Romans 5: 1-21

Please post your insights, questions and contributions for Romans 5:1-21 here. Let’s get the conversation going

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Reading Romans 5 made me wonder about a few things:

1. Did Adam know what the impact of his choice will be? It's easy to look in hindsight and blame Adam and Eve for choosing wrong and letting death come into the world, but they only followed their flesh and never knew what the ripple effect will be. At that point, all Adam could see was just himself and Eve, but there was so much more to it than they saw. This makes me wonder, do we consider the ripple effects of our choices on our future generations or do we just look at what is in front of us and assume it's all about us.

2. God out of His mercy, made a choice to undo Adam's choice: God's choice of sending Christ to die for us did not just undo what Adam did but also gave us a rare opportunity to continually undo wrong choices we make as we live our daily lives (well up until a point - when we die or when He comes). It obvious that the reason he did it this way was because he really wants to have a relationship with us, which has always been his plan from the beginning. But that relationship can only work if we are like Him (holy). This is what the blood of Jesus does for us. The way to appreciate the gift of this choice is by growing to become like Him and not taking advantage of the continuous possibility of a clean slate to keep making bad choices.

3. Should we only choose Him when its convenient? Certainly not, Romans 5 opens with saying that we have been made right with God by Faith, and verse 2 ends with "and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God's glory" This gets me excited because when you think of glory, you think of nice and good things....at least my idea of glory involves feeling good. But Paul quickly follows in verse 3 with rejoicing when we have problems and trials, perhaps he figured that someone like me will be thinking of only sweet things happening when I hear God's glory. Well, Paul makes it clear that this is also needed to build our character and eventually expose God's glory . So the question is, will I continue to choose God even when the not-so-sweet things are happening. Will I still do all He demands of me even when it seems like my world is crashing.

I pray that God will give us the will to obey and honor Him at all times.

A couple of things stood out to me in this study, but I fear this is going to be a long read so I’ll break it into chunks
Verse 1 “…and now we have peace”.

First, I think the reason why we still take salvation for granted is because fortunately, we never knew what life was like before Christ came to the earth - before the gift of salvation was available. I’m sure for the early disciples, it was something of awesome wonder whenever they fully internalized the fact that they didn’t have to slaughter animals every other day to pay for their sins. They didn’t have to wait for some high priest to go into the inner courts on their behalf, because of what Jesus did. He simply paid the price once and for all. It’s almost like you can hear the sigh of relief from them saying “Phew we don’t have to spend money buying and killing a lamb because the Lamb of God has already been slain for all our sins”. It’s like they finally got the revelation that no matter how hard they struggled, they could never attain the standard of the law, and performing the religious rites and requirements of the law could not make them right with God.

So, seeing how free, available, and easy – for lack of a better word, salvation was/is, why wouldn’t they take it? why wouldn’t anyone take it? Why don’t we take it? Is it because it seems too easy for us? Perhaps, because we never experienced the spiritual unease that existed before the time of Jesus. Why do we find it hard to believe that just believing in Jesus can and has made us right with God? (John 1:12) Is that why we still find ourselves struggling to prove our salvation and our place in the sight of God through works?

Peace in salvation can only be found through belief in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. I also love vs 11 which says “…so now we can rejoice…Christ has made us friends of God”. Which to me means I can have peace because I am a friend of God and not just a friend, a child of God, a joint heir with the Son. I can have peace knowing that I can go before the throne of grace boldly and not have to stand in the outer courts.

I guess a question that popped up in the reading was:
1. Can a person lose their salvation?
2. Not sure if this is directly related to the topic at hand but why do some Christians (in my experience mostly African Christians) pray “God please write my name in the Book of Life”? Aren’t the names of all the people who will come to salvation already in the Lamb’s Book of Life (see Rev 13:5). Could this fear of being removed from the Book of Life be why some people still struggle to do works and perform to make sure their names are secure?

