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"‘The first
man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a
life-giving Spirit. However, the spiritual is not first,
but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is
from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. .
.Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will
also bear the image of the heavenly." 1 Corinthians.
15:45-49
In Adam we all stand guilty and die, but in Christ we
stand innocent and live. O’ the value of knowing Christ
and receiving His grace. I once was lost but now I’m
saved and safely sealed in the Beloved Himself. Jesus is
the last Adam who succeeded where the first Adam failed,
but He is also the "second man" and there is a
difference. Jesus was the son of man and also the Son of
God. The Gospels record His genealogy as the son of man
which traces back to Adam, the first man, but we see in
John 1 that as the Son of God He was the living Word who
existed as the eternal God who has no beginning nor end.
Jesus was and is God who has always existed with the
Father, and who spoke the creation into existence, -"Who,
although He existed in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God a thing to be selfishly grasped."
(Phil.2) "He was in the world, and the world was made
through Him, and the world did not know Him." (Jo.1)
How beautiful it is to understand that Jesus emptied
Himself of His divinity in order to share it with us. He
stepped down from His majestic Throne to be nailed to
the cross as our body of sin so that He could raise us
in Himself and seat us in Heavenly places.
As the last Adam He embodied the sum of all humanity
and paid the penalty of sin in full - it is a finished
work for those who believe and receive Christ. The
last Adam was crucified and buried and slept the sleep
of death for three full days. The body of sin and death
having satisfied the demands of the penalty due now
becomes a life-giving Spirit as the second man rises and
steps out of the shadows of death. And He wasn’t alone,
for the first-fruits were with Him.
The Bible says that a Christian is one who is "in
Christ." In Christ, we were crucified and buried with
our father Adam but were raised in the righteous Body of
Jesus. The Church is the "Body of Christ" and Jesus is
the "Head" of the Body. In Him the fullness of deity
dwells in the form of His Body, the Church, -"For
in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells, in bodily form,
and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the
head over all rule authority. . .having been buried with
Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with
Him. . .When you were dead in your transgressions. . .He
made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all
our transgressions. . .having canceled out the
certificate of debt. . .He has taken it out of the way,
having nailed it to the cross." (Col.2)
In the first man sin reigned in death but in the second
man grace reigns through His righteousness to eternal
life. A person who is in Christ Jesus hates the sinful
lusts of the flesh. He is no longer tormented by a
desire to sin but has received power from on high which
makes him more than a conqueror. He no longer struggles
against God and His righteous standard, but now prevails
victoriously over the temptations of the flesh. In
Christ, sin is no longer his master. In the flesh, the
first man cannot subject himself to God’s Law (Rom.8:7)
but the second man, -"keeps
the Commandments of God, and His Commandments are not
burdensome." (1 Jo.5)
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