Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2744
“And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.” Romans 5:16.
MY one and only desire, at this time, is to help those who are sincerely seeking salvation, that they may find it and find it speedily. Ignorance often hinders sinners from coming to Christ. I know that it did so in my own case. I have often thought that if I had understood the plan of salvation more clearly, I would have accepted Christ sooner than I did. And I feel very little doubt that there are many other anxious enquirers who are a long time looking for what is close to them all the while. They are like Hagar in the wilderness, dying of thirst while a well of water is near their feet. They are asking the way to Zion because they are ignorant of the road.
Even the reading of the Scriptures will sometimes not suffice for the enlightenment of such troubled souls, for they are in the condition of the Ethiopian eunuch, who, in reply to Philip’s question, “Do you understand what you read?” said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” It needs, sometimes, only just a few words to cast light upon the passage which is not understood, and then the eyes see it, the understanding perceives it, the heart accepts it and the captive soul is set at liberty! Pray, you who love the Lord, and are rejoicing in free justification through Christ Jesus—pray that the Lord may direct the sin-smitten where to look. Here is Christ lifted up, as the bronze serpent was set upon a pole in the wilderness—but they look to the right or to the left, above or below—anywhere except to the point where we direct them. Divine Spirit, give them sight and direct that sight to the Savior—even while we are speaking about Him!
I am not going to enter into any theological subtleties concerning the imputation of the sin of Adam, or even into any questions about the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. I shall try to speak very simply upon the two points to which the Apostle here refers and to show you that, as we are lost through one, so we are saved through One.
It pleased God, of old, to commence the human race with a single pair of individuals. One man, Adam, was the representative of the entire race of mankind, for God determined to deal with men in the mass through one chosen representative. In that one man they stood in perfection for a while. How long or how short Adam’s obedience was, we cannot tell. There are some who think that he stood scarcely for a day. The Psalmist says, “Man being in honor abides not.” But regardless, after a time he was tempted and he fell. He broke the one commandment which was given him as a test—by no means a hard one—by no means savoring of severity or austerity. But he broke it willfully and, straightway, our representative was found to be faulty. He was expelled from Paradise and upon all his seed, seeing that they were all represented in him, there came judgment unto condemnation. The result was that as men grew up and advanced in years, they died—and from Adam to Moses, and from Moses to this present day—it has been the rule that men should die, so that the sin of Adam has prevailed over the race and left to it a life of toil and sorrow to, by-and-by, end in death. This might cause us the deepest gloom if it were all that we had to tell, but, thank God, there is another and a brighter side to the story!
There are some who quibble at the justice of this representative arrangement, but there are many others who believe in it and rejoice over it. I always contend that it is a happy circumstance for us that we did fall and were condemned in the bulk in our representative because, had we, each one of us, been individually put upon the same probation, we would
have, to a certainty, all of us fallen! We are, none of us, better than our first parent was. And if the experiment had been repeated in the case of each one of us, it would have ended in the same sorrowful way. But then it must have ended finally and fatally—at least, so we believe, for when the angels fell sinning individually, there was no hope of restoration for them. Whether Infinite Wisdom might not have devised a plan, consistent with justice, by which the angels who had apostatized might have been restored, is more than we can tell. We know that the Lord did not devise any such plan. They individually sinned and, sinning, fell past all hope of recovery. And now they are “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the Great Day.” No Gospel was ever preached to them—no Atonement was ever made for them—they were left to abide in their sinful condition, willingly to persevere in perpetual rebellion against the Most High.
But we, happily, had fallen through a representative and, therefore, we could be restored by another Representative! So, in the infinite wisdom and mercy of God, there came into the world the Second Adam—Man, really Man, though much more than man, for He was also God and He offered an Atonement for the offense committed against the Law of God—such an Atonement that whoever believes in Him has his sins forever put away. Thus we rise in the same manner as we fell, only in a very different Person. We fell in the first Adam—we rise in the Second Adam. We fell in the first Adam, through no fault of our own—we, rise, in the Second Adam, through no merit of our own! It is of the Free Grace of God that we are received back into His favor.