ROMANS Study Guide

Chapter Five (B) (5:12-21)

Deliverance from Sin Nature

Paul now turns to the cause of sins - man sins because he is a sinner. This sin tendency or sin nature came from the very first man… Adam.

Here Paul moves from deliverance from the judgment of the law to the death of our sin nature. Jesus paid the price for our breaking God’s law, but he has done even more. The death of Christ has brought our deliverance from the cause of our breaking God’s Law – our sin nature. Oswald Chambers in his devotional “His Utmost for His Highest” teaches that our sin nature is “a disposition to sin.” What he mean s by this is that after the Fall of Adam we now default in our life to “self - realization” or my right to myself and what I want. At its deepest level our sin nature is us putting ourselves on the throne of our life.

Thus we are moving from the work of the blood (to justify us legally before God) to a more specific work of the Cross (of our sanctification).

Rom 5:12 Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned: Rom 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Rom 5:14 But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of Him who was to come;

1. Inherited sin and the sin tendency! vss.12-14

a. Paul begins this section of thought with an important principle that is found in our study of Adam and Christ. What was in Adam and what was in Christ…is in fact in us! In 1Cor.15:22 Paul comes out and says … ”In Adam all died.” Paul does not say… Adam so influenced us that we sinned and therefore we now die. No, Paul simply says that “in” Adam all die. Adam is the “federal head of our Race.” This means Adam defines the life experience of every human being. And what is in Christ is now in us who are born by Faith in Jesus Christ. We inherit our nature from the original ancestors of our race.

Descendent Participation

An illustration of how this principle works is found in the life of Abraham. In Hebrews 7:9… Paul makes the point that what Abraham