ROMANS - CHAPTER 5 - ENTRANCE INTO GOD'S GLORY

ROMANS – CHAPTER 5 – Entrance into God’s Glory

Tuesday, July 18, 2023, the Year of Our Lord

Pastor Carolyn Sissom

Chapters 5-8 form a complete section in which Paul expresses what we have in Christ as a result of being justified by faith. We are now to see the blessed consequences that flows from it.

5:1-2: Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Chapter 1 seals our forgiveness of sins.

Chapter 2 seals our justification by faith.

Chapter 3 seals our peace with God.

Chapter4 seals our righteousness in God by being justified by faith in Christ.

Now that we have Jesus’ righteousness as our own, we are to feel perfectly free to approach God anytime and enjoy Him --- as His sons. We have instant access to the throne. We can make ourselves at home in the secret places of the Almighty. Paul states clearly are hope is now in the glory of God. We now have access to Jesus’ glory and share it with Him. Our access into the grace of salvation, justification, Christ’s righteousness, peace and the glory of God is again by faith.

5: 3-5: Not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

When we look back at the trials and tribulations of life, we can see how as we overcame we became more mature in our Christian walk and everything we have walked through worked together for our good.

Of hope, the Lord gave us an oath by which it is impossible for Him to lie:

Hebrews 6:17: Wherein God, willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters into that within the Veil: whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made a high priest; forever after the order of Melchisedec.

This anchor of hope ties the Christian securely to the place of God’s presence. If we can see the metaphor of the anchor tied to our Faith which is the rope. Our Faith and hope are two separate things. Our hope is a solid anchor beyond the veil in the Heaven of heavens (Spirit realm). It is a certainty. There is no “perhaps” or “maybe” about it. It is guaranteed by God’s promise and backed by His oath. Our line connecting us with our hope is our faith. Though we live in the world of flesh, because of God’s promises, we seize that hope by faith and cling to it with confidence. As life’s storms rage, that anchor holds because it lodged in the solid, Rock, our forerunner, Christ Jesus. We need not worry when persecutions or afflictions come against us. Our future is bright. We can walk through any storm when we know better days are ahead.

Our hope in Jesus is our anchor. Normally in a storm, the anchor on a sailing ship is thrown over the side that it might become lodged in the unseen bed of the sea. But the anchor of our souls, our hope, rises upward. It passes through the veil into the most holy place of heaven and becomes lodged in the throne of God. Our hope is “locked in” to the unchangeable God Himself. We are as safe as God is true.

This hope given to us by faith does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Once we are secure in this hope then love becomes a reality.

Romans 5:6-8: For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. .

Who can fathom such a love? God’s love is seen in that when we were our worst, God did the best for us.I have made many attempts through multiple sermons to describe love. Volumes of songs and books have been written about love. Earthly love is painful, but God’s love is pain-free. The closest I have come to finding words to define love is, “if we truly love someone, we want them to be happy.” There is no envy, competition, covetness, or jealousy, just blessing toward the beloved. Anything less than that is soulish and not Agape. When we are mature enough to love others and be free of soulish expectations, our love is pain free. We have touched love-glory.

5: 9-11: Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Paul has clearly stated God’s love to us when we were hostile toward Him. Now by logic he states how far God will go to keep us from hell now that we are his children. Having done the harder thing (dying for evil men), He will certainly do the easier (help his own live for Him.) On the cross, the Lord Jesus bore the wrath of God that burned against us. The wrath has now been replaced by love. God’s love is now working toward us to change our hearts toward Him. Now He lives in us with eternal love. In God’s glory, there is love, joy, peace, provision, contentment and security forevermore.

Paul nails down our security in Christ. He says we are safe from God’s wrath because Jesus lives within us. It is our living union with Jesus Christ that the Lord God will honor the righteousness of His Beloved Firstborn Son. It is the acquisition of Jesus’ righteous nature that creates in us the NEW MAN (Eph. 4:24). This new man is as holy and righteous as Jesus Himself. We now have God’s life and nature. Therefore, it is unthinkable that His wrath would ever come against us. But keep in mind, the Lord God will continually train and prepare us in trials and tribulation. (5:3-4).

Paul changes his treatise using another argument. With the glorious truth of our heavenly son ship clearly settled, Paul approaches salvation from another angle.

5:12-13: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned --- (for until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.)

During the 2500 years between Adam and Moses, no written or oral law was given to man. There were men and women who pleased God because of their faith, and they diligently sought Him. Old Testament faith before the Law is affirmed in Hebrews 11:

1. Abel offed unto God a more excellent sacrifice…by which he obtained witness that he was righteous.

2. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death. Before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God.

3. By faith Noah believed God and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

4. By faith Abraham, obeyed and went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. He looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

5. Through faith, Sara received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered a child when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.

6. By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.

7. By faith Jacob when he was dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph and worshiped leaning upon the top of his staff.

