The Bible tells us Adam sold us down the river of sin. His first sin, disobedience was followed by death; spiritual death or separation from God and then physical death. The Bible also tells us no one gets a free pass. Every one of us descended from Adam is born in sin and subject to death. Because that first sin of Adam’s broke humanity’s relationship with God in every way.
However, the far reaching extent of this wasn’t apparent till God made it crystal clear to Moses. Here’s what we learned from God’s detailed and explicit law: Sin is a yawning chasm separating us from God that leads to death. We also learned that even those who don’t sin in the same way Adam did, by disobeying a specific command of God, sin in one way or another. Consequently we all experience both the spiritual and the physical end of life which is separation from God not just as an inheritance but as something each of us earns on our own.
But God didn’t leave us hopeless. When God cursed the serpent for tempting Eve to sin which is what dragged Adam into choosing fellowship with his wife over fellowship with his Creator He also made a promise that from woman would come a Savior. From the moment of the fall comes the hope of resurrection pointing ahead to the One chosen before the foundation of the world to get us off this one way conveyor belt to hell.
To maintain God’s absolute justice sin had to be paid for. The penalty of separation and death had to be fulfilled. All humanity could ever do was continue the cycle over and over since everyone sinned and added to the burden of the verdict. Then Jesus Christ, God Himself, came to bear the burden and pay the price becoming a sinless sacrifice, the just for the unjust. His death foreshadowed by every sacrifice ever offered up under the Law.
However, the blood of goats, bulls, sheep, and other animals could never cleanse from sin. The best they could do was cover symptoms of sin through obedience to the commands of God. They couldn’t deal with the root cause, separation from God because no human ever lived a sinless life after offering one sacrifice so another was always needed and death flowed like a river of sewage through the lives of all.
Just as Adam’s sin brought death into the world one person condemning many the sacrifice of Jesus brings life into the world One person making the way open for many. Though one foreshadowed the other and one fulfilled the other the gift of Jesus is not perfectly parallel to the death-dealing sin of Adam. You see if Adam’s sin put all of humanity in the well-deserved black hole of separation from God, imagine what God’s undeserved gift poured out through Jesus Christ’s sinless sacrifice can do. How can we possibly compare Adam’s death-dealing sin and Jesus’ life-giving gift? The righteous verdict on Adam’s sin was the death sentence on everyone born of Adam. The gracious verdict on the sacrifice of Jesus is this life restoring sentence on everyone born of Jesus, the second Adam.
Here it is in a nutshell: Death which is separation from God gained the upper hand through Adam’s sin. Now the astounding recovery of life, real life, life in union with God explodes in our spirit as soon as we’re born-again out of the descending line of Adam and into the ascending line of Jesus. Since the price has been paid and an acceptable sacrifice made the just for the unjust everyone who accepts this absolutely undeserved and free life-gift sees reality flow back into the mold God initially wanted for humanity: Living, loving, and praising in union with Him.
That’s the back story now for all you need to know:
If we confess Jesus as the head of our life and if we believe in our hearts God raised Him from the dead we will be saved.
It just that easy and it’s yours if you want it.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
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