The New Human
Download MP3I invite you to turn to Romans 5. And this is gonna be a lot of fun. We're going to cover so much ground this morning. Your your heads are gonna kinda be spinning, but hopefully in a glorious way. Hopefully, the bottom is just gonna drop out for you and the gospel is gonna be seen a whole lot deeper.
Joel Brooks:I'm sorry all of our college students are gone. It's their fall break. You know, their loss, our gain. We have a little bit more room this morning. And I I know they can podcast this, but it's not the same.
Joel Brooks:It's it's it's not the same listening to a podcast as being together as part of the living temple, coming, opening up God's word, and having a spirit blow in our midst and write these things on our hearts. And so I'm excited we had the chance to do that together this morning. So I'm gonna begin reading in verse 12. I'm gonna read all the way to the end of this chapter. And, it's a little dense, but we're gonna get through this.
Joel Brooks:Alright? Therefore, just as sin came into the world through 1 man, and death through sin, And so death spread to all men because all sinned. For sin was indeed in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those in whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. But the free gift is not like the trespass.
Joel Brooks:For if many died through 1 man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift does not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of 1 man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.
Joel Brooks:For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, So, by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. Now, the law came in to increase the trespass. But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Thanks to God. Pray with me. Father, we pray that through your spirit, you would allow us to understand the words we've just read. That you would write them on our hearts and our minds. That we'd be transformed by them, that we would come to look more like Jesus.
Joel Brooks:I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain. May they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:Paul's pretty ambitious, here. In just 10 verses, he wants to tell us the entire story of humanity, the entire story of the Bible. I mean, it's 10 dense verses, but I mean, you've probably all have received text this long that say absolutely nothing. Paul summarizes all of humanity in just these these ten verses. But but it is kinda hard.
Joel Brooks:It's a little confusing. He goes on some little tangents, so some few parentheses in there, that make it hard to follow. So I wanna start all of this by just giving you a summary, a one sentence summary of everything that Paul is saying. Here's his main thought that he is trying to communicate. Just as Adam's sin brought sin and death to every human, Jesus' obedience has brought righteousness and life to humans.
Joel Brooks:That's his summary. Alright? Just as Adam's sin brought sin and death to every human, Jesus' obedience has brought righteousness and life to humans. So that's if you wanted to, you know, go from text form to tweet form. That's it.
Joel Brooks:That's the summary of what Paul is trying to say here. So let's begin unpacking this. And in order for us to unpack this statement, we're gonna have to go back to the first page of your Bible to Genesis chapter 1, to when God was creating this entire world. In Genesis 1, we read how God does this. He creates the land, the sea, the birds, the animals.
Joel Brooks:And last of all, he creates humans. God creates Adam first. He creates them from the dust of the ground. The word Adam, in Hebrew, is adam. And it simply means man or human.
Joel Brooks:He creates the human, Adam. And from this human, God then creates another human. He puts Adam to sleep and he takes from Adam's side. The word really isn't rib there. It's just, he kinda take rips off Adam's side and he creates a woman who came out of the man.
Joel Brooks:And Adam calls this woman Eve. And they are seen as the pinnacle of all of God's creation. We read about this in our opening scripture in Psalm chapter 8. You humans were created to be. We were created as the pinnacle of creation.
Joel Brooks:To exercise dominion over this entire world. God gave us as image bearers. He gave us authority over all of the beasts, Over all of the world. We read about this in Genesis 1 verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.
Joel Brooks:And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. In other words, God created us in His image or in His likeness in order to rule. In order to have authority or dominion over this world. And the way we rule, the way we exercise this dominion was to reflect who He was. That's what it meant to be created in His image.
Joel Brooks:We reflected His authority and His rule. And so we were to rule by serving one another, loving one another, bringing out the fruitfulness of the earth. We were to reflect who God is. And the way, if we did this well, we would essentially turn the entire world into the garden of Eden, bringing the fruitfulness out of the entire world. So, so, I hope you see like early on in Genesis 1, mankind had such potential for good.
Joel Brooks:But then, all you have to do is flip over a page and you realize how mankind blew it. Mankind rebelled against God. We see it all fall apart. God placed Adam and Eve in this beautiful garden within the land of Eden. And he said, hey.
