Introduction
Friday night Rachel and I went to a football game. And though I’m not a big sports guy, there’s something beautiful that happens sometimes in the game. You can feel it when it happens. The stadium has been silent, the home team behind, the fans weary and resigned to another loss. Then, out of nowhere, a big play—an interception, a breakaway run, a touchdown—and the whole place erupts. Before the scoreboard even changes, the air changes. The team senses it. The crowd believes again. The momentum has shifted. What was once a slow defeat turns into a surging advance toward victory.
That’s what seems to be happening in our culture right now. As Pastor Rich Lusk recently put it, “the vibe has shifted.” We’ve been living for decades under what he calls the “longhouse of wokeness”—the tyranny of guilt, fear, and fragility—but the winds are changing. People are waking up. They’re rejecting the lies of the left and yearning for truth, strength, family, and faith again. There’s a growing sense that the tide is turning.
But here’s the thing, church: the true vibe shift didn’t start with a political moment, or a cultural movement, or even a martyr’s courage. It started two thousand years ago at the cross and the empty tomb. That was the turning point of all history. When Jesus rose from the dead, the scoreboard flipped forever. Death lost. Life began to reign. The Kingdom of God broke into this world for good.
So even when it feels like the church is losing, we’re not. Even when the culture rages, the game’s already been won. The vibe shifted at Calvary. And now, in Christ, we’re not called to hang on and survive—we’re called to stand, to build, to shout on, to pray on, to gain ground and to reign in life through the one Man, Jesus Christ. And that’s what we’re going to see in God’s Word today. So with that in mind, look with me at Romans 5:12-17.
Context
Paul has just argued that Abraham’s faith was counted as righteousness (Rom 4), that those justified by faith now have peace with God and stand in grace (5:1–2), and that even suffering is pressed into service to produce endurance, character, and hope because God’s love has been poured into our hearts and displayed at the cross (5:3–11). If God reconciled us when we were enemies, much more will He save us now that we are His friends (5:9–11).
Now, in 5:12–17, Paul is going to emphasize that much more idea. We’re going to see that God’s saving us impacts much more than just our forgiveness of sin and going to heaven when we die. Paul zooms the camera out from our personal assurance to the cosmic stage: two humanities under two federal heads. In Adam came sin, death, and the reign of condemnation; in Christ comes righteousness, life, and the reign of grace. The point is not merely that Jesus undoes Adam, but that He overdoes Adam—“much more” grace abounds, “much more” many are made alive, and those who receive the abundance of grace “reign in life” through the One Man, Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:12-17
Our passage begins in Romans 5:12-14, saying, “12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.”
Paul begins with the word therefore because he’s tying all that he has been laying out—our justification, our assurance, our hope, and our standing with God—to this parallel and contrast between Adam and Christ. These federal heads and God’s covenant dealings with his people are the foundation of everything Paul has said thus far, and everything he’s going to say going forward. So now Paul is saying, I’ve just told you about Christ dying for sinners, reconciling enemies, and securing salvation—therefore let’s step back and look at the whole story of humanity. Let me show you why this gospel is not just good news for individuals, but the hinge of cosmic history: two Adams, two realms, two humanities.
In and through Adam sin came into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. But why? Because Adam was the head of all of humanity. God created him, blessed him, and put him in the garden to subdue the earth, have dominion over it, taking what is true, good, and beautiful, guarding it, keeping it, cultivating it, and being fruitful and multiplying it. He was our prophet, priest, and king, who was to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
As our prophet he was to deliver God’s Word to God’s people. As our priest he was to intercede for God’s people. And as our king he was to rule, protect, and lay down his life for God’s people. Adam, as the representative head, was placed in a garden-temple to serve and guard, to live out a covenantal relationship with God through trust and obedience, and to advance the fruit of that throughout the world. He was to lead his wife and all of humanity into righteousness and glory. This is what reformed theology has referred to as the covenant of works, or creation, or life.
