In Adam And "In Christ"

Leslie M. Grant

Wonderful Paradoxes Of Scripture

'"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive"(1 Cor. 15:22). By natural birth, mankind is "in Adam," children of a fallen father, having inherited his sinful nature and therefore subject to death. Adam was the head of the first creation. In his fall and its sad consequences all that creation is involved.

Christ in resurrection is the Head of a new creation. He has introduced blessing far greater than all that Adam lost. Though we do not as yet see this new creation manifested, in a coming day His headship of the new creation will be demonstrated marvelously to a wondering universe. But even now every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, having been given eternal life, is seen by God as "in Christ," and therefore involved in all the blessing that Christ has introduced by virtue of His death and resurrection. Each believer is accepted by God in the same measure that God accepts His Son, and is loved with the same love with which He loves His Son.

This is a paradox. So far as this life is concerned, a believer is the child of a fallen father. He has a sinful nature and is subject to death. Yet it is just as true that God regards him as "in Christ," where sin and death have no place whatever. Many believers have great difficulty with this matter, for these things are contrary one to the other. But faith is the one great principle that lays hold of what God has declared about this, even though intellect cannot reason it out. Such things are incomprehensible to even the most intellectual unbeliever.