MUST ADAM FIRST BE REDEEMED?

Accepting the Scriptural presentation that “By one man’s disobedience sin entered into the world, and death as a result of sin, and thus death passed upon all men, for that all are sinners” (Rom. 5:12-19); accepting also the declaration of Scripture, “As by man came death, by man also comes the resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:21); also the assurance that “As all in Adam die, even so all in Christ shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22),

Shall we understand that Adam must first be redeemed and atoned for before any of his children can receive reconciliation?

If so, should we understand that Adam was included amongst the believers, the household of faith, on whose behalf Jesus, our great High Priest, appeared and made satisfaction for sin when he appeared in the presence of God for us?

Most assuredly WE SHOULD NOT! St. Paul did not mention Adam in his list of Ancient Worthies in Hebrews Chapter 11. On the contrary, our expectation for Adam is that as a man of the world class, “all people,” his sin will be atoned for in the end of this age, when the great High Priest shall antitypically sprinkle his blood on the Mercy Seat for the sins of the whole world, “all the people,” as at the beginning of this age he made atonement for OUR sins—the Church’s.

Our expectation also is that Father Adam will be one of the last to be awakened from the sleep of death and be brought forth to the privileges, blessings, opportunities and testing’s of the Millennial Age.

Our thought is that the restitution blessings will begin with the generation living at the time of the inauguration of the Mediator’s Kingdom (those who had survived Armageddon); that it will deal first with these and bring them to a measure of recuperation before beginning with any of those who sleep in the dust of the earth; and further that those of the sleepers who went down into death most recently (those who perished during Armageddon and or just prior to it) will be the first to come up, while those who went down first will be the last to come up.

In other words, the FIRST SHALL BE LAST and THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST.

Our thought is that quite probably the awakenings of the world will be in response to the prayers of their friends during the Millennium; and that those living at any time will be especially interested in praying for such as were their acquaintances or relatives. We can see no reason why Father Adam should take any precedence in connection with the work of redemption. While it is true that he was the man through whom sin and death entered the world, nevertheless amongst the thousands of millions of his children he has no pre-eminence in the sight of Justice, whose record respecting humanity we understand to be: One man’s sin–penalty, Death. (We will expand upon all this in a future post.)

Likewise, although our Lord Jesus is the one who paid our penalty, yet Justice in her records would probably take no particular note of that fact, but would merely enter the record, one holy, harmless, undefiled man died and made appropriation of the merit of his death for the household of faith.

Later we may assume the records of Justice will be amended and read that, the merit of the one man who died, the Just for the unjust, which was (at first) appropriated to “the household of faith,” having been laid down again sacrificially (as in accordance with our covenant, Psa 50:5; Rom 12:1 pictured in the sacrifice of the “Lord’s goat”), it will now be applied again–this time “on behalf of all the people“ not included in the first application.

The sacrifice of the man Christ Jesus was sufficient for the sins of THE WHOLE WORLD, however thus far it has only been applied to the sins of Church. That ultimately it will be made available for the cancellation of the sins of the world is because Justice in the condemnation merely sentenced Father Adam as a man and has paid no attention to his children in the way of any separate condemnation, but counted them all as members of the one man.

Hence the death of Jesus could have been applied for anyone of Adam’s race, or for any number of them, or for all of them, including Adam, this last being the ultimate result.”

“Therefore, as through one man’s offense (father Adam) judgment came to all men (extensively), resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act (the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all) the free gift came to all men (co-extensively), resulting in justification of life.” (Rom 5:18)

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In our next post we will examine the order of the resurrection.