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Abstract
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII
Part VIII
Part IX
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Part IX: The Unique Relationship Between
the First Adam and the Last Adam
Chapter 1
The Body of the First Adam and of
the Last Adam
ALTHOUGH the
record of Genesis is brief indeed in its treatment of the origin
and subsequent history of Adam, it nevertheless gives us a great
deal of information by inference. The trouble with this kind
of information is that there is always difficulty in agreeing
upon the meaning of such inferential statements. For example,
as we shall see, there is an inference that Adam's body had a
form which rendered it a male-female organism, which by a kind
of divine surgery was divided into two independent creatures
who nevertheless formed a single whole when "joined"
by God. This is an inference. In spite of the fact that, to me,
the text is completely clear, there are many wholly sincere Christian
scholars who believe the language to be symbolic, and that such
a bisexual creature would be difficult to conceive, physiologically
speaking. Actually, it is possible to construct in theory a human
body capable of containing within it one vessel to originate
the sperm and one the ovum, which being released at the same
moment could unite and produce a fetus. However, one must allow
that the possible bisexuality of Adam as created is inferential
only.
Another circumstance which seems
to me perfectly clear is that, again physiologically considered,
Adam and Eve were not by nature subject to mortality until they
sinned, and might have recovered physical immortality had they
been allowed to reach the Tree of Life subsequently. This again
must be considered an inference because, here too, there is a
great deal of disagreement among those who have equal respect
for the Word of God.
Some of these inferences may or
may not be important, but those which are, are resolvable to
my mind without the least possible shadow of doubt by reference
to what we know of the Lord Jesus
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Christ from the New Testament.
It thus comes about that the clearest picture of Adam is not
to be found in Genesis at all but in the New Testament. This
picture gives us some basic information about the nature of man
by showing us what a perfect Adam is really like. Moreover, this
applies not merely to the character or personality potential
of such a one, but to what his body might have been as well.
The events which took place on Calvary shed a light on this aspect
of the problem, which, it seems to me, make it quite impossible
to account for the first Adam by some kind of evolved primate
with a God-given soul. Let us look very carefully at what really
happened when the Lord laid down His life on the Cross.
Although the thought may appear
at first sight to be a novel one, it can be shown logically that
vicarious sacrifice sheds light upon the physical constitution
of Adam as created, which cannot be obtained by any other means.
To understand the nature of this light, it is necessary to establish
very clearly, not merely what vicarious sacrifice is (which most
of us believe we know rather well), but what it is not. This
is a subject which demands the strictest adherence to the laws
of logic, but also requires a certain spiritual perception.
I remember several years ago driving
along Dupont Street in Toronto with a very godly Christian man
whose formal education had probably not even proceeded as far
as Junior Matriculation, but who had a very keen perception of
spiritual truth. We were talking about the Lord's death, and
I mentioned to him one or two of the key points which are presented
in this chapter. He turned to me suddenly with great joy in his
face and said, "How beautiful! Somehow I've always understood
this but never been able to put it into words." I think
that what stimulated the remark at this point in the conversation
was the observation that the Lord died on the cross, but not
because of it, a statement which is considered subsequently.
I believe that the Holy Spirit alone can lead us into this kind
of truth. Nevertheless, once having arrived at the truth, we
shall find that it is possible to reconstruct the rationale of
it all, and it turns out in the end to be quite defensible by
an appeal to logic. Even so the logic of it is often more apparent
to oneself than to someone else, a fact which demonstrates that
this kind of understanding is spiritually acquired in the final
analysis. And there is a sense in which to arrive at the truth
one must know the truth already. It may therefore prove very
disappointing if one attempts to convey this understanding to
others unless, in some measure, they already have it.
There has now been a tendency for
many years to place more and more emphasis on the cultivation
of devotional life and on the
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need for practicing Christian
virtue in all human relationships, somewhat to the exclusion
of achieving a real understanding of why we believe what we do.
Devotion and practice have tended to eclipse understanding, so
that the structure of our faith is often neglected and its terminology
used very loosely.
It thus comes about that terms
which were once applied with quite exact meanings by earlier
theologians are now used so loosely as to be almost meaningless.
