The Power of One

“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by One, Jesus Christ.”  Romans 5:17

We know that Adam and Eve were created by God as completely innocent people living in a perfect environment.  There was only one thing that God told them not to do, and that was He forbade them to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  They had not known anything but good.  Everything had been provided for them.  Before they sinned, it is not recorded that they even had to work hard for anything.  This is just speculation, but perhaps that was part of the problem.  Maybe Eve became bored, and when Satan tempted her, she was intrigued.  The two of them did not appreciate how good they had it.  I would imagine that they lived with regret the rest of their lives.  By their disobedience to the one rule that they were to observe, sin entered into human nature.  Because they had been given free will, the potential to disobey had been within them all along.  It was when they were faced with temptation that they succumbed to sin.

Everyone who has been born since has inherited that same sinful nature.  Sin leads to death.  Everyone dies because of their sinful nature.  Sin was in the world before the law was given to Moses, hence people died because of Adam’s sin.  All people are united racially (human race) to Adam and “in Adam all men die” (I Corinthians 15:22).  In the days prior to Moses and the law, God did not judge people guilty of death for breaking His laws because He had not yet given them His laws.  Thus when people died, it was not for their own sins that they died since they had not been the ones to eat the forbidden fruit as Adam had.  People died because Adam sinned, and people inherited his sinful nature.  It is sort of like they inherited his curse.  I guess one could say that once “the cat (sin) was let out of the bag”, there was no going back to the age of innocence.

Some might ask, “Was it fair for God to condemn all mankind because of one man’s disobedience?”  It was fair.  Even if Adam had not been disobedient, eventually his offspring would have.  The good news is that God’s condemnation of the entire human race through one man, Adam, made it possible for God to forgive and save the human race through One Man, Jesus Christ.  The wages of sin is death.  When Jesus was on the cross, He took on the sins of the whole world, even though He was sinless.  Therefore, since He took on the sins, He had to die, for sin leads to death, but His resurrection leads to eternal life.  The 18th century Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, wrote, “If guilt and wrath be communicated, much more shall grace and love; for it is agreeable to the idea we have of the divine goodness to suppose that He should be more ready to save upon an imputed righteousness than to condemn upon an imputed guilt: much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace.”  In other words, God would much rather show His mercy than display His wrath.  Hallelujah, praise the Lord!

God can supply more grace than the most evil person can sin.  It was that one sin of Adam that brought on God’s judgment, and it was that one sacrifice by Jesus Christ that brought freedom from the guilt of many sins.  One man’s sin brought death.  However, many can find life through Christ.  Just from observing people, noting more about what they do than what they say, it seems as if a large majority of folks do not take sin seriously, at least not their own sinful behavior.  It is easy to see sin in the lives of others mostly because we have had a lot of practice in sin even though we mostly do not want to admit it.  It is easy to recognize something of which we are very familiar.  However, as Jesus pointed out our hypocrisy by reminding us to get the log out of our eye before judging another (Matthew 7:3-5), we have no excuse for our sin.  We can’t say that “the devil made me do it” like the comedian Flip Wilson’s character, Geraldine, used to say.  Satan can’t make us to anything, but he can give us sinful thoughts which we either dismiss or act upon.

The Apostle Paul wrote in II Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift”, the gift of love, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation.  Matthew Henry also wrote that we are “made unto our God kings and priests–not only pardoned, but preferred.”  How special is that?