God didn’t close the book on you - Romans 5:12-19

This morning I have a story to share with you, and it's one I think you’ll like to hear. It’s one based on real events. It’s the story that explains why the world is the way it is and why you are the way you are. And whether you realize it or not, you’re not just listening to it, you’re in it. And this morning we see that God does not close the book on you, even though in Adam he had every reason to but because of Jesus he doesn't.

Chapter 1 of our story begins not in some galaxy far far away but with our God creating the world and everything in it simply by his word. And his creation was beautiful, it was intricate, and it was as God himself describes it, very good. While everything that God made was called good by the perfect Creator, there was an extra special aspect of his creation, the crown of his creation if you will, man and woman. While God simply spoke into existence every other thing in this world, God slowed way down and, like clay in a potter's hand, God himself fashioned man from the dust of the ground and breathed life into him. And then from that man, God took a rib and fashioned a woman and breathed life into her. Two different humans, created in God’s image, perfectly suited for each other. God brought the two of them together to enjoy life in paradise. And it was perfect. It was God’s plan that Adam and Eve and all their descendants would live for eternity in this exact way. But as you page through, chapter one ends, and you almost dread turning the next page because how could it get any better than that.

And you’d be right, because chapter 2 doesn’t get better. As you read on, you sit in intense anxiety, as the woman talks with the Serpent in the Garden. He says “did God really say?” You want to scream out “Yes! Yes he said don’t eat it!” But Eve doubts God’s word and you read on in shock as she takes the fruit and eats it. And then Adam appears and you expect him to toss the fruit aside and stop this insanity, but instead he too eats the fruit. And in that very moment, everything changes. Shame fills their heart, embarrassment and fear causes them to hide from the terrible consequences of their actions and from the One whose perfect creation now lay in shambles. God approaches, ‘What is this you have done?’ Blame is shifted from one to the next, but blame shifting cannot undo sin. Sin and its punishment couldn’t simply be put back. Life as they once knew it was over and there was no turning back the pages.

God describes their newfound reality. Childbearing will now be painful and the once perfect marriage unity would be subject to hardships. The work God gave them to do would become toilsome and difficult. Their lives would be marked by frustration and failure, until the day they died and returned to the ground from which they were taken.

That must’ve struck them like a blow to the gut. Pain, sorrow, hostility, those are terrible enough. But death? What is death? It’s unknown. It's unnatural. And now we read, it’s inevitable for “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.” Death came through sin. You turn the page desperately hoping this tragedy will turn around and life would go back to normal soon enough, but it doesn’t. It’s printed there in black and white as you read how the corruption of sin that reigned over mom and dad reigned also in their children Cain and Abel. Cain grows jealous of his brother. Jealousy leads to anger, anger leads to murder and murder brings death. Death, no longer a mere promised consequence, but an experienced reality in the loss of a son. But death doesn’t end there. You read on, Adam and Eve die. Their children die. Their children’s children die and we read in chilling detail “many died by the trespass of the one man” because on account of that one man, on account of Adam, “death reigned.” It’s an ominous close to chapter 2.

But chapter 3 begins no better. As it turns out death still reigns because entire generations of people have lived and died ever since Adam. And then in one of those pages years later we read that you were born. But you were not born into a new story. It’s not one with blank pages before it. You were born into Adam’s story because Adam is the front man of the whole human race. His corruption has become our inheritance too. We read on “Through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners.” We were made sinners. How do I know? Well, just look at our bodies. We get sick. Our strength fades. Our health decays no matter how carefully we live. I don’t remember signing up for that, do you? Even apart from willful deliberate sinful action, death already had its hooks in you, because we are by nature, as descendants of Adam and Eve, sinful.

But sin is not exclusively the result of your nature alone. It’s not something you were merely born into, it’s something you do too. You didn’t need to be taught how to sin because sin rises up from within you. Your chapter reads eerily similar to Adam’s. This person and you people doubt God’s word. You break his commands. You excuse yourself and shift blame to others. You fail as spiritual leaders to love, lead and guide as you ought. “And in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” You sin, I sin, we personally incur guilt and merit death on our own accord. Not just simply because we inherited sinfulness from Adam, but because we have chosen at times to live just like he did. Like Adam we stand beneath the very same sentence because “the judgment following” even just “one sin” brings condemnation for us.

