Hebrews chapter two beginning at the first verse. Therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard him? God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will. For he has not put the world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels. But one testified in a certain place saying, what is man that you were mindful of him? Or the son of man that you take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that was not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. We'll end the reading there at verse nine, and may the Lord add his blessing to the reading of his word. May he open our hearts to it and the word to our hearts. So let's now ask in prayer for the Spirit's help today. Let's seek his face. Oh Father, we do bless you and praise you for your great goodness. And we thank you, Lord, for what we've been reading. Lord, it is so great, a salvation. And we ask you, oh God, that the greatness of it would be a minister to our hearts today in a powerful way. Oh Lord, we ask you now that you will work, oh God, that the Lord Jesus would feed his people, feed his sheep. that he would, who is the stronger than the strong man, that he would destroy the works of the devil, that he would, oh God, grant victory and grace to your people, Lord. Deliver us from distraction, deliver us from the devil's efforts to cause us to doubt in any way, shape, or form. Grant us today, we pray, the anointing of the spirit of God to minister your truth to our hearts right where we need it. But Father, how we thank you today that you are a victorious, glorious God, that your son is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he always prevails. How we bless you today, oh God, that the Lord Jesus Christ is building his church, and he's expecting till his enemies are made his footstool. The gates of hell shall never prevail against it. And we thank you that he is our victorious king. And so we pray today in the assurance, in the fullness, oh God, of the assurance of what is going on, of what Jesus Christ is doing in and for his people, that today we will hear your word and that we will benefit by it because your spirit has spoken, because the forces of darkness have been cast down and because the Lord Jesus has been lifted up and we pray it all in his precious name, amen, amen. Well, we return after a couple of weeks off to our studies in the book of Hebrews today, a book that we've noted was written to Jews who had professed faith in Christ, but who were discouraged, disheartened, under real attack, and as a result, ready to give up on the Lord Jesus. And so the message of the book, with a very heavy dose of content from the Old Testament, is that in every respect and from every perspective, Jesus is better. So the first two chapters, we have seen this emphasis there that as a revealer of God's truth, Jesus Christ is better. God the Son is greater than the prophets and greater than the angels, and especially the angels. And what we have covered already has shown that Jesus is the Son of God, is both the messenger, but, and there's gonna be more of this revealed in time to come, he is also the message. So when we talk about so great a salvation, we are coming zeroing in on the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to reveal himself. as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as the Christos, as the Christ, as the Messiah, as the one who is God's answer to the need of men. So he's the greatest prophet, he's greater than all who have come before him, and he's greater than the angels. But he's also the savior. who came to announce on the one hand and accomplish on the other. So great a salvation as we see here in Hebrews two and verse three. So to these doubting disheartened Jews, the message is that Jesus is the Christ and he is God's answer to their every need and our every need. Now, the paragraph that we examined today, verses five to nine, we covered a couple of weeks ago, three weeks ago, I guess. Verses one to four, we come now to verses five to nine. And this paragraph is gonna give further emphasis to the particular truth I've just mentioned, and therefore it begins in a very similar way to what we have seen before. A comparison, in other words, with the angels from an Old Testament quotation. And so look at verse 5 here. We read, for he has not put the world to come of which we speak in subjection to angels, okay? So they didn't have that, but now he's going to say that Jesus Christ did, and the next verses, verse six, verse seven, and the first half of verse eight are quoted from Psalm 8. But if you're thinking about this and you're reading these verses and you look at the kinds of quotations that he's given from the Old Testament in chapter one and the first part of chapter two, you're saying, wait, there's something that doesn't quite fit here. There's something that, strikes us as unusual at the beginning. Because when he quotes from Psalm 8, all the others have pretty clearly referred to the Messiah, the coming one. They have referred to Christ in a way that was pretty undeniable. But when you come to this one, it seems to be speaking about man in general. and especially man perhaps in his original state as created before God. And since he's contrasted with God, it seems like, well, that's the interpretation you're gonna take. That's the way you're gonna look at this. This is a quotation talking about created man. So how does Christ fit in here? Why is this the section that is quoted here at this point? Well, I think the answer is this, that because there is There is a reference to the first Adam here. This passage is also ultimately true of the second Adam, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, why am I talking like that? What