The Second Adam

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

There is a technique in writing called foreshadowing, and it’s where the author will sort of give a hint to the reader or to the audience about what’s going to happen, what’s going to be coming along. And sometimes it’s really obvious, you know, sometimes it just smacks you over the head and you say, oh, this must be what’s about to occur. Other times it’s really subtle where you may not pick up on it until you’ve been through the whole book or you’ve been through the whole movie or whatever it is, and then you go back and watch it or read it again, you pick up on it and say, oh, that was clever.

They hid that right in there. And I’m going to give you some examples in case you’ve never heard a foreshadowing or never thought about it. Give you some examples.

And I’d say spoiler alert, but all my examples are anywhere between 40 and 400 years old. So if you haven’t seen or read these, then sorry to ruin it for you. You should have gotten around to it sooner.

In The Wizard of Oz, I don’t know if you’ve ever picked up on this. I didn’t until I read somebody else talking about it. In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow early on in the movie, right before, when everything is in black and white.

And by the way, hearing my grandmother talk about, they filmed this movie back when they first started having color. She was talking about the movie industry. She led me to believe, I misunderstood, she led me to believe that she grew up in the 30s when everything was black and white.

I just thought they didn’t have color in the world until the late 30s. I was a little kid. I thought, well, how clever of them to have made this movie knowing they were about to get color in the world.

And to plan it just right where they can, anyway. So she sings the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow when everything is black and white, and when you go back and watch it, you realize she’s kind of setting the stage to walk into this world where everything is in beautiful color somewhere over the rainbow. It’s foreshadowing.

It’s giving you a hint. You may not pick up on the first time, but it’s giving you a hint about what’s about to come. In one of my favorite movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, there are a few examples of this, but one that the critics point to, if you’re familiar with the movie, they’re searching for a medallion early in the movie so that they can find a spot in Egypt where they need to dig for something to help find the ark.

And Indiana Jones goes to Marion Ravenwood looking for this medallion, and when she pulls the medallion out of her clothes, you see in front of her a flame, and that’s foreshadowing the fact that it’s about to burn down her establishment when the Nazis come looking for the same metal. And not to mention the fire at the end when God’s not happy about them opening the ark. Okay, fire is going to play a big role in that movie. Sorry again if I spoiled it.

But fire plays a big role in that movie, and that flame there is there as a hint of what’s about to take place. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet told her nurse when she first saw Romeo, she said, go ask his name, if he be married, my grave is like to be my wedding bed. Now she means, what she means there is, if he’s married, I’m just going to lay down and die.

A little melodramatic. But as it turns out, he does end up married because they get married. And because he’s married, her grave is her wedding bed.

She ends up dying as a new bride. Sorry again if I boiled it for you, but again, 400 years old. That’s a little hint in there.

And that one stands out a little more because Shakespeare tells you at the very beginning what’s going to happen to them, that they’re going to die. But it’s just in there as a hint, a foreshadowing of what’s to come. And the Bible is filled with foreshadowing also, where its author, God, gave us some hints about what he was going to do later on.

Now, a lot of times we think about this in terms of prophecy, but there are foreshadowing pictures in Scripture as well. We’re going to spend the next few weeks looking at some of these instances of foreshadowing. Not just where he gives hints about events and stories, but where some of these people, some of these characters, some of these events, some of these objects in the Old Testament were there to foreshadow the coming of Jesus Christ. They were there.

God was preparing his people for thousands of years for the coming of Jesus Christ and giving them hints about what to expect, putting pictures in their minds so that when Jesus came and did what he was going to do, they would understand. As one example, we’ll probably talk about the sacrificial system, the whole system of animal sacrifices. It’s not just that Jesus came along and fulfilled all of the demands of that system.

I believe that whole system was in place to point to what Jesus Christ was going to do. The whole reason that God instituted the sacrifices was to point to Jesus Christ and His payment on our behalf for sin. And that’s just one of many examples.

This morning we’re going to be in Romans chapter 5, and we’re going to look at the earliest example. And this is not just me pulling an idea out of thin air. The Apostle Paul says that Adam, the very first man, is a type.

He’s a figure. He’s a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ and what He was going to do. Now, He’s not a perfect foreshadowing.

