Luke 3:23-38 Son of Adam, Son of God

Jesus' Family Tree: Christmas 2021  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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Jesus is the Perfect Adam who obeyed God and bore our curse of sin to redeem mankind and give us the gift of eternal life.

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Reading

Romans 5:12-15 “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— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 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. 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.”

Intro

What is Christmas really about?
The Christian answer is, of course, Jesus. Jesus is the reason for the season.
But what are we actually celebrating about Jesus? What is Christmas meant to make us remember and glorify God for?
Its not all about nativity scenes and baby Jesus in a manger.
Its really pretty simple. Christmas is when we celebrate God fulfilling His promise to save us by sending His Son to obey God on our behalf. To suffer and die on our behalf. And to rise again so that through faith in Him all of our sins could be forgiven.
That’s what Christmas is all about. The Word became flesh. God became a man.
He humbled Himself. Like the Christmas Hymn says:
Come and stand amazed, you people!
See how God is reconciled! See his plans of love accomplished.
See his gift, this newborn child.
See the Mighty, weak and tender! See the Word who now is mute.
See the Sovereign without splendor! See the Fullness destitute!
Christmas is for remembering the love of God in sending His Son, and for remembering the glory of the Son in fulfilling righteousness on our behalf, and for remembering the power of the Holy Spirit in anointing Christ the Savior of the World.
In a word, Christmas is about the glory of God in fulfilling His promise to redeem us from our sins.
And that’s what I want us to remember over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas in a series we are calling Jesus’ Family Tree.
And what I want to do is I want to look at the genealogy of Christ, I want to look at His family tree.
Because the genealogies aren’t just list of names. They represent generations of God’s faithfulness.
Of God being true to His promises again and again and again to save His people from their sin.
But what I want to focus on, in these next three weeks, is how Jesus’ family tree actually proclaims the very promises God fulfills in Christ.
I want to look at three people in particular from Jesus’ genealogy to see what they tell us about what God promised and the glory of Christ as the fulfillment of that promise.
This week we are going to look at Jesus, the Son of Adam the Son of God.
Then we will look at Jesus, the Son of Abraham. And finally, we will finish with Jesus Christ, the Son of David.
But let’s kick off this Christmas with Jesus the Son of Adam, the Son of God.
Luke 3:23-38 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph [because remember, Jesus was born of a virgin. That’s an important part of this story, and Joseph was Mary’s fiance, and he became Jesus’ adoptive father. And after Joseph, Jesus’ genealogy continues name after name after name until finally verse 38]…the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
In Matthew, Jesus’ family tree goes back to Abraham. But Luke, intentionally takes Jesus family tree all the way back to the first man, Adam.
And here’s the reason why. Luke wrote his book for Gentiles. For non-Jews.
And Luke wanted to make sure we knew, Jesus wasn’t just the Savior of the Jews.
He is the Savior of Adam’s race. Of all mankind. All humanity.
Every single person that believes in his name.
But Adam is more than just a name in a family tree.
The NT has this recurring theme that directly ties Adam to Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:22 says For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
Paul even calls Jesus in that same same chapter the last Adam.
Adam in Hebrew just means man. So what Paul was saying was Jesus was the Last Man. The Perfect Man. The fulfillment of who God created Adam to be.
And in Romans 5:14, Paul even goes so far to say that Adam was a Type of Christ.
Now in biblical theology, you can think of a type like a shadow that points to and finds its ultimate fulfillment in Christ.
And types can be negative or positive.
Positively think of the passover lamb. The Passover was a shadow that pointed to how Jesus ultimately and eternally saves us from death and the judgment of God by covering our sins, not just our doorposts with his blood.
Or negatively think of Jonah. Jonah was a bad missionary who wanted nothing to do with saving the people of Nineveh.
But Jonah’s failure, as a type of Christ, shows us the glory of Jesus who didn’t run away from the mission of God to save sinners but actually gave His life for it.
So when Paul calls Adam a Type of Christ, he’s saying that Adam shows us, in some way, in some shadow, the glory of Christ.
So here’s what I want to do the rest of this sermon.
I want to look at Adam in Jesus’ family tree to see how Adam shows us the glory of Christ
And here’s the BIG IDEA I want you to walk away with today...

