With sporting codes struggling to gain traction for their season it gives us more time to reflect on why we love our teams so much. Many explain they love the sense of belonging to a supporter base and the unity in sharing the team colours. However, above all we love to share in the players’ victory. When they win, we all win.
This is a sporting concept we know and understand. We pick a team and those players are our representative. Their victory is credited to us, as part of that team. When the captain picks up the trophy we all cry, “WE won!”
Sport and the Bible
Sport can help us understand more about the Christian faith. And this concept of a captain representing a team is one that will help us go deeper in our understanding of Jesus.
In many spots, the Bible gives us this same concept of a team representative. For example, Adam is seen as the representative, or captain, of the human race. Adam was “sinned binned” and as a result, everyone on his team fell under his penalty.
Contrasting this, Romans chapter 5 from verse 20 explains, Jesus comes as “the second Adam,” winning a great victory for everyone on His team. The big question that is raised from this is, “Which team are you on?” Who is the captain you are following?
Victory
Jesus is described in the Bible as the “first fruits.” This means that because He died and was the first to rise again, all that are on His team will follow the Captain: when we die, because Jesus has conquered sin and death, we also will rise again.
The good news is that death has been beaten. This un-natural condition, that appeared after the Fall (Genesis chapter 3), has been destroyed by Jesus’ atonement and victory displayed in His resurrection. He wins victory and all on His team cry. “WE won!”
Romans chapter 5 reminds us we must pick a captain to represent us. We can remain ignorant and let Adam continue to be our captain. Or we can be arrogant and try and be the captain of our own team hoping we can do it all ourselves. Or we can rest in what Jesus has already done: won the victory for us.
Jeremy Dover is a former sports scientist and Pastor
Jeremy Dover's previous articles may be viewed at https://www.pressserviceinternational.org/jeremy-dover1.html
And https://www.pressserviceinternational.org/jeremy-dover.html
