Back To The Basics

THE SOLUTION BY GOD

Intro:

1. In Eighteenth Century Europe fine writing paper remained a precious commodity because the raw material from which it was made– rags and linen – were in short supply. Then, in 1719, the French scientist, Rene-Antoine Reaumur, observed wasps making a fine paper from the wood fibers they had consumed and digested. This ultimately led to the wide-spread use of wood pulp to manufacture paper.

2. I suppose because man is created in the image of God, he is able to come up with many solutions to life’s many problems. But none of them compares with the solution that God uses to solve man’s sin problem.

3. Solution through the Deliverer.

I. REPRESENTATION.

Just as the first Adam was a representation of all those born the first time, so the last Adam was a representation of all who would be born-again.

As the first Adam built the barriers, the last Adam would tear them down.

As the first Adam failed by yielding to temptation, the last Adam succeeded in saying no to temptation (Mt. 4:1-11).

See, 1 Cor. 15:21-22/Rom. 5:17-19.

Hal Lindsey notes:

On several occasions in the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as the “second Adam.” It’s because as a man He perfectly fulfilled all the dreams and aspirations that God had originally had for the first Adam…The first man got mankind into all its trouble, but God sent another Man into the world and He undid it. In order to qualify as a true human being who could undo sin’s damage, Jesus did not use His divine power while He was on earth (Phil. 2:6-7). Jesus’ whole life was lived in total dependence upon the Father who worked through Him by the Holy Spirit who indwelt Him. That’s the exact way that God intended for all men to live.

We see this in the temptation by Satan in trying to get the Lord Jesus to depend upon His deity, which would have disqualified him as the second Adam. He said, “Turn those stones to bread” that would not have been a temptation to us because we could not do it! Nor would it be a temptation to our Lord in His humanity. It would take an act of God to turn stones into bread. Had Jesus done that by depending upon His deity it would have been like Adam taking of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Our Lord as a perfect man remained totally dependent upon His Father.

See John 5:19, 30; 7:16; 8:28.

The Son of God became the God/man. He had to be man in order to die (Heb. 2:9, 14; 9:12-15) and God in order to make that death effective (Mk. 2:7). He was from God (Jn. 6:38; 16:27-28; 17:5); and was God (Mt. 8:2-3; 9:1-8, 18; 14:33/ Mk. 2:5-12; 14:61-62/Jn. 1:1; 10:30; 20:26-29/etc).

The inventor of Velcro got his idea from the “gripping power” of cockleburs that clung to his clothing and his dog’s fur after a walk in the woods. He reduplicated the very hooks of the burs he observed in a magnifying glass.

But God reveals a greater genius when he revealed how a second Adam could undo all that the first Adam did.

II. INCARNATION.

A. No Beginning!

He began before He was born! The Son of God’s preexistent, He existed eternally as the Second Person of the Trinity. His physical birth was not His origin (Jn. 10:36; 17:5, 24).

The term Son of God has nothing to do with His birth but His eternal relationship with God the Father.

• The Son of God Existed at the time of creation and had a part in that creation (Col. 1:13-17/Heb. 1:2).

• The Son of God is Explained as being in the Father’s bosom (Jn. 1:18/1 Jn. 1:1-2).

• The Son of God Entered as being sent by the Father (Isa. 9:6/Jn. 3:16; 20:21/Rom. 8:32/Gal. 4:4/1 Jn. 4:10,14).

• The Son of God Exited this world and returned to the Father (Jn. 16:28; 17:5, 24).

John Walvoord notes:

The scriptural view of the Sonship of Christ as recognized in many of the great creeds of the church is that Christ was always the Son of God by eternal generation and that He took upon Himself humanity through generation of the Holy Spirit; the human birth was not in order to become a Son of God but because He was the Son of God.

Understanding Christian Theology:

Some Bible teachers have suggested that Jesus became the Son of God in His incarnation. In other words, He was not God’s Son in eternity past before He became incarnate. This view has several weaknesses. First, it ignores clear statements in the Scriptures about Jesus’ existence as the Son of God before the Incarnation. Galatians 4:4, for example, states that the Incarnation occurred “when the time had fully come,” implying that the “Actor” was waiting in the wings for the appropriate moment of His appearance. The verse continues, “God sent his Son.” The verb translated “sent” is coupled with a preposition that more literally could be translated “sent out from,” again implying that He was the Son of God before He was incarnated. The same exact form of that verb is used in verse 6, which says, “God sent the Spirit of his Son”; the Spirit obviously came from heaven. Other Scriptures also speak of God sending His Son (1 Jn. 4:9-10, 14), using a compound verb that literally could be translated “sent away from,” implying preexistence with God the Father. And dozens of times the Gospel of John records that God “sent” His Son from heaven. Not one verse in the Bible states that Jesus ever became God’s Son. He always was His Son, from all eternity.