Seeing ourselves from God’s vantage point may be impossible. But God has blessed us, even through a glass darkly, with a view of eternality we do experience while still wearing shoe leather. It is a blend of the first Adam and the Last Adam and we are elected to contain both. It is a parallel Paul makes for us in Romans 5:12-21 providing a comparison and contrast. The first Adam Paul points out, “was a type of the one who was to come” which was Jesus Himself, the “last Adam”.
The first Adam was a created life. God provided Adam with his own righteousness and he had eternal life. Death for Adam was not a natural consequence until after he sinned. God created Adam from the dust and breathed into him the breathe of eternal life. Adam was the product of God’s work and it was good. Adam and God had a personal relationship including communion and fellowship.
Adam’s single sin brought an end to fellowship with his creator. It was this single sin that separated Adam and his prodigy from God. Man’s nature became independent from God and that is why it is sinful. Sinfulness is defined by action outside of God’s realm. If we are outside of God, everything we do is sinful even if it is good and loving and kind. This passage gives us God’s perspective contrasted to our own. We tend to view scripture and God from the references in our personal experience but here is an example of God’s judgment on us who are alive before we were ever born because we are out of Adam.
The scriptures tell us in this passage that Adam’s single sin brought judgment and death to all mankind. It does not tell us we became sinful and therefore were judged for our sin. In God’s view, man sinned when Adam sinned and judgment was passed upon all because of this single sin, “just as sinned came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned”. Death reigns for all mankind because of Adam’s sin, physical and spiritual.
This does give us a pass for our own sin but it does tell us the way it is by God’s standard. Adam, the first Adam, was the federal head for all mankind who came out of Adam. Did you hear about the bumper sticker, “My heritage was human, sorry about yours”?
Paul is making the point that death reigns for everybody who is not in Christ. But, Jesus Christ is the second and last Adam. He is also the federal head of a new seed of people who are His body, the church. The comparison is the reign of death in Adam compared to the reign of eternal resurrected life in Christ. There is so “much more” provided to those who are in Christ compared to those who remain in Adam.
Paul makes this same point in the preceding verses. He focuses on Christ dying for the ungodly person who is an enemy of God yet; Jesus dies for them even while they are in this ungodly state. If God would do that, for these hostile persons, “how much more” will He do for those saved in (not by) His life? There is also the argument in these previous verses that God has already reconciled all people, even those who are still His enemies, how much more, having accepted His reconciliation will we be saved in His life, verse 10, since we are in Him.
This becomes the very point that Paul makes because in Christ, Paul tells us, that one man died, Jesus, so that all men receive the free gift through grace. In other words, the one man Adam sinned and judgment passed upon all men from the one man and the one sin. But on the other hand, the one man Jesus, died once so that many receive God’s grace. Paul is illustrating how we receive so “much more” in Christ than we could receive in Adam.
Under Adam we are dominated by natural life and death reigns. Under natural life we are victims controlled by sin, “for if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ”, verse 17. So we have to ask the question, what does it mean ‘we shall reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ’? Not only do we now have eternal life instead of death, we no longer fear death. We have a new life source that is not only eternal but righteous with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Adam had his own righteousness not the righteousness of Jesus.
We are now spiritually new even in our old sinful body. Having His life is a current benefit here and now in our body of sinful flesh. Paul in Ephesians puts it this way, “even when we were dead in our trespasses, (God) made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved –and raised us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2:5-6).
Under the Adam we were judged and that judgment was death. In Christ we are justified, made righteous and given eternal life. This is the identity we have in Christ while we still live in the flesh. And on top of that, we are destined to get new bodies without sin ☺ Yet, while we are still in these bodies of sin, we have been given life to reign over sin, “for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace”, Romans 6:14. It is for this reason we can invoke last week’s verse, “so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God”, Romans 6:11. In Romans 8 Paul puts it this way, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us”, Romans 8:37.
Probably the greatest “much more” we have in Christ, rather than in Adam, is God’s love to us and for us in Christ. We have in our present day, the current benefit of His loving care, concern and intimate nurturing by the very one who knows us with the knowledge of creator.
Here is a scene conveying, in the closing hours of his life when He was with His disciples, His love and compassion for those who are His. It was after the supper, probably the Passover meal, which to Jesus led to His imminent death on the cross. And where do we find Jesus in these closing hours before His suffering and separation from His Father … He is tending to the needs of His disciples. He is washing their feet and he is also drying them with the towel around His waist, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1b).
Our reign in life through Jesus while we still live in our polluted flesh is merely a ‘foretaste’ of what is ours after we are taken up into His presence. Jesus will one day say to us, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ (Matthew 25:34b). Scriptures teach us one day we will judge angels, we will judge the earth. The scriptures teach we shall reign on earth as priests and kings. Adam was made ruler over God’s creation. In Christ we shall share His throne and are restored with kingdoms as priests and kings. While we are on earth, we are in preparation for our eternal life with our beloved savior and Lord.
Being in Christ is a spiritual journey into the riches of God’s grace. But the scriptures do suggest a path we may fallow. John gives a little more light in his gospel chapters 14 thru 17. Here we find references to the unity between Jesus the Son with the Father. Jesus uses this intimate relationship with His Father to illustrate our relationship with the Father through Him, “…that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one” (John 17:22-23).
This gives a framework of the spiritual reality that actually exists in which we spiritually function. Paul gives us a little more light speaking to the relationship of our spirit to God’s Spirit in Romans 8:16 where we cry out “daddy” to our Father. Here is a subjective personal expression of God’s Spirit joining with our spirit testifying to our intimate, permanent relationship as “children of God”.
There is clear biblical evidence that a joining has taken place in this new birth miracle what provides us with the new capacity to know and understand things spiritually.
We set up Saul in an earlier Milk to Maturity, the first king of Israel, as our spiritual marker. He represents the man who chose to walk in the flesh even though he had God’s promises and blessing ready to be poured out upon him if he would be obedient to his high calling. He chose not to, he would rather do it himself. God took away the blessing that was awaiting him to posses.
Our calling in Christ is much higher than Saul’s position of king. Our union with God through our spiritual intimacy in Christ not only provides direct access but also a communion and grace Saul was not afforded. We have been qualified to represent God through His Son’s living presence within us making us holy even while we feel the effects of sin in mortal flesh. Our flesh may seem to be a barrier or handicap but Paul regarded it as a blessing. It was an opportunity, in his view, for spiritual growth and a deeper knowledge of God. There is so “much more” in Christ!
If our time on earth, in Christ, is prep time for eternity, how should we spend our time? This becomes a very serious issue if it factors into who we are in eternity with Christ. How should we appropriate our union with God in Christ so that we grow? How do we address the effects of sin so they become opportunities and not stumbling blocks? What does it mean to be “rooted” and “built up in Him” according to Colossians 2:7? Let’s take a look next time.