Adam and the Last Adam

The Apostle Paul said to the Church at Corinth:

"The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. 15:45,47, NKJV).

It is obvious that Jesus is called the Last Adam and not the second Adam - there is no second Adam. Jesus is also called the "second Man" not a descendant of Adam, the "first man". God gave Adam a freewill. He was given the ability to obey God or to disobey and sin against God. But he chose to sin and the whole race descended from him became sinners. Jesus the last Adam brough forth a new race when He died on the cross and rose again from the dead. Those who believe in Him become a new race descended from Him and made righteous with the righteousness of God (Romans 3:22).

The Adamic Race

God created man to be a ruler and to have dominion over the entire earth.

"Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeess; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over the cattle, over all the earth and over ever creeping thing that creeps on the earth" (Genesis 1:26, emphasis added).

Notice that these words were not spoke of Adam as an individual, but of the race descended from him: "Let them have dominion ...". The Adamic race was created to rule the entire earth is clearly brought out in Psalm 8:4-8. The same words applied to Jesus the Son of God are quoted in Hebrews:

"What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet" (Heb. 2:6-8).

Therefore, the purpose of God (to rule and to have dominion over all creation) for the Adamic race found fulfilment in only Jesus (in His humanity) who was the Head of the Adamic race. Before Jesus came, the purpose was stated but was not fulfilled. There is something even in fallen man that still knows he was created to rule. But his capacity to rule is impaired because of the work of sin in him. The whole Adamic race inherited the sinful nature of the first man, Adam.

The God-Man Race

Jesus is called the last Adam because spiritually he was the end of the whole evil Adamic inheritance (1 Cor. 15:45).

When He died on the cross and was buried that whole evil Adamic inheritance was buried in Him. His was the last of the of the Adamic race. He put away sin once and for all by the sacrifice of Himself. When He rose from the dead three days later He was the second (not second Adam) Man. He was the new kind of Man. He became the Head of a totally new Race never existed before. This is the God-Man race - God and men fused together in one nature. This is our inheritance in Christ.

Peter said, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1 Peter 1:3-5).

Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ sinners can be born again, out of sin, out of death and begotten again into the new Race in a new Kingdom of which Jesus is the Head.

Paul said to the christians in Colosse about Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church:

"He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence" (Col. 1:18, emphasis added).

In other words, because Jesus is the firstborn from the dead (the first born again Man) all born again believers becomes His body and follow Him - the Head comes first and the body follows. So, we are part of His body, a part of this new Race in a new Kingdom, through faith in His death and resurrection. We are a new creaction (2 Cor. 5:17) with a new kind of life - a divine undefeatable eternal resurrected life.

I believe there is a parallel truth between Adam and Eve and Jesus and His Bride, the true Church.

God gave Adam the desire for fellowship; first to fellowship with God and then to fellowhip with Eve, the "helper comparable to him (Adam)" (Gen. 2:20). Adam himself said, Eve was "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh" because God made Eve from Adam's rib (Read Gen. 2:21-24). God performed a unique operation on Adam physically for this purpose.

To me this is a clear picture, in type, of Jesus Christ and the true Church, the Bride of Christ. But the Bride of Christ comes from Jesus spiritually - Cor. 15:45 says Jesus is the life-given spirit. The picture I see is, while Jesus "slept" in the tomb, God "took out from His death that which He will build into a Bride for Jesus". The Bride is prophetic.

To me the Church is going to be to Jeus what Eve would become to Adam, "bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh", and thus fulfil His longing for fellowship. It is the eternal nature of God to long for fellowship with man!

"Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, God Himself will be with them and be their God'" (Rev. 21:2,3, emphasis added).

The ultimate purpose of God is not to bring His Bride to heaven to dwell there, but to have intimate fellowship with Him in the New Earth under the New Heaven!