He Is Not Here

He Is Not Here

By Apostle Felix

5  Terrified, the women fell to the ground on their faces. The men in white said to them, “Why would you look for the living One in a tomb? He is not here, for he has risen!
6  Have you forgotten what he said to you while he was still in Galilee:
7  ‘The Son of Man is destined to be handed over to sinful men to be nailed to a cross, and on the third day he will rise again’?”

Luke 24: 5 – 7

After the fall of man, God came looking for man where He had put him. There was a location in God, Himself.. The first man’s abode was God, because He came from God. God spoke to Himself when it was time to make man. He spoke to the waters when He made the fishes of the sea. The fishes’ habitation and sustenance is water. It cannot survive outside that environment. God’s question was not ambiguous, but precisely addressing man’s new location. God knew where Adam and his wife was. He knew that they were hiding behind some bushes. God was asking about the location they had left in Him. Probably, Adam was not aware of the extent of his problem. God wanted to bring it to his attention that he had fallen from the glory of God. Man had left his habitation and died spiritually. He chose to live in the land of the dead. The state of  spiritual death of man caused everything under him to die. The entire creation went into rebellion against man. Adam, as the first man brought the rest of humanity into the state of death, and it had to take the last Adam to bring man into the state of life. That last Adam is Jesus Christ.

21  For since death came through a man, Adam, it is fitting that the resurrection of the dead has also come through a man, Christ.
22  Even as all who are in Adam die, so also all who are in Christ will be made alive. 

1 Corinthians 15: 21, 22

45  For it is written: The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. 

1 Corinthians 15: 45

The last Adam, Jesus Christ came to undone what the first Adam had done. He had to become Adam, so that He could qualify to be a sacrificial sin offering. He took our sin and became sin so that we could be made the righteousness of God. He took our place. On the cross, Jesus cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” It was the first time as man, Jesus felt abandoned by His FATHER. God, the Father turned away from His Son because He had become sin. And the wages of sin is death. Jesus had to die because He had become sin. The death He died was a separation from the Father. He went into Hades, the place of the dead. As God came looking for the first man at the place of life, man went looking for the last Adam at the place of the dead. But Jesus did not stay there. He rose from the dead by the power of God. His resurrection is an evidence that we are no longer outside God but we are now in life through Christ. We have been reconciled back to God through His death and resurrection.

16  Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more.
17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18  And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
19  To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
20  Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
21  For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

2 Corinthians 5:16 – 21