Join us as we unravel the spiritual and psychological dimensions of faith that Paul describes with such fervor. Understand how the kingdom of righteousness and life through Christ challenges our secular perceptions, offering an alternative reality rooted in spiritual truth. As we journey through the complexities of belief, learn how faith acts as an unseen force, turning teachings into lived experiences and shining as a beacon of hope in a world shadowed by suffering.
So we’re looking now at the last verse in Romans chapter 5. You remember Paul has developed this incredibly interesting and beautiful and enormously redemptive argument that the full extent of Adam’s sin is more than equaled by the full extent of Christ’s righteousness. That is, the extent that Adam brought sin and death upon the whole planet, that’s upon all of us, of course, is the same extent that Jesus brought righteousness and life upon the whole planet, all of us. So Jesus completely undoes everything that Satan did through Adam. This is the marvel of the gospel. This is why we believe that all are destined for eternal life as they go through faith in Jesus. Or if they resist faith, they go into judgment until they come to an end of themselves, the humanity, and then they call out for mercy from the Lord. So now the last verse is this, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What a marvelous verse this is. Ponder it. Slow down. Think about these verses. You remember I’ve told you that Paul makes six efforts to explain this glorious truth. Verse 15 and 16 and 17 and 18 and 19 and 21. Six efforts to explain the same thing. You can see why he’s trying to get his mind around it, because it’s so big. The message of the gospel is incomprehensible, beyond all we can imagine. So wonderful of God to be so good and merciful to all of us. So then we look at this verse and we see, “…as sin reigned in death.” Now, I’ve mentioned this thing about reigning before. Paul is talking about kingdoms when he talks about sin and righteousness, the kingdom of Satan, which is the reign of sin, and the kingdom of Christ, which is the reign of righteousness. And I want you to think again of the issue of sin. Sin is not simply something we do. It is something that does us, because it is a kingdom, and it’s a tyrannical kingdom. It’s not a kingdom of democracy, spiritual democracy. It’s a kingdom of tyranny that holds us in bondage. We don’t have a choice to get out of this kingdom. What we have to have is a deliverer who releases us from the bondage of this kingdom, and that is Jesus Christ. So when you are dealing with addiction and struggles with sin, don’t simply think, I’ve got to stop doing this. What you need to think, and we’ll be talking more about this in chapter 6, is who will deliver me from this kingdom? Christ will. It is God’s act of salvation and deliverance that we’re looking at, not our choice to serve him and to love him. God comes with the good news and the gift to believe it. And that is where we stand before God, helpless, and yet here he comes helping us. So, you think of the reign of sin, then. It is a kingdom, and it’s a reign of sin and death. All humanity is in that kingdom. All of humanity. No exceptions. When you go to work and you do your job and frustrations take place and disappointments and harassments and trouble everywhere, or you get fired for that matter, or you simply haven’t a job and your health is breaking down and all kinds of relationship struggles are taking place and the economy that your personal economy is at rock bottom, All of this is the reign of the kingdom of sin and death. But here is the good news. So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness. Now, wait a minute. How can two kingdoms be reigning at the same time? Well, you say, maybe they’re not. We get delivered from the kingdom of sin and death, and then we’re into the kingdom of righteousness and life. Well, yes and no, because the fact is we’re still alive in this body, aren’t we, which is subject to sickness and death and financial loss and disappointment in relationships and all the rest of it, and moodiness and depression and addictions. We’re still in that body. So that is in the kingdom and the mind, by the way, because the mind is also part of the body and is what depresses us so often. So that’s part of the reign of death, isn’t it? Well, you see, we’re also in the kingdom of righteousness and life by faith in Jesus. So this is what you and I need to bring to the fore in our mind by faith. The kingdom of Christ, which is righteousness and life, eternal life even now, for whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. It starts now and continues on through our aging, through our death, to right into our resurrection and our presence with Jesus and the Father in the kingdom. That kingdom is reigning over the kingdom of sin and death. It’s not that there are two equal kingdoms side by side. It’s that one has broken through the power of the