Which Adam Is Your Father?

Which Adam is Your Father?
by Rev. D. Earl Cripe

In the professed Christian world there are many confusions. All Biblical doctrine is important but not all confusions are fatal. The doctrinal error that concerns me just now is fatal. I shall introduce the subject by saying that there are two great confusions in the fundamental Christian world. One is between Law and Grace. The other is between justification and sanctification. I believe that sanctification is the lost doctrine in modern Christianity. Ninety-eight percent of the letters to the churches is written about sanctification. I doubt that one Christian in ten thousand realizes that. Furthermore, I doubt that one Christian in one hundred thousand knows what that difference is and how to adequately distinguish, from an orthodox Christian and biblical point of view, the one from the other. In a news letter, there is not time for a doctrinal treatise, so I will give you a very brief overview. All men in this world are the children of Adam. The Old Testament, from the Garden of Eden to the crucifixion, is concerned with trying to reform Adam's children. First it was by conscience, before the flood. Next it was by intimidation from Noah to Abraham. Then it was by inclusion from Abraham to Moses. Then it was by covenant and contract from Sinai to Jesus, and finally by the presence of and the direct intervention by God Himself into time and history from Jesus to the Cross. Each of these efforts, all of which are comprehended under the overlying heading, "the Covenant of the Flesh", failed. That was because Adam's children were depraved by nature, having fallen into the curse and the nature of sin by the fall. God knew about this impossibility all along, but, because He deals with man in free moral agency and coerces no one when it comes to being a part of His family, it was necessary that man learn it. "The Law," said St. Paul, in Galatians 3, "Was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." The old dispensation had a sign. It was circumcision and it emphasized the reformation of Adam's children through the external forces of moral and religious education and coercion.

With the death and resurrection of Christ, all efforts to make man righteous by any of the devices of the Old Testament were invalidated by God. The cursing of the fig tree by Jesus (The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a fig tree) an eternal end was put to all of that. In the New Covenant (or the New Testament) no effort is made to reform Adam's children. The only solution to problem of the Adamic nature is to put it to eternal death. In the New Testament, that truth is dramatized by a change in the symbols. Baptism replaced circumcision as the sign of the Covenant. Circumcision symbolized reformation. Baptism symbolizes death, burial and Resurrection. The solution to man's problem in the New Testament is to die with Christ on the Cross and put an end to the old Adamic man, to be buried with Christ, to be resurrected with Christ and to be born into the family of the Second, of Last Adam. In Adam we received corruptible creaturely life. Adam corrupted that life and all of us have come along and registered our agreement with what Adam did. But from the New Adam, we receive life that is incorruptible. "Being born again of incorruptible sperm," said the Apostle in I Peter 1:23, "that lives and abides forever." The life that we receive from Christ, the Second Adam, is not corruptible because it is the life of God Himself who is our new parent. As in natural life, birth has nothing to do with the actions of the child. It has to do with the will and actions of the parents. Even so, as to the spiritual birth, there is only one way we can participate and that is through repentance and conversion.

It is just at this point that neo-evangelicalism has introduced a counterfeit into the Christian world. What does repentance mean? Repentance from what? In order to be baptized by the Holy Ghost into the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we must acknowledge that we are depraved sinners by nature and by choice, on a hapless road to nowhere, we must repent of that lost and hopeless condition and we must honestly tell God we want out of that old world and into the new world of Jesus Christ. Part of that "wanting" is that we want to be free from sin. We want to be converted. No one can come to Christ and be saved unless he recognizes that he is a depraved sinner and he truly wants to be converted. The Cross of Christ is the means by which this is accomplished. Let us be very clear about it; WHERE THERE HAS BEEN NO DEATH, THERE HAS BEEN NO RESURRECTION AND THERE IS NO NEW BIRTH AND NO ETERNAL LIFE.

When we come honestly to God in this way, we are justified. This is a salvation which is judicial in nature. It has to do with the judge, the court and justice. The work that provides justification is Christ's alone. No man can become involved in it. For a discussion and definition on that, read the 3rd and 4th chapters of Romans, WHICH HAVE TO DO WITH JUSTIFICATION. DO NOT READ JAMES. JAMES DOES NOT DEAL WITH THE BIBLICAL DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION. JAMES SPEAKS ONLY OF SANCTIFICATION.

Justification is a once only and a once for all matter. In Old Testament typology, justification is represented by the baptism of the Red Sea. Once justified, the Christian is now introduced to another part of the tri-partite great salvation and that is sanctification. Sanctification is not judicial in nature. And, while the provision is made once for all for our sanctification, according to Hebrews 10:10&14, the outworking of it continues as long as mortal life lasts. It is the salvation of our lives from the power of sin to destroy them and rob us of our eternal reward for faithful service. In Old Testament typology, this salvation is represented by the baptism of the River Jordan. It is by the Cross, as St. Paul says in Galatians 6:14, that the world of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye and the pride of life are crucified to be me and I am crucified to it. As in justification only for a different purpose and to a different consequence, the goal is not accomplished by reformation but by death, burial and resurrection. It is this concept that the Bible speaks of when it instructs us to deny ourselves and daily and daily take up the Cross and follow Jesus. The goal is perfection, the rewards are great, the loss for failure is staggering and there is a sober day of accounting of how well we have done. But it is not the means by which we reach heaven, it is not the means by which we maintain our justification and and it is not owing to the abilities of, or to the praises of men. Until we understand what we have lost in Adam, we will never understand what we have gained in Christ and until we put the issue of justification behind us we will never be able to look honestly at the great demands and the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. In the Kingdom of God, we do not go from works to grace, or from grace to works. In Christ and the Gospel it is from grace to grace and from faith to faith.