part of that process has entailed cutting through the concrete foundation in order to lay the pipes correctly. Everyone who has worked with us has come to know what an awesome concrete foundation was laid for that building. The first time we tried to break it with a sledge hammer, we swung the sledge, it barely even scarred the concrete, and our hands were ringing! So, we had to get a core drill. Last Saturday we used the core drill to cut a hole for a water pipe, and we had to drill through 15 inches of solid concrete until we finally broke through. We were expecting 6-8 inches only. Even the core drill was not enough! This week we had to get a diamond studded concrete saw and a jackhammer to finally break through. That building has a foundation that will withstand just about anything. It is solid.

Likewise, you and I need a rock-solid foundation as Christians living in a world where our nation has lost its rudder. We have forgotten who we are and where we come from. We've got to go back to the Scriptures to find God's perspective. What He says is true, and this book is a our strongest foundation. I want your foundation as believers, and our foundation as a church, to be so solid that when the evil one tries to break our foundation with a sledge, his hands will ring and the sledge will glance off! And this passage is the concrete for our foundation. We must know it, and know it well to prepare for the days to come!

Man's Great Problem in Adam: The Tyrannical Reign of Sin and Death - 5:12-14

So, let's see how this passage unfolds. Initially, this passage is very difficult to break down; it is highly compacted, like a great theological poem. It is very easy when reading this passage to get confused, to lose the forest for its fascinating trees.

But in translating these verses, it hit me that the way to make sense of this passage is to trace the main repeated verb. When we studied Rom. 5:1-11, the main repeated verb was "boast," from which we discussed the Christian's unshakable basis of confidence. In Rom. 5:12-21, the main verb is "reign." That verb is found in vs. 14, twice in vs. 17 and twice in vs. 21. Now that placement is interesting, because that means this crucial verb appears in the summary verse of each of the three main sections of this passage. From vs. 12-14, Paul reiterates for us the universal reign of sin and death from Adam onward, ending with the focus on the "reign" of death in vs. 14. Then, Paul contrasts the reign of Christ's free gift called grace with the reign of sin and death in vs. 15-17, and he finishes that section with the contrast of the reign of death and the reign in life for those who accept the grace of Christ and the free gift of His righteousness. Finally, when Paul moves to compare the consequences of the act of Adam and the act of Christ in vs. 18-21, he concludes with his main point of this passage: that the reign of grace and life supercedes the reign of sin and death, because grace results in eternal life that breaks the back of death. That is what Paul is telling us here in this passage, and you can see this by following that main verb, "reign." In my Bible, I have now circled that verb in each of its appearances in this passage, as a guideline.

Now that we have the overview, let's look at this passage verse-by-verse. Verse 12 is Paul's truncated description of the results of the Fall: one man sinned, through that one man sin entered into the world, through sin came death, and death spread into all men, because all sinned. Although Paul doesn't name him yet, he introduces Adam, against whom Christ will be compared throughout this passage.

The best way to think of sin is as an indwelling sickness, like a cancer. It is universal, terminal, and its symptoms include the sinful actions we commit. There is thus a distinction made here between "sin" as the inward condition of sickness, and our outward "sins" that come about as symptoms of that sickness. Like the first phrase in Rom. 5:10, Paul in Rom. 5:12 is giving us a brief summary overview of what he wrote in Rom. 1-3. Sin is a cancer, metastasized throughout the body of humanity. We defined sin as mankind's deeply rooted problem of self-centeredness and false self-sufficiency which makes us say to God, "I Don't Need You."

Paul summarizes the crucial doctrine of original sin in this verse. By employing a simple but uncontestable argument, he derives the universal problem of man's sin. He proves it by the law of transitivity in logic, A --> B, B --> C, so A -->C. In this case, Paul says "sin leads to death," "death spread to all men," thus "sin spread to all men." It is extremely logical. Death has the final word, at this point in the passage. When Paul discusses "death" here, he speaks primarily about physical death, because he is using a brief argument to reiterate a point already stated at length in Rom. 1-3. It is tough to argue against the reality of physical death. Of course, the countdown to physical death introduced into the race by Adam was accompanied by the spiritual death he and Eve experienced immediately. In fact, it is helpful to return to Genesis and review the OT teaching Paul summarizes here in verse 12.

