Christ came in the fallen human nature to save fallen humans.  Satan had made a charge that it was impossible to obey God.  Having tempted Adam to sin, Satan pointed to Adam’s sin as proof that God’s law was unjust, and could not be obeyed.  In disputing Satan’s charge, God responded by “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).  Having lost his case, Satan devised a deception that Christ came in unfallen human nature and overcame sin as God.

But for Christ to have come and overcame sin as God could only prove that God can keep His own laws, but Satan has never disputed God’s ability to keep His own laws.  It equally makes no sense for Christ to have come in unfallen nature of Adam, for He could only have saved unfallen Adam, but Adam before his fall did not need saving.

The danger of teaching and believing that Christ came in unfallen human nature is to make of no effect the plan of redemption, and deny the Biblical teaching that man must overcome sin, as Christ overcame. Some have sought to suggest that Christ came in unfallen nature to prove that Adam could have kept God’s law.  But what would such proof do to save the fallen Adam, let alone us today?  The Bible teaches that Christ came in the fallen nature of man to redeem fallen men.  This plan of redemption was understood in the Old Testament through the sacrificial system, which pointed at Christ’s sacrifice at Calvary in the New Testament.

Vindicating God’s character against Satan’s charge, we see an example of faithful Enoch as proof that God’s law is just and can be obeyed.  By faith Enoch received the atoning of his sin in Christ through by then the sacrificial system.  For 300 years Enoch walked with God, sinless before God, and was translated into heaven without tasting death (See Genesis 5:22-24).  For Enoch, pure in heart, holy in life, holding fast his faith in the triumph of righteousness against a corrupt and scoffing generation, like the life of Christ, his victory came from entire consecration to God through trusting in the word of God and living an earnest prayer life.

It is by faith in Christ that we can live without sinning.  Christ says, “Without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Understanding this, Paul declared, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). Christ lived in our fallen nature yet did not sin.  Christ bids us die to our old sinful ways and live out His sinless life by faith.  Like Paul, we can then declare, “I am crucified with Christ: neverthless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

If we believe the deception of Satan that Christ came in unfallen nature, then it is impossible to derive victory over sin in our fallen nature from the example of Christ.  Christ can only be our example by suffering the same infirmities of fallen humans.  Connected to this distortion of Christ’s human nature, is the concept of original sin, another deception that Satan teaches through his human agencies.  These twined deceptions are aimed at keeping humanity in bondage of sin.

The deception that Christ came in unfallen human nature has its roots in the concept of original sin.  The concept of original sin purports that we are born with the guilt of Adam’s sin.  But if so, then it would mean Christ inherited Adam’s guilt as well.  To get around it, Satan deceptively teaches that Christ escaped the original sin because he had unfallen human nature, a nature Adam had before the fall.  But both the teaching that Christ came in unfallen human nature and the concept of original sin are unbiblical.

 

Concept of original sin

The deception that Christ came in unfallen nature of man has its roots in the concept of original sin.  Original sin teaches that we not only inherit the weakness and nature of fallen Adam, but that we are also personally condemned and are personally guilty for Adam’s sin in addition to our own sin. This concept has no biblical foundation.

Satan has led many religious leaders to teach and believe that we sin because we are sinners, and that we are not sinners because we sin.  The concept of original sin declares that we are born with inner sin, for which we are guilty of.  The danger of believing in the concept of original sin is to declare that it is impossible to have victory over sin.   For the concept declare that it is the inner sin that condemns us rather than the sin we commit.

But Scripture is plain that we are only guilty of the sin we commit.  “Then it shall be, because he hath sinned, and is guilty” (Leviticus 6:4).  “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.  For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law” (James 2:10-11).  “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

What Satan wishes to achieve is to hold men in sin until it is too late.  Satan teaches that because of original sin, it is impossible for us to have victory over sin in this life, for he contends that we just have to sin because we are born guilty of sin.  Therefore, according to Satan, we cannot but continue to sin until Jesus comes.  Many who have bought this satanic teaching are content to live in sin.

But we cannot escape judgment if we continue in sin, especially after we know the truth as now having understood.  “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).

We are only guilty after truth is revealed to us or we have refused the opportunity to know the truth.  The words of Jesus testify.  “Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:41).  “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin” (John 15:22).  Jesus would not have said, “they had not had sin” if the concept of original sin was true, for all would have been guilty of original sin irrespective of their ignorance.