He’s sort of an opposite foreshadowing. But there are some similarities here that we need to understand, and they point to help us understand just how important it was for us what Jesus Christ did. So if you haven’t turned there already, turn with me to Romans chapter 5.

Romans chapter 5 will also be a little bit in the book of Genesis. If you want to mark a spot there so you can go back and look, but we’ll be primarily today in Romans chapter 5. If you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

Romans chapter 5, starting in verse 12, and we’re going to go through verse 19 this morning. It says, Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned, for until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of him who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by one man’s offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift of grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification. For if by one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as through one man’s offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through the one man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so also by one man’s obedience, many will be made righteous.

And you may be seated. So through this, Paul is using Adam as an example, and he’s explaining how Adam’s example points to Jesus Christ, to Jesus Christ and his coming, and in particular, what he was going to do. And it’s not surprising, because this is not the only place that Paul makes this comparison.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, he calls Jesus the second Adam. He says, and so it is written, the first man Adam became a living spirit, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. And there he’s referring to Jesus Christ, talking about how Adam, through his actions, brought death, and Jesus Christ, the second Adam, through his actions, brought life.

And he foreshadows, Adam foreshadows how one man’s actions can affect the way everyone else relates to God. And that’s the point. If you think back to the story of Adam in the garden, and we talked about it some on Wednesday night, those of you who were here, if you think back to Adam’s story in the garden and how man fell into sin through Adam and his transgression, that affected the way not just Adam related to God, but it changed the way everyone relates to God.

The way you and I relate to God today is directly impacted by the sin that Adam brought into the world. So we see through Adam the impact that one person can have on the way everyone relates to God. And that sets the stage for Jesus to be the one person who also affects the way everyone relates to God.

Adam’s story shows how our relationship with God has been ruined, where Jesus’ story shows how it can be fixed. The Adam is presented in Scripture as a historical figure, as is Jesus. They’re both real men who really lived, but at the same time there are things that happened in their lives that affect us today.

So they’re historical figures, but we’re also supposed to learn spiritual truth from what happened to them. Our relationship with God has been wrecked by sin that separates us from Him. And that sin that separates us from Him is a direct result of what happened with Adam in the garden.

We talked about this Wednesday night. Eve, it says in Genesis 3, 6 and 7, she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened.

God had told Adam, you can have whatever you want out of the garden, but there’s one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you’re not supposed to eat that fruit. Everything else, fair game. God gave one rule, and we couldn’t even do that.

We couldn’t. Eve and her, I think, confusion. We talked about this at length.

She seems not to have known what God’s exact instructions were. She seems to have been guessing. It’s possible Adam didn’t tell her the full story, because she said, oh, we’re not supposed to eat that fruit or touch it.

Wait, God didn’t say that. So it’s possible she’s getting things secondhand from Adam. It’s possible Adam put the added emphasis on there.

God said don’t even go near it because he didn’t even want her to be tempted by eating it. But that ignorance of God’s word, as much as men throughout history have liked to blame Eve for what happened, she didn’t know what God’s word said. That gave Satan an opportunity to get in there and twist God’s word, to question God’s authority, to question God’s character and to plant doubt in her mind so that she went ahead and did what God said not to do.

And then she came and gave the fruit to Adam who did know what God said not to do. And with full knowledge of what God’s word said, he made the decision to defy God. I don’t know why for centuries, for millennia, men have wanted to blame Eve for what happened.

And the Bible is very clear that Adam was responsible for the fall. I don’t believe it ever was about the specific fruit. It was about the heart of rebellion that led them to eat the fruit, that led Adam to eat the fruit.

It says, when he ate, there in Genesis chapter 3, when he ate, then the eyes of both were opened. Because when Adam ate the fruit, he knowingly and willfully disobeyed God, and that changed everything. It affected everything.

It affected everyone. It ruined all of our relationships with God up to this point. Now, we don’t get a get out of jail free card here as though we’re victims and we can just blame Adam.

They all tried to play the blame game in the garden. I’ve heard a preacher say that Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the snake, and the snake didn’t have a leg to stand on. I love that.

You see, Adam even tries to blame God. He’s like, well, that woman that you gave me, like indirectly he’s trying to say, if you’d never given her to me, then she would, oh no, no, you don’t get to blame God here. You made a choice.