If we turn back to Gen. 5:1-3, we see how this process of sin and death spreading from Adam to all humanity occurs. When Adam and Eve were created in Gen. 1, they were created in the "image and likeness" of God. Then Gen. 5:1-3 tells us this about Adam's offspring: "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created. When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth." Thus, the "image and likeness" of the fallen Adam was passed along into the human race, the infection of sin included. But does this mean man is no longer also in the image and likeness of God somehow? No ... because in Gen. 9:5-7 God Himself makes it clear that man is still His image bearer, but a corrupted one through our simultaneous bearing of the image of our forefather in sin, Adam. This is the process summarized by Paul in Rom. 5:12: "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned --".

Moving on, we find that Rom. 5:13, 14 are a brief hiatus in Paul's argument, but he still is making one thrust: sin spread to all mankind, and death reigned over mankind as the inevitable result of sin. But someone may raise an objection: "How can you say all sinned, if there was no code of rules, no law, against which their actions could be defined as sin? How can you call it an infraction when there are no written rules? That is not a good argument."

But Paul pulls the plug on that immediately. He says, "Yes, you're right there was no law between Adam and Moses whereby we could reckon sin and define it precisely, but there is one inescapable fact: death claimed everyone between Adam and Moses as the rule, with the one exception of Enoch whom God took up to walk with Him. Death reigned over humanity, and since death is by definition the result of sin, sin was in all and death reigned over all. That is my point here." This paraphrases Paul's response to that objection in vs. 13: "for until the Law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law."

But in vs. 14 there is a second objection. Someone might say, "But wait a minute, it seems unfair that those who did not sin the way Adam sinned should also experience death, doesn't it?" In fact, I spent quite a bit of time several years ago with one young man who just couldn't accept this doctrine of original sin, because he thought it unfair.

Paul answers this objection very forthrightly. He would say, "Yes, you're right, Adam sinned against the direct command of God, but between Adam and Moses there were few direct commands of God, so how was their sin the same? Their sin was the same because when Adam sinned, the CONDITION of indwelling "sin," the sickness of sin, entered into all humanity as a terminal illness. The inevitable symptoms of that illness are ACTIONS of sin, "sins" which all commit whether or not there is a law to define them by. And the final proof that everyone from Adam to Moses suffered from the terminal illness of sin is that they all died (with the unique exception of Enoch). Thus, the problem is this illness of sin and its resulting death, which is man's universal problem, as I said in chapters 1-3."

This week I had the privilege of holding sweet little Melissa Fletcher in my arms about three hours after she was born. There she was, with a sweet little Fletcher face, still that ruddy red color of the very newly born, and I was beholding her in all her glory. She is beautiful. As I held her, I thought back to every baby I have ever held: our five, the babies of friends and folks in the church. Each one is so beautiful, so new, their skin is so rich and radiant. And often when I hold a newborn baby, it comes time to pray for that little one. And in that prayer, I am immediately confronted with the truth of Rom. 5:12-14. Although just born, bearing the image of the parents, every baby also carries the hidden flaw of Adam. Even on its first day, every baby has already begun the countdown to death. And I hate that truth. God hates that truth. But that is reality; there is no escaping it by wishing it were not so. But that is not all there is for that baby. There is boundless hope, because of Jesus Christ!! So when I pray, I thank God for the beautiful gift that baby is, I thank God for a new baby for our family and our church to love, and then I pray the prayer most on my heart at that moment: that that little baby would grow up to meet Jesus Christ. May that baby grow up into eternal perfection by faith in Him. May that baby's problem of sin be erased by His cross. May our Lord Jesus indeed lead that baby to Himself!

