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 (Romans 5:17)
I like things fair. Do I want things to be equal and fair for everyone? Not really, I just want things to be fair for me. I want to make sure that I get a fair amount of chicken in my burrito. I want to make sure that if a new checkout line opens up (and I was the next one to go), that I get treated fairly and get to checkout next. I want the workload in the spring cleaning to be divided up fairly.
Fairness is a big deal to us, from when we’re kids arguing about the fairness of the size of our desserts to when we are adults and we’re screaming how unfair the ‘Fail Mary’ Packers pass play was. That’s why Romans 5 is so jarring to us. It stands out because it seems so unfair.
In Romans 5, Paul tells us the truth about what our sins deserve. As humans, we have a hard time seeing the fairness of the truth that all our wickedness should deserve eternal punishment in hell. It’s almost impossible for us to believe that its somehow fair for us to be eternally tormented in hell for even just one of our sins that we commit. But, its even worse than that. Paul tells us here that we deserve to spend eternity in hell for not our sins, not one sin, but for Adam’s sin. This seems incredibly, unbelievably unfair.
How could God punish us for Adam’s sin? Because we were “in Adam” when Adam sinned. Adam served as our head, who led the rest of us into the consequences of his decision. You remember when David fought Goliath? In the story, each army sent out one soldier to fight on behalf of the army. Each represented his side (David for the Israelites and Goliath for the Philistines). The winner won the battle for the whole army. The loser lost the battle for the whole army–and that’s like how our punishment for sin worked.
And, even though it seems unfair, Paul says there is good news. The good news is that its unfair. Paul’s point is that even though it may seem unfair, since we weren’t there when Adam sinned, it is also unfair that we receive salvation. Why? Because we are saved not by doing a lot of good things or by doing even one good thing. We are saved because of what Jesus did on the cross 2,000 years ago. We weren’t there when He accomplished salvation, yet we get to enjoy the fruit of it! The only way for us to be saved was through a representative (Jesus) and because of Him, we are saved. Thank God that grace isn’t fair!