Thank You Mark and Diane for leading us again. Good morning to everyone. Little chilly this morning. We had 31 below when I went out to milk the cows this morning. So it's a 14 below when we got to Mercer. So that's a banana belt down there, I guess. Thank you all for coming out, a bunch of jack pine savages in this church, I think. So good to see you this morning. 

We're beginning a series of messages this morning on Doctrine, and we'll be, Lord willing, having doctrinal discussions on the last Sunday of the month for our communion services over the next several months. I'm hoping that we can flesh out each of these doctrines, write a summary of our studies that we can then put together into a reference resource for anyone who would like it. 

We're going to begin this morning with the doctrine of sin, and I've given you four points on your outline for our study this morning: First, the origin of sin; second, the nature of sin; third, sin and justification; and fourth, sin and regeneration. So we're gonna kind of go through this quickly, the doctrine of sin, and then we're gonna have our communion service, and then we're gonna spend some time in discussion going through Romans 5:12 to 21 and on into chapter 8 just to look at some of that. That's the handout you received. So we'll do that after our communion time. 

Well, the study of the doctrine of sin really begins with an understanding of the holiness of God. If we're going to understand the sinfulness of man, we must understand the holiness of God. In Habakkuk 1:13, it says, "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on wickedness." God is holy. God is separate from sinners. Hebrews 7:26 tells us that Jesus, our Great High Priest, is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens. God is holy, and in him, there is no sin. 

So as we begin this morning, we ask the question: What is the origin of sin? When did sin come about? What we find in the scriptures concerning the origin of sin is the pride of Lucifer. Isaiah 14:12 says, "How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations! For you have said in your heart, 'I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.' Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit." 

Ezekiel 28:13 says, "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald, with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity was found in you. By the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within, and you sinned. Therefore, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I laid you before kings that they might gaze at you. You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading. Therefore, I brought fire from your midst; it devoured you, and I turned you to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who knew you among the peoples are astonished that you have become a horror and shall be no more forever." 

It was the pride of Lucifer that caused him to fall, his desire to be like God, his heart was lifted up; he wanted to take God's place and be like God. We see that this is the essence of the sin in the garden, as Adam and Eve sought to be like God, knowing good and evil, and ate of the tree which was forbidden. 

Let's look at that passage in Genesis 3. Beginning at verse 1, we read: "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die."' 

Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. 

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, 'Where are you?' So he said, 'I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.' And he said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?' 

Then the man said, 'The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.' And the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate.' So the Lord God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.' 

To the woman, he said, 'I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.' Then to Adam, he said, 'Because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, "You shall not eat of it," cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.' 

And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Also, for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever,' therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man and he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden and a flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life."

We see several things in this first sin of man in the garden, which brought death into the world. First, we see that the serpent questions the Word of God. Did God really say? This is the heart of all deception: a questioning of the Word of God and His motive in it. We see that Satan made sin look attractive and questioned God's love and protection, portraying him as keeping something good for man. 

We see again the pride of man and desire to be like God—to leave our proper place—just as the angels who left their proper abode, whom God has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Sin truly comes down to pride and a lack of faith and trust in God and his Word. When we sin, we reject the truth of God's Word and we believe the lie. 

And we see the result of this sin entering the world through Adam was physical death. He said, "Dying, dying, you will die." Death and the curse come upon man and woman, as well as the whole creation, including the existence of indwelling sin in every man. Now we groan, and the whole creation groans according to Romans 8, waiting for redemption from this curse brought on by sin as a judgment from God. The world that now is is not the will or original creation of God, but as we've been studying, God will redeem this world, will redeem the sons of men who believe Jesus and will establish his kingdom on the earth. His will and creative intent will again be restored on this earth, even as we look forward to a new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells for eternity, when there will be no sin, only perfect fellowship with our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

So we see the origin of sin. What is the nature of sin? Well, the Bible describes sin as missing the mark. Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is the essence of sin for mankind—all of mankind. James tells us in chapter 2, verse 10, that if we keep the whole law but offend at one point, we've broken God's law. We've fallen short of his standard of perfection, of glory. We have missed the mark. 

God has confined all under sin, found every man to be a sinner deserving of his wrath. Sin causes a separation from God; sinful men cannot approach a holy God. We see this symbolically throughout the Old Testament sacrificial system. The tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, represents the presence of God. This is where God dwelled, and behind the veil, there is no access to God for sinful man. The ceremonial washings, the setting of boundaries, the blood sacrifices all represented the separation between God and man and the consequence of sin, which is death. 

This condition of man due to sin is graphically illustrated in the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. We can look at that briefly in Hebrews 12. If you turn to Hebrews 12 with me at verse 18, we could also look at that in Exodus. But Hebrews 12:18, the author says, "For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire and to blackness and darkness and tempest and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore, for they could not endure what was commanded. And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow." 

You can't come close; you can't approach God. Verse 21 says, "And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, 'I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.'" This is the law, which represents God's holiness and perfect righteousness, and the nature of sin is that all men have missed the mark. They have fallen short of this perfect righteousness, this perfect standard of God. This is what Jesus spoke about in the Sermon on the Mount in 5:48 when he said, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." 

