Life In Christ Series

Eternal Security

Life in Christ

Welcome back!

In the first message we learnt how we all sinned in Adam - we're guilty human beings with a fallen Federal Head and so in our natural state, God can do nothing with us.

Remember that God's perfection and holiness means that He cannot bear to look upon even one sin - and that was all it took to sink the human race!

And we know, of course, that Adam's sin was only the beginning of our human tragedy. From that one sin, for which we all share the guilt, the corruption that ensued has been passed on through Adam's line - namely the human race.

We all inherit Adam's DNA in the form of the human genome. Like a burning candle, passing on the same flame to innumerable other candles, - Adam's life has been transmitted to each one of us - complete with the innate tendency to continue sinning!

Look at how the Bible describes what the human race has become:

Rom.3:10-12 "None is righteous, no, not one;no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one."

So Adam's Federal Headship has made it impossible for a natural man, a sinner, to please God - to achieve eternal life. It's a double whammy if you like - although really the two sides of the same coin: the shared guilt for that one act of trespass - imputed because of Federal Headship - and the ensuing corruption passed down through the blood, from father to children.

In any event, the upshot is that the whole race is involved. The whole race! Not individuals per se - but every individual in the race! We've been categorized a race of sinners and the guilt of that first sin is shared by every member.

This has made it impossible for us to be accepted by God in our natural state.

1 Cor.15:50 says this:

I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

So what's the solution to this terrible dilemma?

There could only be one! If we were to be truly freed from sin and brought back into a relationship with God, two things needed to happen. Firstly, the corruption of sin passed down to us needed to be dealt with. In other words, the sins committed by each of us individually, needed to be forgiven and Christ made this possible by dying for them in our place. That was His first action in His role as our representative: He substituted for us on the Cross.

1 Pet.2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Certainly that took care of the damage sin caused in our lives - and satisfied God's righteous requirements in regard to the expiation of our individual sins. But what about the second problem faced? Even with individual sins forgiven, we would still be in a doomed human race - still represented by a fallen Adam - still sharing in the collective guilt of that first trespass; still 'in Adam" as the Scripture puts it - still sinners!

This was the dilemma faced in the incarnation of Christ. If Christ himself had come into the world in the ordinary way - he would still have been legally constituted a sinner - even if he had lived a perfect, sinless life. This would have been simply on the grounds of him being born into this race of sinners and consequently represented by the first Adam.

No - Christ had to come into the world in a way that by-passed any connection with Adam and , in the wisdom of God, this problem was ingeniously solved by the virgin birth!

So it wasn't enough that our sins themselves were forgiven. Christ was born with no connection to Adam as regards the guilt and corruption of sin, and, to be justified - to be eligible to share in Christ's righteousness - we also had to sever our connection with Adam.

Adam had to go! Certainly he was the first-born of our race but we needed to be in a new race - a spiritual race with a new representative head: a first-born who could do for believers what Adam did for the entire human race - and transmit spiritual life to us in the same way that Adam transmitted natural life through the human genome.

That's why, in verse 14 of our passage, it says that Adam was a pattern or example of Christ. This was, if you like, the second vital role Christ has played as our representative.