Hosea 6:7 says that Adam broke covenant with God. And though all the details aren’t explicitly spelled out, the idea is that God promised continued fellowship with Adam and all of humanity with him, as well as greater blessing, life, and glory on the condition of obedient faith. Adam’s role was to believe God, take Him at His Word, and obey His Law, especially God’s command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence of covenant disobedience was death, and not just mere physical death for Adam, but because Adam was the covenant head and federal representative of all of mankind, when Adam sinned, this covenant was broken, leading to the entrance of sin and physical death into the world, along with spiritual death, covenantal death, and condemnation. When Adam sinned one of the great consequences of his sin was separation from God, and from eternal communion with God in and through the tree of life. God guards the tree of life in the garden with a cherubim and a flaming sword, keeping Adam from the precious communion he had with God and the glory and life that would have been his had he walked in obedient faith. And this broken covenant is the reality that all of humanity, all of us, are born into outside of God’s grace.
As Paul said in Romans 3:23, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” When Adam sinned we all sinned. As our covenantal father, we go where he goes. And he went into sin and death—into alienation from God, exile from His presence, and physical death. And because of this corrupt sinful nature, not only have we sinned in Adam, but we sin like Adam as well. Outside of Christ we are dead in sin, and that nature shows itself through our sinful actions. We constantly fall short of the glory of God. So we are guilty in Adam, and we are guilty like Adam. Every single one of us. Death has spread to all because all sinned. We have all followed in the footsteps of Adam, and outside of Christ we are all under the broken covenant of Adam.
Many will point to the Law given to Moses, to the Mosaic Covenant and the Torah as what condemns mankind. But Paul says that death has reigned long before Moses came on the scene. When Paul says that sin is not counted where there is no law, he isn’t saying people before Moses were innocent; he’s saying that without the Mosaic code sin wasn’t ledgered in the same law-court way—yet death still reigned. The Moral Law is rooted in the nature and character of God and has stood since creation. Long before it was on tablets of stone, the basics of it were written on the hearts of man and discernible in and through creation. Since Adam there has always been universal guilt under God’s Moral Law.
Indeed, death has reigned over all from Adam up until Christ came, across the covenants, even though their sin was not like Adam’s. No doubt, Moses, like Noah and Abraham before, and David after, was in covenant with God, but Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David were not covenant heads the same way Adam was. In fact, their covenants were directly tied to Adam and the gracious promises God gave him after he sinned. Beginning in Genesis 3:15 God promised mercy and grace in a Person, a Savior, Jesus Christ, for all who would trust in Him by faith. And that Covenant of Grace was continued on, renewed, and unfolded from Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David, until it reached its fulness in Christ. And so Genesis is where the paradigm is set, and we see that the choice is ultimately Adam or Christ. Though God renews covenant and brings others into His covenant, only Adam and Christ are heads of humanity as a whole. Adam and his broken covenant over a fallen, sinful, old humanity… And Christ and His Covenant of Grace over a redeemed, saved, new humanity. All are in covenant with God, but only in Christ is their hope. You’re either in the old creation covenant in Adam, or the new creation covenant in Christ.
Paul says Adam was a type of the one who is to come—that is Christ who has now already come—not meaning they were exactly the same, but that things work the same. Adam was a type of the One to come—not because he saves like Christ, but because what is true of the head becomes true of his people. What’s true of Adam becomes true of those who are in Adam. And what’s true of Christ becomes true of those who are in Christ. Adam’s sin is imputed to us—that is his sin-nature and guilt. We are under original sin. And though our flesh hates this, and wants to cry out, “That’s not fair! Why am I guilty because of Adam?” We should be careful with that, because we don’t actually want fair. We want grace. And grace is what comes in and through Christ. And it comes in the same way as Adam. Instead of sin being imputed to us, in Christ, Jesus’ righteousness is imputed to us. As Paul has been saying, we are justified by faith in Christ, and that’s because that’s how the covenant works. We come under the blessings or the curses of whatever covenant we are living under—Adam or Christ. And we show who we are really living under by our faith.
There is no such thing as a non-believer. We all believe something. We are either believing lies or Truth. If we are believing the Truth we are walking by faith in Christ. If we are believing lies we are walking in sin in Adam. Even if we are baptized into Christ, when we trade His Truth for the world’s lies, we walk like the old man in Adam and invite New Covenant discipline and curse (Heb. 10:26–31). Covenant privilege heightens responsibility. We must live by Truth, not by lies. And the Truth is we all believe something, and we all tend to live in line with what we truly believe.
