From Adam to Christ

Introduction

Thank everyone, and remind everyone; we are not to substitute conviction of scriptural truths for the heart pleasing emotion of action that feed our sin desire rather than praise the God who is the creator of all. The heart is desperately wicked Jer. 17:9-10. so I encourage you not to be emotional driven today but rather to be theological student of the word.

AW Pink, a remarkable reformed theologian said “No verse of Scripture yields its meaning to lazy people.” It is my hope today that through a intentional study of the Scripture we may yield the fruit of glorifying God through seeing the shadow of Christ in the garden and in our first federal head who was a type of Him who was to come.

In all these men and their speaking, we have seen Christ clearly. It is the shadow that shout Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. He Himself says that all these scriptures teach of Him. Yesterday I couldn't help but think of doubting Thomas. He often gets a bad wrap but in that text we see something amazing as he thrust his hands into the pierced wound of our Savior, he proclaims my Lord and my God John 20:31

John 20:31 NASB95

31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

Today we will seek to place our hands and our eyes on the substance Jesus Christ.

We will be covering three main portion of text today to discuss the theological topic that I haven been so blessed to preach upon (from Adam to Christ). I hope that through it we can better grasp the substance of Jesus and that it would result in praise to the Christ.

Outline-Shadow (Pray, the Substance)

We are going to do a outline of the story from Adam to Christ so that we can see the clear shadow that is found in the historical garden and how it extends to the historical empty tomb of Jesus. The shadow finds its resting place where our salvation finds ours. After this we will explore the theological implication of the first Adam to the Second Better Adam and finally discuss what it means to be apart of the substance AKA the New Covenant.

We are going to start in the Garden but by no means will have enough time to covered the entirety of the creation account that leads us to our first father Adam. We are going to be start in Gen. 2:7-9, 15-17

Genesis 2:7–9 LSB

7 Then Yahweh God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and so the man became a living being. 8 And Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden, toward the east; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground Yahweh God caused to grow every tree that is desirable in appearance and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:15–17 LSB

15 Then Yahweh God took the man and set him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may surely eat; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat from it; for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Now we all should be familiar to some degree of what happens in this text. Eve is tricked by that serpent of old and leads to Adam partaking in the breaking of God’s law and thus made him, and all in him (including us), violators of the covenant of works that was enacted in the garden. Let us continue to paint this picture a little more. lets see what the result of this breaking of God’s law leads to Gen. 3:24

Genesis 3:24 LSB

24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

There are 4 things in the painting of this shadow that I want you to consider about Adam in this historical event of the Garden

Adam is from the below. He was created from the dust, from a virgin earth, and to the fallen dust he did returned.

Adam from below (Gen 2:7)

Adam placed into a garden, the best of conditions where there was no sin. For all of it was good.

Adam is in the Garden (Gen 2:8)

Adam was given a positive law. Adam broke this law causing the fall of all mankind in him.

Adam broke the law (Gen 2:17, 3:6)

Adam was drove out of the Garden, to that of a sin covered world where all creation is crying out awaiting its redemption.

Adam cast out, living, into a fallen world (Romans 8:19-23)

Now we will examine the historical Anti-type of this even found in Jesus. A story that I pray that we are all familiar with even more so than the garden. This is the mirroring effect that takes place in the fulfillment and in the success of the life of Jesus that reflects and magnifies the failure of Adam.

Jesus is from above John 8:23. being born of a virgin Matt. 1:21-23. and to the Throne above he returned Acts 2:25-34, Phil 2:5-11.

Jesus is from above

Jesus came unto the world John 1:14. which was totally fallen and depraved Matthew 23:37-39. It all was evil to the very core Galatians 1:4.

Jesus is placed in a fallen world

Jesus was completely obedient to the law 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Peter 2:22. was completely perfect John 1:36, 1 Peter 1:19. and lived a life that none other could live for all those that are in Him Colossians 1:18.

Jesus never broke the law

Jesus was cast out the world John 1:10-11. was fully rejected by His own sinfully dead creation John 19:6-7. And He is placed in a garden where none else have laid John 19:41

John 19:41 LSB

41 Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

Jesus is buried, dead, in a garden.