We must be thankful that we serve a compassionate God who will not hold us responsible for our genuine ignorance, including Adam’s guilt.  Christ, who came in fallen human nature, is a God “Who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity” (Hebrews 5:2).  But if that ignorance has been the result of deliberate negligence of the principles of God, then we cannot expect the mercy of God.  “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him” (Hebrews 2:3).

The Bible recognizes our participation in sinning, which is not the same as original sin, but our actual committing of sin.  “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).  “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6).  These texts in no wise confirm the concept of original sin, but simply cause and effect of our own participation in sin.

In our fallen nature, we must by faith hold unto God in order to have a spiritual mind.  It is not the nature that we have that will determine our eternal destiny.  Eternal destiny is determined by the acceptance of God, He forgives us, and as we lay hold on His power, we gain victory over the temptations of Satan.  This requires a daily resubmission of our lives to God.  When we rededicate our lives to God and to Him to fully take our lives and work out His salvation in us, His power will provide an abiding strength to resist every satanic deception and temptation.  “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7).

The concept of original sin is unbiblical.  No one will be lost for someone else’s sin.  When Moses expressed his willingness to be blotted out of the book of life if it could save the children of Israel, God’s answer was explicit.  “And Moses returned unto the Lord, and said, Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book” (Exodus 32:31-33).

The prophet Ezekiel brought forth exactly the same principle.  “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20).  And this should settle the concept of original sin.

 

Christ came in our fallen nature

Christ came in our likeness, in the nature of fallen man, so that He could condemn sin in our very fallen nature in order to give us hope of overcoming sin.  The plan of redemption was implemented by “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).  This was forever to defeat Satan’s charge that God’s law was impossible to obey.  Christ did not sin, in other words, He did not transgress the law, “for sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4).

Christ was born as a descendant of David, in the nature of a fallen man as David and his seeds were.  “Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:3).

Christ was one with fallen man so that He could sanctify or dedicate us to God the Father.  “For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2:11).

Christ was of the same flesh and blood as ours.  “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).  This must be a very clear text.  Christ could not have been of our flesh and blood if He had come in unfallen nature, for that would have been contrary to our fallen flesh and blood.

Christ was in a human body, in our flesh.  He was bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.  He was subjected to poverty from His first entrance into the world.  He was subject to disappointment and trial in His own home, among His own brethren.  He was not surrounded, as in the heavenly courts, with pure and lovely characters.  He was compassed with difficulties.

Christ took the nature of descendants of Abraham, four thousand years since man had degenerated after the fall.  “For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham” (Hebrews 2:16).

Christ was like us, as brothers are of the same nature, He too had our fallen nature and that is why the Bible calls Him our brethren.  “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17).

Christ was made flesh, like us, with fallen body, so that He could experience what we as fallen being go through.  “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  Christ live like us but never sinned.

Many have fallen for Satan’s deceptions and have concluded that Jesus overcame sin in His divinity as God.  They say: “If He was One with God He could not fall.”  Many accept without a doubt that Jesus was tempted by the devil but He never sinned.  Then they wonder, whether Jesus in the great scene of conflict in the wilderness, apparently under the power of Satan and his angels, was capable, in His human nature, of yielding to these temptations?

As God He could not be tempted, but as a man He could be tempted, and that strongly, and could yield to the temptations.  Christ’s human nature must pass through the same test and trial Adam and Eve passed through after the fall.  His human nature was created; it did not even possess the angelic powers.  It was human, identical with our own.  He was passing over the ground where Adam fell.  He was now where, if He endured the test and trial in behalf of the fallen race, He would redeem Adam’s disgraceful failure and fall, in our fallen nature.

The doctrine of the incarnation of Christ in human flesh is a mystery, “even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations” (Colossians 1:26).  It is the great and profound mystery of godliness.  “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).  Christ took upon Himself human nature, a nature inferior to His heavenly nature.  Nothing so shows the wonderful condescension of God as this.  He “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16).  John presents this wonderful subject with such simplicity that all may grasp the ideas set forth, and be enlightened.

Christ did not make believe take human nature; He did verily take it.  He did in reality possess fallen human nature.  “As the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same” (Hebrews 2: 14).  He was the son of Mary; He was of the seed of David according to human descent.  He is declared to be a man, even the Man Christ Jesus.  “This man,” writes Paul, “was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house” (Hebrews 3:3).

