Following my note about Where did we go wrong, I leave you stuck in the mire if I stop there.
Having looked in the mirror, we have seen the enemy and it occurs that Walt Kelly was right, at least about that. So what? That knowledge does not help or heal in itself. (Aside: this is one of the key elements of the serpents initial deception – taking and eating the fruit will bring a certain knowledge, but not the kind we thought. Rather the kind that overwhelms us with our inadequacy and drives us to compensate. Whether we do that through denial, anger, guilt or imitation and cover up is, in the end, self defeating.)
The consequence of all sin, original, occasional, habitual, natural or otherwise is death. Death not just being the absence of life, or rather the absence of physical experience via my five senses. Death is the opposite of life and life is much more than taste, touch, see, hear and smell. I’ll gladly point you again to Phillip’s ‘The World Tilting Gospel‘:
People in hell exist forever, but I can’t think of any passages that refer to their existence as “life.”
Instead, as he mentions in the footnote, it is called the second death.
The conquest of sin though is promised and provided through its destruction. The first Adam brought it in and the last Adam will take it out.
For 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. ~ Romans 5:19
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. ~ 1 Corinthians 15:21-22
In the midst of God’s judgment against Adam’s sin he promises salvation – the undoing of our sin. There will be salvation through the death of a substitute and a promise of a redeemer. It is, at first, pictured tangibly when an animal is killed so that they can have clothing to protect them both from the environment and from the constant confrontation of the shame and guilt of their sin.
It is, ultimately to come through the birth of another “Adam” one who will both do what Adam did not and not do what Adam did and be victorious on all accounts. He will speak words of life, crush the serpent’s head and inaugurate the kingdom of God. Christ Alone is The True / Last Prophet, Priest & King.
Will you continue as Adam did, followed by his son Cain to constantly try to seize what God offers freely?
Will you rely on a false covering, and try to hide your sin from God through religious behaviour or moral behaviour or living the life of a so-called good person? Always be inadequate because you will always be acting independently of God?
Or, would you accept new life, be born again as Jesus once described it and die to your self, die to your schemes and plans, die to all those silly pathetic attempts you make at saving face before others and realise that God, as the author of life, is the only one who can give you life.
Don’t define your life in terms of existence or in terms of possessions or in terms of achievement.
Define your life, by experiencing life as it was meant to be, in the fullness of joy through Jesus alone.
And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. ~ 1 John 5:11-12
But, when shall these things be? Ah, that is for another post, in the interim, have confidence that:
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:17
Are you in Christ?