Adam is from below, Jesus is from above, Adam in a garden, Jesus in the fallen world, Adam broke the law in the best of conditions, Jesus kept the law in the worst of conditions, Adam is cast out of a garden by God into a fallen world while living, Jesus is cast out of a fallen world by man into a garden while dead.

Like Greg said yesterday by Christ undoing what Adam has done He has conquered the east and is taking us back towards the west towards complete restoration.

Now it should be obvious to see that both of these historical events mirror one another as the first Adam points us to the better Adam! The failures of Adam are restored in the promised Messiah.

Now that we have seen the rough edge of the shadow we must now shade it in with some theological implications of what this means for us, “Jesus if the second Adam”.

Theological implications (Pray, second Adam)

Read Romans 5:12-21. We will be discussing federal headship. “This doctrine is the teaching that the father of the family represents all his descendants” we will be using this definition as we proceed through the texts for today.

V.12 Who is this one man that sin entered into the world by? Adam

all sinned, none in this room are better than another, for we all fall short of the glory of God. Analogy Just as we have the One door Jesus Christ (John 10:9) through whom we gain entrance unto salvation, sin entered through the door of Adam. If we were to think about the entire creation of God as a house, sin being the murderous thief in the night enters through our federal head Adam.

Death through sin. Death is the very wage of the sin (Romans 6:23)

All men sin! We are all under this banner of the fallen house of Adam. We celebrate it, love it, roll around in it, we are sinful beings

V.13 Answers the objection one might raise about the people who lived before the judicial and ceremonial law was given to Moses, And it answers saying that sin exists because there is a law over the peoples head before even Moses lived.

Our conclusion ought to be, that because of the fall of Adam all man is dead.

V.14 “Death reigned” Eph 2:1-3

Ephesians 2:1–3 LSB

1 And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Experience: who has seen death in this room? what about a body that has been dead for four days in a hotel room, or a body that has baked in the heat of a canyon? the thought of death for anyone for any amount of time is one that is grotesque to each of us. God Could you imagine walking corpses that serve death walk upon your creation. This realization should make you praise God for His faithfulness and patience toward each and everyone of us.

Imagine: that when you were dead in your sins you served a continued wage of death according to Romans 6:23. And in this way death was the KING that you were serving. Death was the master of your house. That everything you did was unto that end, and nothing you did was ever bowing your knee to the King of the living, nor had true life therein. All your works were nothing but filthy rags, that you proclaimed before God as the means of righteousness, but on them was the rotten flesh stain of your decaying body. You were throwing them at the feet of God saying “I serve death, because I exalt death as king upon the throne, for he is reigning in my life”. This is the effect of original sin.

John Gill a reformed baptist notes on this verse saying; “death is represented as a mighty monarch, a powerful king; and designs not only corporeal death, which has mounted the throne by sin, and is supported in its dominion by an ordinance of heaven; but also a moral or spiritual death, which has seized on all mankind, and reigns in every power and faculty of the soul of man; and likewise an eternal one, which will have power over all those, who have no part in the first resurrection”

John Calvin remarks on original sin saying this:“Original sin, therefore, seems to be a hereditary depravity and corruption of our nature, diffused into all parts of the soul, which first makes us liable to God's wrath, then also brings forth in us those works which Scripture calls 'works of the flesh'

I would add to what these Brothers in Christ wrote by saying “It is in original sin that you were conceived in your mothers womb, you were actually born dead into the very kingdom of death. Just as you have no control over where what hospital, city, or country that you were born in by you parents, likewise when Adam sinned he caused all his posterity to bow their knee to the throne of death and to be born in a fallen kingdom. Sinners through and through who exalt death upon that throne day and night by the works of their own hands, the works of the sin infected flesh of that dead kingdom. This is original sin that is wrought in our first Federal Head.”

The doctrine of federal headship and specifically “original sin” is not like the common cold or corona virus. You can not avoid the contracting of it like you may a illness. There is no wearing a N-95 mask, staying home, getting a vaccine, or age where you are not effected by this disease. It is not like this at all, but instead you are conceived in sin, you are dead when born, your nature is corrupt, and the imago dei is mangled from what it use to be. You are totality depraved, and totally deserving of the wrath of God.

Transition V.15-16 Grace is not like the transgression. Its different because it is far better! it is not death but actual true life.