Joel Brooks:I want you to to work this garden, take care of it, and you can freely eat from every tree here. So all all the, all the fruits and all the veggies were there for Adam and Eve. They could have, you know, mangoes, bananas, apples, whatever they wanted. God said, I just want you to not eat from 1 tree. You can't eat from the fruit of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Joel Brooks:Yet, despite God's proven track record of His generosity and His kindness and His goodness, Adam and Eve fell into temptation, and they ate from that forbidden fruit. They didn't want to just be in God's image. They wanted to be God. They wanted self rule. And the moment they decided to take self rule and take of that fruit, everything fell apart.
Joel Brooks:Sin entered into them. Death entered into them. The result is is a world that we know. Shame. Shame filled their body.
Joel Brooks:They immediately hid from one another, and then they hid from God. And although God did not kill them right then and there, death certainly entered into their bodies. And they were removed from the garden of Eden. The entire world falls under a curse, which of course you knew would happen because the world was to flourish through the rule and the dominion of man. But now that man is corrupted, the world can't flourish.
Joel Brooks:The world falls under a curse. And from this point on, instead of reflecting humanity becomes cruel, selfish, violent. All of the brokenness we currently see in this world started in that moment. The moment in which Adam ate from the forbidden fruit. This is what Paul is alluding to in verse 12.
Joel Brooks:Let's read this again and unpack it. It says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through 1 man, and death through sin, And so death spread to all men because all sinned. Stop there. Alright. So sin came into the world through 1 man or in Hebrew, through 1 Adam, through 1 Adam.
Joel Brooks:And through his sin, death came into this world, and it spread to all men. It spread to you. It spread to me. All of us in here will die because of sin. Now, Paul says that the reason it has spread to us is because all sinned.
Joel Brooks:All of us sinned. This does not mean what you likely think it means. You likely think when you read this, okay. I get this. Because of my personal sin, because of my, you know, my lust, my anger, maybe because, you know, I've lied, because of my personal sin, death has entered into me and I will die.
Joel Brooks:That is a true statement, but it is not what Paul is saying here. That's not what he is saying here. He's saying this, that when Adam sinned, you sinned with him. When Adam sinned, you sinned with him. The entire human race sinned when Adam ate from that fruit.
Joel Brooks:I could tell you that Paul makes this crystal clear by using in Greek what's called the aorist tense when he describes this as singular past action that has all these present implications. But I'm not going to do that because not because you can't understand Greek. It's because I have a really hard time understanding Greek. I'm not kidding about this. I don't want you to ever go to your bibles and think, gosh, you know, I can't read this.
Joel Brooks:I don't understand this. I didn't have the education for this. I took 2 years of Greek. I took 3 years of Hebrew. And I can't read any of it.
Joel Brooks:Okay. I'm dyslexic. It was always really hard for me to go through that. I honestly think that God has called me to be a preacher, a pastor in order to give you confidence that you can actually understand your Bibles. If I can understand this through a lot of reading and through prayer, you can.
Joel Brooks:You really can come to grips with this. You can understand this. You don't have to know all these things. I know all of my Greek and Hebrew because it's what the commentators tell me. Alright?
Joel Brooks:So I just want to put that out there. You can know your Bibles. So you don't have to actually know anything about the aorist tense here to understand Paul's argument because he makes it clear in 4 straight verses. He says this in verse 15. He says that many died through 1 man's trespass.
Joel Brooks:Verse 16. One man's trespass brought condemnation. Verse 17. Because of 1 man's trespass, death reigned. Verse 18, therefore, as one trespass led to the condemnation for all men.
Joel Brooks:In other words, Adam sinned, you were condemned. That's his argument. Adam sinned, and you were condemned. Tim Keller sums it up this way. Paul is not saying that humans all die, because we are like Adam.
Joel Brooks:He is saying that we all die, because we are all in Adam. When Adam sinned, so did we. You see, Adam was the representative for all of humanity. That's what Paul is saying here. Adam represented all of humanity.
Joel Brooks:Remember, he was given dominion over all the world. He was the human, the Adam. He was our king. And kings represent their people. If a king goes to war, the entire country goes to war.
Joel Brooks:If a king signs a peace treaty, the entire country has peace. A king represents his people. Adam represented us. So when Adam, the human, fell into temptation, he was acting for you. When he sinned, you sinned right there with him.