God's Great News in Christ: We Can Share in Christ's Reign of Grace - 5:15-17

In that moment of looking at a newborn baby, I see a baby "in Adam," but I pray and by faith see a baby "in Christ." This is the chief dynamic of God's worldview: He sees all of humanity as standing in two lines, with the two heads of the human race standing side-by-side, Adam over here and Christ over there. All humanity falls in one line or another. We are either "in Adam" or "in Christ." The rest of this passage is spent in a detailed contrast between Adam and Christ in Rom. 5:15-17, and an expansive comparison between Adam and Christ in Rom. 5:18-21, with the great news that Christ's reign of grace and life supercedes forever the reign of sin and death introduced by Adam.

The contrast between Adam and Christ, and the reign of sin/death and the reign of grace/life, is immediately put forward in Rom. 5:15: "But the free gift is not like the transgression." Then Paul draws out the contrast in very poetic, parallel form:

transgression of one many died
much more gift of grace in one man Jesus into many abounded

This is going to be Paul's pattern throughout this whole passage. He will continually compare and contrast the "one" man with the other, i.e. Adam with Jesus Christ, and he will continually assert that the end results of Christ are "much more" than those of Adam, that the grace/life offered to man in Christ "supercedes, superabounds" when compared to the sin/death of Adam. This makes all the sense in the world, since the cross canceled out the power of human sin and the resurrection broke the power of death.

Rom. 5:16 focuses on the same comparison, only in a slightly different light, in terms of the legal consequences for those who are "in Adam" and those who are "in Christ." Verse 16 begins in very much the same way as vs. 15. "And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned." Thus, the contrast is again set up. Let's look at it poetically again:

one hand judgment on one transgression resulting in condemnation
other hand gift from many transgressions resulting in acquittal.

Thus, the point of contrast is very stark here in vs. 16. The judgment on that one transgression of Adam's in disobeying God in the garden resulted in condemnation for all. That is the doctrine of original sin, clearly stated. But to contrast against that, these many transgressions led to the cross of Christ, and from that the free gift of His righteousness provided the means of acquittal in the courtroom of God. What a gigantic difference: from guilt to glory!!

Before looking at Rom. 5:17, let's step back and think about what Paul is saying here. What we have in Rom. 5:12-21 is God's compact summary of world history, and its defining moment when Jesus Christ died on the cross. As Anglican scholar Stephen Neill puts it, "... the death of Christ is the central point of history; here all the roads of the past converge; hence all the roads of the future diverge."

In many ways, the cross of Jesus Christ was not only the defining moment of world history, but the greatest coup in history. For all of human history starting with Adam, there was one tyrannical king ruling over all of humanity with an iron fist. He was not a man, but he has been personified in human folklore since the dawn of time: he is Death, that black-cloaked skeleton wielding a bloody sickle. He is the one who stalks us all and will claim us all if the Lord tarries. If there ever was one tyrant ruling over all humanity, it is Death. World history taught without reference to the Bible will tell you of despots like Hitler, Stalin, Robespierre, Genghis Khan, Nero, etc., but none of those men hold a candle to Death. Paul has argued thus far in Romans that death itself comes about as the inevitable result of sin. This is the tragic logic of the Fall. But into the reign of sin and death came a little baby. Imagine that: to topple the greatest tyrant the world has ever seen, God did not send a legion of angels. He sent a helpless baby boy, who grew to be a Man the way God intended Man to be. He lived in total obedience, and died on the cross to offer a way of salvation to all humanity. He offered grace, when Adam's legacy was original sin and ultimate death. The cross was His coup, where He defeated sin, and by the resurrection He defeated death, ushering in an eternal reign of grace.

