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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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