College Study #80: "the Last Adam"

‘Behold, the Lamb of God’

ide o amnos tou theou

College Study

79^th teaching

7.28.2014

 

“The Last Adam”

 

          Review:

                    Well it’s been almost a whole month since we last had a real study, so we’re in need of a good review of what we’ve been studying. Broadly speaking, we’re in the section of theology known as Christology, the science of Christ, and within Christology we’ve entered a section known as the Nature of Christ. We’ve already discussed the Identity of Christ, now we’re on to considering His fundamental nature. It’s as if we first answered the question “Who is Jesus?” and now we’re answering the question “What is Jesus?”

                   In doing so we discovered that Jesus Christ has two natures: a Divine nature and a human nature. He is both God and man, better yet, God made flesh. We’ve taken up two phrases to express these ideas of his two natures: “Christology from Above” is a phrase which means that you study Christ by beginning with His Deity and then interpreting His humanity. On the other hand, “Christology from Below” is a phrase which means you study Christ by starting with His humanity and then interpreting His Deity. Now we began with Christ’s Deity, the Godhood, the Divinity of Jesus.

                   We discovered that Jesus adopts the names of God. We also saw that Jesus displayed many of the attributes of God throughout His life on earth. And He made various claims throughout the gospels that indicate that He thought of Himself as the Son of God, equal in essence with God the Father. Thus the phrase taken out of the ancient creed: “Very God of Very God”, meaning that Jesus is not a god (lower-case g), not a lesser god or a demi-god beneath the Father, but actually one and the same God with the Father. He is co-equal, co-eternal, co-substantial with the Father. The extant of Jesus’ Deity is such that He can say of Himself “I and the Father are one”.

                   And the last time we met for a study, we asked what the application is of these great truths. How do you and I, ordinary modern Christians, apply this profound truth about the unique nature of the God-man, Jesus Christ? What do we do once we understand THE idea of all of history: the Deity of the man Jesus of Nazareth? The application is worship. So the last time we met, we talked a little bit about how to go about this whole worship thing.

                   We found that the Bible says the Father is searching for worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth. We found that this kind of genuine worship requires some preparation in us, we’ve got to approach the worship of God with the correct attitude, with focus, with prayer and with the habits of a holy lifestyle. I was reminded over the break how essential all these things are in approaching the house of God to worship Him. These mean the difference between the best worship service you can enter into and the worst waste of time you can suffer through.

                   We also talked about what worship is not. Worship is not for us, it isn’t only music, it is not the same thing as simply getting emotional about God, and worship is certainly not a means to an end. Worship is not something you need to get done in order to get your mind focused, or in order to get God to like you, or in order to open up a Bible study. Worship is an end goal in itself, since it is what we were designed for and what we shall do in heaven. What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.         

                   And finally, we discovered what worship really is. It is respectful, it is a response, it is decisive and it is full of wonder.

                   You can find the links to all the notes from our past studies online through Facebook or nortonliterature.blogspot.com, if you ever need to readdress these topics again. But for now, that brings us up to speed.

          End of Review

 

          You know what I find fascinating? Genetics. The stuff a human being is made up of, passed down to the offspring of a man and a woman. I was thinking about this last Mother’s Day. I saw all kinds of pictures of kids with their moms. Sometimes it’s amazing how similar a mother and her son or daughter can look. There are so many similarities and yet they are each separate people. Sometimes they’ve got the same eyes or nose or facial structure or hair. Sometimes it’s even more than just physical features, sometimes it’s behavior or tendencies or likes or dislikes or a whole variety of other intangible things that a child can get from their mother and father. At a glance, it’s obvious that the child is the descendant and inheritor of that mom’s genetic makeup.