other. Christ’s resurrected victorious life has broken through to the kingdom of sin and death. so that all that goes on in our secular life, as I mentioned earlier, our job, our health, our finances, our sicknesses, our disappointments, our addictions, our problems, our relationships, and the disappointments that we feel through all of them, all now are in the kingdom of Christ’s resurrected life, so that we now give thanks for everything that happens. We say, Father, I thank you. I just lost my job. You know all about that, dear Lord. But I give praise to you that this thing, this loss of my job, which seems to be under the kingdom of sin and death, reigning in that kingdom, yes, it is part of that kingdom, but your kingdom of life, resurrection and life, righteousness and life, is also reigning and has broken through the kingdom of sin and death. And therefore I thank you, Father, for the loss of my job, because this is going to be an instrument of grace. This is how we crazy Christians believe. It is life to the soul, health to the body. It is the perpetuation of health. It brings to us a new way of seeing things because we are seeing beyond this secular world, this one world of fallenness and evil, into the kingdom of God which has broken through to the kingdom of sin and death. Let’s read the verse again. “…so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Whose righteousness? Not ours, for sure. “…through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It’s His righteousness that grace is reigning through. so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is so great, so wonderful, it simply cannot be put into words. I’m sort of doing my best to put it into words right now, but you can see how difficult it is for me to do that. And so what’s the answer to that problem of not being able to put this into words? Put it into faith. Let faith be exercised in the reality of this. The moment you believe is the moment that faith… turns these teachings into reality. The moment you exercise faith and give praise to God for the things that are happening to you even when they are negative is the moment reality strikes your mind because faith sees the invisible. Faith knows what is going on because of what Christ has done for us. So you can see the psychology, the spiritual psychology of all this, can’t you? Not the secular psychology, the spiritual psychology of it. you can see, first of all, how that spiritual psychology completely contradicts your secular mind. Don’t expect your mind to think that this is rational. Yes, it is a sort of rationality. The rationality of faith is very valid. But don’t expect the secular mind, your secular mind, to think it’s rational. It sounds utterly stupid, utterly breathtaking nonsense. But you and I are men and women who have seen the invisible. God has gifted us with faith in his mercy as he will gift all the world in that similar faith and mercy. He has gifted us because we are not only his election as all the world is elected, but we have been called. Not all are called yet, even though they’re elected. Israel is elected, but hasn’t been fully called yet by any means. But we have been called. And what have we been called to? To believe in the grace of God, the kingdom of God that Jesus Christ has brought. And then, in little bits and pieces, here and there, to explain it to others, whether by example or verbal expression, so that they may suddenly have a bright light turned on in their head, and that light is the grace of God, for God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. And those people go ahead and go home with all their family troubles to face, and they say, you know, I think I’ll try to believe, like that guy said at work today. And they try, and they find it’s not a matter of trying. The Holy Spirit rushes in and gives them the gift of faith, and they believe. And when they believe, the family is affected. Maybe all the family becomes believers and are baptized, or maybe it’s just one or two for years and years until others realize it. But you see that we are the lights, we are the vessels of mercy, and we are sent to the vessels of wrath to tell them about it so that they can believe as well. So look, this is serious business, but it’s as light as a feather. This is heavy, but it’s light as joy, because God has come to us in a way we could never have expected, and he has told us, look to me. I am the kingdom, and I have come to your heart. Thank you so much for You can also hear the program, though, any time of the day or night on your smartphone. Simply download a free app, SoundCloud, soundcloud.com or podbean.com, and key in how it happens with Colin Cook when you get there. If you’d like to make a donation to the program, it would be so much appreciated. It’s listener-supported radio. Make your donation online at faithquestradio.com or send your donation to Faith Quest, P.O. Box 366, Littleton, Colorado, 80160. Thanks so much. See you next time. Cheerio and God bless.