He is the Perfect Adam who obeyed God and bore the curse of our sin to give us eternal life.

Adam points to Christ. Like a shadow, he gives us a small glimpse of the glory of Christ.
But to see the fullness of Christ’s glory we have to look at the type and the antitype together. The shadow and the substance.
To get a full picture of the glory of Jesus, the son of Adam, the son of God, we need to see the Last Adam as the fulfillment of the first Adam.
So to see the glory of Christ we need to go all the way back to the beginning, to the book of Genesis, to the first Adam.
Because before we can see the glory of the Perfect Adam, we need to see the glory of the First Adam.

I. The Glory of the First Adam

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
God made everything that was ever made.
This is perhaps one of the most important verses in the whole Bible because God is the Creator. And that means God alone is Sovereign.
He is King of heaven and earth.
This is His World. It belongs to Him. And all Creation, whether we want to admit it or not, is under His authority and owes him all glory and worship and honor.
And on the sixth day of Creation God made Adam.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Let me say just two things about being made in God’s image and likeness.
First and foremost, this tells us that Adam was God’s son.
A little later in Genesis 5, God gives the beginnings of Adam’s family tree.
And it says When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God (Genesis 5:1). That’s the same word in Genesis 1.
Then, in verse 3 it says When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (Genesis 5:3). Now we have both words from Genesis 1.
But this time Image and likeness are used for Adam’s son, Seth.
What does this tell us? Well God is Spirit. He is flesh so I don’t want you to press this too hard, but Adam was God’s son, as much as Seth was Adam’s son.
God did not make humanity for a cold and distant relationship. He’s not agnostic where he just made everything and kind of set it in motion.
God made us to be His children. God made us to know Him. Love Him. Worship Him.
And God made us to bless us with all the blessings of His love, life, joy, and peace.
Not only that, but being made in God’s image meant that Adam was created to reflect God’s glory.
He was God’s representative.
Everything he was, Everywhere he went and everything he did was supposed to shine forth and point to the glory of God and His holiness.
In other words, Adam’s highest purpose as God’s image bearer, and by extension our highest purpose as image bearers, was to honor and glorify God for all that He’s worth.
As the Westminster Shorter Catechism says Question 1: What is the chief end of man? Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
And to glorify God, God gave Adam a job to do.
Genesis 1:28; 2:15 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”...The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
So to glorify God, Adam was given dominion over the earth.
God commanded Adam to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and ultimately exercise dominion over the everything God had made.
Psalm 8:4-6 get at this idea. What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.
God made Adam a king.
And that makes sense. Adam was God’s son, which made Adam a prince.
And by giving Adam dominion over everything he made, Adam ruled under God’s Kingdom and Authority.
Which means that Adam’s earthly dominion over the earth pointed to God’s ultimate dominion over all things.
God put mankind on this earth to know, love, and worship Him as Father and King.
To have man fill the earth and have all creation ring out the praise of God’s glory. That’s what the dominion mandate’s all about.
Look at what it says. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
The Garden of Eden was the Temple of God’s presence. It was unstained by sin and a Kingdom of perfect blessing, life, worship, and peace. It was the Kingdom of God on earth.
And God placed Adam in that Garden, and told him to work it and keep it. He made him a gardener and said Adam, your job is to expand the borders of my Kingdom.
I want all of creation to celebrate my praises, and I want you to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, exercise dominion until every square inch of this planet is one gigantic Garden of Eden.
Until the whole earth flourishes under the blessing of my Kingdom. The Kingdom of God.
That was Adam’s purpose. To glorify God and fill the earth with his glory. Because even from the very beginning, the point of God making the world, of making us, was to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14).
Here’s the big idea. God’s purpose was for Adam to fulfill the Dominion mandate. To cover the earth the the Garden of Eden and the knowledge of the glory of God among God’s image bearers.
And once the Kingdom of God had become the Kingdom of this World God would dwell with his people forever in fullness. He would be their God and they would be His people. Forever. And ever. And ever in perfect life, blessing, joy and peace.
That’s why it says that God blessed them. God was giving Adam and Eve and all their children the blessing and promise of Himself and eternal life with Him.
There is no greater blessing than God himself.
And with this blessing came obligations. Adam had life. He had communion with God. He lived in paradise in God’s own temple.
That was all God’s unmerited, unearned grace. God gave it to Adam as a gracious and loving Father.
But everyone knows a good son, a holy son, obeys his father. And this takes us to the Fall of the first Adam.

