Imagining Heaven - God Is Waiting
Imagining Heaven - God Is Waiting
Imagining Heaven - God Is Waiting
Paul continues to contrast the differences and the
similarities between the natural body and the spiritual body
(1 Corinthians 15:44) because this contrast is the main point
of this letter to the Corinthians. He has been talking about
nothing else from the very beginning of this letter (1
Corinthians 2:12-14).
In verse 45 Paul contrasts several elements of the spiritual
body with the natural body, all of which are very important.
First of all, to suggest that Jesus was like Adam is nothing
less than astonishing. Because of the nature of inheritance
Adam is the primary model for all human life. We are what we
are because Adam was what he was. He was the original, we are
the copies, and the absolute best that a copy can be cannot
exceed the quality of the original.
Adam's creation predated the entry of sin into the world.
Thus, Adam was created without sin. And the comparison tells
us that Christ, who is a type of Adam was also without sin.
Scripture goes on to tell us, however, that Adam did sin,
and that he sinned prior to the birth of any children, and
that Adam's sin changed the relationship between God and
Adam that would effect all of his natural children (Genesis
3). As history cannot be erased, so Adam's sin was
historical and the reality of that history necessarily
continues through time and accrues to Adam's posterity and
to us. Adam played a unique role in the history of humanity
as the first of a kind.
Adam was unique, so Paul's reference to Jesus Christ as the
"last Adam" (1 Corinthians 15:45) cannot be overstressed.
Paul tells us here that Jesus Christ is the most important
person in human history since Adam, since the very
beginning. And He goes on to say that Christ's importance
far exceeds Adam's. We need to pay close attention to this.
Paul also tells us that "Adam became a living being" and
Christ "became a life-giving spirit" (1 Corinthians 15: 45).
In Genesis 2:7 we learn that "the Lord God formed the man of
dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and the man became a living creature." The
life that God gave Adam has been passed down through the
ages through what we call the natural process of generation
or reproduction, and Paul refers to the product of natural
birth as the "natural man" (1 Corinthians 2:14).
In contrast, Christ was miraculously born from a virgin,
suggesting that His biological inheritance was more like
Adam's in that both Adam and Christ were more directly
related to God than the rest of humanity, whose relationship
with God is more distant. Christ's nature was similar to
Adam's nature in that both were immediately related to God.
While the rest of humanity could claim that God Himself was
their great, great, great (ad nauseum) grandfather, both
Adam and Christ were immediate or direct sons of God.
And yet Paul also tells us that Jesus Christ "is the image
of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation"
(Colossians 1:15). Adam preceded Christ in time, and yet
Christ precedes Adam in eminence as the firstborn Son. Paul
speaks repeatedly of Christ as the firstborn. Indeed, Adam
and Adam's progeny have new life in Christ inasmuch as they
are born again in Christ. In fact, the primary story of the
Bible is the story of the Fall of humanity into death
through Adam and the regeneration or resurrection of
humanity into new life through Christ.
Christ is the firstborn of the reborn. In the natural person
of Jesus is fused the supernatural Person of the Holy Spirit.
When "Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the
heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in
bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, 'You
are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased'" (Luke
3:22). Thus, Paul's contrast between the first Adam and the
last Adam is a contrast between the natural and the
supernatural, between generation and regeneration, between
the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God (1 Corinthians
1:20-21). This contrast is the central point of Paul's first
letter to the Corinthians.
The King James Bible contrasts a "living soul" with a
"quickening spirit." Within this contrast is the difference
between "living" and "life-giving" and between "being"
(soul) and "spirit." Rather than getting distracted by the
many subtleties of the Greek, let me just note that all of
these contrasts point to the difference between natural and
supernatural, between generation and regeneration, between
the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of Christ.
Paul goes on in verse 1 Corinthians 15:46 to tell us that
while Christ was first in eminence, Adam was first in
history. It is critically important that Adam was first in
history because historical movement from Adam to Christ is a
function of regeneration in or through Christ, while
historical movement from Christ to Adam would be a function
of degeneration. It is significant that history moves toward
Christ or into Christ, not away from Him. In Christ is the
hope of regeneration, restoration and wholeness, and that
hope is the engine of history. History is powered by hope in
Jesus Christ. If history flowed in the other direction, from
Christ to Adam, there would be no hope. History would flow
from life in Christ to death in Adam. History would be
degenerate rather than regenerate, and all humanity could
only wallow in hopelessness. But because history flows from
Adam to Christ, from death to resurrection, there is hope --
and more than hope, proclaimed Paul, resurrection in Christ
is a certainty. First "the natural, and then the spiritual"
(v. 46).
Imagining Heaven - God Is Waiting
By: dandan
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