Jeremiah 32:39
"And I will give them One Heart, and One Way,"
Jeremiah prophesied the day when God would unite the elect in One Heart and in One Way, forward-looking to the coming of the LORD Jesus to unite His elect under Him as the Head of His Church (Ephesians 1:10, 4:15). So certain and successful would be the work of the LORD Jesus that they would all be of One Heart by the Spirit of Christ and be established in the One Way of true worship—in the LORD Jesus alone (John 17:21-23).
Where was the One Way first preached? Who preached the first Gospel message? God did, in the Garden of Eden. He did it through a visual lesson for Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve fell, they clothed themselves with fig leaves but God removed the fig leaves and killed some innocent animals to clothe them instead with a temporary covering. "Unto Adam and also to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21). But the animal sacrifices were only until Christ would come as the Perfect Sacrifice when He would put away the sin of His elect, not just cover it.
Adam and Eve would have stood there and seen the bloodshed on their behalf, a type and picture of Christ's death. It was an innocent victim who died in their place, and they were clothed (covered) with that garment. That set the foundation of the Gospel forever, showing how God would be just to declare sinners righteous, such as we are. There could be no other way but by blood. But it had to be the blood of a Righteous Man. And there are none righteous who were born of Adam: "As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one..." (Romans 3:10).
God could only be satisfied by His work. Unlike one popular preacher back in the day, who wrote in his book on “Satisfaction”—where he said it is blasphemy to think that God could not have saved in some other way. We must believe the Word of God over a man, even a man esteemed by others. He is dead wrong. There could not have been another way. There is only One Way that God determined to save His chosen ones, and that Way is Christ, His Son. "And whither I go ye know, and the Way ye know. Thomas saith unto Him, LORD, we know not whither Thou goest; and how can we know the Way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me" (John 14:4-6).
Only He kept the Law in every aspect, not only the letter of the Law but its spirit. Only He earned and established Perfect Righteousness that none of those born of the seed of Adam could fulfill. Since we were all born dead from Adam, who failed as our representative head, the LORD Jesus Christ was sent into the world by His Father to put away the sin of His people and completely break the curse of sin by His death. He was born of the seed of the woman, as prophesied so many years earlier since the fall (Genesis 3:15), being born of the seed of the woman—a virgin (Matthew 1:18-25). Since He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and not the seed of Adam, He did not inherit a sinful nature (Luke 1:35).
The Bible teaches that Adam was the first human being, created by a special act of God from the dust of the ground. Through Adam’s disobedience, death entered the world, condemning all humanity. In contrast, life comes through the obedience of the second and last Adam, Jesus Christ as the Only Begotten of the Father, created in Mary's womb as the last Adam, He was perfect and without sin, nor could He sin. Therefore, His Righteousness, which He earned and established, was imputed once and forever to the spiritual account of every one of God the Father's elected sinners upon completion of His death on the cross. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul speaks of two representative men in world history: the first man, Adam (15:45) and the last Adam, who is the second man—Jesus Christ (15:45, 47).
One’s destiny hinges on one’s relationship to these two men (15:48-49). All were condemned in Adam when he fell, but only those for whom the LORD Jesus Christ came and fulfilled God's Law and Justice through His Perfect Obedience have been delivered from the curse of Adam's sin and, therefore, saved forever through His finished work (Romans 5:12-21).
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