journey onWord with us

With a sincere sorry to the woman who seems so central to this particular day in Jesus’ week, I’m choosing instead to draw attention to the truth of two men. There were only ever two sinless men. One was that for what amounted to a handful of breaths in the span of a lifetime. The other would never fail it from birth to death and from out of the grave into the everlasting from whence He came.

God formed the first man from the dust of the ground and filled him with His life-giving breath. God planted a garden and put Adam there, surrounded by beauty our minds couldn’t possibly imagine. In that garden were two prominent trees, one of which would very soon be of particular note to Adam. Very nearly after God placed Adam in the garden and before He saw that it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone, God issued His very first command:

You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.
Genesis 2:16b-17 (ESV)

Tragically, Adam (and Eve) would soon break God’s command and sin entered the world.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned
Romans 5:21 (ESV)

God’s story didn’t stop a chapter or two in. In eternity past there was a knowing. There was always a sinless second. A Man born sinless, who lived sinless and became sin for us in dying in our place. The only One worthy of paying sin’s price. The only One able to defeat sin’s death sentence. Jesus did so by walking out from the tomb. His first exhale breathing life everlasting into us—all of us whose heart believes in Him and what He did.

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit … The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
I Corinthians 15:45, 47 (ESV)

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
I Corinthians 15:22 (ESV)

Thank you, Jesus, for walking undeterred this week in the direction of the cross, the grave and out from the tomb. Thank you for dying and rising so that I (we) could live, and for going to be with the Father so your Spirit could live within me (us).