The Divine Equation

Have you ever wondered about Adam and Eve? I have. What if they hadn't sinned? What if they had trusted God instead of the snake? And why are we still paying for their sin? After all, Adam and Eve are the ones who sinned, and yet the rest of us are still paying for it. Somehow, that doesn’t seem fair, does it? Then I think about Ukraine. On the nightly news not long ago a Ukrainian woman, with deep sorrow in her voice, talked about the destruction of her country. “It’s all because of one man!” she said tearfully. How tragic! One man’s greed and evil in Russia means death to thousands of innocents. One man’s disobedience in a garden means death to all his descendants. I Corinthians 15:22 says, “For as in Adam all die…”

It's not that God said, “Well, Adam and Eve, I’m going to punish your sin by punishing everyone who lives after you.” No, it's that sin itself is so destructive, no matter how small the infraction, no matter how seemingly insignificant the act of disobedience, there is always death. God didn’t make the world bad because Adam and Eve sinned. God had made the world perfect, but once they sinned it became bad. I’m not a theologian, but I can only think of two ways to undo that sin and its deadly consequences. God could obliterate the world, or He could send a Savior to rescue it.

In His love, He sent us a Savior, His own Son, the mightiest of heroes, who would live here incognito to accomplish the greatest rescue mission in history. No one else knew His plan. True, there were some who suspected, some who were told pieces of it, but only Jesus and God the Father truly knew what was happening. And on the hill of Golgotha, the Hero sacrificed His life to save the people He loved, even when they didn’t love Him in return, so that they would be freed from the death grip of sin.

The penalty for sin is death, it always has been and always will be, but when Jesus was crucified, the death penalty was transferred to Him even though He had never sinned. He paid the price in full. Then, because even death could not destroy the Almighty Son of God, Jesus rose again from the dead, completely defeating death forever. I Corinthians 15:22 goes on to say, “so in Christ all will be made alive.”

One man’s disobedience = death for all

One Man’s obedience = life for all who accept Him

This is the divine equation. We cannot change it, but we can, with great gratitude, accept it and live in the joy of a life no longer held in the death grip of sin. Hallelujah, what a Savior!