The Story of the Two Adams
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Last Sunday we saw the purpose of Christ’s coming, as God in our human nature, God in our flesh - was what? Friendship. Not stop being God and even King, but able to die for us, and having lived for us - able to draw us up into the friendship he enjoys with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Need to see that in Advent, not just celebrating the coming of the Son of God to earth - but in this manner - so sharing humanity, death, punishment, life, obedience, holiness - and most all fellowship, communion - not just in his first coming, but right now from heaven by the Holy Spirit - and on his second coming = we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as he is! What wonder will that be - truly Emmanuel - God with us. That the fulness of the covenant promise to us - I will be there God and they will be my people! That is the why of the incarnation. But now the how?
But how is it possible that the baby lying in the manger in swaddling clothes is God-with you and me? How is it possible that Second Person of the Trinity, co-eternal with the Father and Spirit, whom the highest heavens cant contain, how was He really born to lowly shepherds, and to you and me? How is it possible? Jesus in all the wrath of God against sin hanging on the Cross? Jesus in heaven, now, is really united to you and me, his believers - in a vital union with God but in our human nature? That’s the question we must wrap our heads around - how?
In the 2006 movie Talladega Nights, Ricky Bobby (played by Will Ferrell) leads his family in saying grace at the dinner table, praying to “eight pound six ounce newborn infant Jesus”. When his wife complains about him praying to a baby, he responds, “I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace you can say it to grown up Jesus or teenage Jesus or bearded Jesus or whoever you want.” His teammate and best friend interrupts: “I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt because it says, like, I want to be formal but I’m here to party too. Because I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party.”
This absurd scene perfectly captures many people’s thoughts when it comes to Jesus: they want Jesus to be the way they want him to be. Jesus is a contradiction anyway—God and man???—so why shouldn’t I focus on my favourite bits? But rather than shrugging our shoulders at the confusion of it all, or picking who we want our Jesus to be - let God’s Word reveal the Living Jesus to us!
Key Truth: Jesus is God sharing in our human nature to lift people like you and me and Sebastian out of sin, death & hell, and also to restore us to the true human career. Friendship with God, as friend of the king, enjoying God and glorying Him forever!
Friendship with God, as friend of the king, enjoying God and glorying Him forever!
But to get to this goal, this result, we need the full Son of God, in our full humanity - doing the career that you and I were called to, but have totally blown as a human race. Getting to this goal of you and I raised up as friends of the King - requires that the Son of God come to earth and be the True and Full Adam that you and I need! Maybe you understand God, the Son of God, but we need to know and trust and be united by friendship with JESUS - WHO IS JESUS? Jesus the man, was not God pretending to be a human. He was not God in disguise, or a weird combination of half God half half man.
Nor was he a man who was so holy and so connected to God that he became divine and now teaches us how to become divine. He is not a demigod, and though being fully GO and fully man , He is a mystery of beautiful union of these two natures in One Person, though he is a puzzle, He is the puzzle that everyone of us needs, that little Sebastian must come into union with by Faith!
The Bible describes your life as a 2-part story, story of Two Adams. There is an introduction and there is a conclusion, but at the heart of it a two part story. Born in Part One, - given for all of us,. But 2 is dependent on your participation in the God-man, it is dependent on how the Son of God gets connected to you and then works in you!
Let’s look at part one of our story:
A. Adam the First: Epic Fail Career
Adam the first came into the world like Sebastian and you and I - made in God’s image, glorious reflect God - He came into his world like Sebastian and everyone one of us - with no actual sin … bright glorious beginning for Adam’ the 1st - given a task and powers, given knowledge , - potential to live forever , though that had to be confirmed, potential to live with joy and happiness sand peace. But like you and me have been born able to sin. His time of testing would confirm his choice and destiny… Could really say in that probation time of the world Adam was like a teenager - hmm what am I going to do with my life - what will my career be - looks promising beginning - true harmony and sharing of life with Eve, fulfill work, relationships, worship real service and friendship - go out and in work cotribute to kingdom of God.