To enter God's presence, to enter his heaven, a man must be righteous—must be perfect as God is perfect. Now, this is the most fascinating and revealing truth; the religions of men do not understand this basic truth concerning the nature of sin and separation of man from God. They do not understand the standard of perfection. 

I remember years ago when I was witnessing to my brother at our deer camp, and he was a religious, faithful, upright man who was seeking to establish his own righteousness through the law, through religious rites and rituals. I was attempting to explain to him the gospel, the sin of man, the need of a Savior. I explained just what Jesus said there in Matthew 5, that for a man to enter heaven, he must be perfect. My brother said, in exasperation, "Well, no one is perfect." And I said, "Now you're starting to get it." Now you're starting to understand. 

The nature of sin is separation in character and nature from a holy God. We are separate. Every man born in Adam is a sinner and, by his own will, commits sins. It is these sins that are the grounds for his guilt before God. The key to understanding justification is to understand the condition of man as a sinner, guilty before a holy God, separated by our sins and deserving of wrath. No amount of good works, or outward right, or ritual, or ceremony can change this fact—the truth about our position, our condition before God. 

We have missed the mark. We have fallen short of the glory of God because all have sinned, and every man except Jesus is guilty and deserving of the wrath of God for our sins. 

So what is God's solution for this hopeless state of man? "He has regarded my helpless estate," we sang. What is His solution? We see this in justification for our sins. Let's look at Romans 3. We're gonna spend some time in Romans 3 at verse 19 to understand this. 

Romans 3:19. Now this is a section from 1:18 through 3:18. Paul has been discussing the general condemnation of all men. He talks about pagan men from 1:18 to 32. He talks about religious men in chapter 2. And in chapter 3, he says, "If I didn't get you yet, you're included in this: all men. No one is righteous," right? No one is righteous. 

Romans 3:19. "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin." So what's the purpose of the law? To make us guilty, to show us our sin, to stop our mouths. 

Verse 21: "...but now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time his righteousness, that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law." 

When we consider how a man is justified, or made right, brought back into a right relationship with God, the key is understanding the sacrifice of Jesus—propitiation by his blood. Because we have no righteousness of our own, because we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, missed the mark of perfection, and because we must be righteous as God is righteous to enter His heaven, then there’s only futility in law keeping for righteousness. 

For the law brings only wrath. The law requires perfection. This is why no man can be justified by the works of the law, by good works, by religion. Rather, the only hope that we have is to receive the righteousness of God as a gift imputed to us. And what we find here in Romans 3 in the cross is that God has set Jesus forth as a full payment for our sins, to die a death He did not deserve in our place, in our stead, satisfying the wrath of God for our sins. 

And the only way, as the text so clearly states, that we can receive this righteousness of God is by faith alone, in Jesus alone, and what He accomplished on the cross. Follow those words with me again, Romans 3:21. "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the law and the prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate His righteousness to punish all sin." 

It is Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, who took that punishment for every sin—the wrath that we deserved. And God promises that if we will place our faith in the atoning sacrifice alone in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection from the dead as sufficient for our sins, then God will impute our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us, making us just. He is the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 

This is justification. This is positional righteousness based solely in what Jesus has done at the cross. This is how God deals with our guilt before him and reconciles us to Himself. When we consider all of the texts in the New Testament concerning justification or atonement, we always find that the plural "sins" is used. Christ died for our sins; he will save his people from their sins. In the atonement, Christ died for our sins. 

It is our personal sins that are the ground of our guilt before God, and Jesus died for the sins of the world in order to accomplish a propitiation—that means a full, satisfactory payment—to justify, that is, remove our guilt, to pay the price we owed, to satisfy the wrath of God. 

So I want you to put that in one category in your mind or on your notes. Justification deals with our sins—our guilt before God—and brings us back into a right relationship with God based in nothing about us, nothing we have done, but only in what Jesus has accomplished on our behalf. This is a positional righteousness. 

In other words, this is true of us because we are in Him. This is something that He has accomplished totally separate from us or anything that we have done or who we are. Justification is a legal issue concerning guilt and penalty, and it is positional in that it is in Christ. 

I want you to consider just one more scripture concerning this in Romans 4. If you look at Romans 4 at verse 1: "What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt; but to him who does not work but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin." 

See, God saves the ungodly. That is, the man who understands his sins and his guilt and believes turns to Jesus alone in faith for justification. And it is by imputation that the believing sinner receives the righteousness of God. When we believe in Jesus, God credits to our account His righteousness. 

Now what we find as we move on from justification—that is laid out in Romans 3:21 through chapter 4—and in chapter 5, specifically at verse 12, Paul begins to explain to us a new doctrine. This is so key for our understanding of the doctrine of sin as well as the Christian life. 