That Christ might accomplish His purpose of love for the fallen race, He became bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.  How wide is the contrast between the divinity of Christ and the helpless infant in Bethlehem’s manger!  How can we span the distance between the mighty God and a helpless child?  And yet the Creator of worlds, He in whom was the fullness of the Godhead bodily, was manifest in the helpless babe in the manger.  Far higher than any of the angels, equal with the Father in dignity and glory, and yet wearing the garb of fallen humanity!  Divinity and humanity were mysteriously combined, and man and God became one.

Had Christ not been fully human, He could not have been our substitute.  He could not have worked out in humanity that perfection of character which it is the privilege of all to reach.  He was the light and the life of the world.  He came to this earth to work in behalf of men, that they might no longer be under the control of satanic agencies.  But while bearing fallen human nature, he was dependent upon the Omnipotent for his life.  In his humanity, he laid hold of the divinity of God the Father; and this every member of the human family has the privilege of doing.  Christ did nothing that human nature may not do if it partakes of the divine nature.

Christ never once used His own divine power while on earth.  He overcame Satan with scripture, showing us how we may also overcome.  He might have had recourse to His own divine power, and used His own words; but He said: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”  To the second temptation He said: “It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Matthew 4:4, 7).

 Christ, from His earliest years lived a life of toil.  The greater part of His earthly life was spent in patient work in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth.  In the garb of a common labourer the Lord of life trod the streets of the little town in which He lived, going to and from His humble toil; and ministering angels who likewise attend to all God’s people attended Him as He walked among peasants and labourers.

When Christ went forth to contribute to the support of the family by His daily toil He depended on God the Father as when on the shores of Galilee He fed five thousand hungry souls.  But He did not employ His divine power to lessen His burdens or lighten His toil.  He performed the miracles by His Father’s power, “looking up to heaven” (Matthew 14:19), “Unto thee lift I up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens” (Psalms 123:1), “from whence cometh my help” (Psalms 121:1), He asked His Father to multiply the loaves and fishes.

Like unto any God-fearing human, angels always ministered to Christ, for “The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them” (Psalms 34:7). The Bible records angels ministering to Christ.  “Behold, angels came and ministered unto him” (Matthew 4:11).  “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven strengthening him” (Luke 22:43).  The miracles of Christ for the afflicted and suffering were wrought by the power of God through the ministration of the angels.  Angels are “ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Hebrews 1:14), through them miracles are wrought.

Christ fully depended upon His Father.  “I am the true vine” (John 15:1), He said.  Instead of choosing the graceful palm, the lofty cedar, or the strong oak, which are self-supporting, Jesus takes the vine with its clinging tendrils to represent Him as a vine that entwines about the trellis climbing heavenward and dependent upon divine power.  “I can of Mine own self do nothing” (John 5:30), He declared.

Having suffered and tempted as we are, yet never sinned, Christ ascended to heaven to minister as our High Priest before God. “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

Thus the humanity of Christ means everything to us, because if Christ did not take on Him our fallen sinful nature, but had an unfallen nature like Adam before the fall or of the angels, then He could not have suffered by being tempted, and would not know what we go through when we are tempted.  Thus He could not know how to succour or help us out of the temptation!  But praise God this is not the case.  Christ did have our fallen sinful nature upon Him, and He did suffer by being tempted.  Thus He can help us in every time of need, “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers” (1 Peter 3:12).

It would have been an infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man’s nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden.  But Christ accepted humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin.  Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity.  What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors.  He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life.

Satan had pointed to Adam’s sin as proof that God’s law was unjust, and could not be obeyed.  In our humanity, Christ was to redeem Adam’s failure.  But when Adam was assailed by the tempter, none of the effects of sin were upon him.  He stood in the strength of perfect manhood, possessing the full vigour of mind and body.  He was surrounded with the glories of Eden, and was in daily communion with heavenly beings.  It was not thus with Jesus when He entered the wilderness to cope with Satan.  For 400 years the race had been decreasing in physical strength, in mental power, and in moral worth; and Christ took upon Him the infirmities of degenerate humanity.  Only thus could He rescue man from the lowest depths of his degradation.

