Second Adam

What if you were God? You decided to create a great work of art: the Universe. The crown of your creation was a human modeled in your own image. Risky business making creatures with free will, but you are interested in authenticity.

For a time, this piece is the centerpiece of your living room. It is... perfect. But then the worst happens. The colors begin to bleed. Creation comes apart at the seams when the created aspires to the status of Creator. The first man, Adam, rebels and the work of art begins to look like a horror show.

How would you make it right? Hide it in the closet? Throw it away and start over? Perhaps learn to live with the hideous thing? Tell your guests how you have "grown to appreciate" the artistry in the ugliness?

What if you could enter the chaos? Let the ugliness infect you, even kill you? You could do for the painting what Adam failed to do. You could be a perfect man, know your place in the painting, reflect God's "image" without rebelling against Him. And if you could do all this and then show your mastery and power through Resurrection,  you would find that the virus infecting the art would begin to work backwards. Then in a final, masterful stroke, you would restore the Creation to its original beauty and intent.

Jesus was the second Adam. Being God, becoming man, he perpetrated espionage against Death itself. He made a way for creatures to once again fulfill their intended purpose, to demonstrate a personal resurrection in their hearts and habits, and finally to be part of a New Creation surrendered to the kingship of the Great Artist.

I can't think of any better way to fix what went wrong down here.