Four Sundays from now, Christians around the world will celebrate Easter — the most important day in human history. On April 24, they will remember the day that the power of God reached into the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea in Jerusalem and brought Jesus of Nazareth back from the dead.
But Christians will celebrate more than Jesus’ resurrection. They will affirm their hope that as Jesus conquered death, so shall they because of their faith in Him as their personal Lord and Savior.
That hope is grounded in Jesus’ words in John 11:25–26: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
After Jesus’ resurrection, the apostle Paul explained to first-century believers, “For as in Adam, all die, so in Christ, all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Christ, the first fruits; then, when He comes, those who belong to Him” (1 Cor. 15:22–23).
The hope of all Christians is that because they belong to Jesus by personally believing in Him, He will raise them up, even from the dead, and they shall share in the eternal resurrection. What greater hope is there? As Paul wrote, through Jesus, even death — “the final enemy” — is conquered.
Do not miss that resurrection is necessary because “in Adam, all die” — a reference to the fall of humankind recorded in Genesis 3. Some view the story as quaint mythology, but the Bible teaches that humanity needed the redemption Jesus provided because of Adam’s fall. In other words, the fall really happened and it impacted every relationship mankind experiences.
Obviously the foremost relationship impacted was the one between Adam and God. Prior to the fall, Adam enjoyed a spiritual intimacy with God. God gave Himself in relationship to Adam and Eve as He walked with them in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8). He demonstrated His goodness by providing for their needs. Adam and Eve had every opportunity to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever,” which the Westminster Shorter Catechism lists as mankind’s chief purpose.
But Adam traded all of that away when he branded God an enemy and deliberately disobeyed His command. The result was spiritual poverty as intimacy with God was lost. Adam and those who came after him spiraled downward toward denying God’s authority, even His very existence. False gods sprang up and much of humanity valued material relationships above knowing God and loving Him “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5). Many people still do.
Again it was Paul who summarized this process when he wrote in Romans 1:21ff, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him … but exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.”
The fall changed Adam’s relationship to himself also. Adam and Eve were created with God’s image in their beings (Gen. 1:27). That gave them dignity and worth. God’s image set them above all else in creation. But after the fall, the first emotion Adam and Eve experienced was shame. The Bible says their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked and made clothes to hide behind (Gen. 3:7).
The fall caused Adam and Eve to immediately see themselves in a different light, and that process continues to this day. Some people are so overcome with shame and fear that they live in self-loathing. Others seem to have a god complex, causing them to believe the world revolves around them.
Fallen humanity cannot see itself properly because it does not see God properly.
Relationship to others was another casualty of the fall. At creation, God rejected the hyperindividualism often expressed in today’s America. God said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). In Genesis 1:27, when God created, He created male and female together. God intended people to live in relationship with one another, not to exist as islands unto themselves.
After the fall, Adam was concerned about himself, not others. Adam blamed Eve for his sin. The value of relationship with others was sacrificed to Adam’s selfish need for a scapegoat. And again, the process continues. Self-centeredness and the lack of love for others cause community needs to be ignored and people reduced to objects to be abused and exploited for one’s own personal gain.
The Old Testament command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is little more than a faint echo in today’s value system.
Even humanity’s relationship to creation was changed by the fall. Originally man was given stewardship over creation. He was to join God in the continuing care of all He had made perfect. Adam and Eve were to manage the physical resources in such a way that life would be sustained and bounty created.
After the fall, God cursed the ground, turning man’s partnership with creation into painful toil and the childbearing process into physical pain.
All of these problems continue today — relationship to self, others, creation and God.
The broken relationship with self results in painful behaviors. The broken relationship with others results in discrimination and divisions. The broken relationship with creation results in pollution and exploitation of nature.
But the chief problem is the broken relationship with God. None of the other problems can be fixed until the primary problem is resolved. Once a person has the most important relationship set right, then it is possible for the discipleship process to begin and the other relationships to be restored. People need to be restored to a right relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
The fall really happened. But praise God, so did Easter. And the hope that causes Christians to celebrate Christ’s resurrection also empowers them to deal with the brokenness of this world.
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