          Now, if we stop to think about it, we realize that our parents got a lot of their features from their own parents. Thus a shadow of our grandparents lives on in us. But you know, our grandparents got their features from their own parents, our great-grandparents, and on and on and on further back in time until you reach the ultimate grandparents, the first parents of the human race: Adam and Eve. We inherited everything from them. Their genes live on in you and I, and we still carry their features all these generations later. What it means to be human largely comes from what we’ve inherited as descendants of the first man and woman.

          Tonight we come to the second nature of Christ. We’ve addressed the first: the Deity of Christ. Having finished that, we come to His second nature: the Humanity of Christ. Both of these concepts, divinity and humanity, are absolutely vital for a correct understanding of who Jesus is. Accepting both is a measurement of orthodoxy, correct belief. A denial of either His deity or His humanity will lead into error and heresy, false teaching. In fact, we remember that the earliest major heresies confronted by the early church councils was had to do with false teachings that had arisen about the two natures of Christ. The earliest heresies the church fought against were bad theologies teaching unbiblical falsehoods about Jesus’ Deity and Humanity.

          It may seem to our minds that His Deity is the part of Jesus that requires being proven the most, since it comes under fire in our modern age. When witnessing, it’s one of the big ideas that’s often introduced, that this man Jesus that every American has heard of is actually God. A denial of His Deity has indeed led to many heresies, like Arianism which said that Christ was created by God, that Jesus was a kind of lesser god beneath God the Father. In our modern times, Jehovah’s Witnesses take the same stance and deny the full equality of Christ’s Deity with the Father.

          But we must also realize that His Humanity is the other essential element and just as much requires true teaching and proving. Both of these parts of His nature must stand upon solid, biblical teaching. Affirming His Deity but denying His Humanity would put you right alongside the earliest of heretics, false teachers who were alive during the New Testament times, known as Docetists. Docetists believed in Christ’s deity but said that His humanity was only apparent and not real. It was as if He was a kind of spirit or ghost merely in the form of a human, but if you hurt Him, He would not bleed. Definitely a false view of the nature of Christ.

          Christ is indeed full God and fully human. If you hurt Him, He would bleed. He could suffer thirst and hunger. He could grow tired and needed sleep.

          So you see, it’s got to be both Deity and Humanity. Tonight’s study, our first on Christ’s humanity, is entitled: “the Last Adam”. And for your consideration, I’d like to ask you the question: What does it mean to be human?

          All kinds of ideas can flood our minds: made in the image of God, emotional, intellectual, self-aware, art and poetry, politics and government, appreciation of beauty, language. Each of the things that make us human are ultimately things that we inherited from our genetic ancestor’s: Adam and Eve, the first human beings.

          But hold on, we’re thinking of answering the question “What does it mean to be human?” only from the standpoint of what we’ve received from the first Adam, from the old race. We know what we’ve inherited from our biological parents. But what have we inherited from the last Adam as part of a new kind of humanity, as part of a new creation?

          Turn to I Corinthians 15:1-58.

          “Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.”

          You may remember these opening words in I Corinthians 15. Verses 3 through 6, what we’re about to read, contain what’s known as the pre-Pauline creed. Ring any bells? What Paul is about to write down in the next few verses is something which he indicates was an oral tradition, an early creedal statement, an early faith formula, that he himself had received, something which pre-dated his own writings. That’s why it’s known as the pre-Pauline creed, it is a structured statement of beliefs which pre-dates the apostle Paul. And it’s of incredible value for the cause of Christianity, as we discussed it is proof that Paul did not make up Christianity.

          v.3, “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.”

          The creed tracks important milestones in the Humanity of Jesus, beginning with His death, then His burial and then His resurrection. Paul says that this was according to the Scriptures, in other words, fulfillments of Old Testament prophecy. And after His resurrection, Jesus was still seen on earth, first by Cephas, Peter, then by the twelve disciples. Then there were other sightings, once to as many as 500 people, many of whom Paul states were still alive at the time of his writing 1 Corinthians. You could find these people still and ask them what they saw.

