Thank you Father God for this time that we can spend reading and studying your word. Thank you Lord for teaching us that we could never earn our way to eternal life and that it is only through faith in Christ's death, burial and resurrection as atonement for our sins that we can then have the free gift of eternal life. In Jesus's name we pray, amen.
Romans 5:12-14 | Death passed upon all men
12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
We have just learned in the last two studies that Adam's sin resulted in sin entering into the world, that all people are born as sinners and are "in Adam". It also says "and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:" All sinners, which is all people, are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins. A believer still sins because we have our carnal, fleshly bodies but once we receive our glorified bodies we will never sin again, and upon our believing the gospel we have God's Spirit in our spirit and so we are spiritually alive in Christ and are now dead to sin, dead to the flesh and dead to the law. This means that believers have power over sin; we can choose to sin or not to. An unbeliever, all they do is sin because all they have is their sin nature. Even if they do "good works" those "good works "are still considered filthy in God's eyes because "whatsoever is not of faith is sin". This means that what ever is not based upon the faith OF Jesus Christ is sin. Believers live by HIS faith; His faithfulness to go to the cross, die for our sins, was buried and rose again for our justification. So since an unbeliever doesn't have God's Spirit living in them, even their good works are sinful. Plus, their supposed good works, God sees through it to the real motivating factor anyway, which is usually based on selfishness, greed, pride and other such things.
So, because of sin and the sin nature death comes to all people. All people, except for those believers who are physically alive during the time of the rapture, will experience physical death. Even before that, all people experience aging, sickness and disease which is a result of the curse of sin and death. People also die spiritually because of their sins. Even believers, we experience a type of "death" in that whenever we walk after the flesh, we are loosing rewards for heaven which is a type of death or loss, though we can then choose to course-correct by choosing to walk in the Spirit instead. But believers do not loose their salvation and we still always have Christ's Spirit in our spirit making us spiritually alive in Him - walking after the flesh means loss of rewards and also self-condemnation, but walking in the Spirit means eternal rewards. This is explained more in Romans chapter 8.
So death comes to everyone in some form because of the sin nature and the curse upon the earth. Even in the natural world, we see death all of the time with animals and other creatures. The seasons also change. We observe society changing as well, as things in the world wax worse. Wars, sickness, disease, natural disasters, etc are all a result of sin. It will continue on this way until the Lord creates a new heaven and a new earth and only those who are in Christ will be in the new heaven and new Earth.
13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
With or without the law, all people still sin. The law does, however, make us notice our sin nature even more. Even before the giving of the law, man knew that God existed and yet they rejected him, as Romans chapter one taught us. Also, every person also has a conscience. The conscience also teaches us that we are sinners because we can't even keep the law of our own conscience. We still sometimes do things that we know that we should not do. In pagan cultures that had not known the mosaic law, they still had moral values to some degree. Native American tribes for example taught respect for others especially elders, holding women and marriage in great regard, walking in kindness etc. However, we know that they did not always follow their own moral and ethical standards when it came to times of war for example. And certainly individual people would commit various sins even in the most "peaceful tribes".
This was true of any pagan Gentile culture around the world. Some pagan cultures had far less moral values, such as tribes and groups that practiced slavery, human sacrifice and cannibalism. God actually talks about the many abominable things that the unbelieving Gentile nations do in Deuteronomy. The point is that all people in Adam have an inherited sin nature and so all people sin. God gave the law specifically to show us our sin nature so that we would then understand that we cannot save ourselves and then hopefully choose to trust in God to save us. Today we are saved after we recognize our sin nature and understand that we cannot save ourselves, and then simply believe how that Christ Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose again for our justification.
Note: Children are born with the sin nature, but if they die before they reach the age of accountability, they will go to heaven without having to believe the gospel. We should always teach our children Gods word and the gospel so that when they do get old enough to understand things, they can believe the gospel unto eternal life.
Homework: Read over Romans chapter 5 again for yourself and find a favorite verse in this chapter and memorize it.
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