Joel Brooks:How does that make you feel? Let me honestly say, as you hear that, how does it make you feel? This is what we know, in theological circles as the doctrine of original sin. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
Joel Brooks:We inherited a sinful nature from Adam. We are born sinful. Does that seem unfair to you? I mean, I've heard somebody say, I'd just like to go back to that garden and punch at them. I'll say this, you know, of all the cultures that have ever existed, we tend to have the most problem with it, 21st century Americans, because we are the most individualistic.
Joel Brooks:It doesn't seem right or fair that we should be judged because of something someone else did. I should be judged on my own merits, not because of what someone else did. And I know we live in a republic and, you know, we vote in representatives. And they, you know, they act on our behalf. But did any of you vote for Adam?
Joel Brooks:Any of you, like cast your ballot and say, I want Adam to be my representative. No. You had no say in the matter. And so, it can rub us the wrong way. Now, Paul doesn't defend this argument.
Joel Brooks:He just states it. It's a fact. He just puts it out there. Because he's not thinking, oh, you know what? I bet, you know, a couple 1000 years from now, there's gonna be some people living in America that are gonna really have a problem with this.
Joel Brooks:So, let me address a couple of things, just a couple of thoughts I've had that might help you as you wrestle through with this. First, ask yourself this. If you did have a vote, could you have picked a better representative than Adam? Could you? The answer is no.
Joel Brooks:Because God made that choice, and he's a lot wiser than you. And God didn't just pick Adam. God created Adam to be your representative. He perfectly represents you. 2nd is this.
Joel Brooks:Do you think you would have actually chosen any differently than Adam? Would you have resisted temptation? I fall into temptation every day. I was hoping that statement would shock you a little bit more than it did. Believe it.
Joel Brooks:No. No. It's true, people. I live in a house full of girls, and they're always baking all the time. They're always making cookies and brownies.
Joel Brooks:And they have this ability, you know, they just they cook them all. I mean, sometimes they'll make, what, 8, 10 dozen cookies? Yes. And you just put them on the counter, and they can have one and walk away. I wasn't raised like that.
Joel Brooks:Like, if they're there, I'm gonna eat them. I'm gonna eat all of them, which is a problem. And, one time, Lauren came storming into the room and she goes, did you eat the cookies? I'm like, well, yeah. I mean, of course, they were on the counter.
Joel Brooks:And she goes, well, they weren't for you. I said, well, how was I to know that? She goes, well, because they were in a plate and they were wrapped. And I said, well, it didn't say that they weren't for me. It said, do not eat.
Joel Brooks:So I thought you were talking about somebody else not eating those. Like, if they're there, I'm gonna eat them. I've actually had to tell my kids, I want you to hide the cookies from me. Now I tell you this, like, hide the brownies. Hide the cookies from me.
Joel Brooks:And so now when I go in the kitchen, I don't even look at the counter or where cookies should be. I start opening up cabinets. I'm looking in, like, the hardest to find places. I'm opening up these tins, you know, hidden right next to the dishwasher. Like, I'm looking for it.
Joel Brooks:Do I think I would have resisted temptation better than Adam? No. Not a chance. So although I did not choose Adam, do you know what I have found? I ratify his decision every single day.
Joel Brooks:I ratify it. And so have you. You might not have chosen Adam to be your representative. You might not have chosen that sin. But you've ratified it every single day since then.
Joel Brooks:Haven't you? Adam perfectly represented us. And so, Adam sinned And through his sin, we all sinned with him. And then, sin and death entered into our bodies. That's what Paul's talking about here.
Joel Brooks:And I hope, as we're talking about this, you begin to see that Christianity is more than just a fix for your personal problems. It's way more than just a fix for your personal sins. There's something much larger going on here. All of humanity has a problem. All of humanity sinned with Adam.
Joel Brooks:And it has broken this entire world. So Adam, us, have left this world in a mess. But just as one man's sin brought all this upon us, one man's righteousness can fix it. We just need a new representative. God actually makes a promise to Adam and Eve.
Joel Brooks:You can read about it in Genesis 3:15. But He says, from your seed, a man is gonna come forth, a new representative. And He's going to crush Satan. He's gonna destroy sin and death. He's going to restore this world.