Just this week I heard a discussion between a believer—a CREC pastor—and an unbeliever (notice I didn’t say non-believer)—a man who was born a Muslim who now claims to be an atheist. The pastor was arguing that God and His Law should control our laws as a nation, but the other guy believed that democracy and the will of the people should control our laws as a nation. Now, I’m fine with democracy, but as John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious [that is Christian] people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” And what this unbeliever meant by democracy is simply the will of the people, regardless of their faith. Whatever people want rules. And church, this is exactly what Adam and Eve believed when they disobeyed God. They believed that their will was supreme, not God’s. They believed what they wanted and what felt right dictated what was right. But, as Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” The way of Adam always leads to death. But God’s way, the way of Christ, always leads to life. But whether we follow Adam or Christ, we follow our beliefs. So make sure what you believe is Truth. We cannot place our faith in mankind, nor can we govern according to what seems right to mankind, especially when the bulk of mankind is in Adam, and thus marked by sin and death.
Have you noticed that death is the common thread running through the worldview of the unbelievers and the anti-Christian left? Every idol they serve carries the stench of death. Abortion is death to children—an open war on the image of God. Euthanasia is death to the aged and the suffering, cloaked in the lie of compassion. The LGBTQ+ movement is death to the created order itself, rejecting the fruitfulness of male and female and replacing life-giving union with sterile imitation. The globalist and Marxist projects are death to the household and the nation; they dissolve real communities into faceless masses and destroy the fruit of honest labor through envy and coercion. When liberty dies in the name of forced equality, responsibility and gratitude die with it. When we are taught that pride in our place, our people, and our history is evil, what it means to belong begins to die. The pattern is always the same: reject God’s Word, enthrone man’s will, and the result is death—spiritual, moral, cultural, and eventually physical. That is the way of Adam. And wherever Adam’s way is followed, death reigns. Through one man’s sin, death entered the world, and it’s still spreading like a virus wherever man tries to be his own god.
Now notice what Paul says next. In verses 15-17 he says, “15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”
The effects of Adam’s sin and the fall are devastating, but they pale in comparison with the effects of the grace of God in Christ. Paul stresses again that salvation is a free gift that comes in and through Christ Jesus. Notice Paul even says that grace is the grace of that one man Jesus Christ. We tend to think about grace as something we need or something we give, but grace is fundamentally a person—not something but Someone. As Sinclair Ferguson has said, “there isn’t a thing, a substance, or a ‘quasi-substance’ called ‘grace.’ All there is is the person of the Lord Jesus — ‘Christ clothed in the gospel,’ as Calvin loved to put it. Grace is the grace of Jesus.” We are justified by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And they are all linked. But our justification and our faith don’t stay alone. The free gift of God abounds and bears fruit. The grace of God in Jesus Christ is much more powerful than the fall of Adam.
Paul flips the broken covenant and the condemnation that comes with it on its head, pointing out that one trespass by one man brought condemnation for many, but much more so does the free gift of the grace of God in Christ abound for many, because the new true Adam, who is truly God and truly man, the one true Man, provided salvation for many by taking the punishment for the multitude of sins of the many. One man brought all that sin and condemnation into the world. And sin has been multiplying every day since the fall. But Jesus is so powerful, so good, so gracious, and so sufficient, that even though He is one man, because He is the God-man, the Son of God in the flesh, He was able to take all the sin and guilt of all of His people upon Himself and satisfy all of God’s wrath.
Because of Adam’s sin death has reigned throughout the nations and generations. But now, because of Jesus, the true and better Adam, because of His faithfulness, life reigns through Him and those who receive Him. I said earlier that Adam was our original prophet, priest, and king. As our prophet he was to deliver God’s Word to God’s people. As our priest he was to intercede for God’s people. And as our king he was to rule, protect, and lay down his life for God’s people. He was our representative head, placed in a garden-temple to serve and guard, to live out a covenantal relationship with God through trust and obedience, and to advance the fruit of that throughout the world. He was to lead his wife and all of humanity into righteousness and glory, into true life. But as we have seen, he led us into sin and death instead. But where Adam failed Jesus succeeds.
