ROMANS UNWRAPPED 87

"The free gift is of many offences unto justification."    Romans 5v16

We are looking at the Divine verdicts in respect Adam's rebellion, and Christ's act of obedience.   We saw the dread consequences of the one sin of the one man Adam, we consider now the Divine verdict on the work of Christ.   God has declared His verdict on this work, none of us were there to hear it, but it is just as real as if we had been.   Paul states in Romans chapter 3 that God "has declared at this time (in the present age) His righteousness that He might be just and the Justifier of everyone who believes in Jesus."   God gives us only two choices; we either accept His verdict of condemnation in Adam, with all its dread consequences, or we accept His verdict on the work of His Son Jesus Christ.     There is no middle ground, there is no other way or religion that we can concoct that will be acceptable to God.   We are either condemned in Adam or we are justified in Christ.   In this verse he compares the one sin of Adam with the many offences that have resulted from it and says that Jesus work on the cross has not only dealt with the original sin passed to us through Adam, it has dealt with every sin and transgression that has resulted from Adam's one sin.  

This is the glorious truth of justification.   This is the most comprehensive statement in the Bible describing God's way of salvation, that of justification.   "The free gift is of many offences unto justification."   Every sin and transgression so far as the believer is concerned has been forever banished.   For the believer in Christ God has eradicated every sin that they ever committed, and has removed the condemnation brought upon them by the sin of Adam.   The glorious statement in Romans 8v1 which is the conclusion to all this says  "there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus."   Justification is the opposite to condemnation' it is a forensic term, a legal term, and brings before us the picture of the law courts.   The judge has heard the evidence of the witnesses and has proclaimed his verdict.   The nearest verdict we would have today in our courts would be the verdict of acquittal.   This does not fully explain it but it is as near as it gets; perhaps the word exonerated would better describe it because justification has placed the sinner as being right before God suggesting the position he is now in is equivalent to never having sinned at all.   We are finding it difficult to explain this word, because the truth behind it is so staggering that it almost defies human explanation.   The passage at the end of Romans chapter 8 makes it even clearer.   As a result of Christ's act of obedience to God on our behalf there is now no possibility of any charge being brought against us or of anybody condemning us.  "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"   "Shall God who justifies us?"   The answer is obviously no because God never goes back on His word, He does not proclaim justified and then change His verdict.   Also the point Paul is making is that since there is no one higher than God (who has proclaimed us free from guilt) who is ever going to bring a charge?   Paul continues " who is He that condemns us?"   Paul goes on  "shall Christ who died ?"   Again the answer is a thousand times no.   The Christ who died to save us will not turn and condemn us and if He will not condemn us then who will?   This is the amazing truth of justification.   No one in heaven or earth will bring any charge or condemnation against the people who are described to be in Christ!

This truth is stated more than 700 years before the birth of Christ in the prophet Isaiah's graphic description of the death of Christ in chapter 53.   "By the knowledge of Him shall my righteous servant justify many; for He shall bare their iniquities.   Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He has poured out His soul unto death and He was numbered with the transgressors and He bare the sin of many."   Isaiah 53v11-12    In this same chapter from verses 4-6 He outlines the comprehensive dealing with every aspect of sin by Christ on the cross and that great work can be summed up as follows:

• "Surely He hath born our grief and carried our sorrows."      The distress of sin.
• "He was wounded for our transgressions."                                The disobedience of sin.
• "He was bruised for our iniquities."                                            The domination of sin.
• "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him."                       The distance that sin placed us from God.
• "With His stripes we are healed."                                                The disease of sin.  
• "All we like sheep have gone astray."                                          The delinquency of sin. 

All these different aspects of sin are worth a study individually, because they represent together the sum total of the catalogue of evil that sin has brought upon the human race.   The point of the chapter is that every aspect of what Adam's one sin brought to the world, in all its havoc, and horror, was fully and finally dealt with at the cross by the one act of obedience of Jesus Christ and a Holy God is thus enabled to declare sinful human beings to be right with Himself, only because of what Christ has done.   The New Testament takes up the glorious strain.   Peter preaches to the multitudes containing people from every nation under heaven on the day of Pentecost  "repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ  for the remission of sins"     Acts 2v38    The same man preaching to the same crowds later said "repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out"    Acts 3v19     Paul in Romans chapter 4 says "God is justifying the ungodly."    Here is the wonderful truth of justification; we do not have to improve ourselves, stop anything that we are doing, start going to church, start saying prayers, start singing hymns, give up any bad habits etc.   We just have to come as we are and believe that in Christ all the work has been done.

The well known hymn by the Wesley brothers captures the truth of this in a wonderful way.   It starts like this  "JUST AS I AM WITHOUT ONE PLEA, BUT THAT THY BLOOD WAS SHED FOR ME, AND THAT THOU BIDST ME COME TO THEE, O LAMB OF GOD I COME."

The work has all been done, the declaration has been made, the door of heaven is opened, God invites you to return to Himself alone through the one act of obedience of Jesus Christ.   You can start today immediately with a clean slate before God and know that that will never change because God never goes back on His word.

Tomorrow d.v. we look at the consequences of the act of Adam and the act of Christ.