You were big enough to make the choice, be big enough to deal with the consequences. And you and I, yes, we’re in a situation where Adam’s sin corrupted our nature and makes it easier for us to sin, but we’re still responsible for the choices that we make. Like I told my son years ago, and I may have told you this example, he was on an allergy medicine that made him mean.

Is that a good description? We took him off of it after a while. But I said, You are on this medicine that puts this tendency here, makes it harder for you to do the right thing.

That’s not an excuse for you not to do the right thing. It makes it harder, but you’re still responsible for doing the right hard thing. And you and I are responsible, even though we have this fallen sinful nature, we don’t get to say, well, the devil made me do it or Adam made me do it.

We’re still responsible for knowingly and willingly disobeying God. And we see here that Adam, through his sin, through this first instance of humanity willfully rebelling against God, Adam’s sin introduced death into the world. And God told them that would happen.

In Genesis 2. 17, he told Adam, in the day that you eat of the tree, of that particular tree, you will surely die. Now that’s where Satan told Eve, you won’t surely die.

God’s just telling you this because he knows that this will happen. You’ll become like him, and he doesn’t want to do that. So Satan comes and accuses God of ulterior motives, questions God’s integrity.

Well, they ate and both physical and spiritual death followed. In scripture, we understand death as separation. Physical death, we are separated from this place.

We are separated from our loved ones. Spiritual death is also separation. It is separation from the God who created us to walk in perfect fellowship with him.

Adam and Eve, as a result of what Adam chose to do, Adam and Eve died that day spiritually. Matter of fact, for the very first time, they experienced separation from the God who made them. The Bible describes how God was walking in the garden.

I don’t begin to understand how that works. But God was walking in the garden and called out, where are you? God knew where they were.

God wanted them to fess up. Kind of like when we asked Charlie, what did you do? We usually know full well what Charlie did.

We want to hear it from him. By the way, that goes for all of them too. He just here lately has been the one doing things.

Where are you? God knew where they were. We were hiding.

There was a separation between them and God because they knew they had done wrong. They died spiritually that day. And when they finally came clean about what they had done, God ran them out of the garden.

They were sent out of that perfect paradise that they were supposed to enjoy in perfect fellowship with God. They were run out of there according to Genesis 3. 23.

They experienced spiritual death that day. But you know what? Physical death entered into the world as well.

Just a couple chapters later in Genesis 5. 5, it says, so all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. Now, 930 years is a pretty good long life, right?

That’s a pretty good track record. But he still died. He still succumbed to decay and death as a direct result of sin.

And verse 12 of Romans 5 tells us that death has affected everything and it has passed to every one of us. Just as through one man’s sin entered into the world, death through sin and thus death, excuse me, and thus death spread to all men because all have sinned. The fact that we die, the fact that our loved ones die, the fact that animals die, the fact that all of nature, all of creation is tainted by death is a direct result of all of creation being corrupted by sin.

And it began right here in the garden. Every sin has consequences, even beyond the person who committed it. Verse 14 says, nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam.

He says from Adam to Moses, there was death even for those who hadn’t done the exact same things Adam did. Sin always affects other people. It’ll affect our relationships.

It’ll affect our dealings with other people. It can have consequences far beyond what we ever expected or intended. Somebody makes the sinful decision to go out and get drunk and then drive home.

Does their decision have consequences for people other than themselves? Does it? It does.

We understand this. How many of you have ever, when you were, I don’t want to say we’re innocent because we’re all sinners, but how many of you have ever been in a situation where you were innocent in that situation that you were negatively affected by somebody else’s sinful decision? Anybody else?

Anybody? Is it just me? We all have.

I won’t ask you to raise your hand how many of you have made sinful decisions that affected somebody else. We all have. And so Adam’s decision, whether we agree with it or not, whether we think it’s fair or not.

Adam’s decision to sin has had repercussions for all of us. It brought death into the world. Adam’s sin also corrupted our nature so that we would share in his guilt.

Some people would say, well, how is it fair that just because Adam sinned that we would be judged? It’s because Adam, that sin corrupted him and he passed it down to us like a virus. I have passed traits onto my children, some of them good, some of them not good.

The things that irritate me the most about my children are the things that irritate me about myself that I see in them. Okay? I thought I heard my wife say amen.

We pass things on to our children. Guess what? We pass the sin nature on to them because it was passed down to us.

