WHY: Part 4, First & Last Adam (You Are in This Story)

James 4:14:

Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

The realm that represents reality is not this vapour we inhabit and its three dimensions.  Our lives and all this visible creation is like the steam that rises from the boiling water and simply disappears. 

II Corinthians 4:18:

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The realm that represents reality is the invisible Kingdom of God where all power and abundant life exists.  If the “invisible universe” causes your skeptical eyebrows to raise, consider that many of today’s scientists now theorize that a parallel universe (or universes) or an invisible metaverse exists which totally controls this vapour man calls reality. Once again, they’re knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door, but they can’t come in.

Jesus speaks of this invisible kingdom in Luke 17:21:

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.  

This marvelous and miraculous invisible kingdom is accessed through a living portal Jesus calls BORN AGAIN.  John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Dear visitor, have you yet to be BORN AGAIN?  Today, you will be invited to enter the Kingdom of God where all power and life abundantly exists.  In just a few moments, I will invite you to follow me in a simple prompt, and if you follow from your heart, everything will become brand new for you. Today, all of your sin and shame will be washed away by Christ’s cleansing blood.  You will be clean. Today, all of Satan’s bondages in your life will be broken, regardless of how formidable they seem. You will be free.  Today, you will be BORN AGAIN, complete with a new Father, a new name, even a new birth certificate.  Here is the prompt I promised: Click onto Further with Jesus for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

GOD SAID, I Corinthians 15:21-23:

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ''s at his coming.

GOD SAID, II Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

MAN SAID: According to Charles Darwin, “I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe … will be everlastingly punished.  And this is a damnable doctrine.” 

Now THE RECORD: Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 1202 that will once again certify the inerrancy of God’s majority-text Holy Bible.  All of these faith-building features are archived here in text and streaming audio for your edification and to be used as bait for the fishers of men.  Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. 

Thank you for coming. May God’s face shine upon you with Light and Truth.

It was a mystery kept secret since the world began (Romans 16:25), and Jesus Christ reveals this staggering secret to a man named Nicodemus in John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.  

God created a way of escape from the legal bondage of sin and death and He called it BORN AGAIN.  Be sure, this is a legal matter.

The fall of man was a result of unbelief.  The very definition of sin, found in Romans 14:23, is “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” When Grandmother Eve decided to believe Satan’s words over God’s, and when Adam then decided to follow her pernicious ways, the fate of their offspring was sealed.  Their children, which includes all of mankind, were DOA (dead on arrival).  We were spiritually stillborn.  Speaking of the BORN AGAIN, Ephesians 2:1 reads:

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins:   

Romans 7:14 says we were “sold unto sin.”  Therefore, we need someone to buy us back from sin.  We needed the Redeemer. We needed Jesus Christ, whom the Bible calls the last Adam. Everything good depends upon how we relate to the last Adam, and I mean TOTALLY!

Genesis 2:16-17:

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam and Eve died the second death—they died spiritually—the very day they ate of the forbidden fruit.  However, we know Adam lived for hundreds of years before he died a natural death at the age of 930. God’s Word clearly speaks of two deaths.  Revelation 2:11:

He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.

Those who are not BORN AGAIN will experience two deaths, but in the opposite order of Adam and Eve.  The first death the unsaved will experience is the natural death that comes upon everything in this world.  The second death is the spiritual death, and that is eternal.  The unsaved are separated from God, the Spirit of life and all that is good, and are cast into the lake of fire.  There, they will suffer eternal, cognizant punishment.  This is the second death. 

The BORN AGAIN, on the other hand, experience only one death.  The BORN AGAIN die the first death, the natural death that comes upon every living thing.  However, we do not experience the second death simply because we are already BORN AGAIN, born of God’s Spirit. 

I Corinthians 15:45 speaks of the first Adam, who is the Adam of Genesis, and the last Adam, who is Jesus Christ:

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.    

The last Adam, who is Jesus Christ, “was made a quickening spirit,” which means life-giving. BORN AGAIN is found in the Cross of Christ; it is the portal by which we enter the invisible Kingdom of God and eternal life in Christ Jesus.  Due to the deeds of the first Adam, we were “sold under sin.” We were lost and without hope in a fallen and falling world.  The last Adam came to redeem the lost and the hopeless.

Let me clarify for a moment: The term used in I Corinthians 15:45 is not the “second Adam,” as I have erroneously said on occasion, for if He was the “second Adam,” that implies that there could be a “third” or even a “fourth Adam.”  No, Jesus Christ is the last Adam and the only opportunity for men to be saved.  Acts 4:12:

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.  

No one else is coming for us.

Billions of lives have been lived.  Some were even God-fearing and noble, but Psalm 14:2-3 and Romans 3:23 lay it bare:

🔸 Psalm 14:2-3:

2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.

3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

🔸 Romans 3:23:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Not one of those billions could open the Book.  Revelation 5:1-5:

1 And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.

2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?

