Christ's Victory as
Complete as Adam's Failure
For
as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one
shall many be made righteous. Rom. 5:19
Christ is called the second Adam. In
purity and holiness, connected with God and beloved by God, He began where the
first Adam began. Willingly He passed over the ground where Adam fell, and
redeemed Adam's failure.
But the first Adam was in every way more
favorably situated than was Christ. The wonderful provision made for man in
Eden was made by a God who loved him. Everything in nature was pure and
undefiled. . . . Not a shadow interposed between them and their
Creator. They knew God as their beneficent Father, and in all things their will
was conformed to the will of God. . . .
But Satan came to the dwellers in Eden
and insinuated doubts of God's wisdom. He accused Him, their Heavenly Father
and Sovereign, of selfishness, because, to test their loyalty, He had
prohibited them from eating of the tree of knowledge. . . .
Christ was tempted by Satan in a
hundredfold severer manner than was Adam, and under circumstances in every way
more trying. The deceiver presented himself as an angel of light, but Christ
withstood his temptations. He redeemed Adam's disgraceful fall, and saved the
world. . . .
In His human nature He maintained the
purity of His divine character. He lived the law of God, and honored it in a
world of transgression, revealing to the heavenly universe, to Satan, and to
all the fallen sons and daughters of Adam that through His grace humanity can
keep the law of God. He came to impart His own divine nature, His own image, to
the repentant, believing soul.
Christ's victory was as complete as had
been Adam's failure. So we may resist temptation, and force Satan to depart
from us.
From My Life Today - Page 328