That is the colossal truth of this passage. But it is also an intensely personal truth. In Rom. 5:17, His eternal reign of grace comes home for you and me, again by a contrast between Adam and Christ and the consequences of their actions. Let's look at what Paul says in vs. 17, analyzing it poetically:

transgression of one death reigned through the one
much more those who receive grace will reign in life through the One Jesus

This verse applies directly to us, mentioning us specifically. Here Paul says that despite the death that reigned through Adam, WE who have received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness WILL REIGN IN LIFE through the One, Jesus Christ. This verse could have simply stated that the reign of Christ Himself in grace and life is greater than the reign of sin and death through Adam, leaving us out of the equation. But, the great truth of this verse is that CHRIST'S REIGN OF GRACE AND LIFE IS EXTENDED TO US!!! WE ARE INCLUDED, NOT JUST AS HIS SUBJECTS, BUT AS CO-RULERS WITH HIM!! His reign of grace exists for each person receiving the abundance of His grace and the gift of His righteousness infused within, so that Christ will not reign alone but that we might reign in life right now as princes and princesses underneath the King of Kings, Jesus Christ!!!!!

What a magnificent surprise!!! According to God's worldview, every believing man or boy is a reigning prince, every believing woman or girl is a reigning princess, in the royal household of God!! God's worldview declares the believer to be royalty, right now, despite what is happening in the culture wars of our day, when Christians are maligned left and right. No matter what is said about us by the press, no matter how much our faith is vilified by the foolish, our reiging King Jesus Christ has deigned to bless us by declaring us royal rulers in this life right now!!! The verb "reign" here literally means "be a king, rule as a king." If you want to know what God's plan for your life is right now, it is to reign as a prince or princess throughout your life through our indwelling King, Jesus Christ.

When I was growing up, my all-time favorite story was the fifth book of C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, entitled The Horse and His Boy. I must have read that book at least five times as a child, and at least three times as an adult. The story begins in the Persian-type country of Calormen, south of Narnia, in the humble setting of a fisherman's hut by the sea. A small boy named Shasta is the slave of the fisherman, and the fisherman treats the boy very harshly. One day a visitor comes and wants to buy Shasta from the fisherman. Overhearing their conversation, Shasta learns that he is not the son of the fisherman, but a foundling, an orphan from the free north. Later that night, while tending to the stranger's horse, Shasta discovers that the horse is a talking horse from Narnia, and the horse and his boy decide to escape that night to flee to freedom in Narnia and the north.

They encounter many dangers and have many adventures and misadventures along the way. Toward the end of the story, the boy warns the kings of Archenland and Narnia about an invasion from Calormen, and he winds up a hero. But more than that, and here's the part I really love, the boy meets King Lune of Archenland, who has a son who looks identical to Shasta. The truth about Shasta's past slowly unfolds: he is the long-lost firstborn of the King's twin sons, who was spirited away from Archenland shortly after his birth on a ship that later foundered not far from the fisherman's hut. The fisherman found the baby boy in a life boat from the sinking vessel. Shasta learns that his real name is Prince Cor of Archenland, and by right of being firstborn, he will become King of Archenland. All of the glories and rights and duties and responsibilities of kingship are laid out before Prince Cor. As a boy I used to imagine myself as Prince Cor, and how I would feel as the newly crowned Prince, destined to be King.

This story has captivated my mind for a whole host of reasons. First, it charts a course from slavery to royalty. It tells about dreams so good they were never even dreamt actually coming true. But most of all, I find in this story my story and your story as princes and princesses in God's royal family. Some might consider these "delusions of grandeur," but this grandeur comes right out of the terminology of Rom. 5:17. Delusional it is not. It is truth, according to the worldview and word of our God.

But let me balance this glorious truth with what can be seen as a warning in Rom. 5:17. In this verse, there is a great dualism presented, as indeed in much of the Bible. There is one Adam, and if we are aligned with him death reigns over us. On the other side, there is One Jesus Christ, and if we are aligned with Him by receiving the abundance of His grace and the gift of His righteousness, then we reign in this life with Him. When God looks at human history and humanity, He sees two archetypal Men: Adam and Christ. All of humanity lines up behind one or the other. If you don't know which line you are in, come and receive the abundance of God's grace in Jesus Christ and the free gift of righteousness by faith ... while there is still time.

