As a result of Adam and Eve’s mad experiment to independently try to be like God, the evil spiritual disease infiltrated all of humanity. God so loved the world that the choice for the Word to step out of eternity and become flesh had already been made because God refused to let go. God’s relentless pursuit for us to know the life more abundant in fellowship and union with Him, is legendary in the heavenly places. The incarnation of Christ was the realization of the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. Just as Adam had represented all of humanity when he fell, Jesus clothed Himself in our collective humanity to rescue us from the Fall. He was tempted (tested) in every way like us, yet without falling Himself. Matthew 26:67 – 68 says that they spat in His face and beat Him with their fists and others beat Him with rods, and then they mocked Him. This happened before the Cross. Why did Jesus have to go through those kind of things? Even before Holy Week, He was rejected and threatened, even though He never did anything other than exhibit God’s relentless desire to see mankind delivered from sin’s reign and made whole. Obviously, in His Suffering, He exhibited God’s lovesickness for us, showing us how far God was willing to go to save us from our lostness. There is also another reason why Jesus surrendered to such cruelty and inhumaneness; it was because, clothed in our collective humanity, He was absorbing the evil disease of sin so that ultimately at the Cross, He became sin (the fallen Sin diseased Adamic humanity) and in Him, the old Adamic Self died, so that in union with His very existence we were raised as a New Self, participating in the life that He lives. By His stripes (which was more than just His scourging) we were healed. The New Self is the Abundant Life received; God’s great masterpiece achieved.
