Restored In Christ

Let’s go over the basics one more time. 

Mankind is in a terrible fix.  But God has not left him without hope and a future. He has a plan, and that plan is the gospel.   

So again, what exactly is the gospel?

The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ has come to restore ALL THINGS that were lost in Adam.  Christ did all the things that Adam failed to do.

Remember that Adam was…

… created as the first son of God, and that he surrendered this position through a willful act of disobedience.  Because of his sin, he has suffered the loss of the eternal life of the Spirit and as a result, his access to and inheritance of the kingdom of heaven.  He has relinquished his authority over the realm of the earth and has subjected it to the curse of death and decay.  Adam’s sin has separated him from his relationship with his Father.

In light of all the things that Adam forfeited as a result of his disobedience, we can begin to understand why Jesus Christ had to come in the manner in which He did.   Christ came to right Adams wrongs.  Because of the gospel of Jesus, the status of sonship is returned, the curse is reversed, the relationship reconciled, the inheritance restored and the eternal life renewed.

The true gospel of Jesus has six main components; none can be eliminated, and they cannot be reordered.  To do so would be to distort or malign the fullness and power of its message.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is this:

Christ came as the Son of God, conceived in the womb of a virgin by the Spirit of God (Luke 1:31,35).  He was not the son of Adam; therefore, He had no inherited sin from an earthly father.  Because He was born of the seed of a woman (Gen.3:15) He is also the Son of Man, meaning, He was born into the earthly realm with a body of flesh and blood.   

While on earth, He lived a life of complete and utter obedience to His heavenly Father (John 5:30). Not once did He deviate from the perfect will of God.  Therefore, He committed no act of sin.  Had He departed once from the will of the Father, the cross would have meant nothing and there would have been no resurrection.  Mankind would have remained in its lost and dying state for all eternity.

When Christ died on the cross, He paid the penalty of death for the sins of all mankind (Rom 5:8).  The blood of any other creature other than that of a man was insufficient as a payment for the sins of men (Heb 10:4).  God had provided for temporary atonement through the Law and the sacrificial system until such time that His own begotten Son would be born into the earth. He had no sin of His own, but rather the sin of mankind was placed upon Him (2Cor 5:21).   In obedience to His heavenly Father, He willingly laid down His life as the final and sufficient payment for the sins of men. 

Because of Christ’s own sinlessness, death had no power over Him.  The grave had no legal right to hold Him.  Three days after His death, the stone that covered His burial site was rolled away, Christ has been resurrected to live forevermore! (1Cor 5:20,21).

Christ spent 40 more days on the earth in His resurrected body.  Afterwards, He was bodily received up into Heaven (Acts 1:9).  His ascension signaled something especially important in that He, as the Son of Man, now had the ability to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  He inherited the Kingdom on behalf of mankind.  And finally, Christ ascended to His rightful position of authority at the right hand of the Father. 

And the final element of the gospel of Jesus is one that is often overlooked, but is no less important than the others, and that is the promise of His return.  This is one aspect that has yet to be fulfilled but is vital to the final consummation of the kingdoms of heaven and earth.  We often get discouraged when we see the effect that sin has had on our world, but this one promise reminds us that it will not always be this way.  We can look forward to the promise of the day when “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.” (Rev. 21:3)

Christ came to do for us what no other earthly man could do.  He did for us what we could never do for ourselves. 

So now you may ask the question, “how does this work?  How does this apply to me?”

The first step that you must take to appropriate the finished work of Jesus Christ for yourself is to acknowledge your position as a fallen son or daughter of Adam.  You must understand the depravity of your condition.  Everything that Adam was, you are.   You are dead in your sins, separated from God, and prone in your corrupt nature to willful disobedience.  You are void of the eternal Life of God that would reckon you as a son or daughter of God.  Also because of this, you are revoked of your place in His Kingdom.  You must come to this conclusion first. If you do not, you will not fully appreciate everything that Christ has secured for your eternity.  Any other approach to Christ diminishes the price He paid on your behalf.

Christ did not come so that you could merely have fire insurance against the flames of hell.  He did not come to be an embellishment to your image, a compliment to your social resume, or a a tasty side dish in the grand buffet of your self-ordered life.  

He came to rescue you from yourself and from the effects of Adam’s sin. He came to bring you to into His glory and into all that is His as the Son of God.  He came to secure for you His name, His authority, His position, and His inheritance for all eternity.  He came to bring you home.

He came to be your Lord and Savior. 

“Neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Acts 4:12