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IN ADAM ALL DIE
Six times in the first chapter of Genesis God said that the various things that He created were good. The seventh time we read, “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good,” (Genesis 1:31). This included humankind. Man was as originally created “good.” His goodness or holiness was untested, however, and God in His perfect wisdom determined to test our first parents. Adam along with Eve, as we all know, failed in obedience to the simple prohibition regarding only one thing. God had said to Adam: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” (Genesis 2:16-17). But Adam lived many years after he sinned. Was God wrong? Did God's prediction about Adam fail? While it is true that Adam lived in his body upon the earth many years after our first parents sinned, both Adam and Eve did really die that day. They died spiritually. And upon all their posterity death reigned down to our own time. The Bible clearly states, “For if by one man’s [Adam's] offence death reigned by one...: (Romans 5:17). One of the effects of Adam's sin is that all human beings who live naturally are actually dead spiritually until born from above by the Holy Spirit. This is stated by Paul in these words to the saints in the city of Ephesus as follows: “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;),” (Ephesians 2:5). And again he wrote: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” (1 Corinthians 15:22). Every person that ever has or ever shall live was seminally “in Adam” our common ancestor, the first man. The Bible speaks of a man before he was born as being “...yet in the loins of his father...” (Hebrews 7:19). And so each successive descendant of our father Adam is born dead spiritually: in need of a spiritual rebirth or regeneration. That is why Jesus said, “Ye must be born again,” (John 3:7). While all of humanity die according to 1 Corinthians 15:22 because they are “in Adam” only those “in Christ” shall be made alive. The Bible teaches that those who are born again were chosen by God. “According as he hath chosen us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world...” says Ephesians 1:4 and so those “in Christ” are chosen ones. Their lives testify to all that God has done for them and to them for we also read, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature [creation]: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Being made a new creation: being born from above: being quickened in the spirit: being “in Christ:” this is the all important thing needed by every individual.
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