Superior Rule of Christ's Reign of Grace: Righteousness Unto Eternal Life -5:18-21

In Rom. 5:18, 19, we see the comparison of Adam and Christ reiterated. Rom. 5:18 tells us very plainly how the two are similar and different:

one trangression resulted in condemnation to all men
one act of righteousness resulted in acquittal for life to all men

Now, some have been thrown off by the common end phrase in this verse, the phrase "to all men." However, we already know that Paul is talking about how Christ's one act of righteousness MADE AVAILABLE acquittal for life to all men. We know this was made available to all men, but became effective ONLY for "those who RECEIVE the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness" as we read in vs. 17. Thus, acquittal is available to all men, but one must receive the grace of God in Christ and the free gift of His righteousness in order to be effectively acquitted for life of your sin. Paul's entire argument in Romans thus far posits justification by faith alone as God's means of salvation, and only those who believe are declared righteous. So, this is NOT an argument for universal salvation (i.e. universalism, where all will be saved in the end). From the immediately preceding verse, Rom. 5:17, and the larger context of Rom. 1:18-5:17, there is the provision of faith and the reception by faith of God's grace and His gift of righteousness which has to take place before we can be "acquitted for life."

As an important aside, that little phrase "acquitted for life" surely says that once we are saved, we are always saved. There will be no appeals that our acquittal was rigged. We are acquitted for life, like the Presidential Pardon of God.

Verse 19 has virtually the same poetic structure as vs. 18:

one man's disobedience the many were made sinners
one man's obedience the many will be made righteous

Again, it would seem this is a powerful argument for the idea that in the end all will be saved. But again, we have to go back and consider that the only way anyone can be made righteous is by faith, if we understand Rom. 5:17 and everything Paul said from Rom. 1:18-5:17.

However, verse 19 gives us very real hope for how many people God truly will save. As John Stott concluded in his commentary on these verses: "Nevertheless, Romans 5:12-21 gives us solid grounds for confidence that a very large number will be saved and that the scope of Christ's redeeming work, although not universal, will be extremely extensive."

There are already statistics today that bear this out. At the beginning of the Jesus film from Campus Crusade for Christ, I have been greatly impacted by their statement that "Jesus Christ has over 1 billion followers today," even in our sick world. Certainly that is "the many," even if not all those have personally been indwelled by the Spirit of God through genuine faith in Christ. But even the faithful subset of that 1 billion followers would comprise "the many" here in verse 19. But let us avoid the pitfall of thinking it will be "all."

In Rom. 5:20, Paul returns briefly to examine the place of the Law in all this. In human history, the two defining events were the act of Adam's disobedience in the garden resulting in sin and death universally, and the cross of Christ whereby God's grace and the gift of His righteousness were made universally available to all who would receive them by faith. But where does the Law fit into this worldview?

The Law came in "that the transgression would increase." As Paul stated in Rom. 3:20, the Law produces "the knowledge of sin." With the Law being established there was much greater definition to what constituted sin, and much more of our activity could be understood as sin before God. Thus, with the coming of the Law, sin increased. But thankfully, that is not the end of the story!! Something greater than sin came in with Jesus Christ: His grace. And Paul tells us clearly here that where sin increased, grace increased "all the more." How can this be so?

Paul tells us here that the reign of grace/life in Christ always under all conditions supercedes the reign of sin/death because grace was designed by God to cover the entire universe of possible human sin. Grace, instituted at the cross where all human sin was paid for in full to the complete eternal satisfaction of a Holy God, will always increase faster than sin and death. Grace/life is a greater principle, a more abundant truth, than even the universal reality of sin and death. This has been the point to which Paul's logic in this passage has been leading us.

Verse 21 summarizes the whole passage for us. It begins with the little purpose clause in Greek, "in order that ..." This is the main point Paul wants us to grasp, and we will see him nail this down with the one verb, "to reign" which appears twice. It is the only verb in this verse. Since this is the summary statement of the whole passage, Paul reviews for us his main point from vs. 12-14 that "as sin reigned in death ..." This is the first reigning principle in the world, sin reigning unto death. But this reign of sin and death is swallowed up in the victory of the grace of God on the cross and through the resurrection, so grace would reign eternally over all. Paul asserts just this in the rest of the verse: "even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." This is the main point Paul has been making throughout the whole passage. In this case, the subjunctive mood of the verb "reign" is used to express purpose, thus is translated "would reign" rather than "might reign."

