Hi Mike,
I’m sorry to bother you with so many questions this month, I was hoping you could clarify the question that I asked at the last bible study! I’m not even sure what the comment was, but you mentioned something in regard to this comment brought to your attention by one of the brethren centered around the verse where Paul says he was the chief of sinners!
At present my understanding is that we have the potential to do the worst sins but only because of Christ staying the hand of Satan and by our being strengthened by Christ do we not follow through! We are able therefore to be sifted like wheat except that Christ is in our person! Conversely we are being crushed by Christ now so we can be in the first resurrection if that is God’s intention!
We can therefore say we are guilty by association with the flesh of Adam of the death of Christ, which would be the greatest of sins, and paradoxically the only action which could forgive all other sins!
If this was what you were saying, I apologize for not picking up on that with our last exchange, rather I know you believe this because of previous things you have spoken on, and my real question is just what that gentleman meant by the comment that you explained! It didn’t seem right to me somehow, but I can’t even tell you what that somehow is at this point!
I’m still very underemployed, but I can tell you that I really believe God is working all this out, and the prayers of the brethren have helped immensely! The fact that I’m enduring through this trial of my faith is evidence of that in itself, and I should say that when you see your own prayers being answered it really encourages you to double up your efforts for the needs of others, so God knows exactly what He’s doing in all of this as always!
And if you could pass on my thanks to whoever posted the Revelation series on audio, this is a great help for those who have Ipods and the like so we can walk and listen and be mobile with the studies! We’re pretty spoiled in this day and age, I can’t imagine what the brethren in Paul’s day would think if they saw all the incredible technology we have!
Your brother in the person of Christ!
T____

Hi T____,

Thanks for your question. You are exactly right. It is our association with Adam and the simple acknowledgment that “in Adam” we are “required the blood of all the righteous prophets from Abel to Zecharias,” which makes us “chief of sinners.” We did not personally commit the murder of Abel or the murders of the millions of Jews, Russians and Chinese who were slain by Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, but “in Adam” we have partaken in “all things” both past present and future:

Luk 11:49 Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and [ some] of them they shall slay and persecute:
Luk 11:50 That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;
Luk 11:51 From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.
1Co 3:21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
1Co 3:23 And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

That is the “two- edged” nature of God’s Word. If we are purified of our sins in Christ, we are also “guilty of all” in Adam.

Jas 2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.

That why Paul cried out:

Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

But Paul also rejoices in the answer to his own question:

Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

I hope this helps to clarify what I meant by saying that ‘we are manifestly not the worst person who has ever lived.’ While God may have hedged the worst things of the flesh, out of our lives, that do not mean that it is not in our flesh, just waiting for the right circumstances and conditions to bring it out of us. If Christ is not in us, then the first Adam is.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike