What it means to be a sin bearer

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive (1Cor.15:22). The Scripture, in revealing Christ to us, uses the first man Adam as a type and comparison to Jesus the Christ by contrast. The Lord God created the first couple Adam and Eve and placed them in a beautiful garden of paradise. The Lord gave one prohibition, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Gen. 2:16-17).

The Devil, that old destroyer and serpent, tempted Eve and she ate the forbidden fruit. She gave to Adam and he ate. Note: It was not until Adam ate the forbidden fruit that judgment of “dying, thou shalt die” fell on the couple. The Lord’s command had come to Adam previously and personally. Had he refused the Serpent and thus protected Eve by not going along with her I believe no penalty would have come. And so, it is in “Adam” all die not in “Adam and Eve.”

Now, seeing their nakedness, the couple clothe themselves in their private parts with fig leaves. and when they should be meeting the Son of God, our Christ, for fellowship they hide in the garden, The Lord in mercy finds them out and confronts them with their sin. They make the confession of their sin with the confession of a hypocrite by blaming another. The Lord, then pronounces judgement on them and then pronounces judgement on that old serpent the Devil. In so doing Adam has a divine revelation, hearing the Lord’s words to the Serpent, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”(Gen,3:15). Adam believed, confessed, and named his wife Eve meaning Life. No longer death. They had no other children nor knew if there would be any. It was the Christ, the coming Life, Adam believed. The Lord responded by making a sacrifice and clothed Adam and Eve with the skin of the sacrifice, it being a foreshadow of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Here we see what it means to be a sinbearer: the guilt and penalty of the wrong doer is placed on the sacrifice who bears the penalty; the person who offended is free because payment of the penalty is borne by the sacrifice. We, as Adam, have broken God’s command. May He show us mercy and give us faith as the He, Lord says, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, “He that believeth on me hath everlasting life (John 6:47). Not: “dying thou shalt die”, but Life!

In contrast to Adam, our Saviour Jesus when tempted in all points, sinned not and so can be as He is: a valid sinbearer.

In the foregoing synopsis there are within various pictures of the Gospel leading up to a new heaven and a new earth in the distant future and no more death and our participation. God willing, I will note some of them in coming days