Adam received God’s Word and was to deliver it and call his wife and all of humanity to obey it. Yet when the serpent comes to Eve preaching lies, she seems to misquote God’s Word, and she certainly doesn’t heed it. She believes lies instead of the Truth, and the whole time Adam sits idly by letting her fall into sin. He failed to be the prophet God created him to be. And when Eve sinned, instead of going to God and pleading for her forgiveness, he joined her in her sin, and thus failed to be the priest God created him to be. And of course all of this could have been avoided if he would have led and protected his bride as a husband and especially as a king. He should have killed the serpent or at least driven it out of the garden before Eve sinned. But after she sinned he still could’ve stepped up and been the king God created him to be by going to God as a priest-king, and asking God to punish him, to condemn him, instead of Eve. But he didn’t. He failed to lead, protect, and sacrifice for the good of Eve and all of humanity, and thus failed to be the king God created him to be. But again, where Adam failed Jesus succeeds.
Jesus is the Word of God incarnate who always perfectly obeys God’s Word, delivers God’s Word, applies God’s Word, and calls and enables us to obey God’s Word. He is the perfect Prophet. But He’s also the perfect Priest who not only prayed for us while He lived on earth, and provided the perfect sacrifice for us on the cross, but after rising from the dead and ascending to the right hand of the Father, He now ever intercedes for us as our Great High Priest. And not only that, He is the true perfect King who perfectly leads, protects, provides for, and sacrifices for His people. Jesus laid down His life for us. He gave Himself as the perfect sacrifice for us, protecting us from God’s wrath, providing us with His mercy, grace, and righteousness, and leading us into practical righteousness, joy, glory, and true life.
Imagine a general stationed with his troops on the front lines. The enemy advances—arrows flying, smoke rising, confusion mounting—and instead of taking command, rallying his men, or leading the charge, the general freezes. He watches the battle unfold, doing nothing while his soldiers fall. Worse still, when the enemy presses in, he throws down his sword and joins them, betraying his own people. That is what Adam did. He was commissioned by God to guard the garden, to stand between his bride and the serpent, to take up the sword of the Word and drive the enemy out. But he stood by, silent and passive, as his bride was deceived, and then he followed her into rebellion. He abandoned his post, surrendered his calling, and led his people into ruin. But where Adam abandoned his bride, Christ never abandons His. Where Adam stood silent, Christ speaks; where Adam fell, Christ conquers; where Adam watched death reign, Christ rose that life might reign forever.
Look again at the last verse of our passage. Verse 17 says that though death reigned because of Adam, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. To be sure, sin and death are rampant in this world, but here God’s Word is telling us that sin and death are no match for the righteousness and life that come in and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The sins of this world, and the sins even in our own lives are many, but His mercy is more. As devastating and impactful as the fall of Adam has been, Romans 5:17 is telling us that the resurrection of Christ and His rule and reign will be much more impactful and effective. As that great hymn says, “He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.” And He will not cease until the blessings of the gospel far outweigh the curses of the fall.
All of humanity is naturally under Adam. But Christ is creating a new humanity through supernatural means. When we by the Spirit receive Christ, when we are baptized into His name, when we repent and believe rightly, and look to Him by faith we receive an abundance of grace along with the free gift of Christ’s righteousness. We are not merely forgiven of our sins, but we are in union with Christ, and as Ephesians 2:6 says, we are raised up with Him and seated with Him in the heavenly places, even now. As 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 says, Christ is the last Adam, the life-giving Spirit; and we bear the image of the man of heaven now and increasingly. As Colossians 1:13 says, “We’ve been transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.” Now. This is our current reality. We are seated with Christ and reign with Him already even now. Jesus has entered into life, and He doesn’t leave His bride behind. Though the life we have in Christ will get all the more glorious in the ages to come, we are already in so tight a union with Christ that what is true of Him becomes true of us.
You remember what Jesus said to Paul on the road to Damascus, when he had been persecuting the church? He knocked him to the ground and said, “Why are you persecuting me?” The church is in so great a union with Christ that when we are persecuted He is persecuted. Indeed, we are His body. We are His bride. We are in true covenantal union with Him. And that is to have massive effects on how we live right now. Which has been Paul’s point as he’s been stressing the benefits of justification by faith.
Because we are in a gracious standing with God, because we are united to Jesus, all things work together for our good. But because the Jesus we are united to is the new true better Adam, this has cosmic effects. It’s not just our good, but the good of the world. Adam was to subdue the earth, have dominion over it, and to guard and keep what is true, good, and beautiful, and be fruitful and multiply with it, advancing it all out into the ends of the earth, until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covered the earth as the waters cover the sea. But Adam and the old humanity in him are marked by failure, sin, and death. But Christ, who succeeds where Adam fails, is leading His new humanity into that same success, so that in and through us, in and through His church, in and through His bride what is true, good, and beautiful might be multiplied and fruitful throughout the world until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. Because Jesus was faithful unto death, and because He rose from the grave and conquered death, we now reign in life in and through Him. We are seated with Him in the heavenly places, and now reign with Him on the earth. We submit to, represent, and advance His reign on the earth. And because His grace is infinitely more powerful than sin, the life that comes in and through Christ will do so much more than the death that comes in and through Adam.
