CORRUPTION (Romans 5:12-14)

“Sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned,” (Rom. 5:12)

Maxie Dunnam wrote:

“Adam’s story is our story….God’s vision of peace and harmony in creation has been disfigured. The image of God within each of us has been distorted. We all know a deep sense of separation from God….We call it sin. However we look at it and name it, the result is a condition that is universally human, a dramatic alteration of our created relationship with God.” (This Is Christianity, 286)

Brothers and sisters, understanding sin…human sinfulness…is vital to understanding what is at the heart of the doctrine of salvation…the heart of who Jesus is and what he is about. We cannot understand the doctrine of salvation well if we don’t understand sin well…its influence and its consequences…because if I don’t understand sin and the death it brings, then I don’t understand why I need to be saved in the first place.

Sin is a universal human condition. Every single human being ever conceived, save Jesus, from the time of their conception onward, has been subject to the power and dominion and influence of sin. Every single human being that ever has been or will be is subject to the effects and consequences of sin. We are corrupt versions of what human beings should be…what we were created to be. We are dead in sin. Sin kills and separates us from God and from the life God wants us to have.

The justice of God demands that I pay for my sinfulness. The promise of God to Adam comes true over and over again with every human being: “Do not disobey and sin against me, for in the day you do you shall die.” And we all do…and we all have.