Dear Christians Friends:
The death of a loved can be a confusing time for us. We are saddened by the loss. The loss of someone we love. We miss their voice, their mannerisms, and their expressions of love for us. The death of a loved one can be a very heart breaking and a sad time. It is at times like these when we start to notice our own mortality. When we are reminded that there will come a time when we will also die. But death can also be a joyous occasion. For as children of God, when we pass through this veil of tears we will enter into eternity with our Savior. We will enter into heaven and receive our inheritance from God. Our inheritance that has been prepared for us since the beginning of the world. It will be a joyous time for the children of God. So today the Apostle Paul invites us to TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT OUR INHERITANCE. Our inheritance of death from Adam and our inheritance of life from Christ.
In the Word of God before us today, Paul tells the Roman congregation and us that because of the sin Adam and Eve committed, death entered the world. That perfect world God created was no longer perfect. Death was now ruling supreme. Sin began to corrupt God’s wonderful creation. The sin that began with Adam continues right up to today. This original sin just like a cancer began eating away at our relationship with God. Without knowing it, Adam began a legacy for his descendants. Because Adam sinned against God, he left for our inheritance the stain of that sin and death.
Paul tells us in our text “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.” (Romans 5:12-14)
Adam brought sin into this world and with it came death. And this happened before Moses was given the written law at Mount Sinai. Paul tells us that people were dying and yet they were not breaking any verbal commands as Adam did. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In direct defiance of God’s word, they sinned, and with that sin came the wages earned by it. The wages of sin is death. God told Adam “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
Adams legacy had begun, no longer was mankind immortal and in the perfect image of God. Death began its reign. People were dying because of original sin inherited from Adam. We only have to look at the fifth chapter of genesis to see that people were dying. The fifth chapter of Genesis could be called the death Chapter. Moses records for us the descendants of Adam and what became of them. Moses writes, “When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died. When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. And after he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died.” (Genesis 5:3-8)
The list continues. Enosh lived 905 years and he died. The son of Enosh, Kenan, lived 910 years and then he died. A name familiar to most of us here, Methuselah the oldest man on record, he lived 969 years and he died just like the rest. God allowed longer life spans at this time, but death came just the same. These people all lived and died before Moses was even born. Before God gave His written laws to the children of Israel, and yet they still died. This is their inheritance from Adam: An inheritance of sin, an inheritance of death.
Moses tells us that Adam had a son in his image, an image of original sin. But there are those who deny original sin. There are those church bodies that refuse to accept the truth. The truth that is so evident throughout the pages of scripture. God is very clear in His Word; we are conceived and born in sin. Paul tells us in the 3rd chapter of Romans, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12). We all are sinful. As the Psalmist David tells us, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).
Yes we are sinful from birth. This is our inheritance from Adam. We are natural enemies of God, hostile to His will, unable to keep even one of His Commandments. We are stained by fits of anger, jealousies, selfishness, and stubborn pride. God tells us to put Him first in our lives. How many times do we put off the study of His Word because we think we do not have the time? God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Have we loved our neighbor? Don’t we know someone in our neighborhood or at work that is un-churched? Have we taken the time to share God message of salvation with them? Loving our neighbor means sharing the Gospel with them so that they can know their Savior. God tells us to be perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect. The truth is we are not perfect. We are sinful. Because of our sinful nature, we want nothing to do with God. It sounds hard to believe at first. How can anyone want nothing to do with God, but it is true. The world was full of sin and wickedness and it grieved God so much that he chose to destroy the world.
Moses writes, ”The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:5-7)
God destroyed the world with a great flood. While the waters raged on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights, God kept alive a tiny remnant. Floating on the raging waters was an ark; inside that ark were Noah and his family. That is something to pause and think about. The earth was full of people and totally lost to sin that God saved only eight people. The earth was so steeped in sin, that God had to wipe out mankind from the face of the earth.
God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked, but wants all of us to come to the knowledge of His Son and be saved. But we wallow in our sin and run as fast as we can away from God. But God in his mercy runs faster than we can catching us and turning us around with his love and grace. God did this while we were spiritually dead, not able to seek or love God. But God loves us, and He planed our salvation for us.
After Adam and Eve fell into sin, our loving God promised to send us a Savior who would save us from our sins and give us a victory over the Devil. God tells us in Genesis “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15). This is the first promise from God concerning His plan of Salvation for us. God, moved by his grace and mercy guided history and protected his chosen people, the children of Israel, until the time he sent His Son to save us from our sins. God did this while we were lost in our sins and trespasses. God, because of his great love for us sacrificed His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Because of original sin, we all deserve God’s wrath and punishment. This is our inheritance we received from Adam. It is not an inheritance of wealth, or knowledge, or even property. It is an inheritance of death and eternal damnation in hell. But as children of God we have received a new inheritance. Because Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, we are now heirs to his kingdom. Our inheritance has changed. As we take a good look at our inheritance we see that from Adam we inherited only death. But now, our inheritance from Christ is eternal life.
Even though we are sinners, God in His mercy sent His Son to live a perfect life and suffer an innocent death so that we would become His children. Jesus shed His precious blood on the cross to redeem the whole world. Now the whole world is a recipient of His gift of eternal life. Paul goes on to say in our text “But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (Romans 5:15).
We were all condemned because of the sin of Adam. But God in His grace, love, and mercy did not want us to spend an eternity in hell. He kept His promise to send a Savior. God became man and lived under the law perfectly, keeping all the commandments. Jesus Christ as true man lived on this earth just like you and I. Jesus was tempted by Satan, just like you and I. But Jesus remained sinless something you and I can not do. Jesus as true man went to His death on the cross to sacrifice himself for us. This is a gift; A gift from God. As sinful as we are, God gave us the gift of salvation. Why? Because He loves us. As condemning as Adam’s sin was, God’s gift was even greater. Through the one man Adam, sin entered into the world and spread to all people, and through the one man Jesus Christ, the gift of salvation comes to all people who believe in Him.
Jesus was a gift to us; To the whole world. Our Savior who became our substitute went to the cross for the sins of the world. On that cross, He gave up His life as a ransom for us all. Jesus died for our sins to make us heirs to His kingdom. But God raised Him from the dead to show us our new inheritance. Our inheritance from Jesus is eternal life in Heaven. Because of the sin we inherited from Adam some day we will also die. But our inheritance from Jesus means that although we may die, just like Jesus we will rise again. For Paul tells us “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:20-22).
Because of what Christ has done for us we have inherited eternal life. We still have the stain of Adam’s sin on us but we are forgiven because of God’s grace and love for us. Each day is a day of repentance and joy in God’s grace. The sins we are guilty of, the fits of anger, jealousies, selfishness, and stubborn pride, are still with us but God in His wonderful mercy forgives us. Not because we deserve it or we have earned it. But because Jesus sacrificed himself for us.
It is very clear to us that we are justified completely in the eyes of God because of our Savior Jesus. We are God’s children and we are heirs to His kingdom. This is a great comfort for us. No matter how out of focus this world may seem to get at times, we can rest easy in the knowledge that our future is secure because of our inheritance from Jesus. We can rest easy in our faith in Jesus that He has rescued us from sin, death, and the Devil. We can rest easy that our inheritance from Adam was greatly surpassed by our inheritance from Jesus. There is no comparing the two. Our inheritance from Jesus is eternal life in heaven not one of eternal fire in hell. Our inheritance from Jesus is living in His kingdom of heaven, a perfect sinless world where there is no death or pain. Our inheritance from Jesus is the greatest gift that anyone would ever receive. AMEN.