II. The Fall of the First Adam

Right after Genesis 2:15 where God places Adam in the Garden to work and keep it and to expand the Kingdom of God over the face of the earth to conquer new lands, plant the flag, and say God rules here, and here, and here and to Him alone belongs the glory we come to Genesis 2:16. God says...
Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
To understand the fall of Adam, and in him the fall of all of humanity into sin, you need to understand this verse.
God said to Adam, you may surely eat of every tree of the Garden, except one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Every other tree, including the tree of life, you can eat.
Now that confuses some people. Some people think that Adam could not eat of the tree of life, I mean after the Fall God barred Adam from the tree of life because if he reached out and ate of it like he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then he would live forever.
But that straight up contradicts Genesis 2:16. Adam could eat of every tree.
The tree of life was the sign of God’s promise that Adam would never die as long as he did not eat from the tree of knowledge.
That as long as Adam walked in obedience to God, who is the fountain of living waters, Adam would live forever.
So God gave Adam the tree of life to remind him, obey me and live. Every bite: obey me and live. Obey me and live.
And every time Adam ate of the tree of life this would have hit him square in the face because the tree of life was right next two the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 2:9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
And people have asked, well why did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden anyway?
If God knew Adam was going to sin, why did he do it?
This is a little bit of speculation that theologians have debated for centuries, but I think this is theologically sound.
God prohibited Adam from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for his good.
God promised that if Adam ate of the tree of knowledge he would surely die.
Now think about it. Adam had never seen death. He never experienced death. There was no way to fully comprehend what God was saying.
So this command was first and foremost a command to trust his Father by faith. To believe that God knew best, and had told him the truth, with Adam’s best interest in mind.
Also, by trusting Adam would have learned good and evil. Good is obedience to God’s Word. Evil is disobedience.
God created Adam to rule and in ruling, glorify Him.
But to rule well, to glorify God to the utter most, Adam had to be trained to always choose good no matter the temptation.
Remember how Hebrews said Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered specifically referring to suffering temptation to throw off God’s will, and follow His own (Hebrews 2:18; 5:8). That’s the idea here.
The Prince had to learn to always serve his King. To learn loyalty to authority so that he could exercise authority well.
To withstand all opposition to the Father’s throne and keep and guard the Kingdom.
So this command strikes at the very heart of Adam’s nature as a son and image-bearer of God.
Would he obey his Father and honor God as Sovereign ruler of all things?
Sadly it doesn’t take very long to look out at the world and realize, “No. This is not Eden. This doesn’t look like the fullness of the Kingdom of God.”
This is place is broken. Groaning. Cursed. All because Adam disobeyed his Father and rebelled with high treason against his King.
That’s the sin God imputes to every single one of us in Adam. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). In Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:22).
Well what happened?
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?
Satan came to Eve, and twisted God’s Word. When God had given Adam and Eve every blessing, even every other tree in the Garden for food and life, Satan hissed out his lie, “You will not die eating from that one tree. God is lying.
God just doesn’t want you to eat it, because if you do, he knows you’ll be like Him knowing good and evil.
Satan’s lie was that God had not blessed them, but that he was holding things back from them.
Satan’s temptation was that Adam and Eve wouldn’t have to listen to God anymore. If they knew good and evil, they could say what was good and evil.
They wouldn’t need God. They could be their own god’s and determine what was right and wrong for them.