In taking upon Himself man’s nature in its fallen condition, Christ did not in the least participate in its sin.  He was subject to the infirmities and weaknesses by which man is encompassed.  He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and was in all points tempted like as we are.  And yet He “knew no sin” (2 Corinthian 5:21).  He was the lamb “without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19)

Could Satan in the least particular have tempted Christ to sin, he would have bruised the Saviour’s head.  In fulfilment of scripture, “he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15), Satan could only touch Christ’s heel.  Had the head of Christ been touched, the hope of the human race would have perished.  Divine wrath would have come upon Christ as it came upon Adam.  Christ and the church would have been without hope.

 

Victory is only in Christ

Man was originally endowed with noble powers and a well-balanced mind. He was perfect in his being, and in harmony with God. His thoughts were pure, his aims holy. But through disobedience, his powers were perverted, and selfishness took the place of love. His nature became so weakened through transgression that it was impossible for him, in his own strength, to resist the power of evil. He was made captive by Satan, and would have remained so forever had not God specially interposed. It was the tempter’s purpose to thwart the divine plan in man's creation, and fill the earth with woe and desolation.  And he would point to all this evil as the result of God’s work in creating man.

In his sinless state, man held joyful communion with Him “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). But after his sin, he could no longer find joy in holiness, and he sought to hide from the presence of God. Such is still the condition of the unrenewed heart. It is not in harmony with God, and finds no joy in communion with Him. The sinner could not be happy in God’s presence; he would shrink from the companionship of holy beings.

Could man, in his sinfulness, be permitted to enter heaven, it would have no joy for him. The spirit of unselfish love that reigns there – every heart responding to the heart of Infinite Love – would touch no answering chord in his soul. His thoughts, his interests, his motives, would be alien to those that actuate the sinless dwellers there. He would be a discordant note in the melody of heaven. Heaven would be to him a place of torture; he would long to be hidden from Him who is its light, and the centre of its joy.

It is no arbitrary decree on the part of God that excludes the wicked from heaven; they are shut out by their own unfitness for its companionship. The glory of God would be to them a consuming fire. They would welcome destruction, that they might be hidden from the face of Him who died to redeem them.

It is impossible for us, of ourselves, to escape from the pit of sin in which we are sunken. Our hearts are evil, and we cannot change them.  “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one” (Job 14:4).  “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).

Education, culture, the exercise of the will, or human effort – all have their proper sphere, but they are powerless cleanses us of sin.  They may produce an outward correctness of behaviour, but they cannot change the heart; they cannot purify the springs of life.  There must be a power working from within, a new life from above, before men can be changed from sin to holiness.  That power is Christ.  His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness.

The Saviour said, “Except a man be born from above,” unless he shall receive a new heart, new desires, purposes, and motives, leading to a new life, “he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).  The idea that it is necessary only to develop the good that exists in man by nature, is a fatal deception.  “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again” (John 3:7).  Of Christ it is written, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4) – the only “name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

It is not enough to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see the benevolence, the fatherly tenderness, of His character.  It is not enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love. Paul the apostle saw all this when he exclaimed, “I consent unto the law that it is good." "The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.”  But he added, in the bitterness of his soul-anguish and despair, “I am carnal, sold under sin” (Romans 7:16, 12, 14).

Paul longed for the purity, the righteousness, to which in himself he was powerless to attain, and cried out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).  Such is the cry that has gone up from burdened hearts in all lands and in all ages.  To all, there is but one answer, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).  Victory is only in Christ.

Only in Christ can we overcome sin.  In vain are men’s dreams of progress, in vain all efforts for the uplifting of humanity, if they neglect the one Source of hope and help for the fallen race.  “Every good gift and every perfect gift” (James 1:17) is from God.  There is no true excellence of character apart from Him.  And the only way to God is Christ.  He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

 

Christ the Second Adam

Christ, the second Adam, begun from where the first Adam failed.  What a contrast the second Adam presented as He entered the gloomy wilderness to cope with Satan single-handed!  Since the fall, the race had been decreasing in size and physical strength, and sinking lower in the scale of moral worth, up to the period of Christ’s advent to the earth.  In order to elevate fallen man, Christ must reach him where he was.

Christ took human nature, and bore the infirmities and degeneracy of the race.  He who knew no sin became sin for us.  He humiliated Himself to the lowest depths of human woe, that He might be qualified to reach man and bring him up from the degradation in which sin had plunged him.

“For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).

“And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Hebrews 5:9).

“Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:17-18).

“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).