"Doctrine" is apt to be considered as cold, divisive,
and rather impractical. We speak of the Lord's sacrifice, and
in our fantastic indifference to the truth, actually dare to
suggest parallels with those who lay down their lives for their
country. Some who categorically deny that they ever make such
a mistake add by way of explanation that they realize only too
well how much greater His sacrifice was. The difference becomes
one of degree -- a misrepresentation of the truth, which is only
slightly less unfortunate. The fact is that no possible comparison
can be made with the death of any other human being from Abel
to the present time. Yet this does not mean that there is no
hope of understanding, in so far as we are enabled so to do by
the Holy Spirit, something of the real nature of the Lord's sacrifice.
But we shall understand it rather by contrast than by analogy.
Let us consider a few situations
in which men have given their lives, have made the supreme sacrifice,
voluntarily (or otherwise), and on behalf of someone else. And
having done this let us see in what sense these must be contrasted
rather than compared with the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the same time, it should be underscored that we are dealing
with these sacrifices entirely from the point of view of physical
death. The other side of the question is not in view here
at all.
In Charles Dickens' A Tale of
Two Cities the hero of the story, Sydney Carton, a not too
successful lawyer living at the time of the French Revolution,
determines to redeem his rather useless life with one final noble
gesture. Without entering into the details of the well-known
story, it is sufficient to say that learning of the imprisonment
in Paris and subsequent condemnation of an old friend of his,
he succeeds in visiting him a little more than an hour before
he is to be guillotined. Taking his friend by surprise, he chloroforms
him in the cell, substitutes their clothing, and then has him
quickly removed in disguise, as though himself, and restored
to his wife in England. One hour later he answers the call in
his friend's name and is put to death in his place, without his
identity being discovered.
In the prime of his life, not personally
under condemnation but
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standing in his friend's
place, he sacrifices himself entirely without compulsion. And
his friend goes free. There are several points in this story,
all of which have been drawn together that superficially appear
to be an illustration of the Lord's death on behalf of any one
of us: cut off in the prime of life without guilt, assuming our
place, and setting us free. Yet, in spite of these parallels,
the analogy is completely false in one fundamental regard.
Consider another illustration.
During the Napoleonic wars, in the earlier stages of his military
campaigns, Napoleon allowed men who were called up to purchase
for themselves a substitute soldier. It required only that the
man had sufficient money to pay his substitute, and that the
substitute agree to serve not for himself, but in the stead of
his retainer. It seems that in one case there was a barber, who
had a particularly lucrative business, who hired a young man
to go in his place. This young man was killed at the front, and
notice of his death was accordingly sent back to the barber,
who was careful not to lose it. Some years later when the military
campaigns were not going too well, Napoleon called up more men
from an age group which included the barber. The barber begged
to be excused, explaining that actually he had already served
at the front and was dead. The conscripting officers thought
he was joking, but the barber was able to show his own death
certificate and to the logically minded French military authorities
he clearly proved his point. He was never again called to military
service.
This story illustrates another
aspect of sacrificial death. If a man can prove that a legally
constituted substitute has died in his place, he can under certain
circumstances claim to be himself beyond the power of the law.
The law has no further jurisdiction over him than it has over
a corpse. This form of substitutionary sacrifice surely comes
close to being a parallel. Yet, while it successfully illustrates
one aspect of the Lord's death on my behalf -- for I am counted
as dead and beyond the power of the Law in God's sight -- there
is still one aspect of the substitute soldier's death which is
so completely different from the Lord's that there is no parallel
whatever. In what sense this sweeping statement is true will
be left till a little later.
Consider another kind of substitutionary
death. Among some primitive people, (1) the Tlingit for example -- a Northwest Coastal tribe
in Canada -- each man is given a "value." His value
is
1. Oberg, Kalervo, "Crime and Punishment
in Tlingit Society", American Anthropologist, 1934,
pp.145-146.
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established by the community
and is dependent upon the community's estimate of his worth as
an individual to his own society. He may be a very valuable person
because of innate skill, of acquired wealth, or the prestige
of noble birth. So careful is this accounting system that a man's
tombstone may bear a statement which in effect reads something
like this: "Here lies John Tlingit; worth $12,562."
