Chapter 4: Blueprint for a New Humanity
“For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.“ (1 Corinthians 15:22)
Chapter 3 talked about how Jesus moved in perfection (completeness). By this, he became the model for a new humanity. Throughout the Gospels, we see examples of how Jesus saw situations from a higher perspective. That’s a hard thing to do! It is primarily because it can’t be a surface-level act but a heart posture. It means living your life emotionally secure in what Heaven holds regardless of your earthly vantage point. Jesus chose to see people who had wronged him or who he disagreed with as images of God to be restored. Bottom line: it can seem impossible. But in fact, it’s possible! Jesus says in Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.“ Or, in other words, be complete as your Father in Heaven is complete.
This tells me two things.
1. Jesus’s model of a whole and healed life that sees all its needs met in God’s communal nature is attainable.
We see Jesus demonstrate this when, in the place of every emotional reaction, he finds a way to create space and see people as Images of God to be restored. This doesn’t mean he didn’t feel his feelings. It does mean that in light of his perspective on everything, his feelings shift.
For example, in John 8:2-11, we read of how the religious leaders bring a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. “According to the law of Moses, she must be stoned to death. What do you say?” Jesus pauses and kneels, writing on the ground for all to see. Then he says,” If any of you are without sin, cast the first stone.”
The crowd had swept this woman up, formed a plan to discredit and test Jesus, and led the accusing mob right to where Jesus was in the Temple. But Jesus took the time to pause and allow space for breath and perspective. The crowd dispersed at his questions, and Jesus focused on the women. “Where are your accusers?”, he asks. He is now creating space between who she is and what she is accused of doing. Don’t let what you’ve done become your identity.
To learn more about what Jesus meant in Matthew 5, watch this video from The Bible Project.
In his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, Jesus likens anger to murder and lustful gazing to adultery. He does so to make a point about how devaluing anyone, even slightly, is the same heart posture as if you were actually to cause them harm. That’s so tough! But that’s the point. It takes lifetimes to grow spiritually in this way. Every decision we make towards living a wholesome and healed life, and Jesus shows us, is transitioning us into a new way of being human.
2. If you believe that Jesus’s death on the cross was God’s grace being offered to you, then you have been given the space to work this out.
1 Corinthians 15:22 lays this out perfectly when it says, “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.“ Adam is a symbol for the first human. Anthropology is the study of human origins and evolutionary development. In Anthropology courses, evolutionary models assert that early humans were driven by instinct and survival, much like other creatures. If you were hungry, you killed and ate. If you were threatened, you fought or fled. Your number one concern was you. Believe what you want about evolutionary models of human development, but one thing is true: we live in a world that conditions us to think selfishly. Across the Biblical story, we see examples of this.
The first thing Adam does after being caught with the forbidden fruit is blame Eve and God for making her.
After being freed from slavery in Egypt by God’s power through Moses, the Israelites complained that they would have been better off staying slaves for food.
Instead of going to battle, King David forces himself onto Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. It seems as though civilization is oriented toward selfishness.
Christ is alluded to in 1 Corinthians 15:22 as a Second Adam. This means he is the first human to live a resurrected and whole life that we can now choose to follow. Through the example of his journey into death and the result of his restored life, we have access to the opportunity to grow in a grace space. Jesus displayed that by creating space and seeing everything from a higher perspective, we can live unselfishly and completely. When you see life through the lens of Heaven, you have everything you need. It’s ok to mess up when it gets complicated. But the strength comes from slowly growing into a restored life.
