March 10 I Tuesday

Deuteronomy 10-12

Mark 12:1-27

“Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.”   —Romans 5:14

The dilemma for many of us is that despite our best intentions to live the way we think we should, things always seem to be going wrong. Why is life so difficult? Why so much pain, suffering and sin in this world?

Paul makes clear that sin was not part of the original creation. He tells us, “…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12). The one man refers to Adam, whose name means “humanity.” This verse lies behind what we call the Christian doctrine of “original sin,” “human depravity” or the “sin nature.” It explains how we have this natural bent toward sin, which is controversial to
many people because we like to think we are born innocent and fundamentally good.

Paul is very clear about the universal nature of sin and none of us start off better than anyone else. In Romans 3:10, he quotes from the Old Testament, “There is no one righteous, not even one.” This is either a wild generalization or Paul is stating an important truth in that sin permeates the whole of humanity. The question is why? Paul tells us unambiguously that Adam’s sin implicates all of us as he writes, “For as in Adam all die...” (1 Corinthians 15:22) and “For the wages of sin is death…” (Romans 6:23).

God forewarned Adam, the day he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he would surely die. Both Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit, but the death they experienced was not an immediate physical death, since Adam lived to be 930 years old. On the contrary, they died spiritually, which means the life of God Himself, which He had breathed into them, was withdrawn and they became separated from God. Death reigned, death became king.
It is not so much that we inherited something from Adam, but that we did not inherit something from Adam—the spiritual life of God.

Being born under this reign of spiritual death has profound consequences. Without the life of God, we are incapable of portraying the truth and righteousness of God. Our ability to do that has never been by imitating God, but by the presence of His Holy Spirit working within us. We have a sovereign, flawless God but because of sin’s inception into the human race, He withdrew His Spirit. As a result, we are all born under this reign of death, but praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ who has conquered death!

Prayer: Dear God, it is an extremely grim and desperate position to be under the reign of death, but thank You for providing a way to life through the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise You!