davidbowerkingwood

The Weekend That Changed the World Forever

This weekend we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.” This is a time of both sadness and joy; sadness as we consider the fallen condition of mankind that made the terrible agony of the cross necessary, and joy as we rejoice in the triumphant resolution of mankind’s sin problem by our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Kinsman Redeemer.

The First and Second Adam

I cannot even imagine the feelings our Lord had as He entered the Garden of Eden, knowing full well what Adam had done, and watched Adam squirm and listened to Adam as he tried to pass the blame over to Eve. The Lord, in His omniscience, could see into the future and see the misery that was going to result from this foolish act of disobedience; He could see the terrible price He would have to pay to restore mankind from the results of Adam’s disobedience.

The contrast between the first and second Adam is given in 1 Corinthians 15:44b-49, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

We Bear the Image of the First Adam

We inhabit a fallen, sin cursed, body that has not been redeemed; we bear the image of the first Adam. This body cannot inherit the kingdom of God because it has not been redeemed by our faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. Although we enjoy a redeemed soul, and have had our spirits brought back to life at the point we received Christ as Savior, our mortal bodies still labor under the curse of sin and must be transformed by the power of God before it can enter eternity.

To this point, those who have died in Christ are spiritually home with the Lord while their mortal bodies have returned to the dust from which it came. Those of us who still live know there is a possibility that the Lord may return for us and we will never see physical death. In the event the Lord tarries, we too shall join those who have gone before and will await the Lord’s return for His church. This is described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, “¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.“

We Shall Then Bear the Image of the Second Adam

When the Lord was resurrected on Sunday, He became the “First Fruits” of them that slept; this resurrection is what will happen to those of us who have experienced mortal death and will be followed by those who have not when the Lord returns and calls the church home.

I hope these words are an encouragement to you!