Tag Archives: In Them

1 Corinthians 15:44b…If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being;” the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first,  but the natural,
and after that the spiritual.

Remember this saying — You never get a second chance to make a first impression? That’s not true if your identity has been changed by the Creator of Life.  God’s first impression of life was a grand miracle that revealed life itself.  He picked up a handful of dust and “the first man Adam became a natural living being.”  “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very  good.” That first man’s natural identity was a perfect relationship with God, meant to last forever, in a perfect place.  But sin changed that identity.  Fast forward to a much later time in a world where all that’s left of that first natural identity is the impression of separation and loss.  

Now reread those verses above.  They’re the hope of Advent…God’s choice was a second grand miracle of life, “the spiritual,” and it came to pass in those days!  We celebrate Advent because “after that” natural time God chose to reveal His Own Identity to mankind in the most easily recognizable human form of a new beginning — a baby.

Life must always begin with a natural birth but that Baby was God revealing a second impression of life that could never be separated from Him or lost. “The last Adam, a life-giving spirit,” would replicate God’s own pattern of life.  “New” life for many, and a new identity that would exist forever in perfect relationship with God, not because it happened in a perfect place but because His Perfect Life would be in them.  “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.^a”  

^a CS Lewis, Mere Christianity