Friday 07 February 2014

Background

In today's passage, Paul explains our flawed human predicamentand how God rescues us. He uses the image of our participation indisobedient Adam's sin and how that spread, contaminating allhumanity. He then uses the image of participation in the grace ofthe obedient Jesus Christ and how that multiplies out giving useternal life.

In the story of God making the world, the perfect creation wasspoiled because of the first man, Adam's sin. Adam wanted to havethe gift of knowledge of good and evil, to be able to makejudgements like God about who was right and who was wrong, who wasin, who was out. But this was a knowledge that only God could have,so God threw Adam out of paradise to labour, and to suffer theeffects of the divisiveness and the strife of sin. Paul recallsthis story and explains that through Adam's disobedience all humanshad inherited death, a metaphor for a stunted, disfigured life, notbeing the people we were created to be. This is the case eventhough not all sins are the same as Adam's sin. In any case withthe law, the ways of participating in sin and a death like life hadmultiplied.

However, through one man's act of righteousness, and theabundance of grace (God's healing love) we are made righteous andrestored to being the people God created us to be. By being humanwe participated in Adam, and because of Jesus' humanity, weparticipate in Christ to be restored to right relationship withGod. God's grace was a grace upon grace and through that grace, wehave the power to enjoy, not death, but eternal life.

To Ponder

• In what ways do you recognise that you participate in the sinsof the world, and with others are responsible for destroying theharmony of creation?

• In what ways do you recognise that faith in Jesus Christ hasenabled you to participate in bringing God's ways of life to theworld?