But how will grace reign? The ensuing two prepositional phrases beginning with "through" will answer that question for us. First, grace would reign "through righteousness unto life eternal." That is, the righteousness of God revealed at the cross of Christ and infused into the believer serves as an eternal antidote to the infection of sin. And how is all this wonderful news possible? Because grace would reign "through Jesus Christ our Lord." No statement from Paul could be more powerful in clearly establishing Jesus Christ as the hub of human history, the truest and best Man to ever draw breath. The only defeat of sin/death by grace/life was made possible through Jesus Christ and His cataclysmic act of obedience at the cross.

But what does all this really mean for us? Let me reflect on one of the first times a Biblical character discovered the neverending extent of God's grace. From Gen. 12 we all know that Abram went from Ur up to Haran, then down into Canaan, where he built an altar at Bethel. But then a famine struck the land that God had shown him, and he fled in fear down to Egypt. As he traveled down, he must have been afraid as he watched and counted his herds and his household. In Egypt, Abram lied to Pharaoh about his wife Sarai, saying she was his sister. Fleeing in fear, he tried to establish himself by deception, sin breeding sin. Pharaoh then took Sarai unwittingly into his own harem. Pharaoh also gave Abram many gifts, enriching him greatly. God then struck Pharaoh's house with great plagues because of Sarai, and Abram and Sarai were escorted to the nearest border.

But on the long, dry journey home, Abram must have contemplated how his herds had grown and his household had been enriched. God had blessed him materially despite his flight of fear and his lying tongue. Thus, when it came time for Abram and Lot to part company in Gen. 13, Abram was the very portrait of an open-handed man. He let Lot choose the best land first. Abram humbled himself and walked in open-handed freedom rather than clutch-fisted fear, because on that long journey home from Egypt he discovered the grace of God. He found that God's grace far outstripped his sin. Thus, when the pressure was on and a conflict arose, he found himself free in God's grace to put another before himself, to wait on God, that he might further receive God's great gifts of grace. Consider this contrast between Lot and Abram, a man of grab versus a man of grace: "And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere ... like the land of Egypt ... So, Lot chose for himself all the valley of the Jordan ... Thus they separated from each other. ... And the Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, 'Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your seed forever." Understanding God's grace, Abram lived in open-handed freedom, inheriting the whole earth.

In the summer of 1970, the wife of poet John Leax contracted a disease known as sub-acute bacterial endocarditis. Just having to say that probably made her worse! While recovering, an embolism from a damaged heart valve broke loose, resulting in a stroke that totally paralyzed her right side and blocked her speech. Her husband wrote this poem entitled After the Stroke to chronicle that event:

The embolism loose
from the heart
lodged in the brain
a sudden confusion of language
paralysis
and the end of speech

As for man, his days are as grass. Psalm 103:15

Beside your bed, I cannot speak the prayer
that begs for your recovery.
The Groaning Spirit
who gives us leave to pray
withholds that comfort.
He has given me, instead,
sleeplessness,
open eyes to watch
the sweet liquid, fortified,
drip three days
into your needled arm.
My mouth stays shut.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. Psalm 103:1

It is no easy thing
to bless the Lord in Buffalo
where you lie
stroke still and dumb.
My watch is pointless,
kept only for myself.
The nurses, crisp professionals,
need neither me
nor my questions.
The heart of your room drives
me out into the street.
The 5 AM winter wind
is cold. Its voice,
a quick thin blade, slips
through the layered wool I wear
and speaks deep into my side
the word that alters all.

He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. Psalm 103:10

In the therapy room
they held you by a belt
stood you up
and told you,
Walk.

You thought hard,
clutched the rails
and throwing your foot
like a loose shoe
stepped into the pain
and did not stop
until you'd walked it through.

But there were others there,
almost as young as you,
whose only grace
was the white webbed belt
around their waists.