3 And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon.

4 And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.

5 And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.

This Christ, this last Adam, was the perfect, sinless and without blemish Lamb of God who came to settle the score of Satan’s legal argument.  Both the first and the last Adam were sons of God, the last being the mighty champion of Golgotha. The mysterious differentiator between the two Adams is that the last Adam is the only begotten Son of God, and this difference is fully central to God’s plan of escape, His plan of salvation. The proper rendering of John 3:16 is found in the Authorized King James Version of the Bible, and it reads:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The mystery kept secret since the world began (Romans 16:25) was Jesus Christ, the virgin-born, only begotten Son of God who would come to this fallen earth and give His flesh for the life of the world. John 6:51:

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

This Christ is called the last Adam.  He must buy back what our earthly father, the first Adam, sold.  That transaction was secured on Calvary’s Cross for all who will call upon the name of the Lord. BORN AGAIN is the portal to eternal life. Here, the law of sin and death is satisfied.

Consider the following verses:

🕇 Ephesians 2:5-7:

5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)

6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

7 That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

🕇 Romans 5:18-19:

18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

19 For as by one man''s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

🕇 I Corinthians 15:21-23:

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ''s at his coming.

The last Adam settled it all at Calvary.  The following paragraphs are from the first feature in this series, “WHY: The Christ, The Cross, The Blood, The Virgin Birth, and The Last Adam:”

In God’s secret plan of salvation, the stakes were very high.  What if Jesus failed?  The stakes were the souls of mankind and failure would certainly have repercussions in heaven itself.  Jesus didn’t want to go to the Cross, and He could have stopped the process at will (Matthew 26:53, John 10:17-18).  In Luke 22:41-44, we read:  

41 And he was withdrawn from them about a stone''s cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,

42 Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

43 And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

Jesus was in agony and prayed so intently, He sweat great drops of blood—a medical condition known as hematidrosis, a very rare condition that, according to the Dictionary of Hematology, occurs “when a person is suffering extreme levels of stress, for example, facing their own death.” 

Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, went to Calvary, the place of the skull, and paid the ransom for the souls of all those who would call upon His name.  He was tried, mocked, beaten, scourged, and force to bear His Cross until He fell under the weight of it.  His hands and His feet were nailed to that old, rugged Cross, and then He was suspended between heaven and earth between two thieves.  Judas, the traitor, ran off with the money and the soldiers cast lots for His clothes. Jesus hung upon the Cross of crucifixion a naked pauper, while the chief priests, scribes, and the elders railed and jeered.  All His disciples and apostles were devastated and dumbstruck.  How could it be?! He was the Messiah!  From the Cross, Jesus looked down and saw John and His mother, both grief-stricken and heartbroken, and we find this exchange in John 19:25-27:

25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother''s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.

26 When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

Finally, this heart-rending cry comes from the Cross at the ninth hour (3:00 PM), when our Lord gives up the ghost.  Matthew 27:46-50:

46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

47 Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.

48 And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.

49 The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

Somewhere in the deep fog between life and death, Jesus thinks His Father has forsaken Him.  Somewhere in the deep fog between life and death, when His last drops of blood are falling to the earth, when His lungs, heart, and mind are failing, He thinks His Father has forsaken Him.  He was the only begotten Son of God.  His entire essence and ministry were built upon the Words of His Father.  He walked, talked, and performed great miracles by the power of God to bring glory unto His Father.  His Father was all that there was or ever could be, yet somewhere in the deep fog between life and death, Jesus thinks He has been forsaken.  Mark 15:34:

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Yet, in all of this, Jesus Christ did not curse God to His face.  Remember Job 2:4-5 where Satan speaks his argument:

4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.

5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.

Leviticus 17:11:

For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

Life is in the blood, and Jesus Christ gave it all in love and obedience unto His Father, and to redeem the lost sons and daughters of Adam.  As His life is departing, He does not curse God and die. 

John 19:30 records these last words of Jesus: “It is finished.”  At this point, for Satan, all is lost.  The prosecutor’s argument was fully vanquished by the love of God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. From the beginning, only the blood of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world, would atone for sin. Only Christ-blood could break the legal claim of Lucifer.

Everything in the plan of redemption begins with the blood.  Only Christ-blood can satisfy the curse of the law of sin and death, and His blood alone can atone. The word atonement is made up of the words ATONEMENT and only Christ-blood can reconcile lost souls unto the Father.  The beauty of at-one-ment is recorded in John 17:21:

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

You’ll find this description of the word bless in the exhaustive Oxford English Dictionary: “The etymological meaning was thus, ‘to mark (or affect in some way) with blood (or sacrifice); to consecrate.’” To be blessed of God is to be marked, to be covered with the blood of Christ, the only acceptable sacrifice for sin. When one says, “God bless you” to another, they are basically saying, “be covered with the blood of Christ.”  There is no blessing without blood.  

In the deep fog between life and death, when Jesus thought His Father had forsaken Him, He did not curse God to His face.  Satan and his devils were vanquished by the blood of love and sacrifice.  Job 2:4-5:

4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.

5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.

Not so, Mr. Devil.  Satan’s legal arguments end at Calvary and there is no appeal in the court of heaven.  When he sees the blood, he must pass over you.  The redeemed, the blood-bought, are no longer the property of Satan.  