This chapter izzzz a lot in terms of how powerful the gift of Jesus Christ is. The gift that keeps giving. One thing that keeps ringing in my ears is the act of obedience from Jesus and the act of disobedience from Adam and Eve. Because of Christ Jesus we can move again to the presence of God. His death has given us that access to God and it also shows God’s love for us. We now have reconciliation because of that act of obedience. On the other hand, the act of disobedience from Adam and Eve is the beginning of the sinful nature that we now have. We can clearly see how that act changed everything and we are able to see the consequences of that act of disobedience but because of the gift of Christ Jesus we have that reconciliation. God has given us grace…like the grace plenty and overflow sef. One thing that we do is take it for granted because we know how merciful God is.

All in all, this chapter for me just opened my eyes to how obedience can change things for good. In Christ, there is a new humanity available to everyone. Everything old is passing away and everything new is here. What the act of disobedience has cost us has been undone by Jesus. We now have peace, liberty, reconciliation and now have free access to God. Jesus is indeed a wonderful gift and I pray that God will continually help and strengthen us. Amen

@Tosin, here are my thoughts on the questions you posted.

1. Can a person lose their salvation? - Though I completely understand the question, I think using the word "lose" may not be the best way to describe someone who was once saved and is no longer in Christ. The reason I say this is that "lose" suggests that we gained it, and gain in itself is usually a reward for something. Salvation is not earned, its given like a gift, if a person give you a gift, you can either choose to accept the gift or reject it (Eph 2:8-9). So its not something a person can lose, kind of the way you lose your keys, lose also suggests that it can be accidental. There is nothing accidental about choosing to no longer live a life in Christ, it simply means the person chooses to stop obeying Christ which implies that the person has rejected Christ. As John 3:36 (NLT) says "And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment.” So a person stops being saved when they stop believing and this is evident by rejecting Jesus through disobedience to the point where the Holy Spirit cannot convict them anymore. The biggest sign of this rejection of Christ is not feeling the need to repent of your sins and believe it's okay to not do that Jesus demands of us.

2. Book of life - I think people have over-sensationalized the idea of the book of life to the point that it impairs their thinking, which is what makes this a very valid question. At the core, what matter is a couple of things:
- Using the same bible verse mentioned above Eph 2:8 - It says that we are saved by grace, I think if we continue to live with this fact in mind, lean on God to help us live right, and confess our sins and repent, we will remain on the path to Heaven. John 3:16, as far as we continue to believe we have eternal life.
- Just because we are saved by grace doesn't mean it doesn't take a lot of work to overcome the flesh and align with God Philippians 2:12 says that we should work to show the results of our salvation, if you stop there you'll think its by our work, but it follows with "obeying God with deep reverence and fear." If we continue to do this, we are headed to Heaven.

Reading through this chapter was just enlightening, there was a lot to learn and it showed how merciful God is. That even in our disobedience he gave us the gift of grace. Yet we should not be carried away by this gift (like abuse it) because it shows how Adam’s disobedience brought the guilt of sin to the world.

The verse that stuck out is vs 14 I read a version that said Adam is a type of Him (Christ) who was to come. God made man in his image and likeness to be like him. He provided Adam and Eve with access to him and everything they needed but they wanted more. I always wondered how life would be if this act of disobedience never happened. The level of access we would have (Thank God for the Holy Spirit though).Will we still be naked abi our eyes will open some other way because the world keeps evolving? How would we fit in the garden like this? Sometimes I just sit and imagine a world where Adam and Eve didn’t eat that apple lol.

The enemy found a way to bring destruction and proposed a false reality that made them curious and greedy for more. He told them you will be just like God if you eat this apple but they were already made in God’s image and likeness. This devil sef he has problem! Same thing when he tempted Jesus he said he will give him all the kingdoms of world if he bows down to him. Matthew 28:18 That same authority Jesus has it all. He still uses this tactic till today so we need to constantly die to the desires of the flesh and open our eyes to these patterns. The devil will always come to kill, steal and destroy. The enemy brought destruction of what God intended to be beautiful.

