"Jesus is the Last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45).
Many commentators also refer to Jesus as the ‘second Adam’, largely due
to proximity between the titles ‘second man’ and ‘Last Adam’ in 1 Corinthians 15.
Jesus is not the only character besides
Adam to have been given the commissions Adam was given in Genesis 1 and 2. Jesus is the last of several Adamic
figures, and He ends the line because He succeeded where all the others
failed.
Moreover,
--God’s replication of the Adamic vocation to multiple
people throughout the history of redemption indicates these commissions
and promises were anchored in a literal, historical Adam.
In 1 Corinthians 15:45–47, there is an important contrast. Drawing on Genesis 2:7,
Paul calls Adam ‘the first man Adam’, but he refers to Jesus in two
different ways: Jesus is ‘the last Adam’ (v. 45) and ‘the second man’
(v. 47).
Some think, therefore, that ‘second man’ is a synonym for
‘second Adam’, since as a ‘second Adam’ Jesus is the firstborn of the new creation. However, we must respect Paul’s precision—he calls Jesus ‘the last Adam’, not the ‘second Adam’.
Adam was a special man. He was the first ever human, and he is the
father of us all: “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to
live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). As such, he was given a special role. God gave him, with Eve, dominion over the earth: Adam was given the first task of exercising dominion over the earth by naming the animals (Genesis 2:19–20).
Adam thus was given rule, and had a primacy of authority even among
humans, since he is the one from whom all other humans have come.
Adam was a priest-king: he ruled as a king over creation and served in
God’s garden in Eden as a priest served in the tabernacle and temple.
--But He failed in his role. He sinned...And so, sin, decay, and death came into the world and infected the human race.
--Jesus is thus the beginning of a new mankind. He is the founder of a new
everlasting spiritual race of mankind that is greater than the first
natural race, which, through disobedience, would be subjected to death.
However,
there is a twofold contrast in 1 Corinthians 15:45. First, Adam became a ‘soul’ (psychē) at his creation
and Jesus became a ‘spirit’ (pneuma) at His Resurrection
(neither lacked a body, but had bodies governed by different life-principles).
Jesus is the climax of salvation history; a history that began with the creation of the first Adam."
JimHughes/ShaunDoyle/CMI