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things. Psalm 103:5a

When your words returned,
they came at random,
jumped from your lips
out of context
and refused to lie down in sentences;

but they did return,
And slowly felt your lips
and tongue divide the syllables
until, one day, dominated,
they spoke as ordered
and blessed the name of God.

That dear woman was held up and carried through her ordeal by God's invisible white webbed belt of grace undergirding her. His grace sees us through this world of sin, sickness, and death, unto eternal life with Him.

But not only does God's grace undergird us, it is like the sky overarching us. It is a canopy of God's grace covering over us. We can live in South Carolina, and choose foolishly to sin here, but His grace is over us. I could fly back to California and make the bad choice to sin there, but His grace is over me. I could seek for an Egypt like Abram, but His grace would still be there. I could try like Jonah to flee halfway around the world to escape Him, but there is no escaping His grace. It covers me and my sin as surely and as completely as the sky covers the earth.

David discovered this grace in Psalm 139:7-12: "Where can I go from Thy Spirit? Or where can I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, Thou art there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Thy hand will lead me. And Thy right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the light around me will be night,' even the darkness is not dark to Thee, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee."

In summary, Romans 5:12-21 brings to a close Paul's extended discourse about how God's righteousness becomes our righteousness when we meet Jesus Christ at the cross by faith. This is the heart of the gospel, the heart of Rom. 1-8, found in Rom. 3:21-5:21. In this conclusive passage, Paul has settled once and for all that the work of Christ on the cross is effective enough to overcome man's terrible problem of sin, because at the cross God established the reign of Jesus Christ by grace unto eternal life. Through this passage we learn how God sees humanity, how God sees human history, the sovereignty of Christ's rule of grace relative to the ruling force of sin and death that ruled the world before Christ, and we see where we individually can fit into God's great plan as royal princes and princesses in the family of God!!! This is God's worldview: honestly laying bare the truth about humanity's sin and doom unto death, but joyously presenting our crucified Christ and His grace as far greater than all our sin, establishing a kingdom that supercedes sin and death forever. God's worldview is one of honesty, integrity, great news, unquenchable hope and well-founded optimism. Now THAT is a worldview to embrace!!

Conclusion -- What Difference Does a Worldview Make?

But one question remains to be answered. What difference does a worldview make? In the 1930s, the "godly and able" President of Princeton University, Francis L. Patton, spoke these prophetic words: "The only hope of Christianity is in the rehabilitating of the Pauline theology. It is back, back, back, to an incarnate Christ and the atoning blood, or it is on, on, on, to atheism and despair." He understood the importance of the very worldview described in Rom. 5:12-21, the foundation we are trying to lay within ourselves and in this church today.

One of the most moving writings I have ever read is Francois Mauriac's Foreword to Elie Wiesel's testimony of his sufferings at Auschwitz entitled Night. Here are the last two paragraphs of that Foreword:

"On the last day of the Jewish year, the child [Elie Wiesel] was present at the solemn ceremony of Rosh Hashanah. He heard thousands of these slaves cry with one voice: 'Blessed be the name of the Eternal.' Not so long before, he too would have prostrated himself, and with such adoration, such awe, such love! But on this day he did not kneel. The human creature, outraged and humiliated beyond all that heart and spirit can conceive of, defied a divinity who was blind and deaf. [Quoting Wiesel] 'That day, I had ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt strong. I was the accuser, and God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone -- terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be stronger than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger.'

"And I [Francois Mauriac], who believe that God is love, what answer could I give my young questioner, whose dark eyes still held the reflection of that angelic sadness which had appeared one day upon the face of the hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Jew, his brother, who may have resembled him -- the Crucified, whose Cross has conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished? Zion, however, has risen up again from the crematories and the charnel houses. The Jewish nation has been resurrected from among its thousands of dead. It is through them that it lives again. We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping."

This is the difference God's worldview makes in this world of evil, in this darkness where sin and death seem to reign paramount. Having God's worldview allows us to affirm into the very blackness of death and sin, murder and violence, that resurrection will come, that death is not all there is, that all is grace. We know the Eternal, and His word is the last word. Amen!

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