Jesus Our Example
Jesus says to each of us, ‘Abide in Me and let My words abide in you.’
Or, ‘Come and stand My shoes.’ It’s Jesus’ invitation to return to our original design. To a place far better than Eden. A place that can no longer be challenged or defeated. Every enemy has been defeated. There is nothing more that we can do to add to this victory or subtract from its power. The work has been finished. Finally. Completely.
But are we, as humankind, just spectators in all of this? Are we on the outside looking in at Jesus’ great accomplishments, but really just recipients waiting one day to collect at the end of all things when Jesus comes again, and all things are made new? When do we become participants?
The Apostle Paul says in 2 Cor.5:14
…one died for all, therefore all died. Here’s the mystical and wondrous truth of the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and Resurrection of the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. In Jesus…God gathered the entire human race together. One. Died. For. All. In Jesus, we [the entire human race], were crucified with Christ, raised up with Him, and seated with Him at the Father’s right hand.
And this is the truest of all truths about our humanity. Adam is not our example. Adam is not our prototype or pattern. Yes, Adam was the first physically created human being. But Adam, like us, was a mere type of Jesus. Jesus, has always been, and will always be, the real Head and Lord of the human race. Jesus, before the foundation of the world, was God’s prototype, our pattern, our example, our truest expression. And Jesus’ place is seated at the right hand of His Father. In perfect union within His fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. The Bible says that we are equally part of Him; as equal as He is part of the Godhead!
God is perfectly reconciled with humankind. And in His plan - this reconciliation was never in doubt. God was never going to lose us. His love was never going to have it any other way.
But, for too long we have identified with Adam.
Adam’s human story.
Adam’s human frailties.
Adam’s disease of sin.
Adam’s expression of what humanity actually is.
But what makes the gospel good news?
The objective union between Jesus Christ and the human race. His death was our death, only because our union with Him was, and is, complete. His victory and resurrection was our victory and resurrection, because our union with Him was, and is, complete. The gospel is the good news of what became of the Son of God, and what became of us in Him. The death of Jesus Christ was part of a seamless movement in which the Triune are God laid hold of the human race and decisively, and sovereignly, altered its very existence, cleansing it of all alienation, quickening it with New Life, and lifting it up into union with the Father, Son and Spirit. This was the radical final step of a two-part Creation Plan…first the Creation of humankind, then the rebirthing all of humankind, forever and eternally, into everlasting, never ending fellowship with God Himself. This is the real truth of the character of God and the nature of God; the ecstatic movement towards us, a selfless cruciform movement, that characterises the true nature of Divine love.
A love that created us, re-created us, and has never stopped owning us as its own. The old era that was represented by Adam and the fall of humanity has been replaced by the new era of Christ and His Kingdom. You and I are in a whole new realm now. You and I are grafted into something bigger than ourselves.
