THE COUNTERFEIT GOSPEL — BLOG 2 THE GOSPEL BEFORE THE SYSTEM
What Did Christ Actually Accomplish for Humanity?
In the first article of this series, we began with a question:
How will we know the true Gospel when Revelation warns us about a counterfeit?
Revelation gives us the setting. The final conflict is a conflict over worship. The everlasting Gospel is proclaimed to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Humanity is called to fear God, give Him glory, and worship the One who made heaven and earth.
Then Revelation presents the counterfeit: Babylon, the beast, the image, and false worship.
But before we can identify a counterfeit, we need to know the reality.
Before we ask what has been distorted, we need to understand what is true.
And before we ask how salvation gets applied to us, we need to ask a much more fundamental question:
What did Christ actually accomplish for the humanity He came to save?
That question takes us somewhere unexpected.
It takes us back to creation.
The Everlasting Gospel Begins With the Creator
The first angel of Revelation 14 announces:
“Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth—to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people—saying with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give Him glory, for the hour of His judgment has come; and worship Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.’ ”Revelation 14:6–7
Notice what John does.
He does not begin the final proclamation by telling us what we must do to make ourselves acceptable to God.
He begins with God.
Fear God.
Give Him glory.
Worship Him.
And specifically:
Worship the Creator.
That matters because the Gospel is not ultimately about a religious system we have constructed.
It is about the God who created us.
The One who gave us life.
The One to whom we belong.
And if Revelation is calling the entire world back to the Creator, then we need to ask:
Who is this Creator?
John's Gospel gives us an astonishing answer.
“In the Beginning Was the Word”
John deliberately takes us back to the language of creation:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
Then John tells us:
“All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” John 1:3
And then:
“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4
Think about what John has just told us.
The Word was God.
All things were made through Him.
Life itself is in Him.
And then John makes the statement that changes everything:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” John 1:14
The Creator entered His creation.
The One through whom humanity was made became human.
The One in whom life exists entered a world dominated by death.
The One who made humanity became part of the humanity He came to redeem.
This is not a side issue in the Gospel.
This is the Gospel's foundation.
Revelation 14 and the Identity of Christ
Jack Sequeira makes this connection explicitly in his discussion of Christ's divinity.
After establishing from John 1 that Christ is God and that all things were created through Him, Jack turns to Revelation 14:7 and its command to worship the One who made heaven and earth.
He writes that because the New Testament identifies Jesus Christ as the One through whom heaven and earth were made, the announcement in Revelation 14:7 “applies in a special way to the status of Christ as God.”
That is an important observation.
Revelation 14:7 is not merely telling us that God created.
It is calling humanity to worship the Creator—and the New Testament identifies Christ with the divine Creator.
So the everlasting Gospel is not simply announcing that God has sent someone to save us.
The Creator Himself has entered the story.
The One whom Revelation calls us to worship is the One John tells us became flesh.
And now the question becomes even more profound:
What happens when the Creator enters the humanity that has fallen into sin and death?
The Creator Entered the Human Story
This is where the Second Adam becomes essential.
The incarnation is not simply the story of God sending a messenger to humanity.
Christ did not remain outside our human story and send instructions from a distance.
He entered it.
He took our humanity.
He experienced temptation.
He suffered.
He died.
He rose.
And Scripture repeatedly describes His relationship to humanity in corporate terms.
Hebrews says:
“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same...” Hebrews 2:14
And a few verses later:
“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren...” Hebrews 2:17
Why?
Because He came to help humanity.
He came to destroy the power of death.
He came to deliver those held in bondage through fear of death.
And He could do that because He entered the same human reality He came to redeem.
The Creator entered His creation.
God entered humanity.
And Paul gives this reality a name:
The Second Adam.
Adam and Christ
Romans 5 is one of the most important passages in the entire Bible for understanding what Christ accomplished.
Paul doesn't begin by asking how an individual becomes a Christian.
He begins with two men.
Adam.
Christ.
And what happened through each of them.
Then Paul tells us something absolutely critical:
Adam “is a type of Him who was to come.” Romans 5:14
Now Paul begins developing the comparison.
The offense of one man.
The grace that comes through the other.
The judgment that followed one man's offense.
The gift that comes through the other.
Death reigning through one.
Life reigning through the other.
And finally:
One man's disobedience.
One man's obedience.
Paul writes:
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men...” Romans 5:12
Then Paul develops the parallel.
“For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:17
Romans 5 now places two men side by side.
Paul writes:
“Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.” Romans 5:18
And then:
“For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience the many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:19
Paul is establishing a pattern of representation. Adam's history affected those whom he represented. And Christ enters that same human story as the Second Adam.
Paul's point is not merely that Adam and Christ are two examples we can learn from. They stand in representative relationship to humanity. What happened through each one has consequences for those whom he represents.
Adam's history affected those whom he represented.
And Christ enters that same human story as the Second Adam.
This is why the incarnation matters so much.
Christ did not simply come to tell humanity what God wanted.
He came to enter humanity.
He did not merely stand outside the human condition and offer humanity a solution.
He became one with the humanity He came to redeem.
And that changes how we understand the Gospel.