At Calvary, Christ forever defeated Satan.  After He resurrected, having met and spoken to His disciples, Jesus declared, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18).  Christ the second Adam overcame Satan at Calvary, and forever secured our salvation through the shading of His blood.  The blood of Christ enables us to overcome Satan, as it is written, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:11).

Christ secured our everlasting peace.  "And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever" (Revelation 5:13).

Christ is returning to take His saints home.  The great controversy will is be forever ended.  Sin and sinners will be forever no more.  The entire universe will be forever clean.  But one reminder alone will remain: Christ, the second Adam, our Lord and Saviour, will ever bear the marks of His crucifixion.

Behold the “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Revelation 19:16), upon His wounded head, upon His side, His hands and feet, are the forever traces of the cruel work that sin has wrought.  Says the prophet, beholding Christ in His glory: “And his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand: and there was the hiding of his power” (Habakkuk 3:4).

That pierced side whence flowed the crimson stream that reconciled man to God – there is the Saviour’s glory, there “the hiding of His power” (Habakkuk 3:4) “Mighty to save” (Isaiah 63:1) through the sacrifice of redemption, He was therefore strong to execute justice upon them that despised God’s mercy. And the tokens of His humiliation are His highest honour; through the eternal ages the wounds of Calvary will show forth His praise and declare His power.

“O Tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto Thee shall it come, even the first dominion” (Micah 4:8).  The time has come to which holy men have looked with longing since the flaming sword barred the first pair from Eden, the time for “the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:14).  The earth originally given to man as his kingdom, betrayed by him into the hands of Satan, and so long held by the mighty foe, has been brought back by the great plan of redemption.

All that was lost by sin is to be restored.  “Thus saith the Lord ... that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it, He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited” (Isaiah 45:18).  God’s original purpose in the creation of the earth is fulfilled as it is made the eternal abode of the redeemed. “The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein forever” (Psalm 37:29).

That Christ loved us so much to be the second Adam yet our God, no feeble human language can describe!  We can only exclaim, Oh, what love! What wondrous love!

 

Concluding Remarks

Satan had made a charge that God’s law was unjust and impossible to obey.  Satan tempted Adam to transgress God’s law and sinned against God.  Satan then pointed at Adam’s sin as proof that man could not obey God’s law.  Satan has since taught that man is born guilty of the original sin of Adam, and therefore man sins because he is born with the guilty of Adam.  But this concept is unbiblical.

The Bible teaches that no one is guilty of another’s sin.  “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him” (Ezekiel 18:20).  This clearly should settle the concept of original sin.

In disputing Satan’s charge, God responded by “sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).  Christ was born in our fallen human nature yet had no sin.  The concept of original sin could not be sustained.  But instead of Satan conceding defeat, he devised a deception that Christ came in unfallen human nature and hence was not affected by the original sin concept.  But this too is unbiblical.

The Bible clearly teaches that Christ was of the same flesh and blood as our fallen nature, and that He could call us His brothers.  “For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2:11).  Christ could not call us His brothers if He had unfallen nature contrary to our fallen nature, for brothers possess the same nature.

Equally, Christ could not have partaken of the nature of the seed of Abraham if He had unfallen nature.  “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God” (Hebrews 2:16).  The text clearly teaches that Christ did not have unfallen nature such as of angels nor unfallen nature that Adam had before the fall, but partook fallen nature like that of the seed or children of Abraham.  Abraham’s seed had the fallen nature, our human flesh.  The only difference is that Christ did not yield to sin.

It is by faith in Christ that we can live without sinning.  Christ says, “Without Me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). Understanding this, Paul declared, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). Christ lived in our fallen nature yet did not sin.  Christ bids us crucify our old sinful ways and live out His sinless life by faith.  Like Paul, we can then declare, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Christ in fallen human nature obeyed God’s law, so that we too could obey and vindicate God’s character against the charge Satan had made.  Christ was a living representative of the law.  No violation of its holy precepts was found in His life.  Looking upon a nation of witnesses who were seeking occasion to condemn Him, He could say unchallenged, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?” (John 8:46).  What Christ taught, He lived.  “I have given you an example,” He said to His disciples, “that ye should do as I have done.”  “I have kept My Father’s commandments” (John 13:15; 15:10).  Christ lived a perfect life in our fallen nature, so that we too can, by faith in Christ, live a justified perfect life, for “the just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17).

Finally, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).