Because it was passed down to our parents. And so on and so forth. It goes all the way to Adam.

We are born with this nature that is in rebellion against God. We are born with this tendency to sin. And it comes directly from Adam.

And if you’ve ever questioned this, if you’ve ever wondered if it’s true, Look at a small child. We don’t have to teach them how to be selfish, do we? Have we ever given any of our children lying lessons?

I’d like to because sometimes the lies are so blatantly obvious, I want to say, if you’re going to do it, at least do it well, right? But I don’t know if I matter that you’re lying or you’re so bad at it. But anyway, I shouldn’t.

. . A little peek into my psyche right there.

But we’ve never taught them, you know, you should try to lie to get yourselves out of trouble. It just comes naturally. It’s part of our human nature.

Never taught one of them to hit the others. Yet it happens all the time. Sin nature.

It’s right there. It has corrupted us. Verse 19 says, By one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners.

By his disobedience, we were corrupted so that our nature would be sinful. And guess what? We’re not sinners because we sin.

We sin because we are sinners. You understand the distinction? It’s not as though we are born innocent.

innocent, clean slates, pure before God, and then we do something wrong and he says, oh, you’re a sinner. No, by nature, we are sinners, and so we go out and fulfill our job description. And as much as I love my children, they are born sinners.

When Benjamin was first born, I had some older ladies in the church mad at me because I talked about him having a sin nature. It’s true. And if they’d watch him grow up, they’d know it’s true.

And I’m not picking on Benjamin. It’s true of all of us. That’s why when I talk about getting saved at five years old, realizing I was a sinner, people sometimes say, how bad could you have been at five years old?

And my answer, I couldn’t have answered that then, but my answer today is, it didn’t matter how much I had done. I was a sinner by nature. I had sinned.

Maybe not what society would call big sins. I disobeyed my parents. I told a lie.

But I had that sinful nature and left unchecked. It wasn’t leading anywhere good. We are now sinners by nature because we inherit that corruption from Him.

We just are sinners. It’s in our nature, but we’re also sinners by choice because we go and exercise that natural impulse. Like I said, we sin like it’s our job description and we’ve incurred judgment and condemnation.

And by the way, looking at this again this morning, some of these passages we’re going to look at as we talk about the foreshadowing of Christ are some difficult passages, some things that I still don’t fully understand in there. One thing that I saw this morning that I want to clarify for you, he talks about in verse 13, for until the law of sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed where there is no law. We might look at that and say, well, how could he say then that we’re sinners?

If sin is not imputed where there is no law, then all the people from Adam to Moses had to be innocent. If they didn’t know what they were doing because God hadn’t given the law to Moses yet, then how were they considered sinners? Now he says, sin is not imputed.

It’s not counted against you where there is no law. But he also says everybody between Adam and Moses were sinners. The point there.

And if you go back to Romans chapter 1, you see this is true, that there is a law, even before the Ten Commandments were given, even before God spoke any of it onto the stone tablets, there have always been commands. There have always been things that God has said to us. There’s always been a law written on our hearts where we knew right and wrong.

And it doesn’t matter whether we’re sitting here today where we can look at a copy of the Ten Commandments written in stone by walking outside, or if we’re in some tribe somewhere in the forest, and all we know is this innate sense of right and wrong that God has put in us, we all have some knowledge of what God’s law is, and we all ignore and disobey what we know of it. And so even before the stone tablets were there, he said there was a law. He’s actually making, if you look at it in context going all the way back to Romans chapter one, it actually, he’s making the opposite point of what it sounds like.

He’s saying there was a law before the Ten Commandments, before the tablets, and they violated it. And we learn from this that Adam’s sin introduced death into the world and his sin corrupted our nature so that we would share in his guilt. But we also see in this passage that Jesus’ sacrifice was enough to overcome the devastation of that sin.

See, Adam was one man who completely changed our relationship to God. And so we needed a second Adam. We needed another man who could completely change the way we relate to God.

And we see in verses 15 and 17 and 18 that Jesus Christ did just that. He overcame the devastation of sin. Verse 15 says, but the free gift is not like the offense.

For by one man’s offense, many died much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ abounded to many. So just as we all became sinners in Adam, through Adam’s sin, it led to all of us being sinners and all of us being estranged to God. Jesus Christ led to all of us having the opportunity to be reconciled to God.

