Smoodock's Blog

Romans 5:12 and following has everything to do with responsibility. Who is responsible for death? Who is responsible for life? Paul tells us that death entered our race through Adam our first parent, i.e. the father of our race. He rebelled against God and took with him all that would come after him. You may wonder if this is fair, but we never wonder about the fairness of where we were born, what school we attended or even that we were born at all. These decisions were made for us by our parents, but who among us would accuse them of wrongdoing, simply because they brought us into the world and in a certain city and had us attend a particular school? Even the choice of religion or lack thereof was made for us. We may be able to express our choices now, but not when we were very young or before we were born. Yet, even the choices we make today are affected by the choices that were made for us a long time ago.

Essentially, this is Paul’s claim as it pertains to Adam to whom we owe our physical lives as well as our proclivity to rebel against God. Whatever occurred back there in Eden, and we are given only the briefest of summaries of what did happen, we are living in the result of it today, and ultimately we shall perish. What meaning could there possibly be in such an existence? The things we do, the wealth we accumulate, what we say and whatever makes up the life we live in this body will ultimately pass away and who will remember us? I have pictures of folks who are supposed to be my ancestors. Some of them I have never met and as for others, I don’t even know their names. Is it so strange to believe in about 100 years many of my descendents will not know who I am or even know my name? What is the purpose of such a life that will so soon be forgotten? Thus is our heritage from Adam—blackness of darkness, death, the land of forgetfulness, oblivion, where there are no thoughts, no joy or sorrow, no feelings of any kind, an emptiness that has no bottom, for it will engulf our entire race before it could be satisfied.

But wait, Paul offers yet another picture, one he puts in parallel to that of Adam. He gives us a view of Jesus, the author or beginner of a new race—a race that lives. All who become a part of this new creation of which Jesus is the Adam are able to participate in life, eternal life. In him, that is in Jesus, there is no death. He died once and now lives forever. We who trust in him will live with him, enjoying the heritage of God that is found in him. Where there is darkness, he gives light, for forgetfulness he offers memory, honor and full participation. For oblivion he gives a new world in which there is no death, and for mindlessness he gives intellectual pursuit throughout all ages to come. For the lack of emotion of any kind, Jesus gives us the hope of an existence we cannot imagine for there is nothing to compare it with in the world that we know and live in today. As the Scripture says “the eye has not seen nor has the mind conceived…” Finally, instead of the bottomless pit that cannot be filled, Jesus gives us eternal life, a life that swallows up the bottomless pit of death. Where Jesus is, there is no fear of death. There, death is something we shall ever have to endure again.

The freedom of choice is a wonderful gift of inestimable value. Wars have been fought over the freedom to choose for oneself. I had few choices growing up that affected my entire life. Most were made for me, but of those I did make, some were made wisely, but as for the others, I still reap the ill rewards for the bad choices I’ve made. So, even when I do have the freedom to choose for myself, there is no guarantee that I would choose any better than my parents or even better than Adam, himself. Still, I wonder, if any of us could choose something other than the way Adam went, would we choose differently? Paul claims we can make that choice today—there is the way of Adam and that of Jesus, I’ve made my choice. Have you?