Adam And Eve

by Johnston, Brian, D. | Category: Christ In Type And Shadow | Feb 1989

References to Adam and Eve by the Lord in His public ministry confirm that the early accounts of the book of Genesis are to be taken as historical narrative. Adam was therefore literally the first man.

Scripture reveals God's overall plan for creation in terms of two men: "the first man Adam" also called "the first man"; and "the last Adam" or "the Second Man" (1 Cor. 15: 45,47). Adam is presented as the head of the first creation and Christ as the head of the new creation. In this way Adam can be seen as a striking type of Christ. He is, in fact, the only person declared explicitly in Scripture to be a type of Christ ("figure", Gr. tupos, Rom. 5:14). Different aspects of Adam as a type of Christ in the divine purpose are reviewed below.

First man of earth; second man of heaven

In Genesis 2:7 we are plainly told that "the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul". By breaking God's command and eating of the tree concerning which God had commanded him not to eat, Adam was rendered mortal, that is his body became subject to death. This mortality was to be transmitted to his posterity: "as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22). It is in the context of bodily resurrection that we go on to read in verse 45: "the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit," this latter having specific regard to the making alive of the bodies of dead believers at the Lord's coming again.

God told Adam that, after the Fall, work would become onerous "till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Gen. 3:19). The psalmists remind us of this: "Thou turnest man to dust; and sayest, Return, ye children of men" (Ps. 90:3 RVM): "For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust" (Ps. 103:14). The earthen vessel, having thus become marred, required renewing in God's image (Col. 3:10). This was to be accomplished through the work of the Second Man, the promised seed.

As to the Second Man, it is Matthew who declares the virgin birth of the Lord Jesus to be in direct fulfilment of the Isaiah prophecy (Is. 7:14). The interpretation of the name given to the child is the interpretation of the

event itself: God with us. Isaiah also had stated (9:6) that the child born was to be identified as the Son given. And so the Second Man, the antitype of the first, is revealed in Scripture as being the Lord from heaven. In the case of the first man, as we have noted above, we are dealing with the great creation miracle of man being made after God's likeness (Gen. 1:26); but when we consider the Second Man, a far greater wonder unfolds, namely, the incarnation miracle of deity becoming in the likeness of men (Phil. 2:7).

We cannot fail to be impressed with the accuracy of Romans 8:3 - "God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh..." How necessary are the words "likeness" and "sinful"! He who existed originally in the form of God, came to be found in fashion as a man. "Form" and "fashion" are contrasting words in Phil. 2:6,8. "Fashion" refers to an outward expression which is assumed; while "form" is representative of one's inmost being. Thus "form" has nothing to do with shape as we might assume from the English word, but as applied to the Lord it necessarily implies the possession of the divine essence. The Lord

never relinquished His deity in becoming man. He was always more than man. But through the incarnation He assumed humanity, becoming what He had never been before. Readers are invited to consider the practical implications of the same contrasting idea as applied to ourselves in the words "fashioned" and "transformed" of Romans 12:2. The former concerns an outward expression which is merely assumed, while the latter has in view one which is indicative of our new nature.

The image of God

"God created man in His own image" (Gen. 1:27). Man's body itself did not involve a new creation, since it was formed out of the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the basic elements of which had been created on the first day of creation. But when God "created man in His own image", He called into being a distinct and eternal individual personality, capable of fellowship with Himself. Physical attributes, as well as biological, can be transmitted from parents to children by definite genetic laws. However, for each new person so generated, there is also a special creation which takes place, the "image of God", a unique and eternal personality, capable of fellowship with the Creator. This is not true of the animals, whose physical and biological characteristics are purely the result of heredity and environment. This sets man apart from the brute creation, for in the thought of "image", God created Adam as a visible representation of Himself. Pre-Fall, Adam was a perfect vehicle for the manifestation of such Godlike qualities as the ability to rule and make decisions and exercise a sense of responsibility as a moral being.

Paul, when writing to the Colossians of the supremacy of Christ, describes Him as the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). The Lord Jesus Christ, the last Adam, is essentially and absolutely the perfect expression and representation of God the Father. He is the visible manifestation of God to created beings. He Himself could say that whoever had seen Him had seen the Father (John 14:9).

It is worth noting in passing that it is a different word that is translated "image" and used of the Lord Jesus in Hebrews 1:3. There the idea is of the exact correspondence between the image on a die and the imprint it produces, for example in wax, teaching us that the Lord Jesus is personally distinct from and yet literally equal to God the Father.

Head of creation; firstborn of all creation (Cot. 1:15).

Adam was made, as God's representative, to head up creation. David, in Psalm 8 could say: "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: ... the beasts of the field ... the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea" (vv. 6-8). The words of this Psalm have special significance for the Second Man (see 1 Cor. 15:27; Heb. 2:6-9). The Second Man, the last Adam, is God's preeminent One - "the Firstborn of all creation" (cf. Ps. 89:27). Praise be to God that the "Firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15) became the "Firstborn from the dead" (Col. 1:18) in order that He might become the "Firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29).

Comparisons and contrasts

In Romans chapter 5 we have Adam pictured as the head of a race of sinful men and Christ at the head of a race of men who have been made righteous. The teaching of Romans chapter 5 for believers is that we were made sinful in the first Adam and made righteous in the last Adam; our new head. In both cases the personal acts of individuals as such are not in view, but it is the effect through imputation of the actions of each head on their respective race, and that by virtue of its solidarity with its head. As the argument passes from verse 12 to verse 18, we read:

"through one man sin entered ... so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned... as through one trespass the judgement came to all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness... justification of life".

We sinned in the first Adam, our old head, and this made us dead to God. As believers we then were seen as having died with Christ, the last Adam, our new head, and so were made dead to sin and alive to God (Rom. 6). The two key figures in God's framework are here presented side by side by the Spirit: Adam who in disobedience walked to the tree in the midst of the garden, and the Second Man who in obedience walked to the tree just Outside Jerusalem. In Paul's magnificent discourse of chapter 5, Adam is seen as having brought sin, condemnation, and death to his race through his disobedience. Christ, by glorious contrast, through His obedience has brought righteousness, justification, and life to the race of which He is head. Just as there was to be not only full restitution, but additionally an excess 20 per cent compensation in the case of the trespass offering (Lev. 6), so we read that Christ's act of righteousness not only reverses the effects of Adam's trespass but, in the twice-repeated words of vv. 15-17, it has achieved "much more" besides.

Adam and Eve

God officiated at the very first marriage as recorded in Genesis chapter 2. It was to the positive instruction of this original prototype that the Lord

turned the minds of those who in His day were concerned with departures from it (Mat. 19:3-9). In marrying Adam to Eve, God not only presented us with a beautiful type of the eternal union between Christ and the Church which is His Body, His Bride (Eph. 5:25). Just as God saw Eve in Adam, He saw us in Christ before the foundation of the world. We are told that God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and one of his ribs "builded He into a woman" (RVM, Gen. 2:22) which He brought to him.

The second man was to go through the deep sleep of the death of the cross in order that He might have a Bride to present to Himself one day (Eph. 5:27). Adam's bride was literally a member of his body, and we who form Christ's Bride are members of His body (Eph. 5:30), the church which He is currently building Comprising all believers (Mat. 16:18). The supreme purpose of God's overall plan in creation is seen to be the obtaining of a bride for His Son, "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1:23).

Johnston, Brian, D. | Feb 1989
Christ In Type And Shadow