yes but Jesus obedience and work at the cross does not remove our responsibility to walk walk humbly before our Lord. It us the duty of the Christian to walk according to that which they confess so that there light may so shine that all men will see and glorify you Father which is in Heaven.
As to the first question. Jesus came to pay the debt for all sin by being the perfect sacrifice. The Church teaches, as does the Bible, that Jesus is the ‘second Adam’. But what does that mean?
Please everyone feel free to contradict me if this is wrong.
My understanding, and it is muddled at best I am no saint after all, is that in Eden, once Eve had fallen there was still one who could pay the price of her sin. Her sin, being deceived, did not necessarily rise to the level of mortal sin because remember it is Adam’s sin for which all of humanity stands guilty. And Adam’s sin was to knowingly choose to fall into the sin which his wife had first committed. Adam was not deceived by the serpent. Adam knew the law and the promised punishment from God. And Adam, with full prior knowledge of the wrongness of his action deliberately chose to sin. In other words, Adam will knowledge, intent and decision to action, which I am pretty sure is how he Church defines Mortal Sin.
But what if Adam hadn’t fallen. If God had come to the Garden and found only Eve had fallen and demanded a life be given for her sin, was not Adam’s, had he not fallen, suitable for the duty? Could not an unfallen Adam have thrown himself before God’s mercy and paid the price for his wife that she might live?
But Adam did not do that. Instead he followed his wife into sin and his sin was more severe than hers.
Enter Jesus. Fully man and fully God and capable of paying the price to satisfy the sin debt incurred for the human race at the Fall. Jesus, who was tempted in every way in which we are tempted even today but never fell, could carry as the sacrificial lamb and scape goat and priest who need not atone for His own sins (by the way all of this is in Hebrews) our sins to the cross and pay for them and satisfy the debt in full so that those Saints who came before and those Saints who came there after could walk in His righteousness before God if they had followed Him all their lives and led a penitent life before God.
It is our participating in the work of Jesus which makes us acceptable to God. But with out His work, our works would profit us nothing, and without our participation His work will automatically give us the way to Heaven in spite of everything we have done to not deserve it.