“Many” in here does not mean the exclusion of some but rather many means all who that federal head represents. This means all mankind, because all mankind are sinful, for none are righteous no not one! If anyone here today thought for a moment that this text means that you were not fallen in the first Adam, and thus you are trying to hide from the truth of your sin, you have made yourself no better than your current federal head who hid himself behind the trees in the garden. You think to yourself “don't look at me, for I am naked and I don't want to be revealed as a sinner in need of a savior. I can do it!” You must stop this, pride has been sown into your very core, you must run to your Savior, hide in the cleft, take shelter in the cross, bathe in the spring of life, and profess the Lamb of God! cry to Him “be merciful to me, the sinner!”

In one transgression we have the domino effect. This sins leads to another, and to another, and to another, and so on. This is where we can begin to see the redemptive history of God’s glory revealed to us so clearly. It is from this first sin that mankind in their depravity continue in sins till the day that God did anoint both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever His hand and His purpose predestined to occur. God predestined for his own glory that through one transgression, man would fall. It is through many transgression that the Christ would die and that grace would take its seat upon the throne resulting in our justification. Brothers and Sisters, we under a new Kingship when we are in Christ! Jesus is the builder of the new house and He is the door!

Transition V.17-18 No longer are we to bow our knee to death, now longer do we receive the wage that Christ paid, no longer are we dead but we have been made alive together with Him. Jesus Christ is our new representative. He is his our new Federal head, and He is a better Federal head as sure as the tomb is empty!

Through the One, Jesus Christ. This was and is not through our doing, it was not because we were obedient, it is not because we avoided the curse, It is only because He has done it, that He was obedient, and that He took our curse. He represents all those that are in Him.

Challenge in the text. There is no need to change your view of limited atonement (or exact redemption) with the final statement in verse 18. For the all, in verse 18, can not result in universalism as scripture compels us to testify that Jesus laid down His life for His sheep. We have died with Him, we have been buried with Him, and we have been risen with Him. Just as all those that are in Adam partook in the eating of the tree of knowledge and evil, and death itself the testament to that truth, the Empty tomb is the testament to us that the gift of righteousness will reign with the one who LIVES and is seated upon His throne.

V.19-21 We see again that we must testify that all those that who are dead in their sins find their death in the original sin of Adam. Sin has been reigning through death.

It is by the unmerited gift of God, that through God’s good purpose of unconditional election, that we are made undeserving partakers of eternal life.

Consider John 11:25-26

John 11:25–26 LSB

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever. Do you believe this?”

The command is “Do not eat of this fruit Adam for you will die” to then have, on the cross, grace instituted by Him dying in our place so that we will never truly taste deaths sting. He deserves all praise. For Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

We know and must profess that Jesus Christ is our new better federal head.

Consider the 1689 LBCF chapter 6 paragraph 3; By God’s appointment, they were the root and the representatives of the whole human race. Because of this, the guilt of their sin was accounted, and their corrupt nature passed on, to all their offspring who descended from them by ordinary procreation.  Their descendants are now conceived in sin and are by nature children of wrath, the servants of sin, and partakers of death and all other miseries—spiritual, temporal, and eternal—unless the Lord Jesus sets them free.

How do we get set free? (the New Covenant/Covenant of Grace is how we are made free, for it is the means of the gospel being transferred to its members) _New birth into this covenant that was made by the better mediator

New Covenant/Substance (Pray, the Mediator of the New Covenant)

Read Genesis 3:6-22.

V.6-13 In this text it should be noted that “Nakedness” if often used in scripture as the means showing someone or some people as sinful and fallen. For this consider Isaiah 47:3

Isaiah 47:3 LSB

3 “Your nakedness will be uncovered; Your reproach also will be seen; I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.”

Now in all of this text there is something that is so present, and that is pride. Instead of when first eating the fruit and running to Yahweh God, they instead hide. When they see they are ashamed in their nakedness and instead of going to God who created everything, they think that their fig leaf loin coverings can hide their sinfulness from the God who sees all things.

We see this so clearly as being present in our world. What does mormonism teach? Jesus isn't enough, you need to endure to the end and do all that you can then the grace of god is sufficient. “Cover yourself with the works of your own hands” -is one of the clearest mark of every false religion and yet we have our very first parents doing this great abomination.

