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Adam and Christ

Romans 5:12-19

 

As we read through the Scriptures, we find that Adam and Christ are uniquely linked together. We would be wise to carefully and prayerfully study the comparisons and contrasts that are made of them (Romans 5:12, 18-21; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).

 

Two Representatives

Adam was made in the image of Christ, who is “the image of the invisible God” (2 Corinthians. 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). Adam was a representative man, a covenant head, and so is Christ, the last Adam. All that Adam did was imputed to all his seed; all that he became was imparted to all his seed by natural generation. We are all the sons of Adam, “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3), by nature. So too, all that Christ did has been imputed to all his seed in free justification; and all that he is as a man is imparted to all his seed by God the Holy Ghost in regeneration. All believers, being the sons of God by grace, are made “partakers of the divine nature;” and God the Holy Ghost tells us that “as he is so are we in this world” (2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 4:17)

As our federal head and representative, our father Adam repudiated the goodness and love of God (Genesis 3:5). He questioned the truth and veracity of God (Genesis 3:4). And he rebelled against the rule of God. All that he did, all our race did in him.

 

Christ our Surety

Christ our Surety, the last Adam, the second and last man, the second and last federal head and representative, completely vindicated the love, truth, and majesty of God, which the first man Adam had so grievously and deliberately dishonored. Christ, as a man, as the God-man, our Mediator, honored God in thought, word, and deed all the days of his life upon the earth. He vindicated the love of God (Romans 5:8; 1 John 3:16; 4:9-10). If ever you are tempted of the devil to question the goodness and love of God, if the events of providence appear to cast a cloud over God’s goodness and love, look to Calvary and know that “God is love!”

      Our Lord Jesus Christ vindicated the truth of God, too. When he was tempted by Satan to doubt God’s goodness, truth, and supremacy, each time he answered, “It is written”. Every sabbath day he went into the synagogue to read the Word of God and worship him. As he chose his twelve apostles, he deliberately selected Judas that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. In his last moments of agony, he cried, “I thirst,” that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. After he was risen from the dead, as he spoke to his disciples, he opened to them the Scriptures (Luke 24).

      At every age, in every event, in all the details of his life, our all-glorious Savior, Federal Head, Representative, and Substitute believed, honored, and magnified God’s truth, even when it cost him dearly to do so.

      The Lord  of  glory  also completely vindicated the majesty, supremacy, and sovereignty of God as our Representative. He vindicated God’s right to be God by his willing, voluntary submission to him at all times, by his obedience to him even unto death (Philippians. 2:5-11; Galatians 4:4-5). He trusted God, as a man, living in perfect faith. He obeyed the will of God perfectly (Hebrews 10:5). He fulfilled the law of God completely (Romans 10:4). He subjected his will to the Father’s will. He magnified the justice of God in his death. In doing so, our blessed Savior fulfilled all righteousness and brought in an everlasting righteousness for his people, to the praise, honor, and glory of God. He was made like unto his brethren. He is not ashamed to call us his brethren, because we are made the righteousness of God in him.

 

First Last and Last First

God the Holy Ghost tells us plainly that image of God in whose likeness Adam was made is Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3). What does that mean? What does God the Holy Spirit mean for us to understand by the fact that Adam was made in the image of Christ? Certainly, he means for us to understand that though the first Adam was the first man to appear on the earth, Christ, the last Adam, who is the Lord from heaven, had a pre-existence in secret, and stood before God as the Great Head of his body the Church, as our Surety before the world began. — Christ is the Wisdom Man who spoke for us and whose delights were with us from eternity (Proverbs 8:22-31).

      After the pattern of this Man who was to come, the first earthly man was formed. Therefore, the triune God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.Christ, the Man, is that One upon whom our help was laid from old eternity, even before we needed his help (Psalm 89:19). Christ is the Man “whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting(Micah 5:2).

 

 

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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