THE LAST
ADAM
1
Corinthians 15:45 Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a
living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Romans
5:14 Yet
death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were
not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.
This
idea, that Jesus is the last Adam, is not something I can ever remember
thinking about. I think I must have missed these verses when reading Paul’s
letters to the Christians living in the cosmopolitan first century cities
of Corinth and Rome.
I
can remember earlier verses in this great passage on the resurrection in 1
Corinthians 15, because I have sung them before in Handel’s Messiah: …For since
by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in
Christ shall all be made alive (verses 21-22).
What
has drawn me up sharp is verse 45, which has Jesus described as the ‘last Adam’
who has become a ‘life-giving spirit’. Quite literally, the earth-being (the
one from the dust) has become another being for all people and all time. Eugene
Petersen translates this verse 45 like this: We follow the sequence of Scripture: The First Adam received life; the
Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. Here are echoes of Jesus as the
Beginning and End, the First and the Last, the Alpha and the Omega. We might
also hear echoes of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom of God being the place of
reversal where the first are last and the last are first. The Last Adam is the
First Saviour.
The
Good News found in this Name of Jesus is this: that Jesus became one of us to
give us his life which will never die. The die has been set: and it is not for
death and dying that we exist but for a life in the flow of the life-giving
spirit. And this has been made possible because Jesus, the Word Made Flesh, put
on our flesh and gave us his Spirit.
Eugene
Petersen continues his paraphrase of these verses in 1 Corinthians with a very
beautiful turn of phrase: The First Man was
made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made
out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly.
We
pray daily for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. May we begin
to grasp this extraordinary truth in our ordinary lives, that every time we open
ourselves up to the flow of God our earthiness is endowed with heaven.
Paul said in the main blog that this idea had eluded him until now, and I must say these are first thoughts because it has eluded me too for over seventy years! If we think of Jesus’ life in general terms: Jesus is born of a woman by the Holy Spirit, he spends three years preaching, he is executed, he is resurrected and he ascends to heaven – the essence of the creed. There are three points at which this transition to ‘second Adam’ could occur, his unusual birth, between his death and resurrection, and at his ascension.
ReplyDeleteThe reference to ‘The Last Adam’ comes in a passage in 1 Corinthians (chapters 15 & 16) where Paul is speaking of the resurrection. It is likely, therefore, that that he saw Christ as born an earthly man in the tradition of the first Adam, but acquiring a spiritual body at his resurrection. He goes on to ‘tell us a mystery’ (c15, 51 & 52): “we shall not all sleep, but we will be changed in a flash at the last trumpet”. This implies our final transformation to a spiritual body awaits the second coming of Christ.
For the Christian believer, this is a source of great hope and strength. It provides a goal to aim for, something worth achieving, a pearl of great price. Wherever and however that change from earthly to heavenly is brought about, we cannot escape the need to live our life here in a manner which leads to resurrection. And as we do this we become the ‘new man’ or ‘new woman’ that Paul writes about so often. We can be changed here on earth, but not to the full state promised to us. We can put off the old Adam bearing the ultimate promise of death, and put on the second Adam that is life-enriching, life-enhancing and life-fulfilling.
That is surely a choice we can make here and now when we allow the indwelling Christ-spirit to take over our lives. This is the first step on the way to salvation. This is the way of living that Jesus showed to us on his journey among us, a start on the entry into a kingdom of heaven that is so topsy-turvy in nature and priorities compared with the kingdoms of this earth (something arising from the earlier Matthew blogs). This kingdom assures us of so much in the future; it is full of promise. But it does require a start here, a pushing away of the old Adam, and an acceptance of the new.
[I am aware that these are first thoughts, with inconsistencies and contradictions. The whole of chapters 15 and 16 would repay a hundred fold any time spend on their study, and lead to a more coherent understanding of Jesus as the last Adam, but also as the first of a new breed of person.]
How often I find that when I read the Bible hymn words come to mind, and with the name of Jesus as the last Adam I was reminded of this verse from Praise to the Holiest in the height:
ReplyDeleteO loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
a second Adam to the fight
and to the rescue came.
This helps me to see the blessing of this name as it speaks of Jesus as our Rescuer, the one who reaches out to help us in whatever situations we find ourselves. And in his rescue he puts things right, recreates and renews. We're not left alone, we're not abandoned, to muddle through our often chaotic lives, damaged by sin, human weakness and failing, or our own deliberate fault.
But even as I write that it I realise that we can make it sound all too easy. Today I've been to the cinema to see the excellent Martin Scorsese film "Silence". It's based on a novel about 2 Christian missionaries in Japan at a time when Christians were being persecuted and tortured for their faith. Was God being silent, or not, while believers suffered? Could the priests, who were passionate in their desire to serve those Christians who had to practise their faith secretly, keep their own faith? As I watched I was pondering where was their rescuer, where was the last Adam? I won't say any more so as not to spoil the film for any who may go and see it. It's worth seeing.
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ReplyDeleteWhen I read the passages I thought it quite demeaning of St Paul to call Jesus "the last Adam." In my mind, Adam is a man without too much common sense (how could he hide from God and imagine that God would not see him) while Jesus is perfect. As I mulled this over, I came to the conclusion that perhaps it was not so insulting after all.
ReplyDeleteWhen we named our eldest child many years ago, a teacher friend of mine commented she had known a difficult student with the same name. I felt a knot of dread tighten in the pit of my stomach when she said that. We stuck with the name, and by God's grace things have been mostly fine. In the same way, the first and last Adams don't resemble each other.
Regarding the passages in Romans and 1st Corinthians, as with many of St Paul's letters, little has registered in my mind until today. Reading them, I realised that St Paul seemed to be doing a compare and contrast exercise. I don't feel too bad about not understanding St Paul, because even St Peter diplomatically tells us how difficult it can be to understand Paul !
2Peter 3:15,16
....just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand...
The comparison between Adam and Jesus (last Adam)
1 Cor 15
Adam- living being. Jesus- life giving Spirit
Adam- from earth J- from heaven
A- earthly. J- heavenly
We now wear the likeness of man from earth; later we will resemble Jesus
Romans 5
Adam - sin Jesus - grace
Adam-brings judgement of guilty Jesus- brings judgement of not guilty
Adam- death Jesus - life
I found some sermons by Watchman Nee on sermons.com. He clarifies the passage about Christ and Adam. I summarise below.
ReplyDeleteThe passage from the Cor 15 speaks of the last Adam and the second man, not the second Adam and the last man.
As the last Adam, Christ is the sum total of humanity. As the second man, he is the head of a new race. We have two unions in Christ; the first to his death and the second to his resurrection.
The first union of Christ Adam began in Bethlehem and ended on the cross. He gathered all that was in Adam and took it to judgement and death.
The other union we have with Christ as second man , begins at resurrection and ends in eternity i.e never ends.
The cross is the power of God which translates us from Adam to Christ.