The two most important men of all time are Jesus and Adam. They each profoundly affected the human race more than anyone else. There have been many significant people throughout history who have impacted civilization in profound ways, both positively and negatively, but none so much as Christ and Adam.
Adam affected every person negatively. Because of his disobedience, every person is born a lost sinner facing judgment and death.
Christ, Who, figuratively, came as the second Adam (1Corinthians 15:45), gives new hope to every soul. That hope involves a new birth of water and Spirit (John 3:3,5) so that we can live eternally, as we were created.
Every person is either in Adam or in Christ.
Christ and Adam so significantly affected our race that the Apostle Paul categorized the entire race as being either in Adam or in Christ.
1Corinthians 15:22
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Accordingly, every person has the prevailing nature of Adam or of Christ.
Another significant reason Christ and Adam affected each member of our race so much is owing to the fact that, through them, we have our nature. And nature is important because it governs how we live and where we will spend eternity.
Romans 5:19
For as by one man’s disobedience [Adam] many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one[Christ] shall many be made righteous.
Adam disobeyed God and, consequently, his nature was corrupted, which he passed on to his descendants. The Bible lets us know that it would be easier for a leopard to change his spots and a person to change his skin color than for someone to change his nature (Jeremiah 13:23). But Christ came so that we could receive a new nature. Unlike Adam, Jesus obeyed God, retaining His perfect nature, from Whom we may be born again to righteousness and true holiness (Ephesians 4:24).
Nature occurs by birth. That’s why Jesus said you must be born again.
If God had left our race alone after Adam’s fall to multiply as fallen creatures without divine rescue, not a single soul would be saved because, as Paul said, “In Adam, all die.”
Born again of Christ
But Christ came specifically to renew our fallen human nature. That’s not understood by everyone. Everyone knows His mission was to save the human race. But not everyone knows how.
Christ did not come to save us in our fallenness, but to save us from it. He did not just come to die for our sins, then overlook our sins and count us righteous, as many think. He came to save us from our sins and to lift us from our sinful nature. He came to renew our nature, to regenerate us, to make us anew (2Corinthians 5:17). That is the perfect solution for sin.
Our nature determines our destiny.
Some people don’t worry about their present sinful state because they imagine that, when we get to heaven, we’ll all be perfect. The truth is that heaven won’t make anyone perfect. Changing destination doesn’t change one’s nature. It’s the other way around. Changing our nature is how we qualify for changing our destination. There must be a nature change produced by a new birth. Paul affirmed that flesh and blood (our original nature from Adam) cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption (1Corinthians 15:50). Our nature doesn’t change because we change locations. What good would an everlastingly fallen nature, which is in rebellion to God, do in heaven? How could corruption qualify us to live in the presence of a holy God? On the contrary, and quite simply, Christ came to renew us, to permanently change our sinful nature so that we could be compatible to live with Him in heaven forever. The writer of Hebrews makes this point solid as a rock, declaring that, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14).
The fact that God created Adam holy and perfect, and judged his disobedience when he sinned, is proof enough that He desires mankind to be holy in nature. God would never settle for a sin-reduced version of mankind imposed by hateful interferance of the devil. The birth, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus speak of a new opportunity for mankind to recover from the terrible mistake of our progenitor, Adam, and to be remade in the image of God, which had previously been marred by sin (Romans 8:29).
Two Adams
Citing 1Corinthians 15:22 again, Paul said, For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. This has reference to Adam and Christ being the two heads from which life could proceed to the human race— one, to natural, temporal life, corrupt in nature; the other to spiritual, eternal life restored in righteousness.
Those merely born from Adam would all eventually die. Those born of Christ, though they die, will all be made alive. This is so because Jesus’ human nature was perfect. His was not affected by the Fall. His was sinless, due to His virgin birth, similar to Adam’s original state.
Jesus, being divinely begotten, bypassed the corrupt human nature all of us inherited through natural procreation from Adam.
He, accordingly, would be the new Adam, as it were (1Corinthians 15:45), poised to give all who would believe in Him the means to be born again. Anyone who would obey what Christ prescribed for new birth would receive a new nature (Hebrews 5:9). As Jesus described to Nicodemus early in His ministry, a person must be born again— of water and Spirit. Jesus paved the way for that by going to Calvary to suffer in our place for our sins so that He could offer us new life. And the new birth experience became available shortly thereafter, namely, on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
The revelation of the born again experience
On the Day of Pentecost, Peter, Christ’s specially chosen spokesman for the occasion (Matthew 16:19), revealed how to receive new birth when convicted souls asked how to be saved. In his answer, the vital elements of water and Spirit that Jesus emphasized were apparent in the form of water baptism in Jesus’ name and the infilling of the Holy Ghost.
Acts 2:
38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
39 For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
Repentance is the reasonable and necessary turning to God from a life of sin. In a very real sense, it’s turning from death to life.
Baptism in Jesus’ name is the burial of the old man— the old nature— in a watery grave.
And receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost involves the regenerating Spirit of Christ which imparts new life and, hence, a new nature to the recipient.
The permanence and importance of the words of Jesus
Jesus said His words will not pass away (Matthew 24:35) and that they are the foundation on which to build our lives (Matthew 7:24-27). He said emphatically and absolutely we must be born again. The only way to escape the corruption of Adam’s fallen nature is by being reborn of the perfect Man, the second Adam, Jesus. “For as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”