Romans 5:12-19 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
First Sunday in Lent Sunday, February 22, 2026 “A Champion for All the Defeated”
The entire Israelite army was lined up on one side of the Valley of Elah. Their enemies were lined up on the other side. It looked as though the battle was about to begin. Soldiers felt the rush of adrenaline as they prepared for a fight. But the battle never raged. Instead, an enormously tall, strong, well-armored man stepped out from the enemy’s ranks. He said, “We don’t all have to fight. I’m here. You pick one man to fight me. That’s what we’ll do. I will be the one representative of our side, and you can choose one representative for yours. We’ll fight, man-to-man.” Maybe you recognize this as a retelling of the Bible’s account of David and Goliath. Goliath was the giant soldier who stepped out on behalf of Israel’s enemies, the Philistines. Goliath was a champion. He had done this before. He was such a unique warrior that it didn’t make sense to risk the lives of fellow soldiers. Why wouldn’t he want to fight one man for them? Why wouldn’t his entire army want him to fight on their behalf? Every one of the Philistines were pleased with the arrangement: one man from each side could decide the battle. I’m not sure the Israelites felt quite the same way. They didn’t have a nine-foot tall warrior on whom they could call. In fact, as it happened, they had no one brave enough to go against Goliath until young David the shepherd boy showed up. In the meantime, they were terrified that they could not possibly beat the giant. They weren’t so sure that one-on-one combat was the way to go, but they didn’t know what else to do. Apparently, it was common enough for ancient battles to play out this way. But in this case, it seemed like such a mismatch. It seemed like one champion fighting for his side was the incredible favorite. And the other side didn’t even have a champion. If it didn’t find one, it faced certain defeat. Our reading from Romans today is not about the battle against Goliath, but it does bear some resemblance. It talks about champions fighting a battle for everyone on their side, in a certain sense. And it has us view two great battles from two different perspectives. Our two other Scripture readings in our service today zoom in on each of those battles. The first battle is introduced in the first words of our text. So then, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned. This is the battle of Adam. Adam was the first man God had created, and along with his wife, Eve, he lived in the Garden of Eden and ate from the trees God had given them. The one exception was a special tree in the middle of the garden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that Adam was not to eat from. You heard how Satan in the form of a serpent brought his temptation to Eve and Adam was with her. You could picture this as a great battle with all of the people who would be born from Adam and Eve on one side with the devil and his demons on the other. Adam could have been a champion, standing up against temptation, winning a battle that would impact the whole human race. But he ate the fruit. He was defeated. He had disobeyed the one who had given him everything, the one who had given him all that he needed. Instead of listening and obeying, he listened to temptation and obeyed that. And he faced the consequences. He felt the separation that came between him and God and between him and Eve. He would fall prey to earthly death when his soul and body would be separated, and he risked eternal separation from God. He had brought death into the world. And everyone died. Not everyone had a specific command of God like Adam did. It wasn’t until Moses that God gave his Ten Commandments and told people in a very clear detail what his expectations were for them. But every one of Adam’s children felt the consequences and the guilt of Adam’s sin, and every one of them faced death.