“By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sin.” You know who is the one man through whom sin and death came upon the whole human family,—the first Adam, of whom we were talking last week.

What a change from the happy condition of things as God first created them! Think of all that he lost through sin. In the beginning he was a perfect man. If we want to know what a perfect man is, we must look at Adam before the fall, for there we see just what God meant man to be. He bore the image of God; he was a king, and had dominion over all things in the earth.

But when he fell from this position because of disobedience to the Word of God, he lost everything. He lost the image of God, his kingly nature; and with that went his royal robes of light and his crown of glory; his kingdom also, for when he lost the power to rule himself, and became the slave of sin and Satan, he could no longer rule the earth and all other creatures, but these also passed under the power of Satan. The sad proofs of this are seen in the marks of the curse and of death everywhere in the earth; everything shares man’s imperfection.

But what now? Was the plan of God when He made a perfect man and gave him the earth to be his home and kingdom, all upset by the wicked work of his enemy Satan? No; for nothing can hinder the purpose of God, but everything that is done to stop His work He will use to make it all the more glorious.

He says: “My Word. . . shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing where unto I sent it.” And His Word has gone forth saying, “Let us make man in our image, and let them have dominion” over the earth. “Whatsoever God doeth it shall be for ever.” So the earth must for ever be the home and kingdom of the children of men, bearing the perfect image of God.

But where can such be found? for all the family of Adam share his sins, his imperfection, and his death. They are all, as we found last week, a part of himself, “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh,” and so “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” and “in Adam all die.”

Ah, but thank God there is One Man, one perfect Man, “the Man Christ Jesus,” through whom all God’s plan of love for the children of men, and for this whole world, can be carried out. Jesus is called “the Second Adam,” for He takes the place of the first Adam, as King of the earth, and Father of a family of perfect human beings who shall live and reign with Him on the earth. “The Son of man is come to seek to save that which was lost.”

Through no fault of our own, but “by one man’s disobedience,” through the sin of our first father Adam, we are all born sinners. This is why even little children have naughty thoughts and ways, and are sometimes disobedient, and unkind to each other.

But there is a way of escape for us out of the old sinful nature that makes us do these naughty things. Listen:—

“For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, even so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.” To be made righteous is to be made again into the beautiful image of God, able to obey His Word and do His holy will.

We did nothing to make ourselves sinners; we are born so, but the first Adam dragged us all down with him in his fall. Neither can we do anything to make ourselves good; but the Second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, by His perfect obedience to every word of His Father, has redeemed us all, and lifted the family of man back again to the place where God meant for them.

He has won back the kingdom and the crown, and has power to restore the image of God in men, making them again the sons of God. But there is only one way that we can become His children, and share all these blessings with Him. We became the children of the first Adam by being born so, and that is the only way that we can ever be the children of the Second Adam. He Himself tells us, “Ye must be born again.” “For as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name, which were born . . . of God.”

The Present Truth – November 23, 1899
E. J. Waggoner

Story in pdf  The Second Adam