When Adam bowed to disobedience in the garden, something deeper than a bad decision took place. His nature became corrupt. The life God had breathed into him was no longer what it was meant to be. And because of that corrupt nature, man lost the power to live righteously.

Sin became his lord. He became a slave — not only to sin itself, but to everything that comes with it: pain, lack, sickness, death and every negative thing you can think of. Those are the results of sin. And because of them, man could no longer live to the full potential God designed for him.

There was a need for a change. Not a small one. A total one.

Self-Effort Could Never Fix It

Man tried. He put all his effort into living above sin and doing the right things. At some point, sin was so widespread that God destroyed the people of the earth in the days of Noah — and even after that, man kept on sinning.

So God introduced the law. It came through Moses. The point of the law was not to make man righteous by his own strength. It was to bring man to the place where he would admit he needed a Saviour.

When Moses gave the law to Israel, they were confident. They said they would keep every word of it. But they couldn't. At best, all their efforts could produce was a righteousness the Bible calls filthy rags: "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6).

Man needed a Saviour because he could not save himself. He could not even atone for himself.

Covering Is Not the Same as Curing

For centuries, sacrifices of rams, sheep and bulls were offered for sin. Those sacrifices mattered. They covered sin. But covering is not the same as removing. Think of refinancing a loan. You extend the payment. You push the problem further out. The debt is still there.

That is what the blood of animals did. It covered and postponed. The sinful nature remained. And because every person born of a man and a woman inherits that fallen nature from Adam, there was no pure man who could make a total sacrifice for sin. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

The problem needed more than maintenance. It needed a solution.

Man Sinned, So Man Had to Pay

God is principled. He plays a fair game. Man sinned, so man had to pay for the sin. The Scripture says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:20).

But God alone is pure enough to pay. Man is impure even before he does anything wrong, because his nature is fallen. His actions don't make him sinful — his nature does. And because he has that nature, he acts sinfully.

So here was the tension: God is qualified to pay, but God is not man. Man must pay, but man cannot pay.

In His wisdom, God became a man.

Fully God and Fully Man

A child is normally formed by the coming together of a man and a woman. The woman carries the child; the man gives the seed. But for Jesus, the man was taken out of the equation. The Holy Spirit gave the seed into the womb of Mary. That is how Jesus was conceived.

His spirit was pure. His soul was pure. His body was pure. He was fully man — He had a human body and a human soul, and He experienced what a man experiences. And He was fully God — His spirit was the Spirit of God.

John puts it this way: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:1, 14).

He was the perfect sacrifice: the pure Man who could pay for man's sin, and the holy God who alone was qualified to do it.

His Blood Destroyed What Animals Only Covered

When Jesus went to the cross, the ultimate sacrifice for sin was made. Remember what the blood of animals did — it covered. The blood of Jesus did something far greater. It destroyed the sin. It destroyed the sin nature.

Two things happened for us.

First, redemption. Every punishment for the sin man committed was placed on Jesus. Because of that, we are not guilty of that sin.

Second, recreation. He gave us a new spirit. Not the same spirit Adam had, cleaned up and put back. A brand-new life.

If your computer has a virus, you can run antimalware, remove the infection and repair the system so it works again. That is a repair. That is not what Jesus did. He did not take Adam's corrupted life and patch it. He gave us a totally new life.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The First Adam and the Last Adam

Scripture draws a clear line between the two. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45).

Adam was made alive. Jesus, the last Adam, gives life. He is the very source of life — and that is the life every believer has received.

That is how a new race of man was formed. A race that is no longer slave to sin and all the works of sin. In Christ, man has dominion over sin. Anyone who refuses this new life remains under the bondage of the fallen nature. Every child born into the world still receives that fallen life — until they receive Christ and become part of the new race.

This life is far greater than what Adam lost. God does not simply breathe into man again and step back. He literally begins to live inside man. We become His temple. It is not "you have life here and I am over there." It is God dwelling in you.

Salvation Appeared to All Men

This gift is not for one nation or one people. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men" (Titus 2:11). When Jesus came, He made it open to everyone, in every part of the world.

And it is free. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). Even the faith itself is a gift.

What salvation brings is eternal life — the very life of God, the kind of life Jesus has now in heaven. A redemption of what man lost, but in a better way.

What to Do With This Today

Here's a simple practice for this week:

1. Stop thinking of yourself as repaired. Say it plainly: "I am not a patched-up old man. I am a new creature in Christ. I belong to a new race."
2. Thank God for both sides of the cross. Redemption cleared your guilt. Recreation gave you a new spirit. Hold both.
3. Refuse the old identity. When shame or old habits try to define you, answer with 2 Corinthians 5:17. Old things have passed away.
4. Live from the life inside you. You are God's temple. Start each day conscious that His life is in you — not beside you, in you.
5. Read Romans. If you are new in the faith, or even if you are not, sit with the book of Romans this week. These truths are carefully and clearly explained there.

You're not repaired. You're a new race. In Christ, old things are passed away, and all things have become new. Walk in that life.

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God bless you,
Michael Adegoke