ICS Daily Devotions
Christ as the Second Adam
Romans 6:23 (NKJV) For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Life dwells in the blood and the wages of sin is death. After Adam sinned, God needed to kill an innocent animal to cover the sin and the blood covenant became a reality.
But covering the sins through animals’ blood was only a temporal and imperfect solution. There was a need of a better plan. If your house is old and the walls are constantly getting wet, to paint them anew is a very superficial and temporal solution.
The problem requires a more solid treatment, that may be both costly and take time. The same was the case with the earth, the people, and their destiny. The earth fell into dominion of the devil, the originator of evil, and God had to come with a new plan how to regain the rule over the earth for people. We can only thank God that He persevered and did not destroy everything once it had been poisoned by sin. Our God is not giving up!
Since the earth is people’s colony and dominion, one needs to be a human being in order to have authority there. God gave it into human possession by His free will, just as by the free will people fell into sin and separated themselves from God. The free will is the most precious thing that God created in man and it plays an important role also in covenants. An enforced covenant is not a real covenant!
By God’s mercy, then, instead of purging the whole earth instantly, the divine plan counted with a blameless second Adam who would snatch the keys of authority from the devil, re-establishing God’s righteousness and saving people from the corrupted world to the heavenly kingdom.
The Messiah served to replace Adam in a new spiritual genealogy. This salvation could have been achieved by only one person, mediator Jesus Christ, who was both sinless Son of God and authentic Son of Man. No man was blameless to complete the plan of salvation. God Himself had to incarnate Himself to become part of our human world in order to become a legitimate mediator between God and man.
1 Tim 2:5 (NKJV) For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.
Through Jesus, divine and human, God gained the rights to operate legally on earth again. Even though our bodies are subject to corruption and eventually death, our spirit can escape sin and be restored in Christ’s righteousness so it can enjoy eternal fellowship with God again!
John 3: 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Hebrews 4:15 (NKJV) For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Based on God’s love, Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God deprived Himself of His divine attributes and came down to earth to complete the work of salvation. He lived a sinless life and taught people what it meant to believe in God and how to get reconciled with Him.
He was walking with His disciples for three years, preached the good news of salvation, and manifested the heavenly kingdom with signs and wonders, healing people and delivering them from demonic possessions. He was perfectly obedient to the will of God, the Father, and reemphasized the unconditional covenant that God made with humans. All of us today can be part of the same covenant if we believe what Jesus Christ has done for us!
Sermon series: Blood Covenant