This has nothing to do necessarily with his economic wealth,
but has everything to do with the individual's status before
the law, and particularly his value to his own family. If a $6,000
murderer should cause the death of a $12,000 man, it would not
be sufficient for the murderer to be put to death. Justice could
not be served so simply. The murderer and his brother, however,
might be worth $12,000, and if this were the case, the unfortunate
brother would be executed at the same time. It sounds like a
fantastic system, but evidently it worked remarkably well, for
the "have nots" in the society, who might have the
greatest cause for violent action were deeply conscious of the
fact that they would probably involve their whole family in the
death penalty if they attacked an expensive member of the community.
The complications of the administration
of justice are quite interesting to study. They applied not merely
to cases of murder, but to any offense requiring punishment.
It was not a question of an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth, but a gold tooth for a gold tooth -- or three silver ones
for one gold one. To pay for some damage suits, it might be necessary
to punish a whole family as though the debt were made up in small
change. Conversely, an expensive enough individual could, by
his death, volunteer to pay war damages inflicted upon a whole
tribe by his own people.
Once more we have a parallel of
a kind. A "small" man can cover the debts of a "small"
man; a large man, the debts of many. It is no longer merely a
case of one for one, but one for many. It all depends upon the
value of the victim. Superficially, we might think that we had
here an even closer parallel to the Lord's sacrifice, and so
we do, in part. But that element of the Lord's sacrifice which
finds no representation here whatever makes all the difference
in the world, so that once again the two cases cease to be parallel
in any but the most superficial sense.
Let us consider one final illustration
of substitutionary sacrifice that is not unlike the one immediately
above, but contains one element which belongs to the Lord's sacrifice
that none of the previous examples have had. Among nomadic Arab
tribes there is a particular form of "blood revenge"
which is not to be found in other
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societies. This is what
may be called the delayed-time factor. If I should have a son
of, say, nineteen years of age, and in some local feud he should
be killed by a member of a neighbouring tribe, I may demand blood
revenge. Rather than simply going to war and disrupting the pattern
of life of the two tribes involved, it is understood by custom
that a son of approximately nineteen years of age belonging to
a man in the neighbouring tribe who has equal status socially
with myself, may be singled out as the victim whose death will
square accounts and bring an end to the feud between us. We shall,
on our part, seek every opportunity to waylay the lad while they
take special precautions to protect him. If we succeed in bringing
about his death, that will be the end of the matter. It will
not lead to further warfare. This is the accepted custom, and
by and large all parties subscribe to it.
But what happens if the only son
he has is six years old, all the rest of his family being daughters?
It's really very simple. It is only a matter of time. The six-year-old
is perfectly safe for twelve or thirteen years. Relations between
the two tribes carry on as though nothing sinister is planned
at all. Trade, entertaining, and intermarriage may proceed smoothly
until the boy reaches the age at which my son was killed. Then
the situation changes and every precaution is taken on their
part to protect themselves from surprise attack, since there
will be no declaration of war on our part; while we begin to
lay careful plans to effect blood revenge.
It seems strange to us at first
sight that such a system should be made to operate. However,
one must remember that the Arab lives from day to day. What is
to happen will happen. It is all ordained. So why brood or even
attempt to evade the future?
Our law also recognizes that a
criminal brought to justice many, many years after the crime
was committed is still to be held responsible, even though intervening
circumstances may modify his sentence. What is a little different
in this case of the Arabs is that in a sense the young lad grows
up in complete innocence, but in due time may be called upon
to sacrifice his life to end a feud, simply because he is the
only substitute who can fulfill all the conditions of the law
in point of age, sex, and social standing. In "due time"
he is sacrificed for the sake of peace.
In each one of these situations
some facet of the total meaning of the Lord's sacrifice of Himself
on Calvary is to be observed. His sacrifice was substitutionary,
voluntary, in innocence, as legal tender, of sufficient value,
and in due time. Every one of these things is true. Common to
them all is the fact that each involved the termination
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of life. Nevertheless,
for all this, the Lord's sacrifice was completely different from
any one of these and from all of them put together. What
is this fundamental difference? It can be stated rather
simply: Each of these men was a mortal creature and bound to
die sooner or later; the Lord Jesus was immortal and need never
have died at all. This distinction lies at the root of the issue,
so much so that His death is in a different category altogether,
having a unique significance in the Plan of Redemption, and shedding
a light upon the circumstances surrounding the creation of Adam
that has been almost entirely disregarded by those who have attempted
to account for his origin by evolution.