Joel Brooks:A new man is going to come who will fully obey God. And, we spend the rest of the Old Testament looking for this new human, the new Adam. But every time we think we see 1, we might have hope in 1, this Adam fails just like the previous. Over and over, people keep ratifying Adam's decision. And so, and if you read through your Old Testament, we obviously don't have time to to go through all of the examples of this.
Joel Brooks:But, over and over, you find all the main characters, all the, even saints, although they do a lot of good, they all fall. And usually, the biblical author, what he does when he talks about their sin, he tries to let you see it in light of Eden. They all have their own temptation in the garden moments, if you will. So, when Noah sins. Well, Noah, he's pretty much right back in the garden of Eden.
Joel Brooks:I mean, he gets off that ark. He's, he's got a great relationship with all the animals. He, God blesses him and says, you know, be fruitful and multiply, just like he does to Adam and Eve. He creates a garden right there. It's just like he's in Eden again.
Joel Brooks:And then he just gets drunk and sins. He falls. Abraham falls with Hagar. Moses. I mean, we think Moses has got some potential there.
Joel Brooks:He's set up to be like a new Adam. I mean, he builds the tabernacle, which is just a portable Eden. If you look at the tent, the fabrics of the tabernacle, woven all in that, embroidered in that are these fruit trees, these cherubim. It was set up to resemble the Garden of Eden. And then Moses like Adam could go and meet with God.
Joel Brooks:He could be the new human. But then, he falls. And then, you have okay. Well, King David. I mean, King David gets off to a great start.
Joel Brooks:And if it wasn't for the whole, like, adultery murder lying thing, he might have been the one. But even the way when he fell with Bathsheba, fell into temptation, the narrators make a point to say, this was his Garden of Eden moment. It says, He looks at Bathsheba. And the word there in Hebrew is hiruah, Bathsheba. And it's the same word to describe Adam and Eve.
Joel Brooks:Ruah, looking at that forbidden fruit. He fell. He ratified Adam's decision. And over and over again, you see humanity falling and falling. And you keep waiting for the new human.
Joel Brooks:The new true representative who can redeem it all. And finally, we come to Jesus. Could Jesus be the one we've been waiting for? Who did Jesus think he was when he came? The title that's most often used of Jesus is Christ.
Joel Brooks:It's used so much. It's used over a 170 times in the New Testament. It used so much of him that a lot of people think it's his last name, Jesus Christ. It's actually a title. Jesus the Christ, or the Messiah, or the Anointed One, or the King.
Joel Brooks:That's what Christ means. And by far, it is the title that is used most to describe who Jesus is. It is also the title that he never uses. When Jesus is describing who he is, he will not use that title. I don't think he found it helpful.
Joel Brooks:And that day, it had way too many political connotations. He used a different title. When He spoke of Himself, He called Himself the Son of Man. The Son of Man, which is a Hebrew idiom meaning the human. We actually just read about it in Psalm 8 when it says, a son of man.
Joel Brooks:It's just another phrase or another way you could say man or human, a son of Adam. But, Jesus does not say that he is a son of man. He says, he is the son of man. I am the human. And, far and away, that is the title that Jesus uses most to describe who He is.
Joel Brooks:So, in Mark 9, just to kind of walk through a few verses, Jesus told his disciples that he was about to go to the cross and die. He says it this way. He goes, the son of man is going to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him. Or just as Jonah spent 3 days 3 nights in the belly of the fish, so the son of man will spend 3 days 3 nights in the earth. In Matthew 13, when Jesus is explaining the parable of the sower and the seed, he says, the one who sows the good seed is the son of man.
Joel Brooks:In Mark 2, after Jesus has just forgiven the sins of that, paralytic who was lowered down by ropes through the roof in front of Jesus. And he says, your sins are forgiven. If you remember that scene, all the religious leaders are there like, who is this man? Who can forgive sins but God alone? And Jesus says, so that you might know that the son of man has authority to forgive sins.
Joel Brooks:He says, I tell you pick up your pallet and walk. In Luke 6, when teaching about why he came into this world, Jesus said, the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Or the son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Or when people were angry at Jesus and his disciples cause they were picking up grain, as they were walking through the grain fields and they were picking it up and they were eating it on the Sabbath, Jesus says, don't you know that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath? When Jesus was betrayed, he said to Judas, would you betray the son of man with a kiss?