do I mean by second Adam? Well, Let me show you, and if you will, put your finger here in Hebrews, and turn back to 1 Corinthians 15. Now, 1 Corinthians 15 is the great resurrection chapter, so we read quite a bit out of 1 Corinthians 15 last Lord's Day on Easter Sunday. It is the resurrection chapter, but something that we read over, but I didn't stop to point out, we need to make much of today. So, 1 Corinthians 15, And I'm gonna read two different sections of it. First of all, verses 20 to 22. So 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 20. But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Now right there you begin to get a hint. All right, so Jesus Christ is a representative, and he has risen from the dead, and as such, he's the first fruits of a class of people who are gonna follow after him. A class of people who are going to bear the benefit of what he has already done. So let's continue on, verse 21. For since by man came death, who's that? That's the first Adam. By man, death was brought into the world through the sin of Adam. So for since by man came death, by man, and in my version here, the New King James Version, it's a capital M here. Because this isn't just any man, this is this second man, this last Adam. This is this man who's the God man, who having an already existing divine nature added to it a human nature. that he might represent us and deliver us in salvation. So, for since by man came death, by man, the second man, also came the resurrection of the dead. Verse 22 makes it clear who he's talking about, for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. The first man, the first Adam, the second man, the second Adam, Jesus Christ our Lord. But he's not finished with this idea here. So now skip down to verses 40, where am I, 45 to 47. So at verse 45, and so it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. God breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. who came to do something greater. Verse 46, however, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and this is part of the extended argument, much of which we read last week. But the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual, but now verse 47, the first man was of the earth, made of dust, The second man, again the capital M, is the Lord from heaven. It is God the Son, it is Jesus Christ our Lord. So, and this same idea, by the way, you will find in Romans chapter 5, verses 12 to 21. And for example, just one verse out of that section says, for if by one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man, capital M, Jesus Christ, abounded to many. So you have these two great persons, two men, two Adams. Now, theologians call this federal headship, which is just a $40 word to say. And this is a very important theme in the New Testament, but it covers all of scripture. That Adam was the head and representative of the race that would flow from him. And Jesus is the head and representative of the people he came to redeem. So two Adams, two heads, two representatives of the race. I was looking at a commentary by Al Mohler of Southern Seminary and he says this, the first Adam plunged humanity into sin and death, the last Adam was plunged into death for the sake of humanity. The work of the last Adam undoes the work of the first. As the one who fulfills the task originally given to Adam, who failed in it, Jesus represents the ideal man who bears God's image rightly and exercises dominion over the cosmos, over the world. So the Lord Jesus Christ is an Adam as a representative, is a man in that sense. So these verses represent both Adam and the Lord Jesus Christ. And the glory and the honor and the dominion that these verses speak about, that the first Adam lost is regained by the second Adam for all his people, the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a key phrase here, and I wanna use that to guide our study today, and that is glory and honor. We see it in the quotation, verse seven. You have made him a little lower than the angels. You have crowned him. both the first man and the second man with glory and honor but then look at verse nine where it's just the second man, it's just Jesus. But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor that he by the grace of God might taste death for every man. So this phrase glory and honor kind of shows us that we can look, there's a glory and honor of the first man and a glory and honor of the second man. So I want us to consider today both of these perspectives and to think about the glory of the two Adams. So let's think about first of all, the glory of the first Adam and this is Adam. who represents the race of men, and we learn here things that are true of all humanity. So verses, beginning at verse six, but one testified in a certain place saying, what is man? What is man? made of dust. What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels. You've crowned him yet. with glory and honor. And you set him over the works of your hands. You put all things in subjection to him." Now, just three things that I want us to think about in terms of the glory of the first Adam. And the first is, he's made in the image of God. I mean, that is no small thing. We are made in the image of God. And the word of God in the New Testament, actually, defines what it means to be made in the image of God. I'm gonna read you two important verses, Colossians 3.10 and Ephesians 4.24, who, looking back, On redeemed man, show us what it means to be made in the image of God. Colossians 3.10, And have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. He's restored in knowledge, so knowledge is the first aspect of what it means to be created in God's image. But then Ephesians 4.24 says this, and that you put on the new