Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Commentaries and scholarly tomes can line our library shelves, but if you want to understand something in the Bible, let the simple text speak.
Take that celebrated Romans 5 passage that the apostle wrote: the New English Bible makes it clear, and the Revised English Bible a trifle clearer yet. Note as we read (a), what is the "condemnation" that Adam brought on all mankind; and then in that light (b), note what is the salvation that Christ (as our "last" or second Adam) gaveevery one of us:
"God's act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam's wrongdoing. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many, its effect is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. And again, the gift of God is not to be compared in its effect with that one man's sin; for the judicial action, following on the one offence, resulted in a verdict of condemnation, but the act of grace, following on so many misdeeds, resulted in a verdict of acquittal. If, by the wrongdoing of one man, death established its reign through that one man, much more shall those who in far greater measure receive grace and the gift of righteousness live and reign through the one man, Jesus Christ.
"It follows, then, that as the result of one misdeed was condemnation for all people, so the result of one righteous act is acquittal and life for all" (vss. 15-18, REB).
Note, Adam's "condemnation" on us is a "judicial action, … a verdict of condemnation." Not one human being has as yet suffered that actual, literal"condemnation" with the one exception of Jesus on His cross ("My God, why have You forsaken Me?"). It hangs over us but has never yet been effected (cf. Matt. 5:45).
Note again: what Christ did to reverse that "verdict of condemnation" on the entire human race is a judicial "verdict of acquittal" in the gift of Himself on the same human race. But note: we are given liberty to "receive" the "gift" or we can refuse it; those who "receive" it "reign" as kings "through the one man, Jesus" (there's your simple John 3:16 "believing").
The "condemnation " and the "acquittal" are balanced, both with no input from ourselves. Both happened before we were born. What the second Adam did cancels what the first one did. When we "receive" His "gift," we experience at-one-ment with God and that includes reconciliation with His holy law. And there's your beeline of truth simple and clear, direct through reams of musty commentaries. Look up, rejoice, "receive" the "gift."
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 16, 2007.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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