ADAM AND JESUS

 

ADAM AND JESUS

By Given O. Blakely

“And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit . . . The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.” (1 Cor 15:45,47)

Humanity is summarized in two individuals; one from earth, and One from heaven. The first man, Adam, was “made a living soul.” The Second Man, Jesus, was “made a quickening spirit.” That is, Adam was caused to live, but Jesus causes to live. Life was brought to Adam, but life is brought by Jesus. Life was conferred upon Adam, but Jesus confers life. Now that Jesus has been exalted and enthroned, the only life that God recognizes is the life that has been conferred, or given, by Jesus Christ.

Man, is a tripartite (composed of three parts) being. In order of their priority, these parts are identified as “spirit,” “soul,” and “body.” Two thirds of these parts are unseen – the “spirit” and the “soul.” Only the quickening and powerful word of God is able to distinguish experientially between these two parts (Heb 4:12). By “experientially,” I mean the awareness of the distinction becomes known to the individual.

The soulish part of our persons is more related to Adam. Our spirit is related more to Jesus, who comes to quicken and restore it “after the image of Him that created him” (Col 3:10). So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45, NKJV).

A unique distinction is seen here. Adam’s life was derived; i.e., he “became a living soul.” Jesus, on the other hand, is Himself the Giver of life. He came to restore the “image” that was marred by Adam – to bring humanity into affiliation with “the Father of spirits.” Rather than receiving life, the Lord Jesus gives life – a most unique distinction.

FEDERAL HEADS. Both Adam and Jesus are federal heads of a race; i.e., they are the first of the order over which they preside. Their progeny, or descendants, also bear their likeness. This is the point of Paul’s discourse in Romans 5:12- 21. The “natural” part of us is traceable to Adam. The “spiritual” aspect and nature of those who are born again, is traced back to Jesus.

THE IMPACT OF ADAM’S DISOBEDIENCE. Adam’s sin brought death to our spirits, i.e., it thrust humanity into a state of alienation from God. The effect of the “first man’s” transgression is described in arresting words. “Death” entered the world, and was “passed upon all men” (Rom 5:12). “Through the offense of one,” we are told, “many” are “dead” (Rom 5:15). “Judgment to condemnation” resulted from Adam’s sin (Rom 5:16,18). “Death reigns” because of that single offense (Rom 5:17). “By one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners” (Rom 5:19). Those vivid portrayals are descriptive of spiritual death – a violent interruption of communion with the Living God. Whatever a person may think about perverted views of “original sin” and so-called “total depravity,” we do have to contend with these statements of the Holy Spirit. They are meticulously precise, leaving no room for question or doubt.

THE IMPACT OF JESUS’ OBEDIENCE. As the “Quickening Spirit,” Jesus came to rectify the dilemma brought on by Adam’s sin. How marvelously His ministry is portrayed by the Holy Spirit. “ . . . much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many” (Rom 5:15). “. . . but the free gift is of many offenses unto justification” (Rom 5:16). Here, the expression “many offenses” refers to God laying the iniquities of us all upon the Lord Jesus – He “bore our sins in His body on the tree” (Isa 53:6; 1 Pet 2:24). Justification was the result! “. . . they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:17). “. . . by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life” (Rom 5:18). “. . . by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom 5:19).

We were quickened,” or made alive by Jesus when we were yet “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph 2:1). That quickening, or spiritual resurrection, took place in the inmost part of our person – our spirit.

Salvation begins with the reclamation of your spirit – the essential part of your being. The new birth enables the individual to possess and govern his own soul. Thus Jesus said, “In your patience possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19). Moreover, the body, or the most external part of our being, is controlled from within. Paul called this “keeping under his body” (1 Cor 9:27).

What a marvelous salvation is found in Jesus. It is realized by all of His descendants. They are all made alive and righteous – really righteous.

PRAYER POINT: Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank You for the capacity of Jesus whose name is “the Everlasting Father.”

Two Views of Redemptive Order

The Works of God are Precise in Every Detail!

 

Two Views of Redemptive Order 

By Fred O. Blakely 

From an overall view of the situation, two contrasting orders of the unfolding of redemption’s plan are apparent. These, of course, are in no sense contradictory of each other. They simply portray the case as regarded from different perspectives. It is a good exercise of the spirit to consider them.

