"The Lord that sat stately in rest and in peace, I understood that He is God. The Servant that stood afore the Lord, I understood that it was shewed for Adam: that is to say, one man was shewed, that time, and his falling, to make it thereby understood how God beholdeth All-Man and his falling. For in the sight of God all man is one man, and one man is all man."
Julian of Norwich (Ch. 51)
In the Parable of the Lord and the Servant that God gave Julian, she sees that the Lord represents God and the Servant represents Adam, and in a sense, all of us. For in God's eyes we are all one in Adam and he stands for all men. Adam is seen as head of earthly humanity. So how God sees Adam when he fell tells us how He sees us when we fall. Yet we also know that we humans are created by God in God's image and thus have our source in God Himself. So in one sense the head of humanity is Adam, when speaking of our earthly, bodily existence. But in another sense, the head of humanity is God in Christ, who is the source of our spiritual nature. What happens to Adam affects us, but also what happens to Christ affects us more. And even though we have an earthly, fleshly connection to Adam, we have a prior, heavenly, spiritual connection with Christ. Christ took on human flesh in the incarnation, and as He has a prior claim on us before Adam, all that He did affects us in both a spiritual and a bodily way and trumps all the effects of Adam's fall. Christ's salvation extends from our spiritual and mental state even to our bodies that die, saving us from death and the grave! In the Parable, the Lord is sitting in rest and peace. God is at rest and peace about us and about what Christ did on our behalf. He knows the work is finished, complete, and perfect. It is a perfect salvation that has perfectly saved us, for just as all were affected by the fall of Adam and suffered corruption and death, all were affected by the work of Christ through His death and resurrection and given eternal life! How wonderful that He thought of everything in this great salvation work. Sin may have been devastating in its consequences, but it was no match for God. His grace and love did a work in Christ that far outweighed the effect of sin. It abundantly saved us and gave us overpassing grace and life. So before, sin reigned and brought death, but now grace reigns and brings life through Christ our Lord!
"Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right."
Romans 5:18-19 (MSG)
"But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Romans 5:20-21 (NKJV)
A Prayer: Thank You for Your salvation work that overrules and erases all the effects of Adam's fall!