V.14-15 These verses are known as the Proto-evangelium- the first proclaiming of the gospel. The gospel is first revealed here but it is surely instituted at where the blood of the substance was spilt. (Hebrews 10:19-20)

God here curses the serpent and says that the seed of the woman would receive a bruised heel but that the seed would ultimately be victories by bruising the enemy’s head. This promised seed would suffer but He would deliver the ultimate death blow.

Enmity was spoke of greatly by Jeff yesterday from the text of Eph. 2:16.

It is in this text that the beginning of the thread of promise that is the seed is made known. This thread continues in and through the old testament and is completed in the New Covenant. In the “forest of scripture, the reference of the Seed is the cut out and stone place path that leads us to Calvary”. The promise and seed find their substance in Jesus Christ. Gal.3 16, 29.

Galatians 3:16 LSB

16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And TO YOUR SEED,” that is, Christ.

Galatians 3:29 LSB

29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.

Nehemiah Coxe, the particular Baptist says; “From the first dawning of the blessed light of God’s grace to poor sinners faintly displayed in the promise intimated in Genesis 3:15, the redeemed of the Lord were brought into a new relation to God, in and by Christ the promised seed, through faith in him as revealed in that promise”

The 1689 LBCF words it like this in chapter 7 paragraph 3: “This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman,5 and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament;6 and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect;7 and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life” -partial quote

Jesus is the substance, you must be rooted in this truth, otherwise you will lean into shadows, into your own works, and into a misguided view of the scriptures. You must be firmly built upon the chief cornerstone that the whole building is being fitted together.

Could you think of what was going through the minds of the subjects of dominion of darkness? What they were thinking at the bruising heel of the Seed? At the crucifixion of Jesus the Christ? The demons possessing men and women, the self righteous Jews who cried out ‘away with Him away with Him’, the depraved idol creating gentiles who pierced our Lord to that tree, and Satan himself who has been on his belly since that day in the garden. I can’t help but think that the serpent of old, and all his subjects, when hearing the word “Tetelestai” thought to themselves “I have won” and the cry shouts of joy from the Jews thinking “he is gone, we’ve done it” But then during those dark hours of utter hopelessness as the disciples had scattered like sheep, there the rock shifts, the tomb begins to open, and their our Lord rises. It is at the assurance of the Resurrection that the Kingdom of darkness, that you and I were apart of, went from rejoicing over the words of “It is finished” to utter mourning as they know that the seed has won. That all things are now being made subject under His feet. Such are we, defeated there at the cross. Our sin laid dead with Him, but our life sealed in His Resurrection.

V.16-19 We see that God is given a line of excuses for the sin. The first Adam blames the woman that God had given him, then the woman who was created from Adam blames the serpent. Then in this text we have a chiastic structure in the text, where God then address those same figures in reverse order. The serpent, then the woman, and then finally the man.

We see that enmity that is present in the children of Adam, the woman will suffer through child birth, and this a result of the fallen world that Adam is cast into. For he will go from a garden of prosperity to a world full of thorns and thistles. The sole of the feet of Adam went from a lush garden to pricking of blood from the thorny world.

but it is in this order of events that we see Christ crucified even here. The enmity of man will lie on the shoulder of the seed and it is in this very way that the seed will crush the head of the serpent. It will be done through generations of painful child birth until ultimately bringing about a virgin birth of a coming conquering King. This conqueror will be crowned with the very thistles that Adam now had to step upon.

Just as Adam failed to represent Christ as the husband, eve who represent the church fell in Adam her federal head. But now the woman/bride of Christ as been saved by her to be Husband, Jesus Christ the better Adam. Eph. 5:22-33.

V.20-22 We see that God will be the one to atone for the sins of man by removing their filthiness and covering man by the sacrifice of a undeserving substitute. Jesus Christ suffers this penal substitution atonement upon that curse tree.

Christ has undone what has taken place in the Garden. We are seeing the wake of the victory of Jesus, in fact you and I take place in this victory today. We are the spoils of war that the King has won.

DANGER now there is a danger that we must address in all these shadows and types that have been discussed. It is clear from the book of Hebrews that these things are merely a shadow and the all the sacrifices in the Old Covenants never took away sin but that they were to instill a belief of a future coming New covenant of Grace where the Seed would save them from their sin. These Old Covenants of works had fault in them as they required mans obedience. they were full of fault because we are dead in sins because of the fall of Adam. Their are those in Christianity that are conflating the old covenants and desiring to go back into that bondage. consider your marriage. who in this room as been married the longest??? would you trade the X amount of years of your marriage to go back to when you were first dating? SHADOW ANALOGY would you trade your wife for the shadow of her? would you trade the cup of water for the shadow of the thirst quenching cup? The shadow brings you to the substance. Do not go chasing/hugging waterfalls/shadows but grasp to the substance and learn from the shadows.

