The verdict on man in Adam? Fail!

The verdict on man in Adam? Fail!

pastor @ lbible.org

The wonders of being in Christ!

How is it that we came to find ourselves IN CHRIST?

It is a story that begins in innocence, falls into sin, is rescued by the blood of Christ onto righteousness -

-by grace through faith, and ends up in abundant eternal life in Christ.

Return to innocence is in the nature of things impossible when good and evil are known.

The old man was doomed. But even this did not stop God from bringing about His wonderful ending for men.

So God would put an end to man in Adam and start over completely new with the Last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The record of man, having the knowledge of good and evil, and the pretention with it to be good and righteous, being tested along these lines.

But then God introduced to the story of man this policy of His called grace.

Abraham, whose faith was reckoned as righteousness and who received the most amazing promises from God.

Israel, God’s called and redeemed people, took on the task of inheriting blessing by doing all that Jehovah commanded of them.

Failure. Failure from start (think golden calf) to finish (think captivity in Babylon).

We need righteousness, and we cannot produce it of ourselves, because of the weakness of our flesh.

The ultimate trial of man as man would come when Jesus Christ came into the world.

Here was the absolute goodness and love of God manifest in the flesh.

The depths of the sinfulness and wretchedness of man came out in the presence of the absolute love and goodness of God.

God is love yet Christ was hated.

Man’s heart was tested by God’s goodness, and found to be wicked to the core.

The mind of the flesh – what man is in himself-, was exposed as pure hostility toward God.

It was demonstrated not only by the sins committed by men, but deeper than that, the principle of sin inside man, and man’s contempt for God.