Out of the mist that had permeated Romans for me, something clear and positive began to emerge: the Lord Jesus Christ has reversed what Adam did to the human race; He is the Savior of the world (John 4:42).
The death that the first Adam brought on the human race has been superseded by the life that Christ has given to the world: “The bread of God is He who comes down from heaven, and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). The only life there is in the universe is the gift of Christ; and it is a gift, not a mere offer of something which He withholds until we take the first step in the initiative. He gives it, and has given it by His sacrifice on the cross.
We do not save ourselves in any way; we are not co-saviors. We can choose to believe and receive the gift that He has given, but we can take no credit for this salvation.
But the gift is a judicial verdict of acquittal in the same way that the condemnation that came through Adam is a judicial verdict: not one human soul since creation has as yet received the actual condemnation—except Christ; He alone has suffered the condemnation of the second death when He cried out on His cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?” No one else has ever suffered that death. The death that all, even the wicked , have suffered is the first death—a sleep. They will suffer the second d death at the end of the 1000 years of Revelation 20.
Every baby has been born into the world under the blanket of that judicial condemnation “in Adam”; but at the same time every baby has been born into the world under the blanket of Christ’s verdict of acquittal, and the latter is stronger than the former. The Father has given all this gift of acquittal “in Christ,” and that’s why He can treat every person as though he/she had not sinned (see Matt. 5:45, He sends rain and sunshine on good and bad alike). He has enclosed the world in an atmosphere of grace as real as the air we breathe.
Every joy or pleasure you have ever known has been the purchase of Christ’s sacrifice, although you have not realized it. The only possible honest response is a fervent cry of thanks and a glad choice to yield our all to the constraint of His love. No price is too great to pay in our New Covenant gratitude. To decline that kind of whole-hearted response frustrates the grace of God, undoes what Christ accomplished, and is the sin of the ages.
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