By the time God came in the flesh (Immanuel), men had a wrong understanding of themselves and God. An incorrect understanding of life as God had designed it for them.
After Adam’s fall, mankind declined in their thinking. They no longer saw themselves as sons made in the image and likeness of God.
And they forgot the Rock from which they were hewn. They became natural-minded, ruled by sin and death, seeing themselves as separated from God. No longer believing that God was with them unconditionally. 1 Peter 1 tells us that they walked in a futile way of life (a life void of God’s purpose). And that it was passed down by the fathers. One translation says, “They walked in the vain conversations passed down by their ancestors.” The word futile is matais in Greek, meaning ineffectual, unreal, godless, idols. They were walking without a sense of God’s purpose in their lives as sons… designed to reflect Him on the earth. One translation of matais is worthless… they were living life, not realizing their value, their true worth as sons. Another translation is transitory (temporary)…not walking in the reality of ETERNAL — of the eternal truths that defined who they were and who God is.
And YET God was always pursuing them in love. Always assuring them that He is WITH THEM (Immanuel)! And yet they didn't truly believe it. In their estimation (and sadly ours today), God was far from them, separated from them because of sin.
BUT then the time had come!! The FULLNESS of time had come to not only declare He is God WITH THEM but to actually physically walk WITH THEM here on earth. Showing them who He truly is and who they are and setting them free from ALL that was hindering them from living life as sons in the image and likeness of Him.
John 3:16 defines God’s absolute LOVE for ALL mankind — He GAVE His only begotten Son. The Son is His gift of love in the person of the God-Man – Jesus Christ!
In other words, GOD GAVE GOD to mankind to dwell with them in their world.
God BECAME flesh! Jesus is the humanity of God! Mankind had fallen in their minds, and they had their own idea of who God was. They had their own false image of God. This was the world that Immanuel was born into! And so, the real God, the ONE true and living God, came to show us who He is, in God the Son. God came and sat WITH us (Immanuel) in our darkness, corruption, blindness, and wild imaginations. ALL of which were hostile to God. He came and sat as one WITH US (Immanuel)… God, inside ALL of that darkness, blindness, and corruption! He came and looked through our eyes, heard what we hear, and felt what we feel. He saw the way we saw and understood God in ALL it’s twistedness and distortion -- in EVERY way He joined Himself to us, WITH us (Immanuel)!
He came and joined us where we were – He COMPLETELY joined us and from WITHIN us (from within flesh) does that which we could not do!
He got inside human flesh and experience the bombardment of our thoughts, get inside all our darkness and hostility, and REFUSED to follow Adam's path! Right there in our brokenness and in our alienation, He was the ONE who BELIEVED the Father, TRUSTED the Father, RECEIVED the love of the Father, and REFUSED the God that mankind invented in their distorted thinking. ALL of this He did AS us, WITH us (Immanuel)!
He is the Last Adam! He assumed ALL that the first Adam had introduced into the world. He summed it up within Himself and carried us back to where we had originally come from (our ETERNAL identity) through His death and resurrection.
Jesus, the Last Adam, walked us back to the relationship with the Father that Adam never reached. His perfect obedience released us from the grip of sin and death.
His resurrection was not merely rising from the dead. His resurrection was the COMPLETE undoing of ALL of Adam… no part of Adam came out of the grave with Him.
He COMPLETELY took away sin from the world and destroyed death! And He came out of the tomb as a new human race… a COMPLETED, FINISHED creation alive IN God. And in His ascension, He carried us to the Father where we sit IN Him, IN the Father, and IN the Holy Spirit. Participating in Their love and fellowship, sharing with Him in His rule, authority, and headship. And finally, effortlessly, joining in their divine nature that was always ours from before time began… as sons who are image and likeness of their Daddy.
HIS Divinity is our divinity. This is an understanding we need to get back to!
This wasn’t treated as heresy, but only as ABSOLUTE DOGMA in the early church. The incarnation not only restored us to what Adam and Eve had lost or had been. But restored us to what Christ the Last Adam is: a glorified, incorruptible, immortal human participating in the divine nature.
IT IS FINISHED!!