In Romans 5:12, Paul introduces to us a contrast between the man in Adam and the man in Christ. Now I want you to notice that he frames these two persons, the man in Adam versus the man in Christ, with two triads, two sets of three descriptors, okay? First, we see the man in Adam is characterized as under law, sin, and death. The man in Christ is characterized as under grace, righteousness, and life. 

Law, sin, and death; grace, righteousness, and life. What we find in simplicity is that there is a ruling, dominating force in each man— that which reigns as king in his life. And we are introduced to a new subject here in this context. As we discussed before, when we think about initial salvation, justification, we understand it in the context of sins. Christ died for our sins; we are justified from our sins. 

Romans 4:24 to 25 says, "It shall be imputed to those who believe in him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our sins, our offenses, and was raised because of our justification." So in justification, we're dealing with sins—our volitional acts of rebellion against God, a transgression of the law, a missing of the mark. 

But when we get to Romans 5:12, Paul uses a new word—sin. And my friends, I say, help us Jesus to understand this, to make this clear, because it's so vital. In Romans 5:12 all the way through Romans 8:13, we are dealing with an entirely new subject. We have moved from justification to sanctification. 

In this whole section, Paul is contrasting the man in Adam with the man in Christ. So please, keep at the forefront of your mind his characterization of the man in Adam contrasted with his characterization of the man in Christ. Law, sin, death—with grace, righteousness, life. All through these chapters, Paul never uses the word "sins" (plural), referring to our personal acts of sin. 

But he uses the singular "sin" with the definite article; he says, "the sin," meaning indwelling sin in every man. He will introduce this idea of sin—indwelling sin—in Romans 5:12 to 19, along with physical death, as that which we inherited from Adam. Then, in 5:20 to 21, he gives us his summary, his theme for this whole section of Scripture. 

Look at Romans 5:20. He says, "Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that—please pay attention to verse 21—those purpose words, 'so that,' what is the purpose of all this? So that, as sin reigned in death, as sin reigned in death in the man in Adam, even so, just the same way, grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

In Adam, sin reigned in death. It is sin, not sins. It's the principle of sin—what Paul calls indwelling sin—in our bodies that ruled and reigned, producing sins out through our members. 

We understand this, don't we? Look over at Romans 7:5. Paul says the same thing here. Romans 7:5: "For when we were in the flesh"—that's in Adam—"when we were lost, when we were in Adam, when we were in the flesh, what was life like? The sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death." 

See? Indwelling sin there, the sinful passions in us. You see the law and you see death. That is the man in Adam. We know what it is to be in Adam, to have indwelling sin reign and dominate and control. What Paul’s going to explain to us is this: in justification, in the atonement, Christ dealt with our guilt, paid the penalty for our sins, made us legally, positionally righteous by imputing God’s righteousness to us. 

But this is not all that he did in creation or in salvation. He not only dealt with our guilt, our sins, he also dealt with the root problem—sin, indwelling sin. As we will see, by killing that old man in Adam, crucifying him with Jesus and regenerating him—that is, giving him a new spirit and a new heart and coming in the person of the Holy Spirit to indwell and empower this new man for a new life. 

As sin reigned in death, you understand that, don’t you? You can grasp that in your mind. In Adam, you know people in Adam, right? You see sin reigning in their lives, producing death. As sin reigned in death, so grace reigns through righteousness in Christ. 

We are no longer slaves to sin. Romans 6:17, we’ll look at later, we are slaves to righteousness. It’s not that you aren't slaves anymore; it’s that you’re slaves to righteousness. So just as sin reigned in death in Adam, so grace reigns in righteousness unto eternal life in Christ. 

This happened—this is what I want you to understand—this is where we're going after our communion time. This happened by an actual work. Justification was positional, right? This happened by an actual work, an actual change in us. 

This is not the positional change of justification but the actual change of regeneration. Romans 6:6 says, "Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin—that is, this physical body, these members controlled by indwelling sin—that the body of sin might be done away with, or rendered powerless, so that we are no longer slaves to sin." 

But now are slaves of righteousness. But God be thanked that, though you were slaves of sin, Romans 6:17, "Yet you obeyed from the heart what these words mean." 

It is that we were poured into a new mold through faith in the gospel. God poured us into a new mold; you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 

This is the purpose, the "so that" of Romans 5:21, that just as sin reigned in death—and can you believe this?—just as sin reigned in death in Adam, so grace might reign in righteousness in Christ. 

What we see as we progress through Romans 6 to 8 is a detailed explanation of the contrast—dealing with indwelling sin, dealing with the law in Romans 7, dealing with death, the flesh, and the Spirit. 

The man in Adam is who you were—law, sin, and death—before God recreated you on the inside in your spirit when you believed. But the man in Christ is who you are because you were born again, crucified, buried, and raised to newness of life, and regenerated in your inner man. 

You died. This is key to understanding the Christian life. You died to indwelling sin, Romans 6. And now you live under righteousness. You died to the law, Romans 7, and now you live under grace by the Spirit. You died to the flesh, Romans 8, and now you live by the Spirit. 

This is a contrast between the man in Adam, who you no longer are, and the man in Christ, who you now are.