          Now this is where Paul came in: v.8, “Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am…”

          Paul understood the grace of God. I remember when I was in college, a classmate of mine who was always very quiet and never said much to anyone, never hung out really with anyone, was standing in line behind me once and said suddenly: “You know, if God could forgive Paul, He could forgive anyone.” Profound. The apostle Paul knew forgiveness and understood the grace of God, probably better than nearly anyone else, because he really experienced it when he went from one of the greatest enemies of the early church and a cruel persecutor of Christians to one of the greatest Christians who ever lived and the author of many of the books of the New Testament.

          “…and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed. Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”

          One of the themes of this chapter is the resurrection, specifically that it is a proven fact because Christ Himself is risen. We will rise from the dead because Christ has risen from the dead.

          v.13, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty. Yes, and we are found false witnesses of God , because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He did not raise up—if in fact the dead do not rise. For if the dead do not rise, then Christ is not risen. And if Christ is not risen, your faith is pointless; you are still I your sins! Then also those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.”

          Clearly, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is at the center of Christianity. If there is no resurrection of the dead, no afterlife beyond the grave, then Jesus Himself did not rise from the grave and logically, Paul says, the Christian faith becomes worthless. There can be no more hope in heaven, no hope for holiness in this life. Those who have died you’ll never see again. After death there is only nothingness and your consciousness will cease. If that’s the case, then Paul says Christians are merely to be pitied.

          If that’s the case, then what are we doing here studying the Bible? If Christ is not risen, then the central message of redemption in this Book of books is worthless and useless. If there is no hope for life to come, then this is all pointless.

          v.20, “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.”

          Abolishing doubt, Scripture says with certainty that Christ is risen, with the certainty of the pre-Pauline statement, that old, old creed which demonstrates that early in the first century, Christians already believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. What gives Christianity its strength, what gives the gospel its point is this fact: that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the tomb on the third day.

          But Paul says Christ has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. What? Jesus turned into a fruit? No, don’t be dull.

          There are two phrases used here: those who have fallen asleep means believers who have died, those who have “died in Christ”, those who died hoping in Christ for the life to come.

          Paul says Christ is the firstfruits of these dead believers. The phrase “First Fruits” takes us all the way back to the ancient practices of the Hebrews. We Americans have our holidays, well the Hebrews too had their Holy Days. Several days each year were to be recognized as special days during which certain events would take place, according to God’s commands, and one of these Holy Days was known as the Feast of First Fruits. Check out Leviticus 23.

          A brief survey with a bible that has chapter headings will show you the names of each of these special events. There were the Sabbath days to be observed every seventh day as a day of solemn rest. Then there are the feast days: the Passover followed by the week of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks (also known as Pentecost), the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and finally the Feast of Tabernacles (also known as Sukkot, the Feast of Booths). That’s seven special events each year, not including the weekly Sabbath days.

          Obviously, we’re homing in on the Feast of Firstfruits. What was it all about? Check out Leviticus 23:9-14. The very first fruits of their labor, the very first sheaf of the harvest was to be brought and offered to the Lord. Before anything else was eaten or enjoyed from that harvest, the first of it all was to be brought in and offered to the Lord. This is sort of like the modern-day tithe.

          It represented to the people that God would provide for their needs and the firstfruits offered to the Lord represented and anticipated the rest of the harvest to come. That first sheaf was a forerunner of the rest of the harvest.

          Back to 1 Corinthians, Paul adopts this term firstfruits for Christ Himself. Jesus is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, meaning that the risen Christ represents and anticipates the rising of all believers who have died. Jesus is the forerunner of the rest of the harvest, the many others who will resurrect from the grave as He did because of their faith in Him. Thus Paul is saying that the fact that Christ is risen anticipates our own resurrection. He is the guarantee of our hope for heaven, having gone before us and anticipating us. In a sense, this is something we inherit from Christ, almost in the same way that we inherit things from our biological parents.

          v.21, “For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.”

