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When God created
Adam and Eve, they were created to live
inside the perfect love of God. God intended
that they should get their self-worth and
significance from Him! He was their creator
and he knew what was best for them. In a
sense, man was created with their “Batteries
not included”. We were created to get our
value from something, or someone outside of
ourselves. From God Himself.
God
alone had the blueprint for who they were.
If Adam wanted to know who he was he could
go straight to God to find the answers he
was looking for. God designed us that way.
There is a place inside of each and every
one of us that only God can fill (Eccl. 3:11).
In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve’s
failure to trust God completely sent the
human race into a downward spiral that has
caused billions of people to live lives
separated and detached from God’s love and
without hope. By causing the woman to doubt
God’s word, Satan brought evil into this
world. Satan, the “deceiver” set out to
alienate the human race from God, and as our
“accuser”, he always strives to alienate God
from humanity (Job 1-2; Zech. 3:1). Adam was
not deceived! He willing ate of the
forbidden fruit and deliberately sinned
against God (Gen. 3:6; 1 Tim. 2:14).
God condemned the serpent because it made
itself available to the tempter, who
orchestrated the fall of the first two human
beings. Accordingly, God placed a curse upon
the serpent that was more severe than any
other creature had to endure, and gave Adam
and Eve the first promise of a deliverer.
Genesis 3:14-15 says, “The LORD God said to
the serpent, “Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock and above
all beasts of the field; on your belly you
shall go, and dust you shall eat all the
days of your life. I will put enmity between
you and the woman, and between your
offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise
your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
“This verse is known in Christendom
as the protoevangelium, or "first good
news," because it is the first foretelling
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Using an
emphatic Hebrew construction, God announced
here that a male descendant—He—would someday
deal the serpent (meaning Satan) a fatal
blow. The NT writers understood Jesus Christ
to have fulfilled this prophecy (Heb. 2:14;
1 Jn. 3:8). In an extended sense, the NT
also indicates that God would work through
the church—those indwelt by the Spirit of
Christ—to destroy the works of the devil
(Rom. 16:20). The assertion that the snake
would only strike his opponent's heel (as
opposed to head) suggests that the devil
will be defeated in the ensuing struggle
(Rev. 2:2,7-10; cf. Col. 2:15; Rev 12:7, 8, 17).” [CSB Study Bible].
God
has overcome the results of the fall through
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
God, in his mercy, made it possible for us
to be restored to the state He originally
intended for us to live in through his Son’s
personal sacrifice and the Holy Spirit
living Christ’s life in us.
All we have to do is accept Jesus Christ as
our Lord and Savior.
John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only Son, that whoever believes
in him should not perish but have eternal
life.”
Romans 6:23 says, “For the
wages of sin is death, but the free gift of
God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord.”
John 17:3 says, “And this is
eternal life, that they know you, the only
true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have
sent.”
John 5:24 says, “Truly, truly,
I say to you, whoever hears my word and
believes him who sent me has eternal life.
He does not come into judgment, but has
passed from death to life.”
And
Romans 10:13 says, “For “everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Those who put their faith and
trust in Jesus Christ alone for their
salvation can be in union with God just as
Adam and Eve were before the fall.
Paul's starts off his wonderful letter
to the Ephesians with, “In love he [God]
predestined us for adoption as sons through
Jesus Christ” (Eph. 1:4-5). Then he goes on
to unfold all of the blessings that
believers receive. He begins his description
of salvation in Christ with the phrase, “In
him we have redemption through his blood,
the forgiveness of our trespasses. . . to
unite all things in him. . . In him we have
obtained an inheritance. . . In him you also
. . . were sealed with the promised Holy
Spirit” (Eph. 1:7-13). Paul concludes his
powerful description with the same phrase,
“in him” to illustrate the doctrine of union
with Christ.
The book of Ephesians
refers to the believer as being “in Christ”
twenty-seven times, and the phrase “in
Christ Jesus” (or something similar), occurs
ten times in Ephesians 1:1-14 alone. It is
referring to the spiritual union of Christ
with his followers. Paul frequently referred
to the Church as the “body of Christ” to
show our relationship with the Savior (Eph. 4:12; 1:23; 2:16; 4:4, 16; 5:23, 30). In the
same way that Adam referred to Eve as “bone
of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), Christ has so identified himself with
his church that it is considered to be his
physical body.
The unity that
was lost with God because of Adam‘s sin is
restored through God’s eternal plan of
redemption.
In Christ, God
has called us to live holy lives. Second Timothy 1:9 says, “who saved us and called
us to a holy calling, not because of our
works but because of his own purpose and
grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus
before the ages began.”
God’s offer
of salvation and calling are not due to our
good works. It is impossible for anyone’s
good works to earn them eternal life. Our
salvation was brought about through God’s
own purpose and plan (Rom. 8:28-30; Eph. 1:11). Our redemption was not an
afterthought, God's plan to save lost
sinners was made before time ever began
(Eph. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8). God knew
the human race would fall into sin, but
still loved us so much he allowed his one
and only Son to suffer torture and death on
a cross to save us and restore the
relationship he desires to have with us.
Colossians 1:21-23 says, “And you, who
once were alienated and hostile in mind,
doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in
his body of flesh by his death, in order to
present you holy and blameless and above
reproach before him, if indeed you continue
in the faith, stable and steadfast, not
shifting from the hope of the gospel that
you heard, which has been proclaimed in all
creation under heaven.”
Our
sinfulness resulted in estrangement from God
and created the need for our reconciliation
(Eph. 2:12; 4:18). As a result of our
reconciliation, Christ is at work in every
believer to present us to God as holy and
blameless, in him. Galatians 2:20 says, “I
have been crucified with Christ. It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in
me. And the life I now live in the flesh I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me.”
Every
true believer is in Christ Jesus from the
moment of their salvation!
There are no
part-time Christians. We are either in or
out. Every true believer has the Holy Spirit
living inside of them from day one.
Romans 8:9-11 says, “You, however, are not in the
flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the
Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does
not have the Spirit of Christ does not
belong to him. But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin,
the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from
the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ
Jesus from the dead will also give life to
your mortal bodies through his Spirit who
dwells in you.”
And Hebrews 13:5
says, “. . . I will never leave you nor
forsake you.”
Christ will
never leave us!
We will all
stumble and fall at times but we can know
for certain that we will be with Christ when
he comes back again because we love him and
trust that he has saved us because of the
love he has for us. “He saved us, not
because of works done by us in
righteousness, but according to his own
mercy, by the washing of regeneration and
renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).
The gospel really is good news!
John 4:14 says, “But
whoever drinks of the water that I will give
him will never be thirsty again. The water
that I will give him will become in him a
spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
If you are in Christ, then you can know
for certain that you are saved because God
gave himself up for us.
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