The First Adam and the Last Adam
Dearly beloved of God, by one man, Adam, sin entered the world, and death came by Adam’s sin, and so the death passed upon all men. Adam brought mankind under the reign of sin and the condemnation of death.
Genesis informs us that God created Adam in his image, which is spirit. He formed Adam’s body, and He breathed into his nostrils the breath of soul life. Adam had both spirit life, and soul life.
God instructed Adam that THE day that he disobeyed His commandment, he would surely die. The very day he disobeyed God, he did die. The immediate consequence of Adam’s trespass was that he lost spirit life. When we lose life we call it death.
Ephesians 2:1-3 describes the loss of spirit life as being dead in trespasses and sins. These verses paint a vivid picture of that death.
Adam lived as a man of body and soul life for many years after he lost spirit life. He did not lose his soul life for eight hundred years after the birth of his third son, Seth. He lived a total of nine hundred and thirty years before he soul life existence ended in death.
Due to Adam’s sin every human being is born as a natural man, as men of the flesh, and they only have a body and soul life existence. No one is born with spirit life. They come under the reign of sin and death.
What was God’s plan to overcome the loss of spirit life that Adam brought upon human kind?
When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. God showed His love for us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him.
If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved from wrath by his life.
Not only is that so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.
God has poured out His love to us by means of the gift of holy spirit, which has been given to us in the new birth.
Romans 5: 12-21 takes us to the heart of the matter and explains how God took us from death unto life.
Romans 5:12: “Therefore, as by one man [Adam], the sin entered the world, and the death by the sin, even so the death passed upon all men, by which all have sinned.”
This verse is speaking of Adam’s sin, and the death that resulted the day he disobeyed the commandment God gave him. He died spiritually. He lost spirit life. This is “the death” this verse speaks of.
This death passed upon mankind so that no one is born with spirit life. Ephesians 2:1, speaks of the loss of spirit life as being “dead in trespasses and sins,” and in verse 5, it says “dead in sins.”
Romans 5:15: “However, the free gift of grace is not like the trespass. For example, if many died [this refers to the loss of spirit life] by the trespass of the one [Adam], much more then the grace of God, and the gift [the gift of holy spirit mentioned in Acts 2:38, 10:45, and 11:17] by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.”
5:16: “Likewise, the gift is not as the trespass by the one that sinned, for the judgment was of one [Adam] unto condemnation, but the free gift of grace is from many trespasses unto a standard for justice.”
5:17: “So if the trespass of the one, the death reigned through the one [Adam], much more then, they who receive the abundance of the grace and of the gift of the justice will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.”
5:18: “So then as through one trespass judgment was passed to all men unto condemnation, even so through one standard for justice judgment was passed to all men unto justification of life.”
5:19: “Therefore, as by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners, so by the obedience of the one, Jesus Christ, many will be made just.”
5:21: “So that as the sin of Adam reigned in the death, even so might the grace reign through justice unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.”
[These verses were quoted from “A Journey through the Acts and the Epistles” by Walter J. Cummins, Scripture Consulting.]
I Corinthians 15:45: “So it has been written: Genesis 2:7: ‘The first human, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life giving spirit.”
If anyone confesses the Lord Jesus, and believes that God raised him from the dead they shall be saved.
They are not only justified from the sin of Adam, reconciled to God, saved from the wrath to come, and delivered from the condemnation of the death that Adam brought upon mankind, they are born again of the spirit from God.
Ephesians 2:4 and 5: “But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us [made us alive] together with Christ, (by grace you are saved).”
God made us alive together with Christ when we received the gift of holy spirit in the new birth. God is now God our Father, and we are His children because we are born of the spirit from Him; we received the spirit of sonship.
Thank God for His great grace to us in Christ Jesus our Lord!