          Paul begins to compare and contrast two men. The first man, Adam, brought death into the world. That’s what we inherit from Adam. That’s one thing that makes us human: mortality, the fact that someday we will die. Human life as we know is a vapor. But… though in Adam all die, in Christ all shall be made alive. By the first man came death, by the God-man came the resurrection of the dead. We inherit hope and life and the resurrection through Christ.

          Later on in this chapter, Paul will again compare and contrast these two men, the man of dust and the man of heaven. Let’s compare and contrast them ourselves.     

                   ADAM

As the first man, Adam was the first of the human race, made first by God. He is the head of all the human race and we inherit his nature, sinfulness and flesh.

 

Adam is the head of the old creation.

 

Paul calls Adam “a living being” (Adam was given life by God’s spirit)

 

 

Adam had an earthly origin, He was made of dust and someday he would return to dust and die.

We bear the image of Adam as fallen human beings with a sin nature.

Adam performed one act which had consequences for the whole human race.

In Adam, we died through sin.

          CHRIST

Christ is called the last Adam because like Adam, He too is the head of the new human race, a new creation in Christian believers, and we inherit our new natures from Christ. He is the firstfruits, the first of the new race that will live beyond the grave.

Jesus is the head of the new creation in the church.

Paul calls Jesus “a life-giving spirit” (as opposed to Adam, Jesus was not given life, rather He Himself gives life to others)

 

Jesus had a different origin, He was from heaven, a place where no one dies.

But as Christians we bear the image of Christ, the heavenly man, as redeemed and sanctified human beings.

Jesus performed one act which had consequences for the whole human race.

In Christ, we live through faith.

Through Adam’s death when he ate the forbidden fruit, sin entered the world and death through sin.

Adam’s actions brought condemnation to the human race.

In our natural father, Adam, we inherit death, judgment, sin and condemnation.

Adam had a miraculous birth out of the dust.

Adam was made in the image of God.

A woman was taken from a rib in Adam’s side.

Adam disobeyed God.

Adam brought the curse.

Adam’s sin caused thorns to appear on the earth.

Adam brought forth sinners as his children.

Through Christ’s death on the cross, the free gift of salvation.

Jesus’ actions brought justification to the human race.

In our spiritual father, God, Jesus gives us life, grace, justification and righteousness.

Jesus had a miraculous virgin birth.

Jesus is the image of the invisible.

The bride of Christ was born through Jesus’ sufferings, including the piercing of His side on the cross.

Jesus was obedient event unto death.

Jesus brings the blessing of eternal life.

Jesus wore the thorns of Adam’s sin on His brow.

Jesus makes His children righteous.

          As you can see, Adam was a “type” of Christ, meaning he was a shadow or a likeness of the last Adam to come, but as the head of the old human race he is a poor comparison to Christ, the head of the church in which the human race is being saved.

          v.24, “Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For ‘He has put all things under His feet.’ But when He says ‘all things are put under Him,’ it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

            “Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’ Do not be deceived: ‘evil company corrupts good habits.’”

          We also say “bad company corrupts good morals”, but what use are morals unless they become our habits. And note, young men and women, our habits are indeed affected by the people that we hang out with. Am I saying don’t have any unbelieving friends? Certainly not. Our Lord Himself was known as the Friend of Sinners. It was the religious authorities of His day that got down on Him for eating dinner with sinners and tax-collectors.

          But if you’re going to hang out with sinners, you also need to strengthen yourself in hanging out with fellow Christians, just as Jesus did with His disciples.

          v.34, “Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.

            “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive until it dies. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.”

          Anticipating the objections of his readers, Paul gives a great analogy for what the resurrected form will be like. As a child, I imagined heaven as a place where I could fly someday. Sometimes I thought we might even have wings. Truth be told, we don’t know exactly what it will be like when we get there, and we don’t know what sort of bodies our new bodies will be like. But Paul says that it will be different, just as a seed differs from the flower it eventually grows into. The seed goes into the ground and dies and new life comes up out of it, taking new form. So too, the human body dies and returns to the ground but new life comes out of the believer and takes on the incorruptible form.