Joel Brooks:Over and over. I mean, hopefully, you get the point here. As you read through the New Testament, this is how Jesus referred to himself. Who is he? I am the human.
Joel Brooks:I am the human. And He wanted all of us to see His life in light of that. He's the new representative of humanity, just like Adam before Him. But unlike Adam, He didn't sin. When he was tempted by Satan and I mean, you know, Satan takes him out into the wilderness.
Joel Brooks:It's not like it's the Garden of Eden, which he had all these other fruits he could freely choose from. Jesus had nothing. He's fasting for 40 days. And yet, he didn't fall in that temptation. He actually said to Satan what Adam should have.
Joel Brooks:Get thee behind me. And He exercised dominion the way humanity was always supposed to exercise dominion. Not through selfishness. Not through power. But through serving.
Joel Brooks:Through wrapping the towel around him and washing feet. He was exalted, not by grabbing hold of life, but, actually, by giving his life. That's how he exerted his dominion. And through his death and resurrection, he has been given a dominion that would endure for all eternity. I love the picture we have in Matthew 26.
Joel Brooks:I might preach on this on Easter. Don't owe me to it. I'm just thinking about it. Maybe on Ascension Sunday, as well. But, Jesus is on trial and he's before the high priest.
Joel Brooks:He's already beaten up. And, the high priest says, are you the Messiah? Are you the Christ? And, this happens all the time. Jesus immediately changes the language.
Joel Brooks:At first, he says, kind of, you know, he's like, you say I am. I mean, I don't even know what that means yet. He's like, are you the Messiah? Or you say I am. Basically, he's like, I don't know if that title's helpful.
Joel Brooks:Because what you think it means is not what it actually means. Now, after His death and resurrection, everybody's calling to Christ. He'll use that. But before that, I don't think people understand what a king should be. Not according to God's eyes.
Joel Brooks:So are you the Messiah? You say I am. But I tell you this, From this point forward, you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Are you the Messiah? You say I am.
Joel Brooks:But I tell you this, from this point forward you will see the Son of Man, seated at the right hand of power, coming on the clouds. In other words, Jesus is saying this. From this point forward, that means, you think you're killing me? No. You're enthroning me.
Joel Brooks:You're enthroning me. Because kingship and dominion comes from laying down your life, not by seizing power. You're enthroning me. And and the gospel writers make that so clear that this is Jesus' enthronement as he's going to the cross. They put the crown of thorns on him.
Joel Brooks:They give Him a scepter. They put the robe around Him. They think they are mocking Him. He was being exalted. And so when Jesus died and he rose again, he was given dominion.
Joel Brooks:Now, here's the point of all this. Jesus, by faith, now becomes our representative. You might have had, you might have been a little upset that you didn't get to choose Adam to be your representative. Maybe that still rubs you the wrong way. Okay.
Joel Brooks:Well, I've got good news for you. Now, you get to choose your representative. Will you allow Jesus to represent you or not? That's the choice we have. Will you choose him to be a representative?
Joel Brooks:If so, know this. All of Jesus' obedience becomes yours. All of his righteousness becomes yours. His power over death becomes yours. His resurrected body becomes yours.
Joel Brooks:That's what it means when you choose Jesus to be your new representative. You'll be given dominion. You'll have life eternal. What would you choose? Jesus showed us what it was like or what a true human is to be like, and he is offering us a new humanity.
Joel Brooks:I love it. You know, when Jesus rose from the dead and he meets his disciples, you know what's the first thing he does? They're all gathered together. He breathes on them. You read this in John.
Joel Brooks:The disciples are before me. He just says, he breathes on them. The only other time we have something like that happening is back in Genesis when God created man. And it says, he breathed into Adam and he came alive. And now Jesus comes.
Joel Brooks:He says, I am creating a new humanity. And he breathes his life into us. Will you choose him to represent you? Do you want to have that kind of humanity, to be that kind of human? He freely offers it to you now.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Jesus, you are the new Adam. The human. And we thank you that, unlike Adam, the first, you did not fail. But through your obedience, you have broken the power of sin.
Joel Brooks:Through your resurrection, you have broken the power of death. And now, you offer us new life. Jesus, for those who have not chosen you to be their representative, I pray to today they would. And we pray this in all your in your name, Jesus. Amen.