When it comes to us in this world, everything revolves around the two Adams and how we associate with them. Keep your eyes and ears open here.  It’s so much bigger than one can imagine.

Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was the sinless and perfect sacrifice that broke the back of Satan’s argument. He obeyed His Father’s words to the Cross at the cost of His own life that we might be freed from the law of sin and death.  In order to escape the curse of the law (which is death), we were required to die.  The entire principle of BORN AGAIN reigns supreme here. Consider Romans 6:3-7:

3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?

4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:

6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

7 For he that is dead is freed from sin.

Jesus Christ commands us to take up our cross daily and follow Him (Luke 9:23).  The cross is a place to die, even to put to death the carnal man’s lusts of the flesh (Colossians 3:5-10). 

The mysterious plan of salvation will become even more wonderful as the revelation expands. [End of quotes]

In Feature One of this GodSaidManSaid series, we considered God’s mysterious plan of salvation.  We looked for answers to three serious questions:

1. Why the Christ?

2. Why the Cross?

3. Why the blood sacrifice?

In Feature Two, we investigated why a virgin birth was necessary and why Sister Mary herself was chosen by God.  We considered the chromosomal makeup of Jesus Christ—46 chromosomes inherited by His parents, made of 23 chromosomes provided by His God-chosen mother, and 23 chromosomes that, rather than coming from an earthly father, were supplied by God, just as God had done for the first Adam. This opened the door to epigenetics and the Biblical concept of the sins of the father being passed down generationally.  And WOW!  Turns out, BORN AGAIN is the magnificent solution for dead man walking.  The children of God have the awesome ability, through being BORN AGAIN, to rewrite bad epigenetic tags.

Last week, we continued the contemplation of the Virgin Mary and the concept of mutations.  We delved deeper into the 23 chromosomes that every baby receives from its father.  In Jesus’s case, the 23 chromosomes from an earthly father were missing, instead supplied by God, which means that these holy chromosomes were free of carnal history.  In other words, no deadly mutations. The following excerpts are from last week’s feature, “WHY: Part 3, Mutations Missing:”

Experts claim genetic disorders list into the thousands, but some well-known ones include:

⯀ Down syndrome
⯀ Klinefelter syndrome
⯀ Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease
⯀ Arthritis
⯀ Autism spectrum disorder (in most cases)
⯀ Cancer (in most cases)
⯀ Coronary artery disease
⯀ Diabetes
⯀ Migraine headaches
⯀ Spina bifida
⯀ Isolated congenital heart defects
⯀ Cystic fibrosis
⯀ Sickle cell disease
⯀ Tay-Sachs disease [End of quotes]

Jesus Christ was without blemish. He did not inherit the deadly mutations of a fallen father.  He was virgin-born.  Jesus Christ, did, however, inherit 23 chromosomes from his mother Mary, whom, as the angel Gabriel said, was “highly favored,” “blessed among women,” and “hast found favour with God.”  We can only speculate on the condition of Sister Mary’s chromosomes, but we can be confident that they were very possibly (or better said, likely) perfect in their generations.  In other words, Jesus Christ did not inherit deadly mutations from Mary, either.

This mighty Christ, the Saviour of all who will call upon His name, entered this world in a very similar way to the Adam of Genesis. When the genealogy recorded in Luke 3:38 arrives at the world’s first man, it reads, “Adam, which was the son of God.”  I Corinthians 15:45:

And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

This is marvelous understanding, but what about us?  We have inherited a big bag of trouble from our fallen fathers and mothers, but this knowledge only magnifies the magnificence of what Jesus calls BORN AGAIN.  We have not been left without a solution—no, surely not!  Instead, we have been given power to become sons and daughters of God.  John 1:10-13:

10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The transformative power of the BORN AGAIN experience is truly past fully finding out.  I don’t know all about BORN AGAIN, I am knowing it.  This revelation is an ever-expanding revelation of an infinite nature. 

BORN AGAIN begins with a new Father and the beginning of a brand-new me, and it all certainly happens at a molecular level.  The amazing transformative power extends to rewriting epigenetic tags and miraculously addressing issues like mutations.  Take heart, child of God, in these glorious, life-empowering verses:

🕇 Ephesians 2:1:

And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins:

🕇 Romans 12:2:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

🕇 II Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

🕇 II Corinthians 10:3-5:

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

🕇 I Peter 2:24-25:

24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.

25 For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. 

Jesus Christ is the Lord of Glory! [End of quotes]

Next week is the final feature in this GodSaidManSaid series asking WHY, and it will be dramatic.  Go slow. 

GOD SAID, Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

GOD SAID, I Corinthians 15:21-23:

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ''s at his coming.

GOD SAID, II Corinthians 5:17:

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

MAN SAID: According to Charles Darwin, “I can hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe … will be everlastingly punished.  And this is a damnable doctrine.”

 

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

GodSaidManSaid, “WHY: Part 3, Mutations Missing”

GodSaidManSaid, “WHY: The Christ, the Cross, the Blood, the Virgin Birth, and the Last Adam”

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