In the Garden 5x7 Mini Print
“Because a garden was the place wherein we fell, therefore Christ made choice of a garden to begin there the greatest work of our redemption…In a garden first began our sin, and in the second garden first began the passion, that great work and merit of our redemption.”
-Isaac Ambrose
Beautifully printed with acid-free ink on archival quality matte 120lb fine art paper.
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We learn in Genesis that Adam falls and through him sin enters the world, along with all of its curses. There is now death, both spiritually and physically. The intimate relationship between God and man is now severed.
Romans 5:15: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men…”
But promise of a Messiah is given in the Garden of Eden by God Himself in the immediate aftermath of this fall. God tells Satan (the serpent), “‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’”
This is the first prophecy of a coming Messiah to save His people: the Adversary will be defeated by the Son of God (Revelation 12:9).
And through Christ—the second, true and better Adam-men may find forgiveness of their sins and eternal reconciliation with the Father. This second Adam, able and willing to die a death in our place prays before His betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane, mourning even the briefest separation from the Father as He takes on the sin that condemns us, that we might be free and united to the Father.
This second Adam secures for us what we could never on our own-peace with God.
Romans 5:15-21: “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
What does it mean for Jesus to be the true and better Adam? That He was born as a man on the earth, fully God and fully man, and lived the perfect, sinless life that Adam could not (that we cannot!), that He may be the unblemished sacrifice for the sins of those who trust in Him.
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