So what does Paul mean when he says that those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through Christ? He means that grace doesn’t merely rescue—it enthrones. The gospel doesn’t just get us out of hell; it seats us with Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6) and commissions us to live out His rule on earth. To reign in life is to live as restored image-bearers—prophets declaring God’s truth, priests interceding for the world, and kings exercising faithful dominion under Christ’s lordship. It is to see every sphere—our homes, our work, our worship, our politics—brought under the gracious rule of Jesus. It is to walk in holiness, to labor in hope, to suffer with joy, and to live with such confidence in the risen King that death itself loses its sting. The reign of life is not postponed to heaven; it begins now, because Christ reigns now.
Conclusion
So how do we live under and advance this reign of life?
First, we reign by faith—by believing the truth of God’s Word over the lies of the world. Faith is not a feeling; it’s allegiance. Every time you trust Christ instead of your fears, every time you obey His Word instead of the world, you are exercising dominion. You are declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord, right here and right now. And no matter what area of life, whether in public or in private, you are pushing back the darkness and advancing the Kingdom of Light.
Second, we reign by worship. Adam’s fall was a lack of faith and thus began with false worship; Christ’s reign advances through true worship. Every Lord’s Day when we gather, singing Psalms and hymns, praying, feasting at the Table, and hearing the Word, we are not hiding from the world—we are forming the world. Worship is warfare. The sanctuary is the war room of King Jesus, and from this place His reign extends to the ends of the earth. It starts in us and ripples out to the nations.
Third, we reign by faithfulness in our callings. Fathers and mothers, when you raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, you are waging holy war against the gates of hell. When you teach your children the Scriptures, when you educate them in the fear of God—whether at home or in faithful schools—you are building the next generation of kingdom warriors. When we build Christian schools, institutions, and businesses, we are reclaiming what Adam lost and taking territory for Christ. When we partner with our brothers and sisters across the CREC to plant churches, to establish worshiping communities, to bring the gospel to every corner of Terrell and Kaufman County and beyond, we are fulfilling the Great Commission—teaching the nations to obey all that Christ has commanded.
But this also means something deeply personal: we must stop merely surviving and start truly living. Too many Christians live as though forgiveness were the finish line. But if we think the gospel only means that our sins are forgiven, we’ll settle for spiritual survival—we’ll hang on, grit our teeth, and wait for heaven. But Christ did not rise from the grave so His people could barely make it. He rose so that we might reign in life. Because we are no longer under the reign of sin, we are free to truly live—to resist sin, to put it to death, to walk in holiness, joy, and purpose. We’re not just forgiven; we’re made new. We’re not just rescued from death; we are raised to life.
So, beloved, live. Don’t just survive this world—build in it. Build strong households that love Christ and His church. Build godly children who will carry His Kingdom further than you can imagine. Build faithful schools that teach truth, goodness, and beauty. Build businesses that reflect integrity and excellence. Build churches that shine the light of the gospel into every dark corner. Take Terrell, take Kaufman County, take every square inch for Christ, because it all belongs to Him. The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.
We must stop living in defeat. Christ is not a halfway Savior, and His church is not a barely-holding-on people. The tomb is empty, the throne is occupied, and the kingdom is advancing. The reign of sin and death has been broken, the reign of grace is established, and the gates of hell will not prevail. So stop merely surviving—start living joyfully under the gracious rule and reign of Christ. Stop giving in to sin and instead make war on it.
For because our Redeemer lives, we too can live—truly live. We can live now in every area of life, for Christ has conquered death. And though we will one day die, yet shall we live, because He lives. He shall reign until every enemy is under His feet, and the last enemy—death—is destroyed. But its defeat was sealed with the resurrection of Christ. And our victory was sealed with the same. So take heart, stand firm, build, fight, sing, and rejoice—for we reign in life through the one Man, Jesus Christ. Amen!