Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

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Death through Adam, Life Through Christ

Romans 5:12-21

“For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”
We all know the story of Adam, Eve, and the Serpent and the great betrayal of Adam to God. Adam’s disobedience not only broke his relationship with God, but also allowed sin to enter into the world.
We tend to blame Adam and Eve for the troubles, hard work, and toils we have to endure now, but they just allowed sin to enter this world, we sustain it. For example think back to when we were children, we were provided with everything we wanted and more, but when our parents said “don’t eat cookies before dinner” we were tempted to eat them all. Is that the fault of Adam or our own? We are all sinners.
This passage was written by Paul, who on many occasions teaches us important lessons through his writing. This is no different as Paul points out something so obvious in a not so obvious way. He compares our life through Adam and our life through Christ.
Life with Adam
Adam was created in God image as noted in the book of Genesis.  Adam is easy for us to identify with since we behave in the same way as he did in the garden of Eden. Paul points out the fault of Adam, how he brought death (spiritual death) to the world, and how through his trespass condemnation is all we had on this Earth. I say ‘had’ because Christ changed all of this.
Life with Christ
Paul points out in verse 17 that Adam did make a mistake and did bring death to all people, but through the Grace of God and through Jesus Christ we are alive again. Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice overcomes the darkness of the first sin. In verse 15 Paul mentions how “the gift is not like the trespass.” The gift here is the acceptance of Jesus Christ in your life, and the trespass is the original sin.
We can conclude from this passage that Grace is more powerful than sin, and through the existence of sin, grace is all the more present. Does this mean we should sin more so that grace increases? The answer to this question can be found in Romans chapter 6, I hope you take a deeper look into these chapters.
The first sin was provoked by the serpent, spread by Eve, which caused a betrayal by Adam. With God’s grace we can overcome sin when we accept Christ as our saviour.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for giving us your Grace through Jesus Christ so that we can overcome death. Help us to live our lives through Christ and not to identify our lives through Adam.
Thought of the Day:  Spiritual death was brought by Adam but eternal life is lived through Christ
Lysa Samuel, St. Mathew’s MTC, Toronto


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