Let me see if I can crystallize
the essential difference between the death of Jesus Christ and
the death of all other men. First of all, because we are born
as the children of Adam in such a state that death is inevitable,
any sacrifice of life we make is merely a sacrifice of a part
of life, of that which remains. It is not, in truth, a sacrifice
of life in itself, but merely a shortening of it. Jesus Christ,
because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and virgin born,
was not in this respect as we are. He was made not after a carnal
commandment, that is to say, the law governing all other flesh,
but after the power of an endless life (Hebrews 7:16). When He
died, He did not surrender part of life; He did not merely shorten
it. That which is endless cannot be shortened. What He did was
to sacrifice life itself.
Because we are mortals and therefore
bound to die in the end, we are not in any position to choose
whether we will die or not. It sometimes looks like it, and we
commonly speak as though it were so, but all that we can actually
do is to choose the occasion of our dying, by dying before
the "appointed" time. A man who is in debt, although
the contract may not call for the debt to be paid for several
years, can pay off the debt ahead of time if he so desires. He
is not bound to do this, but it is something he can volunteer
to do of his own free will. It is, in fact, the only thing he
has any free choice about in the matter. In the final payment
of the debt itself he has no choice, but he can choose to pay
the debt before it is due. The important point is that it is
only in the timing of the payment that he has any freedom, not
in making the actual payment of the debt itself. This is what
I mean when I say that a man may choose the time of his dying
in certain circumstances, but he is not in a position to choose
whether he will die or not die.
But man is in debt to death. We
have all sinned and the penalty of sin is death (Romans 6:23).
And because sin entered into human experience, death also entered
into human experience as a consequence;
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so the sentence of death
passed upon all men, and in due time all men must die. We are
not therefore in any position of being able to choose whether
to die or not. The choice is not within our power. But we can,
of course, pay this debt before it is due. The suicide does so,
or the hero who sacrifices his life for a comrade. So does the
martyr, in a manner of speaking. What is common to all these
deaths is simply that they are premature; a debt that
must be paid is paid before it falls due. Insofar as men in such
circumstances can be said to have had a choice in the matter,
they have not really had any choice in the matter of dying per
se, but only in the time of dying. They have accelerated
the process, they have shortened life. They have sacrificed,
not life itself, but what remained of their allotment.
On the other hand, the position
of one who is not subject to death, who for some reason
has the potential of an endless life -- and we have already seen
in this volume that this is a perfectly feasible possibility
-- the position of such a one is quite otherwise. He may indeed
die at the hands of others, but he need not die -- ever.
He is not merely in the position of being able to choose
the time of dying, but he is able to choose whether he will die
at all. If he chooses to die, he is making a choice which is
quite beyond our power to make.
This was precisely the position
of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was virgin born so that He might
escape the stream of mortality which we all inherit through the
male seed, and therefore He enjoyed the potential of endless
life that Adam had at first. We are talking of endless physical
life, not endless spiritual life, which is quite another matter.
Adam could die, and did die, but he need not have died had he
not sinned. The Lord Jesus Christ, as the Second Adam, could
die, and did die, but He need not have died had He not been made
sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). When He chose to die, this is
precisely what He did, not merely choosing the time of dying,
but choosing to embrace death, where He might have lived forever.
As we have noted in a previous
Paper, I think it is a pity that very few translations have recognized
the real significance of Hebrews 12:2, which according to most
renderings seems to be telling us that "because of the joy
that was set before him endured the cross." The Greek is
really very clear in saying rather that it was "instead
of the joy that was set before him, he endured the Cross."
What does this mean? -- I believe that on the Mount of Transfiguration
the Lord Jesus could have passed into glory without ever tasting
death, having fulfilled the role of man as God had originally
planned it should be, turning innocence into virtue, and becoming,
by the
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experience of daily living,
a perfect person whose character was wholly pleasing to the Father.
