THURSDAY November 30th
1 Corinthians 15:20-22
‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’
As we continue to look at the ministry and life of the Apostle Paul and hopefully learn something and be reassured in our faith, I am also using them to be a means of presenting the truth of the gospel to any who may find the devotions on-line who as yet do not know Jesus.
Here in the verses for today we see one of the reasons why the gospel is so important, it is because it is the difference between death and life! ‘For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’
Paul’s reference to Adam takes us back to Genesis where after being created by God and given the task of taking care of creation, Adam was told he could enjoy the fruit of all the trees in the garden except for one tree, the tree that was in the middle of the garden. If he partook of the fruit of that tree there would be serious consequences, he would die! And we know the story, the devil came and tempted them to disobey God and Adam along with his wife Eve, disobeyed God’s instruction and immediately that they partook of the fruit that was forbidden sin entered into the human race. As a result, Paul says ‘by a man came death . . . as in Adam all die’. In Romans 6:23 Paul says, ‘For the wages of sin is death’, and every day we see that what God said would happen, happened and still happens, men and women die every day, the funeral parlours are busy and all because of the disobedience of Adam to the instruction that God gave him.
But thank God that even though Adam sinned and thus through Adam all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, God still loved mankind that he had created and put into effect a plan to reverse what happened in the Garden of Eden and to give eternal life and he has done it though sending Jesus into the world so that through his death as a substitute for each one of us, and his resurrection from the dead, all who believe in Christ will be made alive.
The gospel is a wonderful story, a story of the love that God has for mankind, the story of how he has demonstrated his love towards us through the Lord Jesus and of how Jesus was willing to come and to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and after saying in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death, he continues with these words that are full of hope for each one of us, ‘but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.’
For those of us who have come to faith in Jesus, spend some time thanking Jesus for such a wonderful salvation, but for any who have not yet come to faith, consider what it is that Jesus has done for you – he alone has done what is necessary and he alone can grant you eternal life. How do we receive this wonderful gift—we will discover what Paul had to say in our next devotion.