Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and this death spread to all men, because all sinned – (13) (For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. (14) Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. (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 one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

The letter to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul. Today’s verses are difficult text but the idea is fairly clear; Paul is teaching the doctrine of imputed righteousness in Christ Jesus as opposed to imputed physical and spiritual death through the one act of Adam. God withdrew from us as He did from Adam. As the representative head of the human race, in Adam’s sin we are condemned through no fault of our own individually but ALSO we are justified/accepted by God individually in Jesus Christ through no merit of our own. Death is a necessary consequence of sin; death passes through/reaches to all because in Adam all sinned. Death is universal because sin is universal. The only way to escape the effects of the fall of the human race is through Christ’s righteous act, imputed to us by grace through faith.

We have a sin nature that is given to us when we are born and Paul is drawing an analogy between justification and condemnation. Paul contrasts our old identity in Adam with our new identity in Christ. God’s gracious gift of righteousness in Christ is far greater than the devastation of sin that resulted from Adam’s disobedience. The tree was a test of man’s dependence on God and sin is ultimately unbelief. Through Adam sin entered the human race – it had existed previously as the serpent came in to the garden with sin so what Adam did was not the origin of sin but just sin in man. It had also existed in the angelic sphere evidently long before the sin in the garden. The spiritual death Adam died the moment he took the fruit is lived out ultimately in physical death. The remedy for spiritual death is eternal life in faith in Christ. The remedy for physical death is the resurrection of the body. But there is no there is no remedy for eternal death when there is no response to the revelation of God.

C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity “The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first – wanting to be at the center – wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race……..what Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they ‘could be like Gods’ – could set up on their own as if they had created themselves – be their own masters – invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God.”

For when we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. (7) For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. (8) But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. (9) Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. (10) 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. (11) And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

The letter to the Romans was written by the apostle Paul. In chapter 5 he has one main idea – that the ground of sinner’s acceptance with God is not in himself but by the merit of Christ Jesus. We were/are not able to recognize spiritual truth nor, in sin, did we want to. In sin we were alienated with God and rejected Him. But He came to us in Christ’s perfect atoning death – we were helpless without strength when God in grace gave His Son who died for ungodly sinners in whom no merit could be found. Peace was made by the blood of Christ’s cross and is the abiding state into which every believer enters. It is a settled thing – He accomplished it, not we. Much more then, the faithful are cleared of every charge and by the blood of the Son of God we are forever beyond the reach of divine vengeance against sin. .

But we must still walk through the desert and there are tribulations. The first thing affected is the breaking down of our wills. God must be sovereign and in faith man should find opportunities for acceptance but instead often finds bewilderment and perplexity. We are forced to let God be God. Man is troubled by efforts to gain peace through his own activities. – he cannot be justified by penance, seeking merit, favor of God by one’s works. Paul means here the peace when entering the greatest of all relationships – relationship with the Lord God. In faith we have a change of will, change of disposition so that the thing we did not want we came to want. Brought to us is the conviction of the saving work of the Lord Jesus. The gift of Christ to die on our behalf is everywhere in Scripture represented as the highest possible proof of the love of God to sinners. Christ died for the ungodly – all of us. Not that we loved God but that He loved us.

Christ’s death put man in a savable condition but people still need to experience full reconciliation with God by believing in His Son. Redemption is not by truth or moral influence but by blood. All we have or hope for we owe to Jesus Christ, secured through faith, and by Christ Jesus and not by our own works or merits.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? (17) For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.

The first letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. Our verses today teach a spiritual and not a corporal participation of the blessings of Christ’s body and blood. All it asserts is the fact of participation – the nature of participation must be determined by other sources.

The cup of blessing is a reference to the common Jewish expression for the last cup of wine drunk at many meals. The faithful bless the cup – give thanks to God for the cup because of what it symbolizes, namely, our sharing in the benefits of Christ’s shed blood – the blood of Christ by which we have justification by faith in the atonement that our Lord has accomplished. Likewise the bread used at the Christian feast, the Lord’s Supper, is symbolic of believers participation in the effects of Christ’s slain body. The term one bread stands for unity – solidarity – of our relationship as a redeemed community in Christ. When wine as wine is not the symbol of Christ’s blood but only when it is consecrated for that purpose. It is set aside from a common to a sacred use. It is not Christ’s literal blood and body.

There is a lot of division in our understanding of Holy Communion whether it is transubstantiation or symbolic or other. C.S. Lewis notes that Holy Communion is the only rite we know of the Lord himself instituted. He writes that he finds “no difficulty in believing that the veil between the worlds nowhere else (for me) so opaque to the intellect, is nowhere else so thin and permeable to divine operation. Here a hand from the hidden country touches not only my soul but my body. Here the prig, the don, the modern in me have no privilege over the savage or the child. Here is big medicine and strong magic…..The commandment, after all, was Take, eat: not Take, understand.”

Finally, brethren, farewell. Become complete. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. (12) Greet one another with a holy kiss. (13) All the saints greet you.

The second letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. Paul founded the church there, stayed for a year and a half and departed to Ephesus where he was warned by Christians from Corinth of certain abuses there. He then wrote 1st Corinthians which was delivered by Timothy. Then Paul himself made a quick and discouraging trip back to that city where his gospel and authority as an apostle was questioned. He returned to Ephesus where he wrote what is called the “sorrowful” letter which has not been preserved. Perhaps because of the sorrowful letter Paul later received a good report on reform on Corinth from Titus which led to the letter we study today, 2nd Corinthians.

Thr church was struggling with divisions and quarrels; claims of spirituality superiority over one another, suing one another in public courts, abusing the communal meal and sexual misbehavior. But it appears that problems had been solved by time 2nd Corinthians was written. Many repented and came back to unity with one another under the leadership of Paul.

In our verses today Paul concludes 2 Corinthian with cheerful words after reproofs. He calls them to be of one mind – which simply means NOT that we agree on everything which we never could. Basically Paul write a lesson in unity where we NOT agree on non essentials but we ARE to be in unity in the essentials. He call for a holy kiss was cultural where the men kiss the men and the women kiss the women. The grace of the Lord will shower them – meaning grace that comes from Jesus Christ, ( the redeeming grace that flows from Christ Jesus), not grace shown to Christ, just as also love of God doesn’t mean our love for God but God’s love for us.