A day when the whole world died

There was a day when the whole world died, and we need to understand how and why it happened. We usually don't see it that way: we think only One man died on that Friday. Here's the story: "We judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died" (2 Cor 5:14). How could this be?

(1) The Son of God became man, "Emmanuel, . . . God with us" (Mt 1:23).

(2) He took upon Himself our humanity, became one with us, even to the point of being "not ashamed to call [us] brethren, . . . My brethren" (Heb 2:11, 12).

(3) Back up a bit: the former head of the human race was Adam; his name is our name; we were all "in him" for he is the common ancestor of every human being in the world (no one of us was born on the planet Mars, or of a non-human race). 1 Cor 15:22. Because Adam sinned, "all sinned [past tense of the Greek verb], and come short [present tense] of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23). "There is none righteous, no, not one" (vs 10).

(4) When the Son of God became incarnate, He fired Adam from his job of being head of the human race, and took over as the new Head of the human race. Paul describes the transaction as "the first man Adam" being in contrast with "the last Adam, . . . the first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor 15:45-47).

(5) Thus when Christ died on His cross, He died as the "last Adam," the second Adam. He died the same death that God had warned Adam he would die, "In the day thou eatest thereof [the wrong tree], thou shalt surely die" (Gen 2:17). That was not merely the sleep we all know - it was the real death, "the second death" (see Rev 2:11). Christ didn't go to sleep for our sins, "He died for our sins" (1 Cor 15:3).

(6) As by nature we are all "in Adam," so now because our second Adam became one of us and died our death, we are "in Him" by virtue of His identity with us. This is why Paul could say that when "One died," then "all died."

(7) You and I don't even begin to "live" in the truest joyous sense until we realize, appreciate, sense the gratitude, of how "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh [in day to day living in this wicked world] I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal 2:20). Don't ever forget "the day" when you "died," for it is also the day when you began to live "in Him."