8. By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of Israel and gave commandment concerning his bones.

9. By faith and before the Law was give at Sinai, Moses refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the King. He kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood.

10. By faith the nation of Israel passed through the red sea by dry land.

During this period, (2500 years) no written or oral law was given to man. From Moses receiving the Law on Mt. Sinai was 1500 years to Christ. These 1500 years are known as the Law period.

Paul is about to drop a truth bomb on his audience that has never been uttered by mankind. The Law period is over, and faith is under a new Law, the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.

TWO MEN – TWO KINGDOMS

The Law of the Spirit of Life overcame The Law of Sin and Death

Paul speaks in Romans 5 of two races of mankind --- just two. And the one is the figure or type of the other. Nor is it left to our imagination as to the manner in which the first Adam prefigures the Last Adam, for the apostle expounds all this in great detail.

As we consider this, it is well to note the comparison as well as the contrast in all that the apostle is saying. Just as we might compare the darkness to the light, a blade of grass to a mighty tree, a pebble on the beach to a rocky mountain, a shooting star to a galaxy --- so does the apostle Paul mention the attributes of the first Adam, and how we inherited our sin nature from him. He proceeds to magnify the contrasting attributes of the Last Adam, and all that we inherit from Him.

The First Adam was created by the breath of the Spirit of God without a sin nature, and yet he fell --- not because of inherited flesh sin, but because of an act of disobedience. Our Lord Jesus Christ was also born without the sin nature by the same Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:35). How else could He become our Redeemer? He was still subject to temptations and the trial of obedience. He had to be born into Adam’s race as the son-of-man to defeat the man of Sin. The First Adam chose to disobey. The Second Adam though subjected to a very severe trial walked in obedience and delivered God’s people from our captivity to the Law of Sin and Death into the Law of the Spirit of Life.

God set into motion this New Law of the Spirit of Life when Jesus Christ died on the Cross and rose from the dead. The New Law was designed of the Lord to swallow up the old law. For it was there on the cross that the Prince of Life destroyed the Law of Sin and Death and began to impart a New Law to the members of a New Creation order. We are the ones whom the Lord has apprehended from the clutches of the old law and introduced into a new order, a new sphere of life, a new realm, a new man, a new kingdom. It too, embraces a whole race of beings --- all those who by faith have been snatched as firebrands from the burning s of the old race, and brought into the new.

We are not brought in by a process of reformation or reconditioning, but we are brought into new life by being born-again by the outworking of a New Law --- the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus.

When the Spirit of Life visited this planet, there was a fusion of God with man. The Divine “fusion” released divine energy; and this release of energy continues to generate more and more and more energy in a mighty chain-reaction of life that would very quickly fill the whole earth with God’s glory and presence were it not for the disobedience of God’s people.

For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the Law of Sin ad Death (Rom. 8:2). There has been a confrontation of the two laws, and the Law of Life has prevailed where the Law of Sin once reigned. The Law of Life not only defeated the Law of Death, but it has also replaced the old law as the motivating and energizing principle of the One New Man (Eph. 2:15).

Death reigned and was in supreme control. No one born into Adam’s race could escape its dominion. The Law of Death is inherent in all of Adam’s family. No one can be released from its tentacles except it be by the New Law of Life.

This is the way it is in Adam --- there is a chain-reaction of overwhelming, devastating dimensions --- We are to have much more expectation (Faith) --- to believe and to anticipate that there will be a chain-reaction of life that will have far greater dimensions than we have seen in the Law of Sin and Death.

November 22, 2022, on awakening, I received a sermon message. The message was clear and concise. Preach: “Jesus Christ as the Son of Man, has restored the full authority of Adam to the born-again, Sons-of-God.”

“Oh, how the LORD loves mankind! How He delights to identify Himself with humanity, made in his image! The dear Son-of-God became the Son-of-Man that the sons of man might become the sons of God.”

Per the message in my dream, what is the authority of Adam which has been restored to the Sons of God?

Genesis 1:26-30: God said, “Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion…” (Vs. 27) So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God, He created him; male and female, He created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it, having dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth. See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food;” and it was so.

Romans 5: 14-21

THE TWO MEN (Vs. 14):

5:14: Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

“Death reigned” had dominion and ruled. The cruel king of death took hold of the human family when Adam sinned, and from that point on there was a chain-reaction of the Law of Sin and Death in the human family. But Adam was a “figure” of another “Adam,” who would likewise birth a generation of men --- in whose family all would partake of Life. Ro. 8:2: For the Law of the spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the Law of Sin and Death.

TWO INITIAL CAUSES (Vs. 15): 5:15:

But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

One trespass was the first cause. But the grace of God was the second cause, and this brought the gift of life to all in the new race of the Last Adam.

TWO EFFECTS (Vs. 16): 5:16:

The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned. For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.

The effect of the one trespass was condemnation to the whole family of the first Adam … But the free gift of justification by faith overturns condemnation to all who are born anew into the family of the Last Adam.

