“As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

You remember we learned last week that “in Adam all die,” because all his children have his own sinful nature. You know that in the beginning God set Adam over all the works of his hands.

But that he might be multiplied and not live here alone with none of his own kind to associate with him, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him, and took out of his side a rib which he made into a woman and brought to Adam. So all the human family has come from the one man whom God first set over the earth.

We learned also that Jesus has won back by His perfect obedience to every word of God, the dominion that the first Adam lost through disobedience. The word of God, speaking of Him, says: “Unto Thee shall it come, even the first dominion.” And again, God promises to give to His Son “the uttermost parts of the earth” for His possession.

But the first Adam did not want to rule the kingdom alone, nor does Jesus, the second Adam. Not for His own sake, but for ours, He became man, that He might win back for all the children of men their lost inheritance and character and life.

And now see how the Gospel was taught to Adam in a beautiful figure even before He sinned. For the deep sleep which God caused to fall upon Him was a type or figure of the sleep of death into which the second Adam for our sakes was cast, when He laid down His life upon the cross, that He might give birth and life to a great multitude who should for ever share with Him the restored dominion.

Then, too, the opening of the side of Adam while he slept, that other beings might be formed from his body, what did this teach or signify?

The Apostle John who stood by the cross of Jesus after He had fallen asleep upon it, bears this record of what he saw: “And one of the soldiers with a spear pierced His side, and forthwith flowed there out blood and water.”

His heart’s blood, the water of life, a healing stream, flowed out that all the children of men might drink and be healed of all their sins and diseases, and share His own everlasting life.

“Whoso drinketh of the water that I shall give him,” He said to the woman at the well, “shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

The fountain of His precious everlasting life has been opened that by drinking of Him we may become a part of Himself, we may share His Divine nature, and become just like Him.

Adam said of the woman taken from his side, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” And this is just what Jesus says of all who share His life; for “we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones.”

Remember that He is the Seed that God promised, and except the seed “die, it abideth alone; but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.” Like the seed that is cast into the ground, Jesus died that He might be multiplied.

And as in the beginning to the first Adam, the king of the earth, God the Father brought the woman whom He had taken out of His own pierced side, so at last to Christ the second Adam, the King of the earth, will He bring the company that have received the life that He poured out for them from His own body.

They shall be presented to Him “a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,” but “holy and without blame before Him.”

Are you not glad that you may be one of this beautiful and glorious company, and live with Jesus for ever in the happy home that He has bought back for us? Drink every day of the cleansing, healing stream that flows from Him, the fountain of life, and this will make you His own child, a “partaker of the Divine nature.”

The Present Truth – November 30, 1899
E. J. Waggoner

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