His Heart, My Home

NOTE: This week we will continue our teaching on our spiritual union with Christ. Please see our previous posts dated 1/20 and 1/27 for Parts One and Two of this series.

Let’s explore Paul’s revelation to understand how we, though once dead, now have eternal life.

Everything changed when the eternal Word of God was made flesh. Even our system of numbering years changed. Time was divided into the “Before Christ” (B.C.) and the “After Christ” (A.D. = “Anno Domini” = Year of Our Lord) eras.

Before Jesus, every person on this planet lived and died in a zombie-like condition, as the “living dead”, alive physically, but dead spiritually.

Jesus changed everything. He changed the eternal destiny of Adam’s race for all who would love, honor, and trust Him!

(1 Corinthians 15;45, Amplified Translation)
So it is written [in Scripture], “The first man, Adam, became a living soul (an individual);” the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving spirit [restoring the dead to life].

(Romans 5:12, 15, Amplified Classic Bible)
¹² Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man, and death as the result of sin, so death spread to all men, [no one being able to stop it or to escape its power] because all men sinned.
¹⁵ But God’s free gift is not at all to be compared to the trespass [His grace is out of all proportion to the fall of man]. For if many died through one man’s falling away (his lapse, his offense), much more profusely did God’s grace and the free gift [that comes] through the undeserved favor of the one Man Jesus Christ abound and overflow to and for [the benefit of] many.

(Verse 15, Amplified) – “…the gift of grace overwhelms the fall of man.”

(Verse 15, B.C. Johnson, The Heart of Paul) – “The single act of Adam and the single act of Christ are similar in that they affect everyone, but the effect is quite different. Through Adam many have died; but through the unconditional love of God and the communication of that love through Christ, many have come alive.”

Jesus did more than take away our sin. His redemptive work far exceeds what Adam did to the human race.

By His grace, God took us “out of Adam” and planted us “in Christ”, who is the Last Adam.
We have been “in-Christed”.

In Adam, we were:
● Slaves to satan
● Spiritually dead
● Separated from God
● Identified with Adam’s rebellion

In Christ, we are:
● Children of God
● Spiritually alive
● United with God
● Identified with Christ’s obedience

How did God do this? How did He sever our connection to Adam, and connect us to Christ?
In His infinite wisdom He formulated a plan before the foundations of the universe were laid.

☆ JESUS BECAME OUR SUBSTITUTE
He acted in our place so that we were credited with what He did.

“But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly.” (Romans 5:8, TPT)

☆ JESUS BECAME WHAT WE WERE IN SPIRIT
He identified Himself completely with us, and God viewed viewed Him and treated Him as though He were us. We were identified with Him.

“Jesus knew not sin; yet God made Him to be the world’s sin for our sakes, that we, whose sin He had thus assumed, might become by our union with Him, the very righteousness of God.”
(2 Corinthians 5:21, The Way Translation)

Jesus became a sin-magnet on the cross. He drew mankind’s sin into His spirit. He was separated from God by our sin.

☆ JESUS PERFECTLY FULFILLED EVERY FACET  OF OUR ETERNAL SALVATION
Everything He did, He did for us. All that He accomplished was credited to our account.

When He was crucified, we were crucified with Him. (Galatians 2:20)

When He died, we died with Him. (Romans 6:10)

When He was buried, we were buried with Him.
(Romans 6:4,5)

When He was raised from the dead, we were raised with Him. (Colossians 3:1)

When He ascended into heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand, we ascended into Heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand with Him.
(Ephesians 2:6)

There is a beautiful picture of our salvation in the Old Testament. After wandering in the desert wilderness of Sin, God brought the nation of Israel to the Jordan River, and told them through Joshua, their leader, that it was time to cross the Jordan, and enter the Promised Land.

God instructed the people to follow the Ark of His Presence which was carried aloft on poles on the shoulders of the priests.

The time of the crossing was the spring harvest time and the river was flooded.

The Jordan River originates in the area near Mount Hermon in Lebanon and then flows southward from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, whose waters are so toxic that no type of life can survive there.

Jordan River During Spring Flooding

The river drops about 1,000 feet in elevation as it flows south, creating 27 white-water rapids along the way. At its flood stage, it is more than 100 feet wide, and 10 feet deep, with waters flowing more than 5 miles per hour… impossible to walk or swim across!

But God was prepared for the challenge, ready as always to demonstrate His power as He led His people into the “land flowing with milk and honey”.

Let’s join the story in Joshua 3:14-17:
” ¹⁴ So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. ¹⁵ Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, ¹⁶ the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷ Then the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan; and all Israel crossed over on dry ground, until all the people had crossed completely over the Jordan.”

Now, let’s look at this story as New Testament believers:

Crossing the Jordan, represents our being delivered from spiritual death through the new birth. That was impossible until our Savior came. We could not cross the river into eternal life by ourselves.

But the Presence of God entering the river “cut off” the flow from upstream, and pushed the waters downstream to the Dead Sea and the Way was opened.

Question: How far back were the river’s waters “cut off”?

Answer: They were “heaped up a great distance away” at a place called Adam!

Amazing! God, the wise Master-Planner, crossed every “t”, dotted every “i”, no detail too small to escape His attention!

Another nugget. Adam was under the rule of a larger city nearby named Zarethan. The name Zarethan means, “a narrow place where the stones are sharp; a place of oppression.”

When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, they were cut off from God’s life and imprisoned in a narrow place of fear, lack, sickness, sin, and oppression.

Jesus became the Way of escape from fear, oppression, darkness, and death. He became the Way for God’s people, rolling back the floodwaters of spiritual death all the way back to Adam, and reconnecting us with the life of the Father! He leads us into life, life, and life more abundant!

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P.S. We are super-excited about our newest site-page entitled, ” In Christ Truths” !

Check out OVER 100 “NEW CREATION IDENTIFICATION” scriptures contained on the page. Meditate on them daily to build your faith to new levels!