Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Five
DEATH
Scripture Reading: verses 12-17
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: (FOR UNTIL THE LAW SIN WAS IN THE WORLD: BUT SIN IS NOT IMPUTED WHEN THERE IS NO LAW. 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. BUT NOT AS THE OFFENCE, SO ALSO IS THE FREE GIFT. FOR IF THROUGH THE OFFENCE OF ONE MANY BE DEAD, MUCH MORE THE GRACE OF GOD, AND THE GIFT BY GRACE, WHICH IS BY ONE MAN, JESUS CHRIST, HATH ABOUNDED UNTO MANY. AND NOT AS IT WAS BY ONE THAT SINNED, SO IS THE GIFT: FOR THE JUDGMENT WAS BY ONE TO CONDEMNATION, BUT THE FREE GIFT IS OF MANY OFFENCES UNTO JUSTIFICATION. FOR IF BY ONE’S OFFENCE DEATH REIGNED BY ONE; MUCH MORE THEY WHICH RECEIVE ABUNDANCE OF GRACE AND OF THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS SHALL REIGN IN LIFE BY ONE, JESUS CHRIST.)
The first word of this passage, “wherefore,” abruptly brings us back to the realization we are still witnessing a court scene. Paul is presenting a brilliant legal argument, in which every moral issue affecting the Creator and the creature is taken up and a righteous solution is outlined. Perhaps the subject that now comes to our attention is one affecting us more deeply than anything else in the world. It is the transient character of our life, the uncertainty of the tenure of our existence in this world. We are now reaching a dramatic moment in this court trial. Paul has been discussing many things that may be thought rather abstract; now he gets down to basic realities. Death is truly the enigma of the ages. It is the most unnatural process through which the creature must inevitably go. It is the specter that continually haunts the footsteps of every individual. It is a subject that must come before this universal court, requiring a proper and adequate explanation.
We cannot dwell too strongly on the tragedy of death. There is much in this world that speaks of life, fruitfulness, hope, joy and bright expectancy – so much so that death casts a dark shadow across creation's sunlit scene. The question comes home to every heart: why should there be sorrow, bereavement, and death, casting their pall of gloom on the human family, when every spiritual instinct of our being yearns for things that are fresh and enduring? It is a solemn question which must be considered, not in the light of human opinion, but in the light of divine revelation.
We stand witness to a dramatic spectacle – God Himself on the bench; the sinner arraigned in His presence, giving an account of himself; and Paul the attorney defending the criminal. Listening to these imperishable words, one can imagine seeing behind the court scene and envision the grim necessity of this particular episode.
We look back across the centuries and see the first family, Adam and Eve and their two sons. They had come from the hand of the Almighty, made in the image of God, pronounced very good in a creation of beauty and order. Then suddenly into the quiet decorum of their family life tragedy stalks with ugly mien. Cain has lifted up his hand against Abel, and Adam and Eve look upon a thirsty earth, drinking in the blood of their beloved son, and two heads hang in shame and sorrow. They must have asked the question, “Why should this be?” and no doubt their own hearts would have answered back, “God has surely said, ‘In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.’” Then we travel across the pages of the Hebrew Bible to Genesis 5, and it reads like a catalog. Name after name – Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared – and after each one mentioned there is the cryptic note that he lived so many years and then he died. It is the bloodstained finger of death writing in indelible letters of sorrow on the page of inspiration the tragic truth: man had forfeited his right to remain on the earth, and through the portals of death he must make his inglorious exit.
Then we travel on and seem to stand by the side of Abraham on that unhappy day when he purchased from the children of Heth a parcel of ground called Machpelah. We watch him as he stands there with stooped shoulders, weighing out four hundred shekels of silver to buy a little plot of ground as a burial place for Sarah, his wife. We hear his faltering words, so eloquent of the sorrow in his heart, as he says: “I am a stranger and a sojourner with you, give me a possession of a burying place with you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” He is the prototype of millions of husbands who have stood by the burying place which they have purchased, wherein they might lay the beloved remains of the one whom they loved dearer than life itself. Yes, it is a tragic story.
If we could see behind this courtroom scene in which the question of death is so dramatically raised, we would no doubt witness the millions of broken-hearted wives who have stood in widow’s weeds as they see a beloved husband laid in the tomb. We see unnumbered fatherless children watch the grim reaper take away the head of their home, and with him the support and tenderness of affection, the loss of which can never be measured in human values. These are the scenes that pass before our vision as we listen to the drama of this courtroom in which Paul again takes up the argument. This is a question that must be settled. From what origin or source comes this disturbing image called “death” and is there no hope of release from its grim tyranny? And Paul begins, “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.” In other words, we must die because we have sinned. As Paul pursues his argument we shall see the sunlight of a new day begin to penetrate the shadowed gloom of this dramatic scene, as the truth of resurrec-tion dawns upon the court.
