A number of years ago, when I was preaching through Romans 6 as part of a careful exposition of that book, I was in a Bible college for some meetings and mentioned my upcoming series to one of the Baptist professors. His reply was immediate: “Ah, that is a good Baptist chapter for a Presbyterian.” The comment took me entirely off guard, because the chapter has nothing to do with baptism, as I understand it. In fact, the only reason I can think of that this man might have said what he did is that Paul uses the illustration of baptism in verses 3 and 4 to reinforce his earlier point about our being united to Jesus Christ by God's grace. Actually, the sixth chapter of Romans is a parenthesis dealing with the first and most logical objection that anyone can bring against the gospel: that it leads to lawless conduct.
Yesterday we concluded by looking at the first two stages of the kingdom of grace. Now we need to see the last two.
The launching of God's kingdom. Since the death of the Lord Jesus Christ for sin is the launching of the kingdom we are not surprised to find Paul thinking of it as he unfolds his illustration. Grace reigns “through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The third point Romans 5:20, 21 makes about grace is that grace is powerful and triumphant. Sin triumphed for a time, but although “sin reigned in death,” grace is destined to “reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
The illustration Paul uses is of two rival kingdoms, and the way he gets into his illustration is by personifying the power of sin, on the one hand, and the power of grace, on the other. He compares them to two kings. One king is a tyrant. He has invaded our world and has enforced a ruthless control over men and women. The end of this king's rule is death, for us and for all persons. This king's name is Sin. The other king is a gracious ruler. He has come to save us from sin and bring us into a realm of eternal happiness. The end of this king's rule is eternal life, and his name is Grace.
Yesterday we looked at some biblical examples where even in response to great sin, God did not withhold his grace. But now we come to you. Today most people have very little awareness of their sin, which shows how desperate their condition has become. But perhaps you are one who, like John Bunyan, is aware of it. You may consider yourself to have forfeited all hope of salvation by some sinful action which rises up before you like a great concrete dam against grace. I do not know what that sin is. It may be some gross sexual sin or adultery. It may be a perversion. Perhaps you have stolen from your employer or your parents or someone else who is close to you. Could you have murdered somebody? Destroyed somebody's life work or reputation?
These verses say several important things about grace, and the first is that grace is not withheld because of sin. We need to understand this clearly, because in normal life you and I do not operate this way. If we are offended by somebody, we tend to withdraw from the person and withhold favor. If people offend us greatly, we find it hard even to be civil. God is not like this.