CH Spurgeon says: Saving faith is an immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, resting upon Him alone, for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of God's grace.

When we run to the shadows, the types, and the works of ours hands, we deny the substance that is object of our faith. A saving Faith finds its beginning in Christ, its life its Christ, and its end in Christ. Look no where else lest you make Christ death a needless one.

Read Hebrews 8:6-13.

V.6-7 show to us that these covenants of the old ere in fact covenants of works. For grace is the unmerited favor of God and thus fault-hood is removed, sin abolish, wrath satisfied, death paid. If there is fault in a covenant by definition of grace it must be a covenant of works because it involves you and I. The shadow in the covenants is the promise of the seed Jesus. He is the mediator of a better covenant that actually saves because it requires nothing from a total fallen and depraved mind. The covenant of grace has to be instituted at where grace in its substance stems and that is at the cross and the empty tomb.

V.8-9 for finding fault this day would come. the covenant by which Jeremiah was saved under was a covenant that was yet future for him.

V.10-11 in this new covenant in which we live there is no need to go to me your least of the brothers and say no the Lord, for eve I know Him as I am a undeserving New covenant member.

There is no longer a need to send prophets to these new covenant members for they have the final prophet that has not just been killed like the others, but this prophet lives.

There is no longer a need for king after king in this covenant for we have the King of kings sitting upon His throne because the work has been done.

WE have no need of priest making sacrifice because our living Priest had made the perfect final sacrifice that actually saves because it was Himself.

V.12 The seed has done it! Sin has been paid for. This proves the reality of limited atonement because God remembers actively the sin that the unconverted has commited. .They suffer because God is continually holding their contempt against them. But to us the New Covenant members we have been unconditionally made to be partakers of this New covenant that was inaugurated by the blood of our new federal head Jesus Christ. Just as the first federal head Adam cause all in him to fall, all in Christ is saved effectually

V.13 Since the substance has come, we are no longer in the need of what a shadow would provide. The shadows are obsolete and as the second temple came crumbling down in 70 AD it should only focus our hope in the Kingdom and Temple that is not of this world. The very house that we have made partakers of. The sanctuary that is founded upon the rejected corner stone. The house that by being born again we have been adopted as sons and daughters WE are members of the New covenant. The covenant of works were fulfilled completely by the body of Jesus Christ and this new and better Covenant of grace was inaugurated by the spilling of His blood

Consider in closing Hebrews 13:20

Hebrews 13:20 LSB

20 Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, our Lord Jesus,

Jesus Christ through humility was perfectly obedient, suffer the reigning death that you and I deserve, He crushed the head of the serpent upon the place of the skull and we now see the wake of this battle through the tomb being empty and us being raised with Him and seated in the heavenly places. Jesus Christ is the Shepherd of the sheep who are members the everlasting Covenant that was made through blood of our great Lord and God, Jesus the Christ! Just as we have fallen with Adam, the second Adam has raised us up with Him. We were dead, But God has made us alive.

“Christ the God-man was Priest and spotless sacrifice, He was Prophet and complete fulfillment, He was King and righteous subject, He was sinless yet cursed, He is the creator yet despised, deserved worship yet He was rejected, He was Perfect yet pierced, He was Undeserving yet suffered, He Gives life yet was put to death, He was dead but now He lives! In a tomb but now on a throne, He was bruise yet He crushed in victory! The Substance that was promised in no longer a mere Shadow. The slain Lamb is standing victories as our new Federal Head! He is the mediator of a better covenant were grace reigns instead of death”

Pray- The shadows have met there end in the Substance, the second Adam has done what we can not, and it is through the Covenant of Grace that we praise Him. Thank you for drawing us through the Holy Spirit, thank you for saving us by the Blood of the Son, and thank you for the Fathers holy providence. It is in the name of the Man of sorrows, the New Covenant Mediator that we make our plea, Jesus Christ, Amen.