As chapter three draws to a close you can only expect what is coming next in chapter four. You’ve watched the natural result of sin playing out in human history. On our own we expect the same fate both in this life and in the life to come by way of eternal separation from our God. Death seems our fitting end. And if Adam truly gets the last word in our story, then ours would be a tragedy indeed. But that’s not the final chapter. Even though his perfect creation was plunged into ruin and ruled by death, God didn’t close the book on mankind. Chapter 4 takes an unexpected turn. See already back in the Garden of Eden, God began rewriting Adam’s story. Even before God spoke to the man and woman about their newfound sinful reality, God turned first to the serpent and promised “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Right there, immediately after the fall, God was determined not to write the sinner off. Instead he promised a champion. One who would defeat sin, death and the devil for us. One who would enter into Adam's story and yours and mine, and rewrite the ending.

Can you feel the momentum building as we tear through the pages in excitement? And then we see it. When the time had fully come God sent his own Son as baby boy to a little town called Bethlehem. This child is the promised one. Who though being in very nature God, placed himself under the law as a man. To be our champion Jesus became like us in every way, only he was without sin. Where Adam doubted God and fell into the devil's temptation, Jesus stood firm on the Word of God in the wilderness exposing Satan's lies time and again. There was no deceiving our champion. He was resolute in his mission. But the battle was not over there, our champion pressed on to the ultimate battleground, where life and death hung in the balance. Whereas Adam shifted guilt away from himself, Jesus shifted the guilt of the whole world onto himself so that there, at the cross, he could bear the condemnation for sin. There, though bruised and beaten and bloodied and humiliated our champion cried out in a loud voice ‘It is finished.’ And then he gives up his own life. And it seems as if death might rule even over him as the stone sealed the tomb wherein his lifeless body lay. Was that it? Is that the final word? Those who loved him seemed to think so. 

We turn the page. Was our champion's sacrifice not enough? Is that the end?  But it isn’t. On Easter morning, Jesus bursts forth with life ushering in a new age, one in which Satan has been disarmed, sin has been paid for and death itself has been defeated. Jesus' ultimate “righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people.” Jesus was a new perfect Adam. Where Adam's story ended in death, Jesus' blood rewrites life. Guilt deleted, righteousness written in. And for the first time since chapter one, you sigh in relief, hope remains.

As chapter 5 opens, our story reaches the resolution of the champion's victory. Move aside Adam, you no longer set the direction, Jesus does. And so we lean, because now the question presses in on us, who is this ending for? Surely not for the champion himself. He didn’t need righteousness restored. He already was perfect and holy, after all he’s God. No as the ultimate hero, everything he did, he did for others. For sinners. For people who once lived under the oppressive rule of death. Our champion wants your story not to end in death, but in life. And so has it? Has his ending now become mine.

We turn the page, and there it is as clear as day, we read “the gift (of life) is not like the trespass, for… how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” That’s an entirely unexpected ending. Not an ending of death but of grace. You didn’t earn it and you never could. But that's what makes grace, grace. It’s God’s undeserved love for people once destined for death so that they might have life. So that you might have life. Our chapter continues that God the Holy Spirit came to you through his Word and created faith in your heart. Faith which receives the champion's forgiveness. Faith which was planted deep in the waters of your baptism as the Champions name marked you for time and eternity. Faith which hungers for reassurance of forgiveness given by the eating and drinking of his own body and blood in the Lord’s Supper. All this he does for you, so that you would have life with him now and ever after.

But that’s chapter 6. A chapter not yet experienced, but eagerly anticipated. The very Author of life himself has promised you a new perfect ending in life eternal with him. But we aren’t there yet. Chapter 5 isn’t over because you’re still here (world), and here (church) for good reason. You’ve come to "receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness” so that you will be equipped to “reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.” That is the truth. You reign in this life. Not because your life is perfect. Not because you possess literal worldly power, but because death no longer reigns over you. Sin and shame no longer define you. You reign in life because each new day you live inside Christ’s story. Forgiven. Loved. At peace with God. Freed from the reign of sin, death and the devil. Free to serve your God. Free to love others generously. Free to live for him who gave his all for you. You get to live as royalty in this life, not because of who you are, but because of whose you are. You belong to the Champion. Your story has been rewritten and now you reign.

It’s a story as old as time itself, and ours will continue into eternity. So give thanks to God that, though because of Adam he had every reason to close the book on you, because of Jesus he never does. Amen.