Jesus Christ: The Last Adam

God the Creator calls man to love and worship him out of faith and obedience. First and foremost, God is Creator, as established in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. In the New Testament (Matthew 19:4–5), Jesus refers back to Genesis, thus establishing its inerrancy and authority. Paul also emphasizes the parallel between Adam and Jesus’ history, thus establishing Genesis as a real space-time event.

From the very beginning, Adam’s relationship with God was dependent on faith and obedience to God’s word as absolute truth. This was the governing principle in Adam’s relationship to God in Eden. Adam was instructed not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16–17). Adam had to make a conscious, deliberate choice to trust and obey, or to disbelieve and disobey the Creator.

At the point of disobedience (the Fall), man moved away from the Creator’s standard of truth and substituted his own standard. The Fall was a rejection of the Creator’s Word as truth. Man began to base truth on himself. As a result, death came into the universe. Adam was not created to die; death was an intrusion! Adam’s willful disobedience resulted in paradise lost with the introduction of pain, suffering and death. Scripture is abundantly clear that there was no death and suffering until after Adam’s transgression.

But God so loved the world that He gave His only Son as a ransom to purchase back what Adam forfeited.

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned . . .” (Romans 5:12) Scripture’s indictment: In Adam’s fall, sin gained entrance into humankind. And what are the results? All men are guilty; all are sinners; in Adam we all die! All are under the judgment of God. But God so loved the world that He gave His only Son as a ransom to purchase back what Adam forfeited.

“For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. . . . The first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.” (1 Corinthians 15:21–22; 15:45–47).

Paul recognized an interesting parallel, as well as contrast, between Adam and Jesus. Adam was created immortal and was to be God’s representative and steward on the earth, to fulfill the divine purpose. World dominion was granted to him. He was commissioned to subdue the earth. The Last Adam implies that there would not be a third representative man, sinless, as were both Christ and Adam.

The Last Adam, Jesus, was sinless, and like the first Adam, had no human father. Christ is immortal and is heaven’s representative on earth. He will subdue both heaven and earth: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Philippians 2:10–11). Adam’s disobedience resulted in death for man, both spiritually and physically. Christ’s death resulted in everlasting life for those that repent and submit to him. And just as we have borne the likeness of Adam, the earthly man, so shall we, one day, bear the likeness of Jesus, the man from heaven. (1 Corinthians 1:49)

Jesus Christ, the last Adam, freely offered himself as atonement for man’s sin and purchased eternal life for all who trust Him. The song, “The Power of the Cross,” by Chris Tomlin says it beautifully:

What can take a dying man and raise him up to life again?
What can heal the wounded soul; What can make us white as snow?
What can fill the emptiness; What can mend our brokenness?
Mighty, Awesome, Wonderful
Is the Holy Cross
Where the Lamb laid down his life to lift us from the Fall.
Mighty is the power of the cross!