Grace For The Journey

  Monday, in part one of Exalting Christ in Your Life, I wrote that we exalt Him because Jesus is God Who has done wondrous things for us.  Tuesday, in part two we saw the significance of the title Jesus used most often to describe Himself, “the Son of Man,” and why He did so.

Both of these titles help us grasp more fully the fact that Jesus’ first coming was the fulfillment of a promise (covenant) between the Father, Son, and Spirit to redeem a cursed creation that was the result of the first man, Adam’s, sin.  And the third title given to Jesus in Scripture points us to His work to undo the curse Adam had brought about.  The Bible calls Jesus “the last Adam.”  The last Adam is the third and final title we will seek to understand, and by doing so will deepen our love and worship of Jesus the Redeemer and help us to exalt Him more effectively in our lives.

At creation, God set Adam in the Garden of Eden and appointed him as vice-regent over the creation.  God gave Adam the mandate to “work and keep” the creation along with the one created out of his side, Eve.  She was to complement Adam and the two, working together, were to provide a picture of the full-orbed nature of God and to fill creation with God’s image (Genesis 1:28; 2:15, 19).

There was just one requirement within this paradise of perfection; that Adam should trust in the goodness and provision of the Lord God.  And as a measure of his obedience, God placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden.  Adam and Eve were not to eat of the fruit of this tree under penalty of death (Genesis 2:16-17).  But, in case you don’t know the story, Adam failed to keep the one Law of God.  He allowed his wife to take and eat, and he too ate from the tree thus violating God’s word and will.  And with this original sin, the creation and everything in it, including Adam and Eve was justly cursed by the infinitely holy God.  Although Adam and Eve did not physically die immediately upon eating from the tree, they were separated from God (they died spiritually) and eventually died physically as well.

But God is incredibly gracious.  For on the occasion of this first sin, in the midst of the just curse pronounced on all involved, God also promised a redeemer who would one day come and undo the curse Adam had brought upon creation by his sin.  It would be an offspring of the woman.  From her would one day come someone who would crush the serpent Satan and pay the penalty for sin.  And even though this offspring would be wounded, He would fatally crush the head the serpent (Genesis 3:15).

As year after year, century after century, millennia after millennia passed, the Bible tells us that there was always one line of offspring from Eve to whom God revealed Himself by the giving of faith.  From Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, from Cainan to Mahalaleel to Jared, to Enoch, to Methuselah to Lamech to Noah to Shem.  On and on, down the line, as Luke carefully records in his gospel, God provided and protected one who walked spiritually with God (Luke 3:23-38).  Until finally, in the fullness of time, the Bible says Galatians 4:4-5, “God sent for His Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the laws, that we might receive adoption as sons.”

Why would God do this?

Why would His “begotten not made” Son, the eternal second Person of the Trinity take on the form of a human, to become incarnate which means “to become in flesh?” 

The answer is

So that He could

Fulfill all righteousness.

Only Jesus, the eternal, infinitely holy,

Second person of the Trinity

Could take come to earth

By taking the form of a man

And perfectly keep the law of God.

Only the Son, who was

One with the Father for all eternity;

Who was with His Father

At the moment of creation

Had the power to be totally

Obedient to His Father for every second

Of every day of His earthly life.

And in so doing,

He fulfills the requirement

Of trusting in the provision

And goodness of God fully.

This is what the first Adam failed to do.

This is what the last Adam accomplished.

Writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul explains in Romans 5:18-21, “Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.  For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience man will be made righteous.  Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound.  But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

When Jesus gave His life on the cross, it was a sinless life.  Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God veiled in human flesh, so He was able to live in total obedience (sinless) thus fulfilling the promise given to Adam.

Jesus was the only qualified individual

To give His life for the remission of sin

(Leviticus 17:11; Revelation 12:11).

And in doing so, Jesus redeemed

All those who trust in Him for salvation.

Paul states this biblical truth in his first letter to the church in Corinth.  He explains: “And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man” (1 Corinthians 15:49).  This promise for us to be given the “image of Christ” is a tremendous Biblical truth.  It means that those who put their trust in Jesus, each one an image bearer of the man of dust (the first Adam), will one day bear the image of the man of heaven (Jesus).  And all those who bear His image of perfect righteousness, will be with Christ forever in His Father’s kingdom.

The “last Adam.”  That is the stunning truth of the purpose of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  And all who trust in Him will follow Him into the eternal Kingdom of God.

This title is the final reason

We should put Christ

First in our lives.

His gift of fulfilling

The Covenant of Works

(The pre-Fall agreement between God and Adam in which Adam was promised blessing and life upon obedience to the terms of the covenant and cursing and death should he disobey the terms of the covenant).

That fulfillment through Christ

Is the reason we exalt Christ.

He has secured our place with God for all eternity.  What the first Adam failed to do, the last Adam has accomplished.  May we exalt Christ each and every day of our earthly lives because of Who He is and What He has done!

This is God’s Word For Today … This Is Grace For The Journey

Rest and Rejoice in this eternal truth!

Pastor Terry

Ephesians 4:7 – “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”

Hebrews 4:16 – “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”