There was no sin in Him, He never knew sin, neither did He ever
do any sin, and therefore there was no penalty of death attached
to His life and no necessity of dying.
He was, in fact, there and then
ready to pass on by a joyous experience of transformation into
the life of heaven without seeing death at all. This was the
joy that was before Him, the joy to which He had every right
as perfect man. But "instead of the joy that was then in
prospect," He returned and came down from the mount and
at once set His face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem to endure
the shame and the agony of death on the Cross. He had this choice.
Death was not thrust upon Him. He was free to embrace it. And
He did so for our sakes.
It is curious how a passage of
Scripture with profound implications can become so familiar to
us that these implications escape us entirely until we are almost
forced into looking at it afresh. Consider John 10:17 and
18. Here the Lord said explicitly, "Therefore doth my Father
love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have
power to lay it down. . . "
This most important statement we
are apt to interpret as meaning that the Lord would submit to
being crucified when He was ready, and not before. Reinforcing
this view we recall the statement that no man dared to lay hands
upon Him for His hour was not yet come. And when that hour did
come, He announced it. "The hour is come. . . " (Mark
14:41,42), He said; and the Roman authorities performed their
dreadful task. So without thinking too deeply about the matter,
we may be misled into supposing that the Lord Jesus Christ really
did nothing more profound in the matter of His death than choosing
the time at which He would submit Himself into men's hands.
Perhaps if we put two other passages
together, we may see how mistaken a view this is. In Isaiah 53:7
we are told that He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter. This
was man's work. But then in Hebrews 7:27, we are told that He
offered Himself. He submitted to the "bringing," but
when the time came it was the Lord Himself who initiated the
offering, His own life. In the most literal possible sense of
the term, no man took His life from Him; He laid it down
entirely Himself.
There are not a few passages of
Scripture, of which Ecclesiastes 8:8 is a good example, which
state that in the hour of death no mortal creature has any power
to retain his life. Man is humbled in death.
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But in Philippians 2:8
the Lord Jesus humbled Himself. This is a unique circumstance,
and it is reinforced in the same verse by describing the event
in slightly different terms. For whereas man is obedient, the
Lord Jesus became obedient. That is to say, Jesus Christ
did not merely choose the time to die -- which we may do within
certain limits -- He actually chose to die, which we can never
do.
On the Cross Jesus laid down His
life, but not as is commonly supposed by submitting to man to
put Him to death, although history records (Acts 2:23) that this
is what appeared to happen. In actual fact, though He died on
the Cross, it was most assuredly not because of it.
By an act of will and in the time of His own choosing, He dismissed
His life, as a master might dismiss a servant. He said, "Life,
be gone," and a moment later the Son of man left His dead
body on the Cross.
The Greek words which are used in these
closing scenes are most significant, for although the English tells us
that He yielded up His Spirit as it also tells us that Ananias and Sapphira
yielded up theirs, the original Greek in the two instances is completely
different. For in the case of the Lord, the English fails entirely to
convey what is implied in the original, namely, that this was not a surrender,
but a dismissal. Significantly enough the same Greek word ( )
appears in John 19:16 and 19:30. The first reads, "Then delivered
he [Pilate] him [Jesus] therefore unto them to be crucified." And
the second reads, "He bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."
Pilate delivered Jesus to be crucified, but this was the extent of his
power. Jesus had "power" (John 10:18) to lay down His life,
power to dismiss His Spirit. This is a deep mystery, yet we can by careful
and reverent reflection upon the matter fathom something of what such
a "giving up" really means.
When we die, the body overcomes
the spirit and forces it to flee, refusing any longer to provide
a house for it. But when Jesus died, His Spirit overcame His
body. This is a complete reversal of ordinary processes. When
a man yields up the ghost, it is a passive act, but when Jesus
Christ dismissed His Spirit, the verb appears in active form;
and it is for the same reason as when referring to Pilate's action
in delivering Him to be crucified. Unlike our death, His death
was the ultimate and supreme triumph of the spirit over the body.
"This is the Lord's doing (not man's), it is marvelous in
our eyes. . ."
