Identity In Christ

In episode 3 of The We Are Recreated Podcast we dig a little deeper into the Theology of In to uncover what the Bible says about being in Adam. Discovering what the Bible says about being in Adam gives us the hard news, so that we can turn our attention to Jesus and the transformation that He brings through the cross.

🔥🔥🔥 Frank Friedmann’s book, Stunned by Grace, does an amazing job explaining the differences between being in Adam and being in Christ. It’s a resource that we highly recommend. You can check it out here: https://a.co/d/0i8j26u

TRANSCRIPT:

The issue of Salvation and our relationship with God is much less to do with our behavior, and a whole lot more to do with whose family we belong to. Today we’re talking about our great-great-great-granddaddy Adam.

We’re glad you’re here, New Creations. Let’s dive in!

Welcome to episode three of The We Are Recreated Podcast where we are uncovering biblical answers to two of the most important questions a Christian can ask: 1) What is God like, and 2) who am I because of Him?

If we’re just meeting, we are John Matthew and Kim Goodwin, and we’re excited about discovering and walking in the identity that Jesus has secured for us through the cross.

Yeah, and in this first season of the podcast, we’re working through the different phrases that we find in 2 Corinthians 5:17. I’m going to read the whole thing for you: “If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation. The old has passed away and behold the new has come.” And right now we’re working on this little phrase “in Christ” because there’s a whole lot there. But to understand it really well, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and understand things a little more broadly. And so in this episode we’re actually talking about the starting point of every person on planet earth – what the Bible calls being in Adam.

And to be upfront with you, it’s kind of the hard stuff. It’s the bad news, because we’re talking about two big problems that humanity faces because of this in Adam status. You may have heard these two words together before: sin and death – the two insurmountable hurdles that keep people from knowing God and from walking with Him.

Now, a really thorough and straightforward explanation of this in Adam condition comes from Pastor Frank Friedmann in his book Stunned By Grace. Yeah – great book! I have a hard copy here, and we’re happy to recommend this book to you. We promise that we would share valuable resources and tools, videos, books, podcasts, teachers… things that we’re finding encouraging and that stretch us in our walk with Jesus. And this book here by Frank Friedmann has been really encouraging for us.

Pastor Frank does an amazing job explaining the Theology Of In, which is what we’re talking about in these current episodes. He talks about the truth of our identity in Jesus in such encouraging and plain terms, and he talks thoroughly about the grace of God that’s changed us, that saved us, and that brings transformation in our lives. So, check out the book with the link below.

Now, Pastor Frank often says that “in Adam” is possibly the most important theological phrase you’ll ever learn because you’ve got to know the bad news so that the good news actually makes sense. In Stunned By Grace he writes, “How can a doctor prescribe a remedy without first making a diagnosis?” You know, knowing where we’ve come from, what we’ve been rescued from makes the truth of our transformation even more incredible!

In the last video, which is just linked over there, we talked in a broad and general way about the Theology of in: what does it mean to be in something or someone? And as we read through the Word, this is what we concluded: that what happens to the thing that you’re in happens to you as well. Or if we put that in a Biblical context, biblical terms, what it says is that what happens to the person that you’re in you also participated in.

In 1 Corinthians 15:22 we get this great summary of the two options of our spiritual condition – in Adam or in Jesus. It says, “As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” And so, we’ve got to know who we’re in, and we’ve got to know the truth of our spiritual condition when we’re in Adam or when we’re in Jesus.

If all of this is true, that what happens to the person that you’re in also happens to you, you participate with them, we should be able to see it in the Bible. And so we want to check this out with you.

Going to Romans 5, Paul actually uses this term and talks about what being in Adam looks like. So, Romans 5:12-13, and then 18-19. “Therefore just as through one man’s sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Going down to verse 18. “So, then, as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness that resulted justification of life to all men.” Verse 19 “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so, through the obedience of The One the many will be made righteous.”

I’m looking forward to talking about that part!
Yeah!

So, it talks about through the one man sin entered the world, being Adam, so verse 12. We could summarize like this:

🔵 When Adam sinned, I sinned.
🔵 When Adam died, I died.
🔵 (Verse 18) When Adam was condemned, I was condemned.
🔵 When Adam became a sinner, I also became a sinner.

Now, Genesis also has an interesting way of framing this. In Genesis 1:27 it says that God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. It tells us that God created Adam and Eve in His own image. They were patterned after Him, but then after sin entered the world. We read in Genesis 5:3 that when Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his – after Adam’s – image, and named him Seth. And so, the generations to follow Adam were actually born in the likeness of Adam.

When Adam sinned, humanity participated with him in his disobedience and his rebellion. When Adam experienced the consequence of death, well, all of humanity started to experience the consequence of death. And when Adam decided to be independent of God, he made a choice that would affect everybody that came after him. It would affect you. It affects me affects my Honey here. It affects everybody on planet earth! So that now we start out this adventure of life trying to live independently of God, separated from God by sin.

