The Last Adam

by Toms, A. F. | Category: Christ In Genesis | Sept 1988

When the Lord Jesus joined the two who were walking to Emmaus, it says "beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself". We have been enjoying together some of the glimpses of Christ we find in the early chapters of Genesis. Adam is presented to us as the first man, and the apostle Paul comments on that fact in his first epistle to the Corinthians, when he says, "the first man Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit".

So Adam heads up a race of men who receive life as he received it, from the great Creator. But alas, through his disobedience to God's plain word, he passed on to them the awful result of sin, which is death. In Romans 5 we read, "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned." Adam is described as a figure of Christ, but he stands in contrast to Him. "The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven". Adam led men into sin and death, but the Lord Jesus came to suffer death on our behalf, and to lead many sons to glory.

I like the way the apostle Paul puts it in Romans 5:19, "through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One! How much is contained in those few words. He was always obedient, of course. He delighted to do His Father's will. But in Hebrews 5 we read that He "learned obedience by the things which he suffered", which I understand to mean that through life's experience of suffering He was constantly learning what obedience cost. He learned it in daily experience. And every suffering He endured resulted in glory to His God and Father in heaven.

Never did obedience cost a man more than it cost the Lord Jesus when He went out from Gethsemane's garden to give Himself upon the Cross. "Nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done" He said, and He went out to become obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Thank God through His obedience the many have been made righteous, just as many as will receive it by faith. And now He invites us to be obedient to Him, by obeying His commandments and following where He leads the way.

Toms, A. F. | Sept 1988
Christ In Genesis