THE TRANSFER FROM ADAM TO CHRIST

Scripture recognises two heads, Adam and Christ; and two generations, the one of Adam, the other of Christ. All mankind is summed up under these two heads. Naturally we were all of the generation of Adam. We were born into the world as the children of Adam, and as such were born into the condition into which Adam fell. It was after that he had fallen that he begat sons and daughters in his own likeness and after his image. By his fall he involved all his race in sin and condemnation. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”, Rom 5: 12. “By the offence of one the many have died”, v 15. “So then as it was by one offence towards all men to condemnation”. “By the disobedience of the one man, the many [that is, all his race] have been constituted sinners”, v 18. The whole race of Adam were ruined in him by his fall. To this we have added our own sins, proving that we had derived our life and nature from a fallen head. What characterises this world is the universal reign of sin and death. Thinking of men generally, no one can deny the universal reign of death; that proves the universal reign of sin.

Now God’s way of meeting the situation was not to reinstate the Adam man, but to introduce another man, the second Man, one who in every sense is the contrast of the first man. In Him God has raised up a new Head, the last Adam. But first of all He must needs die, bearing the judgment resting on the old order of man, removing that order of man from before God, so that in resurrection He might become the head and origin of a new generation of His own order, who derive their life and nature from Him. Such are said to be “of Christ”, Rom 8: 8, 10; Gal 3: 29. This would include all who have received the Spirit of Christ. “He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified are all of one”, Heb 2: 11. Thus God has recovered man for His pleasure in Christ. “The grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which is by the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many”. The many includes all those who are His. Much rather shall “those who receive the abundance of grace, and of the free gift of righteousness, reign in life by the one Jesus Christ”. “By the obedience of the one the many [that is, all His race] will be constituted righteous”, and grace reigns “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”, Rom 5: 15-21.

Thus we see that everything depends upon how we stand in relation to one or other of these two heads, whether in Adam or in Christ. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you have received the Spirit of Christ, you are in Christ. In Christ you partake of His character, stand in His position before God, and share in His blessing. How far you may realise this is another question. God would have you to know and enjoy these wonderful realities. You have passed out of the state of sin and condemnation in which you were by nature as a child of Adam, and you can never return to it. You are free to serve God, and to do His will. In the Spirit you have a power imparted to you by which you are enabled to do this.

When this is realised, it is a great deliverance. This is normal Christianity. On the one hand there is no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, and on the other hand nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, Rom 8: 1, 39. And ultimately we shall be conformed to the image of God’s Son, to be with Him in glory for ever.

We may now consider how this transfer from Adam to Christ takes place.

The first thing is to see what God has arrived at. After four thousand years of testing the man in Adam, ending with the crucifixion of His Son, God has totally and for ever rejected the man of Adam. He has brought in the second Man, Jesus Christ, a man of a different order, a true man, yet in every sense a man of an entirely new order, a man after His own heart, One who could say, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart”, Ps 40: 8. He was signalised as such at His baptism, when the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended and abode upon Him. (The Christ is the anointed.) In Him raised from the dead God has begun anew. He is the beginning and pattern of a new creation. “If any one be in Christ, there is a new creation”, 2 Cor 5: 17. Every believer is the subject of God’s new creation world. He is not revived in the flesh, or improved, but created anew in Christ Jesus. This new generation is the seed or fruit of the One who died and rose again, Isa 53: 10; John 12: 24. The believer receiving the Holy Spirit has a living link with Christ, derives his life, nature, and character from Christ, hence is morally like Him, will ultimately be in every way conformed to His image, Rom 8: 28. He is delivered from his former condition by having part in the death of Christ, “knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with him ... he that has died is justified from sin”. I have died in my substitute, in the One who died for me. So that I am justified in reckoning myself to have died to sin, and to be alive to God in Christ Jesus, Rom 6: 6-11; Gal 2: 20. Death has terminated my history in connection with Adam; I have begun a new history in connection with Christ.

Thus I am transferred from Adam to Christ. Let me stress the fact that God’s way has been not to retain and improve the old man, but to crucify him. He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord, Jer 9: 24. He who knew no sin, was made sin for us, “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him”.

From Goodly Words vol 8 (1930)