Even the Cross itself as a stage
had a special significance. The Romans had several ways of dealing
with a criminal. Among these, they might hang him, drown him,
impale him, strangle him, poison him, thrust him through with
a weapon, or crucify him. In any one of
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these methods of capital
punishment except the last, only a miracle could have kept the
Lord alive. Think of this for a moment, and you will see that
it is so. The fact is, however, that it was only by a miracle
that when crucified He died when He did. The reason for saying
this is not that crucifixion was not fatal but rather that it
was a delayed form of capital punishment, and it is well known
that a crucified man might survive as long as three days before
dying. This was why Pilate was surprised that Jesus was dead
so soon (Mark 15:44). It is true, then, that while Pilate delivered
Him as a lamb to the slaughter, yet no man took His life; the
offering of His life was entirely His own doing.
One further point needs underscoring
lest there should be the slightest shadow of doubt about the
uniqueness of this event. We have twice spoken of this "power"
which the Lord Jesus had and which enabled His spirit to triumph
over His body -- not as is occasionally true with men, that life
might be prolonged (for men have sometimes willed to live when
all other life-saving agencies have failed) -- but rather that
life might be dismissed. Again, one must pause to reflect upon
this to see the meaning of it. It is not possible for ordinary
men to command the spirit to render immediate obedience so that
the body is lifeless within a moment of time. Men may lack the
will to live and because they do, the body gradually fails and
death ensues. But not only is this a lingering process, it is
the result of weakness of will, the refusal to face life any
longer, the desire to escape. We know from Gethsemane that there
was not the slightest element of this in the Lord's action, for
He asked, if it were possible, that it might be avoided, even
while He knew it could not be (Luke 22:42). This is vicarious
death, choosing to die deliberately, voluntarily, without any
necessity whatever. It must not be confused with the kind of
sacrifice a creature may make, who must die one day in any case
and at best has only a choice of the time of his dying, and not
even this as a rule.
Here we have One who was true man,
not subject to physical death, by an act of will -- which was
an expression of His deity -- dismissing life where that life
could have been sustained indefinitely. It was immortality rendering
itself mortal by an act of will and without any other necessity
than the fact that He chose so to do. This much is clear from
Scripture. But how does it cast light upon the nature of Adam
as created? What must we infer from these things?
First of all, we must conclude
that if the law requires an eye for an eye and a tooth for a
tooth, it must also require a man for a man. Unless the First
Adam is faithfully represented in the Last Adam, the
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sacrifice He made may
be vicarious indeed, but it cannot be applied to Adam. We know
from Scripture that the blood of goats and bulls (Hebrews 10:4)
was not adequate. Life was given for life, but it was not the
right kind of life. We must assume, therefore, that if the sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus is to be applied against fallen man in Adam,
then the identification of Jesus as the Son of man is not as
merely a poetic title but a very real fact. Insofar as His manhood
was concerned, the Lord Jesus Christ was the Son of Adam, but
not of any fallen Adam for this He escaped by the virgin birth.
The seed of the woman was passed from generation to generation
from Eve to Mary, and Eve was taken out of Adam -- and the seed
with her -- while he was yet untouched by mortality. All other
seeds in this line were rendered mortal when brought to life
by human agency, for when joined by the seed of fallen man that
which was potentially immortal became mortal. But in due time
this remnant of immortal Adam was brought to life, not by man,
but by the Holy Spirit, thereby escaping mortality and retaining
the physiology of the First Adam. Thus He became a true Son of
unfallen Adam. The taking of Eve out of unfallen Adam that she
(and those who followed her) might become a vehicle for the conveyance
of this primal seed in its original purity exactly fulfills the
physiological requirement for that body which was accordingly
"perfectly prepared" for Him (Hebrews 10:5).
Now, the crucifixion of the Lord
Jesus not merely revealed God to man, but man to himself. And
this was done in two ways. We see man as he is in all
his wickedness, brought terrifyingly to light when faced with
perfect humanity. And this perfect humanity with which they were
faced revealed what man should be. Part of that perfection
was seen in the character of the Lord, but there was another
part equally faithfully representing Adam, namely, the perfect
body which housed His spirit uncorrupted by the seed of death
and with the glorious potential of endless life. This, then,
is man as God made him: this is Adam unfallen.
And Genesis 2:16, 17 fully supports
the latter inference.
And the Lord God commanded the
man saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that
thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die.