They could do what was right according to their own eyes and make themselves equal with God declaring themselves Sovereign just like Him.
And so, seeing that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, Eve took its fruit and ate, and she gave some to Adam who was with her standing idly by the whole time and he ate (Genesis 3:6).
And after they ate, the Bible says their eyes were opened. They knew that they were naked and so they sewed fig leaves together to make loincloths for themselves (Genesis 3:7).
They were ashamed. They knew they sinned. They had forfeited life and communion with God, and were now under God’s condemnation and judgment.
And here’s the great irony. When Satan promised that they would be like God, Adam and Eve already were. They were made in His image and likeness.
The Fall was all about rebellion. All about autonomy. All about humanity not wanting to give all love, glory, and honor to their Creator. To God and God alone.
And we’ve been sinning like this ever since. Everyone does what is right in their own eyes.
In Adam’s disobedience, we’ve rejected God, made ourselves His enemies. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
And when God made us for eternal life and communion with him, we fell from grace into death, condemnation and judgment. Eternally separated from the God of life because sin cannot stand in the presence of His perfect holiness.
The first Adam, the son of God, disobeyed at the tree. He rejected God’s will and command and said, “My will be done.”
And when God came to Adam and Eve, He said what is this you have done?
The Fall was a complete and utter rejection of Adam and Eve’s call to glorify God and honor him as Holy in the Dominion mandate.
God commanded Adam to keep, guard, and watch over the Garden, but the serpent made his way in.
He commanded them to subdue and rule over every living thing that moves on the earth, but instead were subdued by the serpent.
They listened to his words instead of the Word of God and allowed Satan to usurp their dominion and establish his own kingdom to challenge God’s.
And so because of their sin, God cursed the sinners.
To Eve, he cursed her child bearing. He said in pain she would now bring forth children.
He also cursed her relationship to her husband. Her desire would be to devour him. Dominate him. But he would rule over her.
For man, God cursed the ground. It would bring forth thrones and thistles and pain all the days of his life.
And then, just like God promised, Adam would die. You are dust, and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:19).
But before we get to the serpent, here’s what you need to see.
Notice how God’s curse on Adam and Eve, on all of mankind, are directly related to what God made us for.
God made Eve to be fruitful and multiply and to help her husband. But now pain and feminism would dominate her life.
God made Adam for life with him. He made him to work the ground and expand the borders of Eden, but now? Death and thorns.
How far Adam had fallen. He was created to live under God’s perfect blessing, and now, because of his disobedience, he was going to die under God’s just curse.
But that’s not the end of the story. God in His grace and mercy did not leave us there.
To the Serpent he said Genesis 3:14 Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
Why is this the serpent’s curse? He already goes on his belly. What is God saying?
He’s telling Satan, You wanted to be king, but you’re going to eat dirt. That will be your kingdom all the days of your life.
That’s not all.
Genesis 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
This is the first gospel. This is God’s great promise. Remember, Adam and Eve are right their hearing this.
And God is promising to send a Redeemer. Someone born from the see of the woman who would fix everything.
To make all things new, and restore mankind to who God created them to be to the praise of his glory.
To bring the blessing of God’s Kingdom to every square inch of this earth, crush Satan, and fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God like Adam was supposed to.
This seed, was Christ. The eternal Son of God. The perfect Adam. Who obeyed God, where Adam disobeyed and out of death brought life and reconciliation through his blood on the cross.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, we’ve seen the glory and the fall of the first Adam. And in him, we see a type of Christ.
The First Adam is a shadow of the glory of Jesus Christ the Last and Perfect Adam.

