No Comparison
Romans 5:12-19[1]
I think one of the worst things to
happen to the Christian faith was when sin became the primary focus of
attention. That might sound like a strange thing for a preacher to be saying on
the first Sunday of Lent. Of course, I’m not trying to say that sin is
unimportant. But whatever you make the starting point for your faith is going
to have a significant effect on what you believe. You know what I’m talking
about: you’ve been to other churches where people are constantly made to feel
guilty. And as a result, God’s love comes across not as unconditional, but as
something that depends on what we do. If we make the right choice, then the
“good news” is that we’re in the clear. If not, well, the “news” is not so
good.
One of the things I like about the way
we approach the faith in our tradition is that we start with God’s grace. We
see that in the sacrament of Baptism: it demonstrates that God’s love chooses
us before we even have the capacity to make a choice for ourselves. We see it
in the sacrament of Communion: God’s love continually strengthens us so that we
can follow Christ. Obviously, we don’t ignore sin. We have a confession of sin
at the beginning of every worship service. But we confess our sins with the confidence
that we’re approaching a God of grace, whose love for us is unconditional and
irrevocable. In my mind, that makes all the difference in the shape of our
faith.
This might also seem like a strange
introduction to a sermon about our lesson from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans.
In this passage, Paul reminds us that the “original sin” of our first parents had
consequences for the whole human race.
Something about that just doesn’t seem right to our way of
thinking. How can one act have such
widespread effects? Part of the explanation
is that one sin has a tendency to lead to another. And
another. And another! St. Paul looks at
the whole sweep of human experience, so full of violence and greed and hatred
and abuse and corruption and exploitation and injustice and oppression, and he
says in effect that it all started with one sin.
For most of us, the idea that the
“original sin” of Adam and Eve could be held against us all seems to be unfair.
How can God hold us all accountable for something we didn’t do? The reason why we can’t claim that it’s
unfair is that we all have our own history of sin.[2]
None of us can claim never to have done anything that might contribute to the
spread of sin’s effects on the whole human race. In fact, each and every one of us, in some
way or another, at some time or another, has done our part to extend the grasp
of sin on the human race a little farther.
In a very real sense, what Paul is trying to do is move us to the Lenten
discipline of confession—to acknowledge that our sin has far-reaching
consequences.
I think we also have a problem with St.
Paul’s assertion that one sin brought death to the whole human race. But what we have to understand is that Paul
isn’t primarily talking about the physical limits of human mortality. I think he’s talking about death as a
spiritual condition. He’s talking about
those actions that affect the spirit, the heart, the mind, the very the soul of
who we are as human beings. Even still,
we might not like the idea that one sin could lead to the death of a person’s
very soul. But I think if you ask a victim of any kind of violence or addiction
you will find that it can! I think what
the Apostle Paul wants us to consider is that every sin you and I commit has
the potential to spread death and destruction much farther than we can imagine. And there are some sins that have the
potential to destroy the whole human race.
But if we stop there, we run the risk
of completely missing the point! St.
Paul’s point is not just to make us all keenly aware that each sin has
far-reaching consequences. I think the main point of this passage is that
however powerful the effect of our sin may be, there is no comparison with the
powerful effect of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Paul insists that while
one sin brought “death” to the whole human race, the one faithful act of Jesus
Christ, humbling himself and becoming obedient to the point of death on a
cross, brought God’s grace to the whole human race. And God’s grace is far more
powerful than our sin. Through that one act, God’s generous grace was poured
out on all humankind, healing the destructive effects of our sin, restoring the
hearts and minds and souls that have been subjected to all kinds of death, and
replacing it with the gift of life.[3]
Throughout this passage, St. Paul insists
that there’s no comparison between the one sin of Adam and the one righteous
act of Jesus, giving his life for us all. As he contrasts the two, he repeated
says that the gift of grace and life through Jesus Christ “much more surely”
outweighs the effects of our sin. I like the way The Message puts it: “There's no comparison between that
death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift” (Rom. 5:16). And so Paul
concludes, “just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one
man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all” (Rom.
5:18).[4]
I think the reason for all of this is
that, while St. Paul certainly doesn’t minimize the problem of sin, God’s grace
plays a far more important role in his understanding of the gospel. His faith
is based on the conviction that God acts in each of our lives to bring us new
life before we are even aware of what he’s doing. In fact, God is always
working in each of our lives, constantly surrounding us with his love and
mercy, drawing us to trust in him and so to find that his grace by far
overcomes the consequences of our sins. When you think about it, how could our
sin ever be more powerful than God’s love? As serious as our sin will always
be, when you set it alongside God’s grace, there really is no comparison.
[1] © 2017
Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 3/5/2017 at Hickman
Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf. Paul
K. Jewett, Romans, 376. Ernst Käsemann, Romans, 148, cites the Jewish apocalypse 2 Baruch 54:19, “each of
us has become our own Adam.” Cf. also
James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 , 290, “Death
continues to dominate humanity not solely because of one primeval act but
because of humankind’s continued acts of sin.”
[3] Regarding
the issue of whether Paul’s language of redemption applies universally to the
whole human race, Dunn, Romans 1-8 , 297,
acknowledges the problem, but asks the question, “How, after all, can grace be
‘so much more’ in its effect if it is less universal than the effect of death?”
Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1:333-35,
where he speaks of the “alteration of the whole human situation” through Jesus’
death and resurrection. Cf. similarly, Beverly
Roberts Gaventa, “The Cosmic Power of Sin in Paul's Letter to the Romans” Interpretation 58 (July 2004): 240: “The
gospel Paul proclaims is that God has not left us alone and powerless. In Jesus
Christ, God has already broken Death and Sin and will finally crush Satan on
our behalf. Confidence in that word is the beginning of peace and joy and the
obedience of faith.” See also Jan Bonda, The
One Purpose of God, 103-107; and Jewett, Romans, 370, 379-80.
[4] Cf.
Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, 205,
where he points to the divine righteousness as an event that takes place in the
cross and resurrection of Jesus as “the universal
gospel, which is oriented towards the new creation that fulfils all things,
sets them right with God and so gives them status and being.” He continues, “Divine
righteousness ‘happens’ here, and the gospel reveals it by proclaiming the
event of the obedience of Jesus even to the death of the cross, by proclaiming
the event of his surrender to this death, and by proclaiming his resurrection
and his life as the coming of the divine righteousness to the unjust.”
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