TWO DOMINIONS (Vs. 17): 5:17:

For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

The first man’s offense brought into being a kingdom in which death became supreme lord over all in Adam’s realm … But grace and righteousness have overtaken the old kingdom, and have brought into being a kingdom of life, so that now life becomes the Lord and Monarch reigning in the new kingdom realms of the Last Adam, the Prince of Life

TWO JUDGMENTS (Vs. 18): 5:18:

Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.

Jesus Christ overcame the Law of Death for our justification. Even at Christ’s birth, the prince of death set in motion an evil device to kill the Prince of Life. Daily Jesus was in confrontation with the Law of Sin and Death that resisted the light of God.

TWO PATHWAYS (V. 19): 5:19:

For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

The Spirit of life reigns in us because of the righteousness of Christ. For Christ is the end of the law.

TWO CHAIN REACTIONS (V.20: 5:20:

Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. But, where sin abounded, grace abounded much more.

The chain-reaction of sin and death were greatly accelerated by the law, so that sin abounded in still greater dimensions of its dominion … God’s ultimate design being that when sin had abounded beyond all imaginable proportion, then He would reveal His grace that would abound far beyond all the realms of the dominion of sin and death.

TWO REIGNING MONARCHS (V. 21):

In consequence of all this, Sin became the King, and he would co-reign with Death as lord on the throne of mankind and would overtake and consume the whole family of Adam. The devil had the power of death. But now Christ Jesus has defeated death when He rose from the grave.

Heb. 2:14: Inasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise took part of the same, that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil.

God’s design was that when sin had run its devasting course and had consummated its reign of terror --- then grace would follow on its heels and reign in righteousness, and consummate His kingdom in eternal life, in the whole family of the New Adam.

The gospel does not bow to the kingdom of the Law of Sin and Death. We bow to the LORDSHIP of Christ who forgives our sin and His Holy Spirit who guides us into eternal life. We have the Law of Life written in our hearts. Those who receive the gospel are no longer under the Law, nor are we judged by the Law of Sin and Death.

5:21: So, that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our LORD.

Can we grasp it? That as “sin reigned” so now grace must “reign unto eternal life.”

2 Ti. 1:10: Is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

How can we miss the “logic” of the Holy Spirit as He sets forth in this comparison the overwhelming attributes of the Kingdom of Grace and Righteousness and Life that is inherent in the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus?

We know the power and the authority of the Law of Sin and Death. We know from experience how effective it is. Much of the Church is yet to learn of the power of the Law of Life working within us that would be equal to the authority and power of the old Law of Sin and Death. But the Apostle says five times in chapter five --- MUCH MORE (vs. 9), MUCH MORE (Vs. 10), MUCH MORE (Vs. 15), MUCH MORE (vs. 17).

Not only did the old law have great power --- it had dominion! It ruled and reigned! But now, we have been delivered from that old monarch, and have become the subject of a new kingdom, ruled over by a new Monarch, subject to a New Law --- a Law that functions in grace and in truth. God tells us that His grace is not only to be revealed --- it is to reign in righteousness unto LIFE! Grace is to be in supreme command and control! Where sin was once in control, righteousness is to be in control! Where death once had dominion --- Life is now to have dominion!

It is for this very reason that God sent His Holy Spirit to abide in His people in the earth, that He, the Holy Spirit, might take from Christ and bestow upon His people in the earth, all the riches and treasures that are hidden in Christ Jesus, the Son of God, that as members of His Body, we might have that divine enablement to minister life one to another. According to the effectual working of the Law of the Spirit of Life that functions in each member.

God’s people through the teaching of the Law are willing to bow to the Kingdom of Sin and Death and give this cruel lord all glory and honor. Yet, refuse to bow to the LORDSHIP of Christ, who desires to bring about a chain-reaction of life that will flow from one member to another --- and still another --- by an operation of the Spirit that far surpasses in its effect the authority and the power of the Law of Sin and Death.

When God’s people will humble themselves and bow to the KING OF LIFE, and give the HOLY SPIRIT His LORDSHIP in our lives, in our gatherings in His NAME, we can expect to see this kind of chain- reaction that will permeate the whole BODY OF CHRIST; and make us to be a people walking according to a NEW LAW, in a NEW REALM, and in a new power of Spiritual Life, the power of the Life of Christ flowing through His Body.

Jesus has been given the authority to rule as “prince of the Kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5). This is inclusive of men who are earthly kings as well as all rulers of demonic powers and principalities. Heb. 2:15: And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Carolyn Sissom, Pastor Eastgate Ministries Church

www.eastgateministries.com,

10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX.77406

Scripture from N.K.J.V. For Two Men – Two Kingdoms, 5: 14-21, I entered the labors of George H. Warnock (1918-2018), Chain Reactions in Realms of the Spirit, part 4. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Rev. Warnock. Preached by Pastor Sissom at Light Up America Conference 6/14/2023; At Eastgate Church, Sunday July 9, 2023. Romans 5: 1-13 are my own conclusions.