One Died for All
Paul makes the corporate dimension even more explicit in 2 Corinthians:
“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died.” 2 Corinthians 5:14
That is an extraordinary statement.
Paul doesn't say merely:
One died for some, therefore some died.
He says:
“If One died for all, then all died.”
Why?
Because Christ's death cannot be separated from His representative relationship to humanity.
He entered our humanity.
He died within that humanity.
And therefore His death has consequences for the humanity He represented.
This is not saying that every individual has already experienced the subjective reality of salvation.
Paul will have much more to say about faith, union with Christ, walking in the Spirit, and the response of the believer.
But before we get there, we need to see the foundation:
Christ accomplished something in and for humanity before we ever begin discussing our individual response to Him.
That distinction is critical.
The Last Adam Became Life-Giving
Paul makes the same connection in 1 Corinthians 15.
He contrasts the first Adam with the Last Adam:
“And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” 1 Corinthians 15:45
Notice the movement.
First Adam → living being.
Last Adam → life-giving.
The first Adam became the head of a humanity that entered death.
The Last Adam enters that humanity and becomes the beginning of something new.
Paul continues:
“The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:47
Now the language becomes even more remarkable.
The second Man is the Lord from heaven.
The One who came from heaven entered humanity.
The Creator entered creation.
And He did not remain outside the human story.
He became the Second Adam.
Why Did He Have to Become Like Us?
Hebrews gives us another piece of the puzzle.
“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same...” Hebrews 2:14
And then:
“Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren...” Hebrews 2:17
Why?
Hebrews answers:
“that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
And then:
“For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.” Hebrews 2:18
The Gospel is therefore not God remaining safely outside our condition and solving our problem from a distance.
The Son entered our condition.
He shared our flesh and blood.
He became our Brother.
He became our Representative.
He became the Second Adam.
And through death He destroyed the one who had the power of death and delivered those who were held in bondage through fear of death.
That is what the incarnation means.
The Gospel Is Bigger Than an Individual Transaction
This is where we need to slow down.
We often begin the Gospel story with a question like:
“How can I personally be saved?”
That is an important question.
But it is not the first question the Bible answers.
Before there is my response, there is God's action.
Before there is my faith, there is Christ's faithfulness.
Before there is my decision, there is Christ's accomplishment.
Before there is my experience of salvation, there is the Son entering humanity to accomplish salvation.
That is why the order matters.
The Gospel does not begin with:
What must I do?
It begins with:
What has God done?
And the answer is not merely that God sent someone to help us.
God entered our humanity.
The Creator became part of His creation.
The Second Adam entered the history of the first Adam.
And He took that humanity through the history that sin had made necessary.
From Death to Life
Paul describes our union with Christ in Romans 6:
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4
Then he says:
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection.” Romans 6:5
The language is union.
Death.
Burial.
Resurrection.
Life.
This is not merely a legal declaration floating above human history.
It is a new humanity being created in Christ.
And Paul can therefore say:
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” 2 Corinthians 5:17
The Second Adam has entered the human story.
And the story does not end in Adam's death.
It moves through Christ's death into resurrection life.
What Did Christ Actually Accomplish?
Now we can finally return to the question with which we began.
What did Christ actually accomplish for the humanity He came to save?
He did not merely make salvation possible.
He did not merely provide an example.
He did not merely give humanity better instructions.
He entered humanity.
He became the Second Adam.
He took our humanity into His death.
He rose from the dead.
He defeated the power of death.
He became the life-giving Adam.
He opened the way into a new humanity.
And He did all of this before we ever ask how an individual responds.
That does not make faith unnecessary.
It makes faith intelligible.
Faith does not create Christ's accomplishment.
Faith receives it.
Faith does not make Christ the Second Adam.
He is the Second Adam.
Faith does not make the resurrection happen.
Christ rose.
Faith does not persuade God to begin loving humanity.
God acted in Christ because He loved humanity.
And this is why the Gospel can be announced as good news.
The Gospel is first an announcement of what God has done.
Only then does Scripture ask:
How will you respond?
And Now the Question Becomes Much Bigger
We began this series with Revelation 14.
The everlasting Gospel is proclaimed to every nation.
Humanity is called to fear God, give Him glory, and worship the Creator.
John's Gospel tells us that the Creator is the Word who was God, through whom all things were made.
And that Word became flesh.
Romans tells us that this One entered humanity as the Second Adam.
Hebrews tells us that He shared our flesh and blood.
Paul tells us that one died for all.
He tells us that the Last Adam became life-giving.
The pieces are beginning to come together.
The final Gospel proclamation is not announcing a new religious system.
It is announcing what God has done in Christ.
And that brings us to the question we cannot avoid:
If Christ truly entered humanity as the Second Adam, what is the scope of what He accomplished?
Did He enter humanity merely to represent a predetermined portion of humanity?
Or did His representative work encompass humanity itself?
And if Christ's work is genuinely corporate, what does that mean for the individual who hears the Gospel?
Those are not small questions.
They determine how we understand faith, grace, freedom, obedience, assurance, and even the final conflict in Revelation.
And that is where we go next.
The Two Adams and the Scope of His Accomplishment
Because before we can ask how Christ's salvation becomes ours, we have to answer something even more fundamental:
Whose humanity did the Second Adam enter?
Comments