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Guest (Male): Hey, Adam, where art thou? Let’s talk about it on Key Life. If you’ve suffered too long under a "do more, try harder" religion, Key Life is here to proclaim that Jesus sets the captives free. Steve’s invited Jerry Parrys to teach us this week. Jerry is an author and the pastor of Christian Family Worship Center House of Grace.

Steve Brown: If you’re just joining us, Jerry Parrys, and whenever he’s on, we get great response from you guys, and he’s teaching us this week about the covenants of the Bible. If you were listening yesterday, we talked about the initial covenant that God made with Adam, and he’s the first Adam. Let me read this to you and then I’d like for you to comment on it.

And God said to the man, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat you shall surely die.”

Jerry Parrys: Wow. Well, first of all, let me say it’s good to be here too, Steve. I’m excited to jump into this lesson. Yesterday, we were talking about the covenant that God made with Adam, that he has dominion and power over everything, and so that he was living his life in freedom, he was living his life in a relationship with God.

And then he gives him one commandment. Said, “Adam, don’t touch of the tree of good and evil of knowledge, of the knowledge of good and evil, because the day you do, you’re going to truly die.” Most people don’t realize that the tree of good and evil—since everybody else is a philosopher, I think I’ll throw mine in—the tree of good and evil is a representation of the law.

Once you know what is right and wrong, you’re stuck. So God said to Adam, say, “Don’t touch that tree because I want to keep you out of the consciousness of sin.” And so the law was the tree of good and evil, but there was a tree of life that he could eat off of, and the tree of life represents Jesus.

And so had he kept touching the tree of life, eating off of Jesus, he would have been fine. But he touched the tree of good and evil, and his eyes were opened to what was wrong and what was right. And so from that, the Bible says that God came to the woman and says because you did this, he was going to multiply her sorrows. Adam, because you did this, you’re going to have to work off the brow of your sweat.

And then he turned to the serpent and said because you did this, you’re going to be on your belly. And then this is where Jesus comes in. He says, “You bruised her heel, but God is going to make sure that the seed of the woman bruises your head.” And the seed of the woman is Jesus.

Steve Brown: That's the prophecy.

Jerry Parrys: That’s the prophecy. That’s the redemption that God comes back. So I said there were three points yesterday. Three points was man’s obedience to God of blessings, and then man’s fall, which was in the garden, and then Jesus’ redemption.

And Jesus’ redemption comes because he becomes the second Adam. And that is the good news of the grace of God, is that the first Adam screwed us up, Steve, messed us up, but the second Adam comes back to redeem us back to God. And Jesus is called in scripture the second Adam.

Steve Brown: Oh yes. In fact, Dr. Schaeffer, Francis Schaeffer, used to say that you can play with the timeline in the creation stories, but you can’t play with the literal spacetime Adam and Eve, because the all of scripture, the super-story of scripture, is built on these two Adams: the first Adam, who messed it up for all of us, and the second Adam, who made it right for all of us. Is that right?

Jerry Parrys: That is correct. And then in Romans, the fifth chapter, the 12th verse through the 19th in the New Living Translation talks about the second Adam. It says, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death to everyone, for everyone has sinned. Yes, people sinned even before the law was given, but it was not counted as sin because there was yet no law to break. Still, everyone died from the time of Adam until Moses, even those who did not disobey an explicit command of God as Adam did.”

“Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ who was to come. But there is a greater difference between Adam’s sins and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of one man Adam brought death to many, but even greater, wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many, this other man, Jesus Christ. For the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam led everybody into condemnation, but God’s free gift has made us right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.”

Steve Brown: Now where is that? Romans five?

Jerry Parrys: This is Romans the fifth chapter, verses 12 through 19. And so what you were saying yesterday is you had nothing to do with what Adam did to screw us up. Well, I got some good news for you: you did nothing to make us righteous. So because of the blood of Jesus Christ that has been placed over our lives, that covenant God finished with Jesus even though he started it with Adam.

Steve Brown: That's what the Bible is about, isn't it?

Jerry Parrys: That’s the story from Genesis to Revelation. Absolutely. Absolutely. God allowed—I won’t say he caused—he allowed Adam to fall so that we could come into a more understanding of his love and his redemption and his grace for us.

Steve Brown: Oh man. You know, that’s so big that it’s hard to wrap your arms around it. You know, this involves the universe. This involves you and me and our grandparents and our grandchildren and our great-grandparents and Moses and Peter and Paul. All of us. This is a world-changing message, isn't it?

Jerry Parrys: It is. It is what we call the good news of the gospel. One man plunged us into death and destruction, but another man came and pulled us to salvation, life, joy, and peace.

Verse 19 says, “Because of one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because of one person obeyed God, many have been made righteous.” And the covenant that you see that God made with Adam was completed when Jesus finished what the first Adam couldn’t do. The second Adam came in and restored us back to Jesus, back to God. Isn’t that incredible?

Steve Brown: You know, it really is. You know, when you look at it this way, all of a sudden it’s not just a little story that we sing songs about. This has to do with everything, everything we touch, everything we experience, everything we are. That’s the—it’s changed, hasn’t it?

Jerry Parrys: Yeah. You know, most people don’t realize, I think, the significance of the cross. I heard my friend say we know the story of the cross, but we don’t understand the revelation of the cross. It’s the revelation of the cross of what Jesus Christ has done.

You know, the Bible oftentimes you hear in Romans that we are reconciled back to Christ or reconciled back to God. Reconciled back to what? What does that mean, reconcile? It means to be put back into right relationship. When did we fall out of relationship? At Adam when he fell from the garden, when he touched the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he fell out of relationship. Jesus comes and puts us back into right relationship with God. And now you and I have dominion and power over every aspect of our lives because of what Jesus Christ has done for us.

Steve Brown: So we kind of return to Eden, don't we?

Jerry Parrys: Yeah. My friend wrote a song, says "Get Back to Eden." Get back to the place that God has placed you in the Garden of Eden where there’s plentiful, plentiful blessings and peace and water, and you can eat from every tree of the garden.

You can eat from everything. Everything is plentiful. There’s the tree of life. All you do is continually eat off of Jesus and stay away from the law of good and evil.

Steve Brown: Because look what that caused with all of us.

Jerry Parrys: Absolutely. Absolutely. And man, when you understand that—and watch this, real quick. Adam, when he ate from the tree of the law of good and evil, he hid from God. Whenever you are feasting off of the law, because you know you’re not right and you’re not righteous, you will hide from God. You will miss the blessings of God over your life. So that’s why you’ve got to eat off the tree of life, which is grace, so that you will run to the Father instead of run from him.

Steve Brown: That is so good. And I can live on that for two or three weeks. It kind of puts it in a different perspective. You can see the story from the beginning to the end. And the reason that you’re free, the reason that you’re forgiven, the reason you’re going to live forever, the reason you’re acceptable is the second Adam. You think about that.

Guest (Male): That was Steve Brown and Jerry Parrys. We’ve just started a special series that we’re going to do here and there throughout the year, delving into God’s covenants throughout scripture. Yesterday and today, God’s covenant with Adam, and tomorrow and Thursday, we’ll explore the covenant with Noah. Stay with us for all of that.

Well, here’s a sobering statistic: depression will affect three out of 10 adults. And whether that’s you or someone you love, there is hope. We recently spoke with screenwriter and author Chris Easterly about his experience with depression and what he learned from it. If you or someone you know has experienced that kind of darkness, I know it’s going to encourage you.

So check out that whole conversation on CD for free by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at steve@keylife.org to ask for that CD. Or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Just ask for the free CD featuring Chris Easterly.

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