But then something happened to Adam the first, that effected him and Eve and all of us their descendants ever since. They were created able to sin, but also able not to sin and because of the most significant chapter of their life - they lost that ability - and with it the ability to walk in true friendship Friend of the King - representing Him, embodying his values, laws, and goodness in their home, neighborhood, in their work -
And as Adam, not leading Eve, but following her in the temptation - not living by God’s Word, and he was standing right there with her, - they believed the lie together and lived it together - for the whole human household -"we can be like God,s - our career can be selfishly lived for our own welfare, defining the rules of life, and accountable only to ourselves saying Shove off to God.”
ie. Like in Johnny Cash’ ballad of a teenage queen - worked in a candy store,love he boy next door - but big Hollywood agent came by promised her the world - - left her home her community, her future - empty hollow life - that’s our world living its career without God cut off and unconnected to his life and His Kingdom. But it’s worse than just you and I saying to God shove off, w’ll do life on our own.
Something really happened, that changed Adam the First and everyone of us sons and daughter of Adam. Made to live forever - with that trust and union with God. But you and I never got there.
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
Do you get that - like a disease that disorder everything, undoes all the life and way life is supposed to work - sin enters into the human situation for all of us it brings this poison of spiritual death, physical death, eternal death - picture a vapours liquid like gas washing through every part of us. Like Down Sydrome, every single cell, on chromosome 21 - affected by that . Original sin is not just the first time, it it the root in our nature that corrupts everything. Not as bad as it could be, but all our faculties, polluted and corrupted And this death reign in us. That’s the problem with the world today. Its the problem that Sebastian and everyone of us are born into and stuck in.
And look at he results of original sin in us -
And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation,
And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
Real judgment - you know how it is with a a person arrested, but not charged, often get out on bail - free to roam around, could be proven innocent, continue with life until that trial. Some people walking around thinking that’s what this life is like - God has not judged me yet, this life is just a trial to see how good o bad we are, and if basically decent fellow maybe in the end God will be kind and reward me.
The Bible says that isn’t our situation at all: in Adam all of us have already been weighed by God, and in that one sin - most important step in the Career of the first Adam, he did for you and me what we could never undo -
It was like God set up a covenant in which the very best math student could represent the whole class, - no one with better possibility to pass the test, never knew sin, didn’t have that knowledge that would draw us into it - but he failed for us, That one act changed you and me and the world in biggest way.
Found culpable, in our fallen human nature - God pronounced a curse and issued wrath - against what is wrong - in part now but in full at the end of our lives. Our sinning not like Adam’s like we had the choice become confirmed in total goodness or not, but fallen in Adam nonetheless with our corrupted nature the same judgment that cam e to him comes on us -
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already,
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
Do you see that, deep down we know it that like says we are condemned in our sin.
And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
And it is because of this summariest he ultimate result and conclusion of Adam the First’s Career:
And it is because of this summariest he ultimate result and conclusion of Adam the First’s Career:
so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Death reigns in all of us who are stuck in the failed career of Adm the First, and there is nothing we ourselves can do to get out of it. And so our story must not just be of the first Adam who failed, but somehow united to the Second Adam to Jesus who fulfills and who grants real and everlasting life! So listen now
B. Adam the Second: Epic Career Fulfillment
Listen to the most significant event in His life, listen to the one act that would change His and His families career path forever. And understand why it is only one who was fully God and fully man who could get us off of the one way rail trail to sin, death, hell, living without God’s direction, blessing, fellowship, and future. It is first hinted with that word type, in
. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
It is first hinted with that word type, in .
Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Adam the first wasn’t the biggest deal in God’s plan for this world. Adam the First was only a prototype - of the big deal to come. Kind of like Tesla’s electric truck, bullet proof windshield… smashed, didn’t turn out as promised. But a model of what’s coming. And that big deal to come the ANTE-TYPE - the bigger deal that the prototype prepared for - pointed to - had to be like the Firs Adam in every way except sin.
So 8lbs, 6 oz baby Jesus in swaddling clothes - first time since dawn of Creation - we have one born in in spiritual perfection - virgin birth - meant like us in every way, but with the Holy Spirit - though also fragile and fallen nature under the curse of God, preserved from having a sinful nature like you and me. And in his human nature like the First Adam at the dawn of creation he like you and me, and the Adam the First he is in his human nature capable of sinning, he will be tempted and tested, and do the whole probation period testing on our behalf again.
Do you get this? THis baby Jesus entering the world, is as big a miracle as the first man being Created - pow wow! No Second Adam enters the world And how is he described?
… much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.
And instead of this one mature perfect Firs Adam failing the test and poison title wave being released upon us, look carefully on landscape of human history -
now instead of a title wave of death, depravity, suffering, curse, separation from God, Now look here comes another title wave - in Jesus! Jesus comes full of grace and truth, and unlike the trespass that instantly and radically brought death; now look what this Second Adam must bring. What’s the opposite of trespass? Its obedience, righteousness, not just as a moral category, but as purpose - bring the goodness and the career that God intend - and that isn’t going to come in one instant is it!
Jesus from infancy to full manhood - going to have live the humn career that God intente for you and me - how are you doing at HOw will Sebastian do at it. Its hard, and it was hard for Jesus too - tempted in every way every step, Satan throwing the full weight of Temtpation at him, You can’t stand, Sebastian in HImself won’t stand. SO Jesus comes and just like the First Adam, the Second Adam is standing in our place , but he at every turn is fulfilling all righteousness for you andme! Do you undertand why he is called a free gift!
Now judgment brought condemnation and that condemnation was death in three sense, spiritual, physical, and eternal. Spiriitually in our blood, it imbues our bones! But Christ does righteousness for us and what should Christ’s righteousness earn? What does obedience get from God, perfect obedience, a perfect human life - withstanding every temptation, perfectly executing very good deed and cause and purpose - will that shouldn’t bring punishment, and it shouldn’t bring curse from God, - but reward, and favour, and instead of death spreading - it should bring life spreading! And so we read
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.
And so we read
Do you see that? Instead of our career, marked with guilt, loneliness, death, do it our way; what all of us drinkinhg from the fountain of first Adam have! But now the one man’s act of righteousness, - perfect life live, and then perfect death absorbing all the curse and death we deserve for sin, now he justifies us before God, not with our own tinted good needs form our career, but with His own perfect righteousness imputed to us as our Second Adam our Representative. He becomes to us a well of life, real life - that we got to drink from!
Irenaeus, co-worker and predecssor of Polycarp - 130-202 Put it this way: idea that Jesus re-does a human life in our place—in particular in the place of Adam—and replaces the disobedience with obedience, as Irenaeus summarizes: “through obedience doing away with disobedience completely”
He does so much to explain the how of God bringing us into friendship through the Son coming incarnate: He says: For it behooved Him who was to destroy sin, and redeem man under the power of death, that He should Himself be made that very same thing which he was, that is, man; who had been drawn by sin into bondage, but was held by death, so that sin should be destroyed by man, and man should go forth from death… But if, not having been made flesh, He did appear as if flesh, His work was not a true one. But what He did appear, that He also was: God recapitulated in Himself the ancient formation of man, that He might kill sin, deprive death of its power, and vivify man; and therefore His works are true.[5]
This what Paul means when he later says:
Hamilton, Craig. Made Man: Why God becoming human is so shocking, so necessary, and so life-changing . Matthias Media. Kindle Edition.
This what Paul means when he later says:
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
In God sending His Son in our humannature, he was accompsihing somehting that Sebastian just living a alife with ssome good deeds coudd never do. The law weakened by our sinful nature the flesh, can[‘ get us life, can’t deal with our codnemenation. Our flesh is our fundamental orientation away from God and towards sin. Its both our corrution and our rebellion agianst God. We can’t deal with that. But Christ’s flesh wasn’t corrupted Christ had to secure the fulfillment of “the righteous requirements of the law” in us. That’s singular not plural a whole bunch of moral deeds, but LAW the goal of a righteousness… Christ not just similar to us, but totally identifying with us in our sinful nature and sin, Christ entering into our human coniditon, not being sinful himself, but willing in becoming human life us to subject to the powers of sin and corruption. And on the Cross our sin and our sinful nature that he took uon himself is conemdned, punished and down away with! He came for sin, as a sin offering , 54 times in LXX , 44 of those sin offering.
OUr salvation requires that we be united to Christ and he be united to us - it was so in HIs incration, so in the atonemnt on the Cross, so in the Resurrection to new life , So with HIs ascension into heaven with our humannature. It will be so when He returns again in glory and we see HIm and are made like HIm. It is so for Subastian and for you andm e - The Son of God had to become human so that represetned and united to him by a living faith - we might recieve his etnerla and incorruptible life , we might be baptized notjust with water, but with His life!
