God makes it quite clear in His Word that He has only one answer to every human need; His Son Jesus Christ. In all His dealings with us, He works by taking us out of the way and substituting Christ in our place. The Son of God died for our forgiveness, He lives for our deliverance. It will help us greatly and save us much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions in one way and one way only, namely, by showing us more of His Son.

Our problem is twofold: sins and sin. To better understand this let us look at the first eight chapters of the Epistle to the Romans. It will be helpful first to point out a natural division of this section of Romans into two and note certain striking differences in the subject matter of the two parts.

The first eight chapters of Romans form a self-contained unit. The four-and-one-half chapters from 1:1 to 5:11 form the first half of this unit and the three-and-one-half chapters from 5:12 to 8:39 the second half. A careful reading will show that the subject matter of the two halves is different. In the first section, we find the word “sins” given prominence. In the second half, the word “sins” hardly occurs once, however, the singular word “sin” occurs repeatedly and is the subject mainly dealt with. Why is this?

It is because, in the first half, it deals with the many sins I have committed before God. Whereas,  in the second half it is a question of the sinful nature in me that I inherited from Adam.  No matter how many sins I commit, it is always the sin in me that leads to them. I need forgiveness for my sins, but I also need deliverance from the power of sin in my life. There is within me, an inward inclination to sin, so I sin and then seek God’s forgiveness, and then I sin again. So life goes on in a vicious circle of sinning and being forgiven, over and over again. I need forgiveness for what I have done but I also need deliverance from who I am.

Our Salvation: The Blood and the Cross

The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at the very heart of why we sin. We need the blood for forgiveness; we also need the Cross for deliverance.

In the first eight chapters of Romans two aspects of salvation are presented to us. First, the forgiveness of our sins, and second, our deliverance from sin. In chapter 3:25 and chapter 5:9, we have reference to the blood. It is the blood of Jesus that washes away our sins. John 1:7 tells us: “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.”  When we confess our sins to God, we’re forgiven of our sins and cleansed from them by the blood of Jesus. This is a marvelous fact!

God’s holiness and righteousness demand that a sinless life should be given for man. There is life in the blood, and that blood has to be poured out for our sins. God is the one who required it to be so. The blood is for atonement and concerns our standing before God. We need forgiveness for our sins; the blood pays that debt. When God looks at us He doesn’t see our sins, He sees the blood that has removed our sins. Therefore, the blood is not primarily for us but rather for God. To understand the blood we must understand and accept the value God places on it. In doing so we shall find our salvation. If God can accept the blood as payment for our sins and the price required for our redemption, then we can be assured that our debt of sin has been paid for in full. 

In the second half of the first eight chapters, from 5:12 to 8:39, we see that instead of dealing with forgiveness of our sins, it concentrates on the cause of our sins.

In Genesis chapter 2, verse 17 God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If they did they would die. He was referring to a spiritual death, not an actual physical death. However, because of sin, there would now be a physical death as well.

This spiritual death broke the relationship between God and man. God could no longer have that intimate fellowship with man because there was now something that hindered that relationship. That something was the sin, the disobedience of Adam. Because Adam would be the father of the human race, and his nature was now aligned with Satan, his nature was now, that of a sinner, his descendants would be born with the same sinful nature. 

Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”  We are sinners because we were born of Adam. “because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man (Adam)” Romans 5:17. It is not a matter of our behavior, but our heredity. We are not a sinner because we sin, but we sin because we are a sinner. It is not because I individually sinned that I am a sinner, but because by birth I come from Adam, I am a part of him. What is more, there is absolutely nothing to change this. I cannot change myself to improve my behavior to be anything other than a part of Adam, a sinner. Our trouble is our heredity, not our behavior.

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners“ (Romans 5:19). We do not become sinners by what we have done but because of what Adam has done. This distinction is important. For instance, if I were to ask you who is a sinner? The most likely reply would be, “The person that sins.” Yes, that is true, but it is equally true that one who does not sin is also a sinner, because he is of Adam’s race. We are all from Adam’s race and we cannot change that, no more than we can change our earthly parents. So, I sin because I came from the wrong stock; I sin because I am a sinner.

What is the answer? Romans 5:18 & 19 answers this, “18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience (Adam) the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience (Christ) the many will be made righteous.”

How then does Christ’s obedience on the Cross cut off our sinful heredity from Adam? There is only one way. Since we were born into sin, the only way out is by death. Death is the secret of our emancipation. Romans 6:2  “We are those who have died to sin.” How can we die? Certainly not by killing ourselves. Paul’s next statement tells us: “Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” Romans 6:3

“One died for all therefore all died” (2 Corinthians 5:14). When Christ was crucified, we were all crucified there with Him. Jesus chose to give His sinless life to satisfy the righteousness and holiness of God. The Scriptures never told us that we shed our blood with Christ. In His atoning work on the Cross, Christ acted alone. But, He died as our representative. In His death, He included you and me, “Christ died, and we have been joined with him by dying too. So we will also be joined with him by rising from the dead as he did” (Romans 6:5 ESV).

Because Christ included us on the Cross, we died as a race of Adam and rose as a new race. 

“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him” (Romans 6:5-8). 

We are no longer heirs of Adam and his sinful race but are now heirs of Christ. As heirs of Christ, we have been set free; free from sin, and free from the law. We now live under God’s grace. Praise God!

Tags: God, Jesus, Grace, Forgiveness, Sin, Cross, Blood