man which is created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. All right, so for instance, our Westminster Confession, when it comes to define what it is to be made in the image of God, what it is that God did in creating man, it says we were created with knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and what we have reflected in Psalm 8, dominion over the creatures, okay? So those are the points. Well, let's look at those for a second, with knowledge, We have created in us the ability to understand revelation from God, to interact with God. We have the ability with the mind, will, and emotions that we have been given to actually interact with Him. And we see it in a sinless form in the garden. where Adam and Eve are able to walk with God in the cool of the day. They are able to fellowship with the living God. And so, they were created with a level of understanding, a knowledge, an awareness, see, that is part of what God made in man that man might interact with Him. So, knowledge, and there's a lot more we could cover on that, but let's move to the next one, righteousness. He was made without sin. He was made sinless. Ecclesiastes confirms that. No sin. He has a righteousness. All right, at the beginning, no demerits on the ledger of any kind, so he has righteousness. But then it says holiness. Now that's a different thing. That's a step above because the holiness is a desire to please God, is a desire to do the right thing, is a will that wants to live before God and serve God. So again, before the fall, That's how he interacts with God. That's how he views the world. That's the gifts which he has been given of God, with which to have a relationship with him. And this is how man was created. Now here's a place, and I think this is worth turning to, so let's turn to Romans chapter one. where we have a New Testament reflection on how man was created and what these privileges are like in man. So Romans chapter one, and we'll read verses 19 and 20, though this whole section has application to this, but here's the heart of it. So verse 19, because that what may be known of God is manifest in them. Talking about man, man in general, is manifest in them. God gives a revelation of himself inside man. For God has shown it to them. Verse 20, for since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen. All right? So we're talking about an internal understanding of who God is, of what is true about Him. And it plainly tells us that we are seeing something invisible. We are given a God-given understanding of who He is. So, since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made, and to this extent, even His eternal power and Godhead. And if you're wondering, does that really mean anything? The next words confirm it so that they are without excuse. So there is no man who will stand in the judgment day and say, God, you didn't give me enough information. God says, I hardwired it, I put it right inside you. I told you who I am to the extent of revealing inside you my eternal power and Godhead, so that you are without excuse, so that you are free. they are without excuse. And if you wanna see it spelled out even more clearly, in the next chapter, the Apostle Paul, for the purposes, because this book is condemnation, justification, sanctification, for the purposes of convicting the Jews who thought, hey, we're in good, we're God's people, we don't have any sin, convicting them of their sin, he is going to talk about the witness, the internal witness of the conscience. So look at chapter two, verses, 14 and 15 here. He says, this is Romans 2, 14 and 15. For when Gentiles, who do not have this written law, the tables of stone, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having God's moral law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and between themselves, their thoughts accusing or else excusing them. So God says he took his moral law, his standard of right and wrong, and he wrote it on tablets of stone, but also on the fleshly tables of the heart. He wrote it on our hearts. Why are we without excuse? We know right from wrong. We know those things. God didn't leave us without witness. He didn't put it just out there. He put it in there. He wrote it on our hearts and our conscience. Now, consciences can be seared and consciences can be skewed, but without that external influence, it's right there. God's standard of right and of wrong. And so this is what God did, we are created in the image of God. So God, he gave us an internal witness, we just read that in Romans 1 and 2, and he gave us an external witness. The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork. So everywhere we look, there's a witness to God, but in the quiet of our own thoughts and the darkest of darkest places, there's still a witness. God is speaking in our hearts. So this is what it is to be made in the image of God. We have all that we need, all that we could desire, every capacity to have a relationship with God. but enter sin, enter the fall, enter the stirring, as it were, of the hornet's nest, and all this is broken, marred, skewed, perverted by the entrance of sin, which made the coming of the second Adam absolutely necessary. Because that's where we are, helpless and hopeless, apart from God. But again, this truth, what God did for us, how he made us, It's true, and the glorious thing about it is is that which has been marred by sin may be restored by redemption. And that's what you're reading in Colossians and Ephesians about the restoration of the new man in the image of God. But let's come to a second thing that we notice here about the first Adam, and that is he's given dominion over the creation. And Psalm 8 reflects this, and so verses seven, the last half of seven and the beginning of eight. You have crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. I think there are two things to think about that. Number one, it's an amazing privilege. I mean, what a privilege. I'll be honest, I am the kind of guy who, for many years, had a real hard time stopping to smell the roses. My dad used to say of my brother and I, he would say of me, he said, I didn't care what I had to go through to get to my goal, and of my brother, he didn't care what the goal was, he just wanted to enjoy the ride. And so he sometimes wished he was more like me and I all the time wished I was more like him. Because I never stopped to smell the roses and that doesn't come naturally to me. But you know, a couple of years teaching junior high kids science made a world of difference. I tell you, just stopping because I had to you know because it's on the to-do list you know I had to smell the roses and gaze into the stars and look in a microscope and learn about the glories of all God has done in this creation and I tell you the heavens declare the glory of God and everything he has made declares his glory in unfathomable ways. And if you had, you know, a million lifetimes, you could never cover all the wonders that there are in this creation and how glorious they make God to be. And so it is a privilege and I, if you're more like my Adam the first and you have a hard time smelling the roses, I encourage you to take the time. I mean, you may think, well, what's this gonna do for my soul? I'll tell you, it'll do everything. It will show you how glorious, how gracious, how kind, how loving, how powerful your God is. You pay attention to the witness that is all around you, and it'll change your prayers. It will make you expectant. It will show you that there's a glorious God at work in our hearts. But not only is it a privilege on the one hand, folks, it's a responsibility on the other. We're the ones. You know, you talk about man being charged with caring for the earth. He set us over the works of his hands and put all things subjection under our feet. Who is that? Who is that? That's us. That's all of us. We don't really have, you know, we can't say, well, that was given to the office of creation care. No such thing. It's you and me. And so there's a responsibility involved in caring for the natural resources, the planet that God has given us, and not despising what he has done. There is a responsibility in terms of the animal kingdom, and you see this reflected in God's law, you see it reflected in Proverbs, various places in scripture, where being cruel to the animals God has put, you know, as our companions on this earth and our servants in many roles, that God does not like that. He does not like that. A man who is cruel to his beast, there's something perverted in the character. And God is quick to point that out. And so the animal kingdom likewise is part of that responsibility. But I think we also need to realize our own bodies fall into that category. This creation mandate, this watch care should mean us too. And I mean, I've had to learn through hard experience that if I neglect this vessel, it doesn't just tell on me physically, it's not that I feel worse, which I do, but it's also it touches the spiritual. It puts clouds over my eyes, you know? And because I feel so lousy, I can't seem to see, you know, that the promises of a gracious God are there for me to tap into and seek when I pray. And so, taking care of ourselves is part of that responsibility. So, he's made us in the image of God, he's given us dominion over the creation with glorious privileges on the one hand and responsibilities on the other, but then, thirdly, He's also made us the peculiar subject of God's attention and care. I mean, look at verse six. God said this, this is amazing. What is man? That you are mindful of him. We have God's attention. He is mindful of us. Or the son of man, that you take care of him. We are under God's specific watch care. And in terms of his people, go Old Testament or New, there is an array of amazing promises that God says, anything that touches you touches me. He that touches you touches the apple of my eye. We've talked about that image before. Is there anything in your body more sensitive? something just sweeps across your face and you flinch, you automatically go into a protective mode. And God says, he that touches you touches the apple of my eye, touches me where I'm most sensitive. And the Bible says in all our afflictions he is afflicted, he enters in to our sorrows. Our great high priest wears us on his shoulders and on his heart as those stones of Israel picture for us in the garments of the great high priest. So you see, from every vantage point, this is the amazing reality. He cares for us. You know, I, from time to time, will be talking about a verse like Romans 8, 28, or something else, you know, that we quote all the time, you know, maybe the 23rd Psalm, and I will caution us all, because I need it, you know, let's beware of the curse of familiarity, where the power of that particular truth gets lost, because we, you know, we know it so well. As soon as we hear it, oh, I know that one. And we don't stop to really ponder what it means. But in this context right here, think of these words. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I mean, think of that. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And when you understand and see the cross as the sense in which He means that, and then you read, the Son of Man, that you should take care of Him. That is the standard of this watch care. So he's made himself responsible for our welfare. And the Lord Jesus came, and one of the things he does in the gospels in a powerful way again and again, but especially John's gospel, is he shows us The heart of the Father. He shows us how good he is. He shows us how willing he is to answer prayer. He shows us that his watch care is absolutely constant over all of us. All right, so that covers the first Adam, but let's move now to the glory of the second Adam, who is the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think the first wonder here is that he is made like us. He is made like us. Verse nine. speaking right to the expressions just given in Psalm 8, talking about, certainly about man as created. Verse nine begins with these words, but we see Jesus, who just as like has been quoted, was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God might taste death for everyone. He was a representative of needy humans, and what he does, what he came to do, he came to do in our place. Remember, the first Adam failed and fell in his arrangement with God, so the second Adam must come under exactly the same terms and fulfill all righteousness. Do for us what we didn't do, couldn't do, and of course, because of the perversion of sin, didn't wanna do, wouldn't do. The Lord Jesus Christ comes and He does. And so He is our advocate with the Father, scripture tells us, because He's in our flesh. He's in our nature. He is representing us in every sense of the word. And I'm just gonna leave that right there, but we're gonna see in the next few chapters, actually in the next verses, That whole thing spelled out for us in terms of what it means that he is our great high priest, how he represents us. So first of all, he's made like us. But then there is specifically suffering for us. And this must be the wonder of the wonders, because to fulfill verse nine, we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering, for this purpose, the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. You see, someone has to suffer. Because God's law has been broken, because an infinite, eternal, and unchangeable justice has been violated, there has to be a payment. God cannot be true to his own nature. He can't be merciful unless he's just. And so there has to be a justice that is meted out. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes forward to take the sword of that justice on his own head. He's the one to suffer. And he does it because of the amazing love we love to sing about. And of course, as we were just talking about, that suffering doesn't end there. The apostle Paul says, when I am suffering for the cause of my Lord Jesus, I am filling up the sufferings of Christ in my body. I am filling up what is yet to be done in the sufferings that Christ is enduring. And we see that reflected in the first words that Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, ever heard from the mouth of Jesus. Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Every time he touched his people, he was persecuting the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus was feeling that. And so the reality is our Savior is still suffering with us and he's still entering into all that we go through and yet he is sanctifying it so that it always comes out for our good. Sanctifying it so that every time it's gonna be for what he wants to accomplish in us and be for our good. But then one other thing about this second Adam, and that is that his work, unlike the first Adam, is crowned in glory and honor, meaning victory. It's crowned in victory. The first Adam was given a glory and honor in that he was created in the image of God and he was given dominion and he corrupted that by what he did. The Lord Jesus came, bore the cost of all of that, that carnage of the work of the first Adam and then he wins the victory, he fulfills all righteousness, he justifies his people, he's raised from the dead and so in victory now his glory and honor is earned. It's earned. It's accomplishing for us what we could not accomplish for ourselves. And so. It's the glory and honor that is the ultimate glory and honor. Let me read to you just the verses from Ephesians 1, and we've turned to this a number of times, but it kind of just gives us in a window into the fact that yes, the Lord Jesus Christ was victorious. And so Ephesians 1 is a prayer, and he's praying for three things, and I'm just gonna read you the third. That three things that we would know, and this is verses 19 to 23. He says, and what is the exceeding greatness of his God's power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ. when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, both good and bad, all the spiritual realm, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things, to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." So the Lord Jesus accomplished the ultimate victory. God exalted him. He now ever lives to intercede for us. He is sitting at God's right hand, waiting until his enemies, which are our enemies, are made his footstool, and then he will gather us safe to be with him forever. So, the image of God restored? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Because there's coming a day when our knowledge will be a full kind of knowledge and yet gloriously ever growing. When we will see as we are seen. When we will get it. When we won't have any sin and corruption to mar understanding. When, just like for the first Adam, when every blade of grass shouted the glory of his God before he was corrupted. Well, once again, that will be restored. and everything will shout His glory to all of our hearts. Righteousness, that will be restored. Our sins will be paid for, forgiven, forgotten. Holiness, oh, we will not have anything in us that won't desire Him with everything in us. We'll love Him like we long to love Him, like we long to long to love Him in many cases. but that's what will be restored to us. Oh, and he will be everything to us. So the image of God will be restored in an ultimate way. Ultimate dominion? Oh yeah, because we will reign with him forever and ever. There won't be anything that isn't under our master and we will be right there reigning with him. Again, I wouldn't dare say that. He said it. He said that's our future. That's where we're headed. The ultimate care? I mean, think of those words, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. End of story. Glorious beginning of story. Just, it begins that. So shall we ever be with the Lord. It seems a few weeks ago I was talking to you about the whole covenant idea that way back in Genesis when God establishes his covenant with Abraham, he says, he's speaking about Isaac and he says, this is the way it's gonna be with all my children. He says, I will be their God and they will be my children. There will be this relationship where I will own them, where they will be mine, where my faithfulness will be there for them at all times. I will do them good and I will take full responsibility. Well, Revelation chapter 22, within a few verses of the end of the Bible, and it's telling us, and this is the glorious, there won't be any need of light in that land, there won't be a temple, there'll be Jesus. It'll be the most glorious thing that you can't begin to fathom. And what does it say in that context? And He will be our God and we will be His children. that will come to full fruition. So again, the ultimate in care. And then finally, the ultimate victory. I've just hinted at this all along, but all internal and external enemies will be vanquished. They'll be gone. There won't be anything, anything to make you fear, anything to make you second guess, anything to stop you in your tracks and say, I better count this and calculate. You know, I think I've said to you, I feel like I'm just learning more and more how much fear has crippled me all my days. Just little fears and things that I didn't, you know, they were just kind of needling thoughts on the edges to keep me from being wholehearted and to keep me from fully trusting. But they're there, they're there. But I'll tell you, you won't be able to think one up in that day. The sunshine will be so bright and the corruption that is in us so completely banished that there just won't be anything in you that can't rejoice, that can't see Him and glory in Him, that can't see all the beauty and all the wonder of who He is. So he's greater. The second Adam, he not only restores what the first Adam corrupted, but he takes us straight to heaven. He takes us all the way to glory. And so yeah, you Jews who are disheartened and discouraged and under attack, this is your future in Jesus. This is your future if you cling to him. The victory that you think you gotta create somehow by your obedience to the law or anything else is already done for you by the Lord Jesus if you only trust him. So though he is so great, he is also kind and intimate in his care and that's where we're heading in the next section. So we see two Adams. You know, the one lost the glory, but now that glory is regained and overwhelmed by the glory of the second Adam, by the Lord Jesus. And so, may we just love and trust and worship. We don't have to wait for death to begin to enjoy that, you see. His victory and you remember he says I am come that they might have life and they might have it more abundantly and we see this theme of life in John's gospel and John makes it very clear he's not talking about quantity, he's talking about quality, he's talking about transformation, he's talking about a life which like this river of living water is flowing up from us and is transforming everything. Now I mentioned Romans 5, 12 to 21 as the other place with 1 Corinthians 15 where we see the two Adams, where we see this federal headship. Well I want us to close by turning to one verse there. So turn to Romans 5 and verse 17. because if there's anything that I think can put an exclamation point on what the second Adam did and restored for us, it would be this one verse, Romans 5 and verse 17. For if by one man's offense, death, in all its forms, by the way, all its corrupting influence, if by one man's offense, death reigned, reigns over us, holds horrible dominion over us. Death reign through the one, that first man, much more those, you who believe in Jesus, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ. Now there is God on the one hand saying death reign, on the other hand saying Jesus worked so that you will reign. Reign in life through one Jesus Christ. And folks, I hope you'll just take this verse home with you. Ponder and pray over what it means and ask God to make all that it means to be a reality in your life. And may God do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. May the Lord show us all that we have in the victorious second Adam. So let's bow in prayer, let's all pray. Oh, Father, we do praise you and bless you today because you are such a great and gracious God. Father, how we thank you that you have given us your son. And again, we would reflect on something else you said, that he that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Lord, we think of Romans 5 too, talking about this grace in which we stand. So Lord, we pray, don't let the devil or our own unbelief shortchange us from all the glory that you have given us in the Lord Jesus. So Father, work in our hearts, we pray. Let us walk humbly with you, let us rejoice in your word, let us read the signs of your glory all about us in the wonders of creation. And Father, move us, stir us, work in us, teach us that we might reign in life through the one Jesus Christ, just as you said. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.