          Spurgeon said, as if at a funeral: “"Dear friends, if such be death - if it be but a sowing, let us have done with all faithless, hopeless, graceless sorrow . . . 'Our family circle has been broken,' say you. Yes, but only broken that it may be re-formed. You have lost a dear friend: yes, but only lost that friend that you may find him again, and find more than you lost. They are not lost; they are sown." That’s a great epitaph for a tombstone: “He is not lost, he is sown”.

          v.39, “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.”

          In other words, a star is beautiful and so is a human being (well some of them at least). But there’s a difference between the kinds of beauty.

          v.41, “There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.”

          So to return to our question: What does it mean to be human? Essentially, we’ve got to ask another question: Well, which kind of human are you talking about?

          II Corinthians 5:17 says “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

          Which family are you in? Who is your ancestor, the natural or the spiritual, the man of dust or the Man from heaven, the first Adam or the last Adam? Whose footsteps will you follow in, genetically in Adam’s or spiritual in Christ’s? And how you answer that will determine how you answer what it means to be human, for the humanity from Adam is fallen whereas the humanity from Christ is new and is being saved.

          v.50, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”

          This is the blessed hope of the rapture that we are to be ready for. I’m sure that as you and I grow older, these words will become more to us than just pretty and eloquent scriptures from Paul. This will become something we really look forward to. I’m going to be thirty in a few years. Thirty! I never dreamed I’d ever be thirty! When I was younger, I never dreamt I’d be as old as I am now. But times goes on and we grow old and eventually we die, it is both the curse of sin and the blessing of being human, for who would want to live in these rapidly deteriorating bodies forever?

          In Japan, the cherry blossom is a beautiful flowering tree that has deep meaning for that culture. To the Japanese, the cherry blossoms represent the beautiful fragility of life. That’s an important concept in the Japanese mind. One of their poets, Kobayashi Isaa, wrote: “Dew evaporates, and all our world is dew...so dear, so fresh, so fleeting”.

          The trees only bloom for a short amount of time each year with absolute brilliance, but the blossoms soon fade and fall away. It is a reminder of how precious and how short life truly is. The Japanese, then, appreciate not only the visual splendor of the blossoms but also the profound meaning they have serving as reminders of the brevity of life. I think our own culture, with its mentality that we live forever, could stand to learn from the cherry blossoms.

          But for the Christian, this takes on an even deeper meaning. We agree that life is beautiful. We agree that life is short. But we take it a step further and say that when the blossoms of our lives fall, it isn’t the end. When we die, we will bloom again in another world where the beauty we understood here on earth will pale in comparison to what we shall experience and where the fragility and the brevity of life will no longer be facts. They will be forgotten.

            v.54, “So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

          This echoes what Paul said earlier about laboring abundantly by the grace of God. Knowing what he knew about the resurrection, the life to come, and the corruptible being raised incorruptible, don’t you think that was the right thing to do? Knowing that there was a beautiful life to come, Paul labored for it. He worked for success not in this life, but he labored for the life to come.

          Galatians 6:9 says “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

          Same phraseology, same imagery of agriculture sowing and reaping. Knowing that our bodies sown in death shall someday be raised incorruptible, let us not grow weary of the Christian walk. It is a walk from death into life. This verse struck me as I wrote it down today because during our time off, I did grow weary of doing good. Honestly, there was a time during our break when I didn’t want to come back and continue this Bible study, and all the thoughts of “what’s the point?” and “who cares?”, “you don’t have to” and “it doesn’t matter” and “pursue something else and just quit” plagued me. I needed to remember to not grow weary in doing good. Maybe you do too. That’s what it means to be human in the new creation in Christ.

          You might kill yourself doing good, work yourself into exhaustion, you might labor for God like Paul did, but unless something is sown it cannot be raised.