Irenaeus put it this way: For it was for this end the Word of God was made men, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?
That is what baptism represents, it s not designed to be a testimony of our righteousness, or our repentance, of our own faith experience. Not first of all. iti is designed to be a picture of the gosepl to help us! it is dsigned as a sign and seal of Christ’s work - that we must trust into and live out of.
That is what baptism represents, it s not desgined to be a testimony of our righteousness, or our repentance of our own faith experience, it is dsigned as a sign and seal of Christ’s work - that we must trust into and live out of.
Signa dn seal of the righotuenses that is by faith in Christ death and resurrection. And when a child of believers or a new convert receives this sign and seal - saying this is the KEY TO LIFE _ this is the Career that’s been laid out for me in Christ. TO be justified by faith in his death and perfect life lived for me, to recveive HIm and be include unerhis new compnay, his new headship.
And look at the result that a new covenant already enjoys and that is held out for your child of the covenant to embrace by faith:
We all need to come into union with the God-man because without Him we are all like Adam, fallen Adam, head of the human race represetative.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
Do you see it now? We are to be literally baptized into the NAem and Person and Career of the Scond Adam, water baptism is a tool a sign and seal for us to underand that about ourevles, its a tool also for vcvoenant children to understand that they are promised this Career and Christ and must embrace him in personal faith, it assures us and them, as surely as I unite myself to Christ, - all of these blessing He earned and uopon m. As we wintess baptis after baptis, as we hold our own baptisms before us, can’t save us, but hod it up - is it doing its job m I in faith living this reality - PIcture of how Christ is to break the power of death, sin, hell in our lives, and born again to new life with God!
so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Sebastian and everyone of us needs to be told this again and agin - the deah, condemnation, the living life on my own, - it doens’ t have to be that way. Christ , the Son of God in our human nature has come so that what? GRACE will reign in his life and in our lives. How through righteousness, Christ own that saves us, and then by His Spirit our sharing in his life and prusoes, our own persnoal righteousness never pefrct inthis life, yet relaly growing. But that righeousness, as in Christ’s Cross our sin disbodeience, guilt in shame, is put away, this all leads to grace reigning through righteousness LEADING WHERE UNTO ETERNAL LIFE.
That is not jsut life that never ends, after we die, in heaven. That is fullnes of life from above, by reciveing Christ His SPirit lives in us makes us partakeers already in this life in our souls, and in the life to come even ni our bresurrectied bodies in the new heaven and the earth. pictures it this way: there is a sphere of tresspass and sin and death if in the first adam, but if Sebastian grows to embrace , if you and I live in this new reality of VChrist - if get the new career with the new life that’s in Christ - alive unto God, practice holiness increasingly, obedience, new creation!
Do you feel this, that the Second Adam’s career isn’t only better because he passes the temptations and the sin test, escape death and punihsment, Why else is the Second Adam the big deal and not the firs Adam?
The Second Adam passing the test, has righteousness confirmed - communion not only restored but perfected - and this all because God pleased to dwell in our human flesh, to accomplish the career that we had resigned and could never get back. But the Son of God coming to share you human nature - doing your human career, he does it, he restores it, and says now recieving me - you can do it too - unitd with God, receiving His life through me! He rose never to die again, to share his vicotry and eternal life with us already!
This mediator sharing fully in th commuion of God Father, Son and HOly Spirit - because he shard fully in our humanity recapitulated the whole life of us, in every way, even our death and bearing our sin - she says united to me now you get to share in the life of God. even now on earth.
That’s what baptism is signifying, not just a moement in your life that you decided to follow Jeuss, but here is a picture of a whoel life, a whole course oflife. Just like Adam disobeyed and our head plunged us all into death; so too Jesus who was sent to be our Second Head, had to be made the same substance of you andme to bring us salvation. His birth, his Cross, his resurrection are all one unifed events through which Jesus comes to save us. Baptism is a picture that true life can only come through our being plunged into Christ’s life and Christ death, and Christ’s
We all need to come into union with the God-man because without Him we are all like Adam, fallen Adam, head of the human race represetative.
Hamilton, Craig. Made Man: Why God becoming human is so shocking, so necessary, and so life-changing . Matthias Media. Kindle Edition.