Verse 17 says, if by one man’s offense, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one Jesus Christ. He brings righteousness where Adam brought disobedience. Verse 18, therefore, as through one man’s offense, judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through the one man’s righteous act, the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. So where Adam’s actions led to judgment for all of us, Jesus’ actions led to justification for all of us.

I know justification is a big churchy word, but it just means to have our slate wiped clean. So imagine there’s a big blackboard in heaven where God has written down all of your sins and He’s kept a record of everything you’ve done. He’s kept a record of every sinful thought you’ve ever had, of every sinful attitude.

I mean, He’s got it all written down and there’s no way you can ever do anything to erase it. Jesus Christ came and He didn’t just wipe some of it away. It was like the whole thing was an etch-a-sketch and He shook it and everything was gone.

That idea of that clean slate, that is justification. And so Paul here says that where Adam, through his acts, through what he did, led to judgment for all of us, Jesus Christ, through what he did, led to justification for all of us. Jesus Christ did all that was necessary for our slate to be wiped clean.

Just as Adam changed our relationship to God, so did Jesus. But what Jesus did to change our relationship was so much better. Adam led us to a place where we would all be separated from God.

Adam led us to a place where we would all be separated from God in this life and for all of eternity. Adam led us to a place where we would be in such rebellion against God in our hearts that we would want nothing to do with Him or His ways. Jesus Christ made the way back.

See, all that sin we committed, it deserved a penalty. And when it comes to God, people look at that and say, well, that’s so harsh of God to impose a penalty. Listen, God is a righteous judge.

And if we were to look at any judge in America that were to let criminals off and just say, oh, it’s okay, don’t do it again, or don’t do it many more times, and just let every criminal go free, we would look at that judge and say he was corrupt or he was out of his mind. We wouldn’t stand for it. We’d be trying to throw him off the bench.

People would be cussing him out on Facebook. I mean, it would be ugly. Folks, God is infinitely more just than any human judge.

Our sin has to be punished. But rather than force us to undergo the punishment, which would be that eternal spiritual death, that eternal separation from God, the eternal consequences of Adam’s sin and our sin, instead of making us go through that, God the Father sent God the Son, Jesus Christ, to be nailed to the cross, to shed His blood, and to die. And to do that not because of anything He had done, not because of anything He deserved, but bearing the full weight of the responsibility for my sin and yours, for every sinful thought, word, deed, for everything I’ve ever done that was in rebellion against God or everything I ever will do, and you, and you, and you watching at home, for every one of us, that sin was nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and it was punished in Him, so that now our slate can be wiped clean.

Jesus paid for that sin. He paid for Adam’s sin, and He paid for my sin, And he paid for yours so that we could be forgiven. Where one man’s story ruined the relationship with God for all of us, another man’s story fixed it.

And that leaves you and me today with the need to recognize the condemnation we’re under in Adam. I know we don’t like to think that. We like to think we’re good people.

And by human standards, we may be. As far as I know, everybody in here is a good person by human standards, but God doesn’t judge by human standards. He judges by his standard and whether or not we live up to who he is, and His absolute sinless perfection.

And even if we were the most exceptional people who had ever lived, and maybe we’ve only committed one sin in our entire lives, by the way, that’s impossible. But even one sin would be enough for us to fall short of God’s standard. We are all under condemnation because we are all sinners.

And yes, that corruption of our nature comes from Adam, but then we make the choice to follow through with it. We are all destined to remain separated from God for eternity. We have to recognize that.

We have to face up to that hard truth. Realize that it’s not what I’m saying, it’s not what religion’s saying to make us feel guilty, it’s what God says. And God says this is the standard by which you will be judged.

We have to sober up to that fact, but then also realize that God has made a way out of that condemnation. He’s made a way in Jesus Christ. We have to recognize the condemnation we’re under in Adam, and we have to look to Jesus for reconciliation to God. You may say it’s harsh, it’s narrow-minded that God would only make one way of salvation.

But folks, considering the way we rebel against Him as a species, it’s one more way than what we deserve. Our only hope is to trust that Jesus Christ died to pay for our sins so that we could be forgiven, that He rose again to prove it, and then to ask God for the forgiveness He so graciously offers that we could never earn or deserve. Throw ourselves on His mercy and ask for that forgiveness in Jesus.