And it kind of begs the question: do people become sinners because they sin and do wrong things, or do people do wrong things and sin because there’s something going on underneath, and they start out as sinners? Just so we’re on the same page, sin means falling short of God’s glory and His holiness, and His standard… and the act of sin is when we live independently from Him, getting our God-given needs met in God-forbidden ways. It’s like when we live independently from Him, attempting to be good enough in our own effort and our own strength, trying to meet His standard of glory. Romans 3:23 has a lot to say about that.

This is the truth: we don’t do wrong and suddenly take on the title of sinner. We’re sinners, and we essentially have an identity crisis that works itself out in wrong behaviour and bad attitudes and broken relationships and all kinds of upsets.

So, as a result of Adam’s decision in the Garden, we all start out alive to sin and separated from God by sin. So, that’s the first of humanity’s two big problems – sin. But the second problem we mentioned that we inherit by virtue of being in Adam is equally as serious and disastrous, and that problem is death.

Remember when God was talking with Adam and Eve in the Garden about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? He was telling them that they could eat from any tree – ANY TREE! – except that Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that the day they ate from it they would die (Genesis 2:17). Now, this was not God threatening them. This was God informing them and warning them of what would happen as a natural outcome if they chose that route. Well, that day came. They ate the fruit, and on that day they hid from God, and for the first time they experienced shame and fear. And on that day they were graciously sent out from Paradise. But they didn’t die… not physically right away, even though that physical death eventually came as well – that process was put into motion.

But if they didn’t die physically on that day as God said, what was He talking about? Well, Paul says in Ephesians 4:18 that they and all humanity after them became alienated from the life of God. And so, it was a spiritual life that humanity lost in that moment – life on the inside that is rooted in the love and acceptance and purpose and significance that only God can provide. So, they experienced spiritual death.

Pastor Frank talks about this in Stunned By Grace, so let’s hear from him again. He says:

Without the Zoe life of God [that is, the spiritual spiritually sourced life of God] in his spirit, Adam was left to the resources of his bios life [that’s like the same word as biology – it’s talking about physical life, physical strength], Adam became empty. His spirit became dead to God, and he became a sinner. When Adam ate the fruit, he consciously chose to step outside of the pre-existing, God-ordained arrangement in which his needs were met in God. Instead, Adam chose to rely on his own ingenuity, strength, and willpower to generate life for himself. He rejected an economy of receiving from God and chose instead an economy of achieving on his own. From that point forward, he lived contrary to how he had been designed.

That’s in Stunned By Grace, pages 35 and 36.

Pastor Frank goes on to describe our situation this way: if humanity was a bunch of cups, it’s like we’ve been turned upside down and we’ve walked away from the faucet. We’re disconnected from the flow of Living Water, and we’re not even able to catch it when God is pouring it out because we’re upside down. We need a way to be turned right side up so that we can receive the life that God offers to us just like this… [Kimmy pouring water all over the desk].

One way we’ve heard this explained is called “The Great Gasp.” So, consider a fish out of water. When you net a fish and pull it into the boat, it wriggles and squirms because it isn’t able to access the oxygen in the air. It’s not that oxygen has disappeared or been taken away, but the fish is now out of its natural environment and isn’t able to access what it needs to live. Suddenly it is experiencing lack and experiencing the effect and the process of death. And if things don’t change, that fish eventually experiences death in every sense.

It was similar for Adam and Eve in the Garden. They chose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and suddenly, in a flash, everything changed. They weren’t able to receive the life and love of God the way they had before they sinned. They were no longer secure in Him. Instead, they were ashamed and afraid, and they knew that something was wrong with them. That’s why they hid. But it’s not that God’s love for them had changed or evaporated. His love pursued them and was already at work to fix the situation. But they were like this fish out of water, gasping for the things that would give them life on the inside, life in their spirits… But true life was now inaccessible to them.

When we’re in Adam, this is our story. This is the spiritual condition everyone on the planet starts out with – separated from God, unable to receive his love and access his life, disconnected from the source of life. And no amount of striving no amount of trying to be good enough no amount of trying to measure up to God’s holiness can make us right or acquire life for us. This is where we all started. This is where we all start out with no hope of saving ourselves.

So, now we’ve looked at the bad news and we’re starting to get a hold of the Theology of In, it’s good that we turn to the hope that we find in Jesus. This situation isn’t hopeless. The great news is coming next – Jesus is the answer! So, I want to encourage you to check out Pastor Frank’s book in the description below, and then you can click this link here and carry on with this journey, because in the next episode we’re going to explore the details of this great and glorious good news of the gospel, and talk about how God has rescued us from both of these incredibly huge problems. He solved them both and we’re going to see from the word that this incredible exchange has taken place at the cross. Join us there, and until we see you next time, remember: We Are Recreated.