The Two Adams

ONE OF THE MOST PROFOUND and burden-relieving things I’ve ever personally learned in my spiritual walk is Paul’s discussion of “the two Adams.” It’s because of understanding this that I have complete assurance of salvation. It’s because of this that I know I was forgiven 2,000 years before I was even born.

Paul isn’t always easy to follow, but try to do that for a moment. The rewards are enormous when you understand what he’s really saying.

Paul called Jesus “the last Adam”:

“The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”—1 Corinthians 15:45.

You see, when Adam, the head of the human race, sinned, death passed over all of us. Paul wrote:

“Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned… Therefore, as through one man’s offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man’s righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. 19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”—Romans 5:12, 18, 19.

But—and this is so vital to understand—all of us were in the first Adam there in Eden. God considered the whole human race to be in him. Therefore whatever happened to Adam happened to us all. Just as the first mountain climber on a rope may fall and take all the others down the precipice with him, when Adam fell, he took us all down with him. So when Adam came under the power of death, we all did.

Biologically speaking, of course, we were all quite definitely “in Adam” in Eden. The life that was in Adam has been passed on through countless generations, in one unbroken stream, to you and to me. If you have any doubts that you were in Adam there in Eden, consider where you would be just now if he had died with no children!

But in a far broader sense than just biology, in God’s reckoning we have all been included in Adam. So when it comes to sin’s consequences, God deals with this problem not just individually, but corporately. He deals with the entire human race.

What Adam did when he sinned, you see, affected us all. We all—and each—were doomed to reap the natural consequences of Adam’s choice. Therefore whatever God did to solve the problem also had to affect us all.

On the cross, Jesus died as the NEW head of the human race. And God, in His reckoning, has included every one of us in Jesus. “But of him [God the Father] are ye in Christ Jesus.” 1 Corinthians 1:30. So you see, just as we were in Adam the First, we are now in Adam the Second. And being in Christ is the key that opens salvation’s doors wide to us.

So whatever happened to Jesus happened to us all. What He lived counts now to God as what WE lived! When Christ died, we died. When He rose, we rose with Him to “newness of life.”

I am saved not by trying, by working, by becoming good enough, by keeping the law, by effort. I’m saved by accepting the FACT that when Jesus died, I—being in Him—died too, and paid the natural death consequence of my sinfulness and sins.

So unless I now reject the life that Jesus offers me, I have the right to, and absolute assurance of, eternal life. I am forgiven. I am free. I am reconciled to the Father.

BUT….someone protests—what about obedience? What about keeping the law? Are you selling “cheap grace,” in which you teach that because of the Cross, we can live as we please, because we are irreversibly saved?

Short answer: No. Because the companion teaching of Paul to “You in Christ,” is “Christ in you”! I’ll explore that in the next post.