The Adams in Us

I use to enjoy the sitcom The Adams Family. On the other hand, Christians are of the Adams family. What I mean by that, we have two fathers, both of whom are Adams. The Hebrew word adamah means "earth", and adam means "red clay".  As descendants of the first Adam, we are certainly children of the earth.  From Isaiah 1:18, we know that red (scarlet) is representative of sin. With His foreknowledge, God knew in advance that Adam would fail Him, thus the double meaning of his name! Paul explains the two Adams quite well:

1 Corinthians 15:45 "Thus it is written, 'The first man Adam became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49  Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

The first question when it says, "it is written," is to ask, "where is it written. Well, here .it is: 

Genesis 2:7  (ESV) "Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."

Adam is "the man". God took dust from the ground, breathed life into him, and dust became alive! When Adam was formed, the natural came first (the dust), then God breathed life into his nostrils, and as such the spiritual. In our featured passages from Paul, when Adam was created from dust, God gave him His spirit right after that. Adam was born with God's Holy Spirit, and as such he was the son of the earth, and the son of God. And, by the way, because Adam had at his creation the Holy Spirt, he was born "safe" with everlasting life! Adam was intended to be immortal. God did not create his creature to die, but to live!

Now let us look a little further: 

Genesis 1:27 (ESV) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

It was not just air that God breathed in Adam's nostrils, it was His own Holy Spirit. "Breathed" is representative of "the spirit" in Hebrew, which is represented as a "breeze".  Thus, Adam was born with his soul full of the Holy Spirit.

As such, the first Adam's parents were the earth and God who imbued him with His Holy Spirit. This was the first occasion, and the last, which the earth itself brought forth life. Thus, Adam was created from virgin soil and the Holy Spirit. That was never to happen again, or did it? Now let us look at the second Adam - Jesus.

His name shall be called Jesus (Matt 1:25), yet he was also called Immanuel (Matt 1:23),  or "God With Us". , just as was prophesied.  (Isaiah 7:14). The name Jesus means "Deliverer". Ironically, the name Adam came to represent "evacuation" since Adam was punished by expulsion from paradise, (i.e., the Garden of Eden). When Adam was expelled into the wilderness outside the gate to the Garden, there was one Way back in - through that gate, which by the way, was guarded by seraphim. The way was by Deliverance from the wilderness outside paradise, by Jesus Christ himself. The Gate back to paradise, was the Way of Jesus.

Right there in the Garden, Jesus restored Adam after his sin. He delivered him from his sin within, and restored his immortality. After the Word covered Adam's sin, Adam became spiritually immortal again, but the consequences of sin he still had to suffer by physical death. Ironically, Adam became his own god when he chose sin for he  did what was right in his own eyes, but the One True God saved Adam's own god: The last Adam delivered the first Adam from eternal damnation! (The new birth is when we realize that we can't save our own god, but God can).

Just like our father Adam, each of us, with our own god, must turn to the One True God for salvation - Jesus delivers us from our sins. The first Adam caused us to fall to temptation, and the last Adam delivers us from temptation! What a plan! That was no coincidence, and enforces my faith in God.

Jesus too was born of a virgin. Earth is symbolic of Mary because she descended from Adam. As the earth is, Mary was natural born. The virgin earth produced Adam, and the virgin Mary produced Jesus.  God Fathered Adam when His Holy Spirit breathed life into him. Guess who Fathered Jesus?

Matthew 1:20 "But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."

God Fathered Jesus. Indeed he is the Son of God, and because of Mary, also the Son of Man - He is God, but from the dust himself, to which Mary returned. It should be obvious by now that Adam and Jesus are brothers, both with the natural mother, and with the same spiritual Father! In the New Testament the story of the prodigal son, presents this dichotomy. (Luke 15). "But," you say,  "It was the younger son who was sinful, and Jesus was the younger son!" Not so with Adam, just as Jesus was after John the Baptist but came before him, Jesus was after Adam but came before him. We know that from John chapter 1.

Adam was the prodigal son in that story. Jesus was the good son. Adam was welcomed back into the fold by grace, just as the prodigal son was. Both sons became reconciled. The first Adam became reconciled with the last Adam, and Adam No. 2 delivered Adam No. 1 from sin!

Adam was born glorified, lost it for a time, and was restored by the blood. He was glorified when he was born, and glorified again when he died. Jesus was born in glory (in the presence of God), lived in spiritual glory, but was physically glorified after his resurrection. The Son of Man became fully the Son of God because his very nature changed - his earthly body was transformed into an immortal one.

Adam died somewhere, but Jewish legend places his tomb on Golgotha - the place of Adam's skull, where Jesus finally died. The two brothers, one prodigal, the other not, were united in death. Now both are united in life! Their Father is pleased, and the curse is gone:

Genesis 3:15 "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head,  and you shall bruise his heel.”

I believe that at the crucifixion, when Jesus died for Adam, that this came to pass -  Jesus stepped on the head of Adam, of course symbolically, but maybe in actuality. This is the premise on which I wrote my book, The Skull of Adam, advertised above.

There are many other parallels. With God, there are no coincidences! I find it ironic that life was given to Eve by her being taking from the side of Adam. Likewise, life was given to mankind, when living water poured forth from Jesus' side at the crucifixion. Maybe it wasn't irony, but done that way to convince the Jewish people who had to have miracles to believe.

When we are born, we are children of the first Adam, but when we are born again, at the second birth, we are born of the Spirit, become adopted by God, and brothers to Jesus and sons of God. Adam ceases to be our spiritual father, and Jesus becomes our spiritual Father because it's by God's own blood that we are delivered!

Never ever neglect the Old Testament. By it, in apostolic times, salvation was explained by that Holy Scripture, and people accepted the Messiah when they placed faith in the Christ.  Jesus is the only way to salvation, and our earthly father, Adam, was delivered by the same person who delivers us - Jesus the Christ, the Word who spoke to Adam and covered his sin!