If you are a Native American or First Nations person, as I am, you are part of a tribe. A tribe is a people group. They live in the same environments and often share linguistic, cultural and ceremonial commonalities. No matter what ethnicity you may be from, you are part of a people group. As we dive deeper down the line to clans within the tribes, and families within the clans, we are all part of a smaller family group with its own distinctions. Yet, that family group is still subject to the commonalities of its tribal roots.
We tend to become products of the family groups we are born into and often adopt or inherit the traits and tendencies of our family group. We may sometimes look at ourselves and believe that our lives are predetermined by the family we were born into. “Well, my father was a drunkard, so it’s no wonder I am too.” Much of who we are has a lot to do with where we’ve come from. As much as we don’t want to follow after our parents’ lives, and as much as we try to avoid their path, we find that something keeps us in the same tracks of whatever family group we are part of.
We all have one common ancestor: his name was Adam. Every person upon this planet is a descendant of Adam. Adam was created by God and was given dominion over the earth. What Adam said and did regarding the earth was honored by God because He had given dominion, or authority, over the earth to Adam. When Adam sinned against God’s Word in the Garden of Eden, his actions were applied to all of the earth and to every human being from that point onward. As descendants of Adam, we are now born sinners. Because of the sin of one man, and the seed of that man being passed on down the line, down the line, down the line, I am a sinner. I was born a sinner. I have no way of getting free from this sin because it is forever in my bloodline as a descendant of Adam.
Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
As unjust as it may seem, the fact is that one man’s sin affected us all.
Adam’s decision and sin have affected every home and every family upon the face of the planet. His decision and his choice have affected you and me. It has affected our community, our homes, our families and our marriages. It has affected all of us. Sin has brought death, destruction, despair, misery, pain, hurt and wounds to the entire world. There is not one person who has escaped the effects of sin.
One day, God will eradicate sin. He will do this because He is a Holy God and there is no darkness in Him. Sin cannot exist in His presence. Not one sinner will escape the wrath of God upon sin. It may seem unfair, but the fact is that because of Adam’s sin, we are now all in need of a Savior from sin.
Romans 5:14 tells us that sin and death reigned over us all right up to Moses’ day. It was then that God made a temporary way for sins to be atoned. It was through a blood sacrifice. God spoke to Moses and showed him that the only way sins could be dealt with was through the life of an innocent lamb. This was understood by Abel who, soon after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, sacrificed a young lamb as part of worship to God.
“…our lives depend wholly and completely upon God. Without Him, we are defenseless.”
Sheep were the first livestock animals to be domesticated by humans. They are almost 100% completely dependent on humans for their survival and protection. In the same way, our lives depend wholly and completely upon God. Without Him, we are defenseless. We have a predator who is seeking to destroy us and wants to kill us. At the very moment Adam sinned, that sin bound us to this predatory enemy who we know as the devil.
As God would have daily talks and walks with Adam in the Garden of Eden, He still desires to do the same with us today, but it is sin that keeps us separated from God. It is this desire that moved God to instruct Moses how sin could be temporarily dealt with so that God and man could once again have open communion. It required, however, the sacrifice of an innocent life to appease the wrath of God against sin for a brief moment. Up until that day of Moses’ life, sin had reigned freely over all men, but God was showing us all, through the sacrificial lamb offering, that He was going to one day have a Lamb of His own that would take away the sin of the world forever.
Being a Christian does not make me righteous. We cannot come to God on our merits, or on our own goodness, because it is all like filthy rags to Him. God showed us His Plan of Redemption. His plan of redemption for us all came through the sacrificial life of an innocent and completely dependent life. Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, thereby bypassing the sin-curse of Adam, and lived a sinless, innocent and completely dependent life to the Heavenly Father. He was God’s perfect Lamb. And when He went to the cross, He became the only way that we all can come to God. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. Only the blood of Jesus Christ makes me righteous to stand before a Holy God.
Now, through the Lamb of God, we can be adopted into a new family—the family of God! The old things pass away and we become new creations through Jesus Christ. The wondrous work of Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary has eradicated sin for us. We now have an open, unhindered and restored relationship with the Heavenly Father through the life of Jesus Christ. I can now be free from those ways that kept me in chains, addictions and bondages because I am now freed from sin’s grip and given a new way of living through Jesus.
I’m no longer bound to the sins and traditions of my people group, or to the curse of Adam’s sin, because I now belong to God’s family and inherit His ways into my new life through Jesus Christ.
Glory to God for what He has done!