In the original
Hebrew the last phrase reads more exactly "dying thou shalt
die," which, from a study of other passages of Scripture
where this arrangement of words is to be found, might quite properly
be rendered rather, "thou shalt begin to die."
What follows in the text is familiar
enough to the Christian. The
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forbidden tree proves
irresistible to the woman, who, having partaken of its fruit,
appeals to Adam to join her in her disobedience. Eve had been
deceived (1 Timothy 2:14), but Adam was not. He saw himself separated
from this most beautiful of all possible companions, because
she was now very different from himself and no longer able to
share his life in the Garden. Having thought about it, he deliberately
chose to become like her, and sought afterwards to justify the
decision by pointing out to the Lord that He had, after all,
given Eve to him to be a companion. In pronouncing the curse,
the Lord finally warned Adam that he would return to the dust,
for he had now lost his original condition of immortality. But
in the Garden apparently, the Tree of Life, either because of
its fruit or its leaves which both had been allowed to partake
of freely as they desired and which had maintained their bodies
in a state of perfectly balanced health, had suddenly become
a source of grave danger. For were they to put forth their hands
now and take of the Tree of Life, the effects of the fruit of
the other tree which had already begun the process of dying in
their bodies, would somehow have been neutralized and life might
have been sustained indefinitely. But now they were fallen creatures.
Not only had some physical damage been done, but what was far
worse -- spiritual damage. And God saw at once, if one may speak
anthropomorphically, that endless physical life for a fallen
spiritual creature was too dreadful to permit. The record provides
us, as though to underscore the urgency of the situation, with
one of the few unfinished statements of Scripture (Genesis 3:22-24).
And the Lord God said, Behold,
the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now,
lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life,
and eat, and live for ever:
Therefore the Lord God sent him
forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence
he was taken.
So he drove out the man; and he
placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming
sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of
life.
It seems that
the Word of God has gone out of its way to make it very clear
that the divine concern in this situation was to prevent at all
costs the recovery of immortality while in a state of sinfulness.
The inference is clear enough: namely, that Adam and Eve were
created in such a physical condition that endless life would
have been normal for them. Death was no original part of their
physical being. As Romans 5: 12 states, it "entered"
as a result of their disobedience. All men by natural generation
since that time have been mortals, as the animals are mortal
creatures. But Adam was not so at the very
pg.13
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beginning. It is not,
therefore, true man that we now call "man," but a dying
creature who is only a pale reflection of God's original creation.
The First Adam and the Last Adam
shared this unique quality. As Augustine put it, of them both
could be said: non imposse mori sed posse non mori
-- "not impossible to die, but possible not to die."
Both the First and the Last Adam did die, but neither the First
nor the Last need have died. This could never have been said
of the First Adam if he had derived his physical life as a living
organism by some entirely natural process of evolution even with
the addition of a specially created soul or spirit subsequently
implanted to set him off as man.
Unless by the term true man as
applied to Adam, we comprehend an immortal creature indwelt by
a perfect spirit, then the Lord Jesus Christ did not offer a
vicarious sacrifice of Himself that could be applied to Adam,
for He was not then Himself true man at all, and His titles "Son
of man" and "the Last Adam" are meaningless. An
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, true man for true man --
this is the Law. Because the Lord Jesus need never have died,
He was in a position to sacrifice Himself vicariously. Because
of the unique relationship between the Lord Jesus and the First
Adam, His sacrifice was applicable to us in Adam, was in fact
substitutionary. In the Last Adam we may discern what the First
Adam was like as he came from the hand of God, and what the First
Adam could have been if he had not sinned.
For all this, the Last Adam was
not only man: He was God also. Yet, being more than man did not
make Him any less than man. All that true man is and can
be is to be found here. God was made man not identical with man
as he is now, but made rather in the likeness of sinful
flesh (Romans 8:3). He was made flesh -- a statement unqualified
(John 1:14) -- but with reference to human flesh now, made in
the "likeness" only. Yet with respect to human flesh
as seen in Adam originally, by way of the virgin birth, He was
truly human, the Second Adam. Such is the unique relationship
between these two, both of whom were called "the Son of
God."
pg.14
of 14
Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights
reserved
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