III. The Glory of the Perfect Adam

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Like Adam, Jesus was God’s Son. But He wasn’t a created Son.
He is eternal God. The second person of the Trinity.
God exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One God, three persons each equally, fully, truly, coeternally God.
And if you’re saying, I don’t understand, that’s the point. Who God is is too glorious for us to comprehend or understand which drives worship.
But God the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ into the world.
That’s what we are celebrating at Christmas. That is what the incarnation is all about. That’s the point of the Baby Jesus.
Its not cute. Its glory, life, and salvation.
And like Adam was made in the image of God, is the full and perfect image of God. The true representative and full manifestation of God’s glory.
Jesus said Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9).
Hebrews says He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature (Hebrews 1:3).
Jesus, eternal God, worshiped in heaven by the angels in glory, humbled himself and took on human flesh.
He became like Adam to redeem Adam. To save Adam. To reconcile Adam’s race back to God.
And to do that he needed to do two things as the incarnate GodMan.
He needed to obey the Father perfectly as a holy Son like Adam was called to do.
And he needed to pay the King the debt of sin man owed to God, which means He needed to suffer and die as a man and offer His life as a sacrifice to pay for man’s sin.
And the glory of the Perfect Adam is that He fulfilled both.
It is not a coincidence that Luke immediately goes from Jesus’ family tree where he said that Jesus was the son of Adam, son of God, to Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness in Luke 4.
And it’s especially not a coincidence when the first thing Satan says to Him is If you are the Son of God (Luke 4:3).
Luke is shining a spotlight. He’s saying I want you to see something here.

Temptation

Satan came to Jesus after 40 days of fasting in the wilderness.He was hungry, and the Devil tempted Him saying Command this stone to become bread (Luke 4:3).
He wanted Jesus to reject His Father’s provision and feed Himself. He wanted Jesus, just like Adam, to take and eat instead of trusting God that true life came from true food which is the Word of God.
Do you see the greater Adam? Adam was in the Garden, in Paradise, well fed with every tree imaginable, but he still ate.
Jesus was in the wilderness, desolate wasteland, hungry, and he chose to obey God and feed on His Word, just like Adam was supposed to.
Then Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world ad said To you I will give all this authority and their glory, if you will worship me (Luke 4:5-6).
Satan promised Jesus Dominion, if he would just worship Him. If He would just submit himself to Satan, and rule alongside of Him instead of ruling over him.
It was Adam’s temptation all over again. Would he have Dominion over the serpent, or would he be dominated by him?
But the Perfect Adam did what the First Adam should have done. Jesus said, You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve (Luke 4:8).
Then, Satan took Jesus to the top of the Temple and said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down and then he quoted Psalm 91 to say if you really are the Son of God, God will not let you die (Luke 4:9-10).
And Jesus responded with a quote of His own from Deuteronomy saying You shall not put the Lord your God to the test (Luke 4:12).
Jesus didn’t need God to prove that He loved Him. That He wanted the best for Him. That he could always be trusted.
That’s what Satan made Adam doubt. But Jesus, the Perfect Adam, trusted and obeyed God with all His heart.
And here’s the great irony. If Satan had kept reading Psalm 91 that he had quoted, he would have known it said You will tread on the lion and the adder; the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot (Psalm 91:13).
In overcoming this temptation, Jesus showed how he was the One promised all the way back in Genesis 3:15, to trample the serpent. To crush his head and save God’s people.

Gethsemane

And right before the cross, there was one more temptation, Christ had to suffer.
The night before His crucifixion, Jesus knelt down in the garden of Gethsemane and prayed.
Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me (Luke 22:42).
That cup was God’s wrath. Jesus was praying, God if there is another way to save them, can we do that? Do I have to die? Do I have to suffer the judgment of your wrath?
The Bible even says he was in great agony and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground (Luke 22:44).
In a garden, the Perfect Adam was tempted again. But where Adam disobeyed at the tree and said, “My will be done,” Christ obeyed God and went to the tree of His cross to bear the sins of the world, praying to God Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done (Luke 22:42).
And when Jesus went to the cross, he wore a crown of thorns. Do you know why?
Remember Adam’s curse. Thorns and thistles it will bring forth for you.
God was proclaiming to the world, My Son, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, the Perfect Adam, the One who obeyed at every turn, is bearing Adam’s curse on behalf of everyone that believes in Him.
God said on the day that you eat of it you will surely died. And Christ died under the wrath and judgment of God so that we wouldn’t have to.
Jesus said I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die (John 11:25-26).
Jesus died for our sins and he rose again conquering sin, Satan, and death, once and for all.
The Perfect Adam took our place on the cross, to pay our debt of sin, and three days later God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death (Acts 2:24).
And now, through faith in Him, all of our sins can be forgiven.

