“Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid." John 19:4141Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. (John 19:41). Here we have the cross, garden, and sepulcher—all telling of the work and triumph of the Second Man. It was in a garden where the two trees stood (Gen. 2) that Satan, too, overcame the first man (Gen. 3). Four thousand years roll on, and once again we have a garden containing a cross and a sepulcher—on the one He terminated the history of the first and responsible man, out of the other He rose—the head of a new and eternally living race before God. He came into the world a man for men; He went out of it a man for God. "The tree of the knowledge of good and evil" has its answer in the cross. "The tree of life" is answered in the resurrection. Defeat was there in the first garden; victory is here in the second. There Satan was the conqueror; here Christ is the victor. There death came in; here life comes out. There Adamic responsibility before God began; here we see its termination for the believer. There sin came in; here it is put away for faith.
So here the past ways of God are taken up in the cross and resurrection of Christ, and the result is infinite gain to us. Let us compare the relative gain and loss.
Loss by the First Man
Sin entered and innocence sinned away. (Gen. 3).
Conscience in the knowledge of good and evil.
Death and separation from God.
Law could not procure righteousness from man.
Man in Adam and by works alienated from God.
Gain by the Second Man
Conscience purged according to God's knowledge of
good and evil.
Life and everlasting nearness to God.
God's righteousness bestowed upon man.
Man in Christ set in the glory of God.
W. Scott
The Power
The power that gives the individual believer the freshness of the hope of the Lord's return just flows from the knowledge of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the One living in heaven, who knows us, whom we know, and who is coming back to give us the blessed taste of being forever with Himself in the Father's house.