For the past few weeks we have been looking at the history of mankind’s journey here on the earth—beginning with
why God made us in the first place, what life was like in the Garden of Eden, resulting in “The Fall,” and its causes and results.
Last week, we saw that Adam’s fateful lack of leadership brought about a radical change in mankind’s way of life. We went from living by simply hearing what God said and doing it, to living by deciding for ourselves how we will live. This is living by what I like to call “ladder theology.”
This means I evaluate for myself my own conduct and then determine myself if it is “good” or “evil” behavior, according to my chosen law code. Thus, when I am “right” and do “good,” I see myself as climbing up another rung on the ladder of righteousness. I then become closer to my ultimate goal—to be independent of God, making my own decisions. Satan tempted Eve to disobey God with the truth when he said: “In the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil (for yourself)” – (Genesis 3:5)”
Satan’s plan for Adam and Eve to disobey God and eat of this fruit is the foundation of a salvation model that incorporates this ladder theology of becoming “more righteous” by obedience as a goal in the Christian life. It dooms us to miss the dynamics of the gospel of the grace of God! That is because the gospel IS NOT that I have now become a Christian and therefore I now will be able to live a better life.
No! God did not make us better when He saved us. He did not clean us up, repaint us, give us a fresh start and then give us the Holy Spirit to help in this gigantic reclamation project. Instead we have now shifted paradigms. As Christians we are now to function in a totally different manner—a radically new way to live! The old obedience model is finished. How so?
The Bible teaches that just as we were “in Adam” when he sinned, God placed us “in Christ” when He died on the cross, and, therefore, we died with Him. “[I]f One died for all, then all died” (2 Corinthians 5:14).
We are descendants of Adam, who have 1.) eaten so well and for so long at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil that we are addicted; we have 2.) loved to try to be obedient to the law because it has given us something to do to effect our own salvation; BUT 3.) we have been crucified on that cross with Jesus! We are finished! The old performance life is over. The Lord has put us out of our misery, whether we have been religious or rebellious, it doesn’t matter!
We may have been self-righteous Pharisees thinking we were doing everything right, or blatant sinners, knowing we were doing everything wrong; it doesn’t matter. We, religious or rebellious, have been killed in Christ and buried with Him in the tomb. That old way of living, by the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, “the law,” is finished. The law cannot reach those who are dead!
But the story is not over at the cross. When Christ came out of the tomb on the first Easter morning, we were raised with Him. The resurrection is the second half of the cross story. We, who were in Adam, died to a life of obedience to the law, and now we have been raised to a totally different way of life—a life of faith, of simple trust—completely apart from obedience to God’s law. Christ is, as Paul says in Romans 10:4, “the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Living by obedience to the law by climbing the ladder to get more and more righteous is over! The ladder is gone, and it has been replaced by the cross, restoring us to that life of faith experienced by Adam and Eve before the fall.
After God had created Adam in Genesis 2, He created a garden in which he would live, filled with trees of which Adam was told he could eat, except for one—the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil—the fruit of which would kill him! The only other tree specifically mentioned was among those whose fruit was “good for food:” the Tree of Life.
Now, the cross has become our “Tree of Life,” the source of our new life, TODAY, not at some time in the future. A fabulous hymn, my favorite, written in the 1990’s by Don Moen, ends every verse of the hymn with this powerful theological insight: “THE MIGHTY CROSS HAS BECOME A TREE OF LIFE FOR ME.” That cross has replaced the ladder in the lives of Christians. The proud, arrogant, self-righteous, independent, self-indulgent, self-promoting, controlling, whining, self-pitying, self-defending person that is Robert Andrews (and I am all of these, though I may fool those who do not know me well; those who do know me are not fooled)—that old Robert Andrews, who inherited from our first parents such an appetite for the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, DIED AT THE CROSS, and he has been resurrected to a new life of faith alone!
So, the ladder theology is over–no climbing up each rung, higher, higher, because there is no ladder; no progress in our Christian lives with which we must be concerned. “How can that be, Andrews? Are you crazy? How can striving to be obedient to the law not be a good thing?”
It is because, at the cross we have been declared to be righteous with the righteousness of Christ by God Himself, apart from anything we do or don’t do! How can we progress past the righteousness of Christ?! Why must I worry about progress toward a destination, if I have already arrived at that destination? The good works that will inevitably proceed from my life (naturally, spontaneously, unconsciously – NSU) are solely the concern of the Fruit of the Tree of Life that now abides within me, the very life of the Lover of my soul, Jesus Christ Himself!
