the second adam | a fresh start in Christ

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:12-28

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

The question we all love getting from someone in our life.

I always choose the bad news first. I like to get it over with. I don’t want my ice cream before my Brussels sprouts. Just let me plow through the bitterness. I’ll deal with it, one bite at a time, and then I’ll savor my sweet ending.

And while there is beauty in the story of creation, Adam and Eve isn’t a feel good story. The fall of man, our betrayal and ultimate separation from our loving Father, it really is the bad news first.

Yet thankfully, that’s not where the story ends.

Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12-19 that without Christ and His resurrection, we can’t be raised from the dead. We are still in our sins. We are still separated from our Creator in this life and in death. We are still Adam. Now and forever.

Gulp.

But (and I’ve never been more grateful for a “but” in my life), Paul still gets to tell us the good news. And it’s the best news of all.

“But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:20-22).

God didn’t just leave us with our plate of Brussels sprouts, that Adam ordered for all of us, to heap on our plates, family style. God had a plan to rescue us. To win us back to His sweet table. And that plan, was a Second Adam. But this Adam was perfect and faultless. This Adam was His Son, sent as a Man, just like Adam, to undo what Adam had done. What you and I have done. To resurrect us in a way that Adam never could. This Adam was the last Adam the world would ever need. (1 Cor. 15:45)

God gave us the ultimate Good News. The Good News that cancels out any bad news. He gave us Christ. And in Him we are made alive. Now and forever.