AN ASTONISHING TRUTH, the Apostle Paul sets before us to be an everlasting comfort through our fellowship, that happened with the coming of the Son to our world to set right what Adam had spoiled leaving it as heritage to all his children, kings, priests, leaders and prophets; as well as how Adam had made the whole world fall under the talons of death through his unfaithfulness to God and disobedience, nay his insubordination to God. The Apostle Paul compares between

Adam’s deed and Christ’s deed: the first, Adam, made sin enter the world, while

Christ came and with Him the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.

So that as death had taken possession of Adam man could possess everlasting life; the

first Adam by disobeying his Father, the second Adam, through obeying His Father

till death, death through the cross.

The mystery of the new life Christ installed in man’s world is that of correcting

the relationship with God Adam had spoiled. Adam had fallen through disobeying

God and accepting the devil’s counsel. Christ offered obedience to God, a total

obedience, and accepted God’s eternal counsel to save mankind by presenting

Himself a living sacrifice acceptable to God on the cross, having accepted death as a

sinner, blasphemer, criminal and fornicator. These were the sins the high priests had

listed and accordingly the Romans judged, which Christ accepted following diligent

prayer, tears and kneeling asking God to remove that cup away from Him1, i.e. to

stand before His Father as blasphemer against Him. This He found impossible to

accept except after He made sure it was His Father’s will, after-which He gave

Himself up consenting to death of the cross. We thus find that the difference

between Adam’s conduct which made us inherit death and Christ who gave us life,

is enormous. Thus faith in Christ became greatly honored by the Father, so that on

whoever believed in Christ, the Father outpoured the abundance of His grace and the

free gift of righteousness, a prerogative of the Son due to His acceptance of death for

the sake of sinners.

The sinner’s position after having been that of receiving the fearsome judgment

and punishment of everlasting death became that of receiving God’s grace of

heavenly abundance that includes all life, as well as the gift of God’s righteousness

no prophet, high priest, priest, or leader had ever received. Because the gift of

righteousness is God’s righteousness, an attribute of His preeminent nature, above

the stature of any other heavenly creature except the Son, who took it from God, His

Father, to give to those who believe in Him and to His own through the Spirit. We

thus see that what the Son offered on the cross through His death and resurrection

1 Note Lk 22:41-44.

from death moved the Father’s heart till He outpoured this righteousness and mercy

on everyone who believed in Christ for the Son’s heritage to repented sinners to

become a true divine right justifying God’s free righteousness.

What Christ fulfilled on the cross and the Father’s response to it made us inherit

this divine bounty in the glory of Christ, to become fellows of His glory after having

merely been fellows of His death and suffering. Herein lies the height to which

Christ raised our kind, those who repented and asked His mercy and grace. A matter

that surpasses the imagination of angels, heads of angels and every heavenly being.

Thus Christ raised our new nature in Him above every heavenly being whoever it

may be.

“But to which of the angels has He (God) ever said: “Sit at My right hand”2 as

equal in glory; a matter Christ has given us to sit at the right hand of God in glory.

Prayer

O beloved Jesus Christ Son of God, Head of our new kind and of our love to

God, We offer You our total submission for You to own our hearts,

We have accepted our salvation from You on the cross, as an offering of love.

You have freed us from death and gave us the heritage of an everlasting life with You,

You made us know the way of life and made us enter the Highest Holies through

Your blood.

Accept today from us our life, with our love, so that You become our life.

7 July, 2005

2 Ps 110:1; Heb 1:13.

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Prayer of St Macarius the Great

O God, cleanse me a sinner, for I have never done anything good in Thy sight; but deliver

me from the evil one, and let Thy will be done in me, that I may open mine unworthy

mouth without condemnation, and praise Thy holy name: of the Father, and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

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