IV. The Salvation of the Perfect Adam

Romans 5:15-17 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass [That’s Adam and his sin], much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 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. 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.
The only way to be saved is through faith in Jesus. Trusting him as the sacrifice to pay for your sins before a Holy and righteous God.
All people are either in Adam or in Christ. There is no in between.
In Adam we are dead in our trespasses and sins. Condemned under the wrath of God. Lost. Forsaken.
But in Christ, we are forgiven. We are given eternal life through his sinless life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection.
We are born again with every sin washed away, and adopted by God the Father as holy sons and daughters, new creations, new Adams, new Eves!
Redeemed! Saved! Loved! Welcomed back into God’s Kingdom of perfect life, blessing, joy, and peace.
We are new creations recreated to be the sons and daughters God created us to be, freed from our slavery to sin and Satan to glorify the Name of God as holy image bearers of the Perfect Adam, Jesus Christ.
But that’s not all that makes Jesus the greater Adam. If we stopped there we might be saved, but we would fall short of the glory of God the Son, and the great hope God has promised us in Christ.

The Gardener of the New Creation

On the day of His resurrection, Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’ disciples came to the tomb where they buried Him.
And a lot of people don’t realize this, but Jesus’ tomb was in a garden. John 19:41-42 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. 42 So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
So Mary came to this garden saw that it was open and that Jesus’ body wasn’t there.
So she stood outside the tomb weeping.
And when she turned around, she saw Jesus standing there in his glorified, new creation body, but she didn’t know it was him.
And Jesus said to her Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? (John 20:15).
And here’s what the Bible says.
John 20:15 Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.
I’ve always thought this was curious. Why does God tell us this? Every word of Scripture is breathed out by God. Why did God put this small detail in the resurrection story.
Well Mary must have thought Jesus was the gardener, because Jesus must have been doing something gardeners usually do.
He was working the ground.
Do you remember what God placed Adam in the garden to do? Work it, and Keep it. God made Adam a King-Priest-Gardener who was supposed to take the borders of Eden, the Kingdom of God, and expand it across the whole earth.
Right after this, Jesus tells Mary Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17).
When Jesus ascended, He sat down at the right hand of the Father.
Daniel 7 says it was Jesus’ coronation ceremony. To him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Daniel 7:14).
The First Adam was called to exercise dominion and glorify God by growing his Kingdom on the earth and filling the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God like the waters cover the sea.
And by coming out of the tomb and starting to work the ground, The Perfect Adam was showing us he was going to finish what now God started.
Through His death and resurrection, the GodMan has been given dominion. To Him belong the nations and the obedience of all peoples (Genesis 49:10).
Through the Gospel He is building God’s Kingdom on the earth. He is making all things new. He is filling the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God.
And when He is done, and has completed the work God has given Him to do, God will dwell with us. He will be our God and we will be his people in fullness just like He wanted to in Eden.
And how God shows us that this will happen, that the blessing of His Kingdom will reign over all people everywhere is that the first thing Jesus does after coming out of the tomb was to stoop down do the work of a gardener.
In that moment the Master Gardener was saying to the world, sin is forgiven, the serpent is crushed, I will bring God’s Kingdom of Shalom, harmony and peace. I will save the world, and I will start right here where I rose from the dead.

Conclusion

Jesus’ family tree shows us the glory of Christ, the True and Perfect Adam.

He is the Perfect Adam who obeyed God and bore the curse of our sin to give us eternal life.

Jesus had no sin of his own to die for. He perfectly obeyed God as a holy Son. And the resurrection from Christ is a promise from God that everyone who believes in him will not die, but have eternal life.
The cross of the Perfect Adam has become the tree of life.
God excommunicated Adam from the garden and cut him off from the tree of life with an angel holding a flaming sword.
But now, in Christ, God invites us back to the tree of life. Now he’s the one saying take and eat, for on the day that you eat of the fruit of this tree, of the cross of my holy Son, you will live!

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Revelation 21:3-7; 22:13-14 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son...
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life.
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