The Priority of the Natural. The first presents what might be termed the priority of the natural creation in the scheme of things, and is set forth by Paul in First Corinthians 15:42-47. He points out the order of the development of God’s purpose, as shown in the respective federal heads of the race—Adam and Christ. “That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual,” he observes.

His reference is to the fact that the “first Adam” came before the “last Adam” [Christ]. Hence, the natural body which came from Adam the first is our first tabernacle, but, after it is cast off by death, comes the “spiritual body,” which Adam the last gives. He concludes with the blessed assurance that “as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly,” i.e., Christ, our resurrected body being “fashioned according to His glorious body” (v. 49; cf. Phil. 3:21). 

The Grand Scope Envisaged. The Apostle here envisages the grand outworking of God’s eternal purpose in Christ. Insofar as bodily salvation is concerned, that purpose will ultimate in the complete undoing of the curse of corruption and mortality brought by Adam’s sin, as Romans 5:12-21 develops more fully. 

This is what was declared earlier in First Corinthians 15:20-22: “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept [not only of the justified, but also of the unjustified; see John 5:28-29; Acts 24:15]. 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.” “But every man in his own order,” it is added: “Christ the Firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming” (v. 23). 

The Two Orders of Resurrection. Only two orders of resurrection are here mentioned—that of our Lord’s and that of the general resurrection “at His coming.” The term, “they that are Christ’s,” must, in its broader sense, refer, not to His church exclusively (though by it the Apostle for the moment may have specifically meant that), but to all mankind. This is because Christ, as we have seen, is here generally contemplated as the federal Head of humanity (as regards bodily resurrection), just as the first Adam was so in the old creation. 

This must be the inclusive scope intended by “they that are Christ’s”; otherwise, the Apostle contradicts himself by saying that Christ is “the Firstfruits of them that slept,” and that resurrection by Christ is as certain and extensive as death was by Adam. Such a contradiction, of course, is unthinkable, as it is impossible that it should exist. 

The First Place of the Spiritual. It is noteworthy that, in one view of the situation, there is a reversal of the redemptive order set forth above. From this aspect, “that which is spiritual” is first, then “that which” is bodily, not the other way round, as regarded in First Corinthians 15:46. 

The Edenic “transgression” (I Tim. 2:14) was essentially spiritual, although physical activity was involved in the taking and eating of the proscribed tree’s fruit (Gen. 3:6). Accordingly, the immediately-effective part of God’s punishment of death for the sin was also spiritual. He had warned Adam that the day in which he should eat of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” he should “surely die” (ch. 2:15-16). And “it was so” (ch. 1:11), he being that day alienated from his Creator, with whom he apparently had previously enjoyed close communion, which spiritual separation is death. It was 930 years later that he paid the penalty of physical death. 

The Parallel in Redemption. And so it is, when contemplated from this angle, with “the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). Man is first redeemed spiritually through his acceptance by faith and baptism of God’s saving grace. He, thus, lives unto God in his spirit before his bodily redemption becomes effective. The latter will take place “in the resurrection” (Mt. 22:30), at Jesus’ second coming. Not until then shall he experience “the redemption” of the body (Rom. 8:23-25; Eph. 1:13-14), realizing the consummate salvation from the condemnation and death into which the first Adam, by sin against God, plunged the human race. 

Meanwhile, those who have now “received the atonement” for sin wrought by Christ (Rom. 5:11) live unto God through Him, and “rejoice in hope” of the bodily salvation “ready to be revealed” when Jesus appears (Rom. 5:2; I Pet. 1:5). As the first Adam sinned, experienced the spiritual phase of his death sentence, so they who have obeyed Christ now have spiritual life in Him. And as Adam later tasted of the physical part of the death penalty, so they, too, shall, by and by, have their corruptible bodies replaced by incorruptible ones, and be given to live forever in full fellowship with and service of the gracious Father, as completely redeemed beings. 

So does the order of redemption, as thus viewed, parallel that of the curse’s application as a result of the fall. First the spiritual is experienced, then comes the bodily, of which the former is an earnest and pledge. Great and marvelous, of a truth, are the works of our God, and precise in every detail as to their correspondence. —The End—