God brought salvation while we were still sinners he has this merciful and selfless love for us and gave us the gift of righteousness. His mercies are new every morning. Because of this salvation of God all sin can do is truly threaten us with death however we have a new reality which is life and not just life but eternal life with God which by faith and obedience to God we walk into.

Now we have hope in the glory of God. Our hope will never be disappointed because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us.

Because of what Christ has done we have; peace with God, undeserved privilege, joy in trials, hope, the Holy Spirit, freedom from condemnation, friendship with God and faith.

In Christ we receive faith, hope and love. Faith that we are saved by God and cleansed by His blood. Hope in our future with Him and in eternal life despite the trouble we face here in earth. We also receive love; to love God and love others.

When Paul says to rejoice in suffering, it’s not because suffering is enjoyable but because it makes us more mature spiritually as it makes us rely on God more not on the things we have or can see. Trials and suffering points us to the hope we have in Christ that despite what we are going through, it doesn’t end there. We have hope that God can save us and even if He doesn’t we know there is eternal life with Him that cannot be taken away.

Quick question that came to mind. With Adam, sin entered the world and passed down from generation to generation and we were not required to believe first before sin corrupted our hearts but with Jesus, the free gift of salvation has been extended to all but it cannot be inherited or passed down. It is only for those who believe. Why? This could be because what Jesus came to do was to reconcile us to God. Reconciliation takes intentionality with God. He has shown us the first step of love. It is up ti us to respond to His act of love. Adam, a human showed the human nature but Jesus, full of God showed us the God nature and made it readily available for us to inherit - if we believe.

God’s ability to save us from sin is greater than the power of any sin over us. Through the power of His redeeming grace, we can triumph over sin. God gave us the law so we could see how sinful we are and that we don’t have the power to triumph over sin on our own.

I particularly took interest in this your question Tosin while reading through the discussion posts.
“Can a person lose their salvation?”

For the longest time I believed this was quite impossible. I even taught it many times till I had a change of heart from scriptures. It is possible to (I’d prefer to use the term) walk away from salvation, howbeit this is extremely difficult to do. It’s not something someone can just wake up in the morning and say I am no longer a Christian. It’s something their hearts would have been echoing for a long time till their soul eventually believes this to be true and the begin walking in reality of their new truth.
1 John 1:8 says how the truth is not in us if we claim to have no sin. And then I ask myself the question, how can someone whom the truth is not in make their way into heaven? Hebrews 6:4-6 furthermore emphasizes the impossibility of renewal for a soul that has recrucified the living Christ a second time.
So yes, it is possible to walk away from (and not be able to return to) salvation. I’m sure I was able to touch on the first but didn’t say much to the second on the fear of losing salvation that burdened some of our elders in the church today.

Just wanted to comment on the question @Anu's write up on sin being passed down generation to generation. I believe what was really passed down by Adam was the impossible task of making choices in every situation, which means always choosing between God and Sin. The law showed how sinful we are which means it exposes our inability to always choose God by ourselves in all situations. The reason I mention this is to make reference to people in the Old testament who still chose God or chose to do things that will honor Him. One example I want to mention is Joseph. Even when there was no law on fornication/adultery, he still chose not to sleep with Potiphar's wife. This means that even before Christ humans were still able to chose God, but sadly we cannot consistently chose God and as God is Holy, there are no half marks, its either you are Holy or not and this is where Christ comes in.

The biggest difference is that once you believe (or choose) Christ and acknowledge the fact that He died for us, you can now live life knowing that we have the help of the Holy Spirit to help us choose God, and also we have the blood of Jesus which helps cleanse us when we choose wrong but we still need to confess and repent. The repentance part is the one I feel we Christians mess up the most, repentance is not just remorse, its remorse with the intention of not repeating the same thing over and over again.

So really it all comes down to our choices.