The New Adam

Truthfully, I think this is where Romans 5 (and 1 Corinthians 15, probably more explicitly) hit the concept of man fully alive more explicitly (we arrived round-about through suffering in our Bible study discussion, but I'd like to put that off for a little while).

We read:

12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: ... 18 Therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. 19 For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

In this passage the relative consequences of Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness are examined. It is somewhat beyond the scope of my writing (and understanding) to discuss this exhaustively, the idea of federalism is important here. Both Adam and Christ represent the race (not as mere examples, contra some expositions of Pelagianism). Adam is a representative of fallen humanity—and his headship results only in death (Ro 5.12). But Jesus Christ, by contrast, is the representative of redeemed humanity, and his headship results in "justification of life." As we read in 1 Corinthians 15:

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

It is impossible to think of ourselves as "men fully alive" without first contemplating the "aliveness" (as it were) of Jesus Christ. "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." It is impossible, too, I think, to really think of our own life as somehow separate from his own. (So Paul writes in Galatians, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.")

Man Fully Alive, part II

I have always been something of a hammer guy. I find a new tool, and it becomes the hammer for every nail. I suppose this works itself out in my spiritual development in the way I tend to find my discovery of the moment in just about everything. I know I'm not alone in this.

Not surprisingly, our time in Romans 5 this past week provided more perspective on the quote from Irenaeus. This idea of "man fully alive" seems to turn up in a great many places—and I don't think this is surprising, because the idea really encapsulates a lot of the gospel—or perhaps better said, it is one of the corollaries to it. A friend passed along a link to a sermon by Dr Carson that contained some tidbits in it as well, and I even found some material in a book one would probably find somewhat unrelated.

I'm beginning to realize that this is a lot bigger than I imagined, probably because I haven't read the entire section of Against Heresies. These thoughts are all still in development, so I don't expect to be terribly coherent in my writing. Lord-willing, this is a subject I'll be able to expound upon for awhile yet.

There are a lot of reasons this is such a broad topic; perhaps I am over-generalizing from the original quote, or perhaps I'm taking it a bit farther than I should, but I do think there's a lot to that simple phrase: "Man fully alive is the glory of God, and that life is the vision of God."

When we look at this from a Christo-centric perspective, it illuminates most of our doctrines and beliefs. For example, it is inextricably interwoven with the Trinity. Christ is man fully alive because he is God. Otherwise we could not read, "In him was life...."

Perhaps somewhat more to the point, I think it helps explain how we are conformed to the image of Christ (Ro 8:29). This conforming is the purpose to which we are called (8.28), and I think it behooves us to consider exactly what that means.

Hopefully some future writing will include some thoughts along these lines—the discussion, in particular, that we had in Bible study last Friday concerned suffering, and looking at it from this perspective opened up some new avenues of thinking.

Lessons from the Studio

I was called upon somewhat unexpectedly to teach our competition team class last night—one instructor left sick, the other is swamped with work, and even the usual help was out for various (and legitimate) reasons.

The experience reminded me of two things, in reflection. (At first, I was just annoyed. When I woke up this morning, I suppose my perspective had reset some.)


I am certainly not as good a teacher as my instructor, who is more skilled across the board, both as a martial artist and as a teacher. In the end, this makes it easier for the students—many of them children—to tune me out and goof off in class. I am not very tolerant of this, but they are not exactly my students. I am, as it were, a hired gun.

This reminds me of the relationship the Shepherd has with his sheep. They hear his voice and follow him. But the hired gun flees when the wolf comes; he is most certainly not the shepherd, and he doesn't care for the sheep past his own interest.

While my interest in the students is greater than that of the hireling for the sheep (at least I'd like to think so), I think the experience illustrates the story well.


The other interesting thought I had was that training is so much harder than competition. When you think about it, this makes sense—those Olympic 100m sprinters train four years for a ten-second race. While I realize that a lot of their time is spent competing, if we assume that they train roughly two thousand hours a year (this seems, actually, pretty low), that means the final Olympic race represents roughly one third of one ten thousandth of one per cent of their training.

To express this number by analogy, let's compare it to the distance to the sun. My back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that if an Olympian could travel to the sun in the same amount of time he spends training and racing (2000 hours per year), the total distance he would cover in that one race would be about 3200 miles, about the distance from San Diego, California, to Portland, Maine.

This seems like a lot until you realize that there's still basically 93 million miles left to go.

Training really is harder than competition, but competition is the only time it really shows.

It struck me that in some respect, this parallels the Christian walk. The athletic analogies are not uncommon (1Co 9.24-27; Ga 2.2, 5.7; Ph 3.12,14; 1Ti 6.12; 2Ti 4.7; He 12.1; et c.). In fact, it's surprising how many of them there are.

There is a goal in training, as there is a goal in our Christian walk; it is for this we strive and endure pain, so that we attain the prize. I wonder if perhaps all this time on Earth is simply the training for that final competition.

Of course, in this case, the end is longer than the beginning...

Psalm 139.17

Anyone who has known me for any real length of time knows that, despite some vague Scriptural prohibition against having favorites, my favorite book of the Bible is the Psalms. I am sure this means I am basically like every other Christian in the world.

When I was in the Psalms in my Bible-in-some-unspecified-period-of-time readings, I came across this gem:

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

I don't know Hebrew at all, except for a few minor details about its grammar. One of the wonderful things about it, though—and, I suspect, one of the most annoying—is the fuzziness of the language. This is, I suspect, best reflected in the poetic works and the Proverbs.

When I read the quoted verse, I wondered to myself whether "to" might be translated "toward." This is, as far as I can tell, a distinction English makes but Hebrew does not. The difference in perspective is subtle but substantial.

In one, we see the Psalmist reflecting on God's thoughts, as he might meditate on the law. But in the second, we rather see the vast sum of God's thoughts bent on the Psalmist.

It is the latter that I prefer—and one I think that is borne out by the context of the Psalm. It is a stunning realization that God is thinking about us all the time, and that all of his thoughts toward us are precious ones. It seems like this was the preferred reading of Matthew Henry and John Wesley as well (see these parallel commentaries).

It is encouraging in my grouchier days to be reminded of God's love and provision...and this is one of the many passages that does.