Adam was a glorious, perfect being, pure and good in every way. He was in full harmony with his Creator, in the spiritual, the intellectual, and the physical realms. He was also in harmony in the sense of obedience, being like Jesus in this respect – this is a very important point, which will be examined a little more later on.
Adam was ‘in tune’ with himself and creation as well. By this I mean Adam had a clear conscience, and no ‘hang ups’, no misgivings. He was happy with himself, had nothing to hide, and no problems with his conscience. God had truly made a small copy of Himself, with all the same attributes of Himself all reduced to the size and shape of a human, but to a vastly reduced degree. Adam was glorious in every sense of the word.
But unlike God, Adam had the ability to make free choices of his own, even bad choices. God CANNOT sin, the Bible says. It is IMPOSSIBLE for God to do anything that deviates from perfect goodness, but Adam was a created being, and only like God, so he was able to, and indeed did choose to follow a different path, which led away from the harmony with God which he enjoyed. This rebellion (on two levels) was the first human sin, influenced by the first angelic sin which occurred a short time before. Adam’s sin led to the fall of the human race, and the degeneration of all creation, over which he had originally been the lord and ruler. Because Adam was placed over creation as ruler, his domain was also judged.
But now comes the point which I find interesting. At this stage, let us say five minutes after Adam had been judged by God, what was Adam like? What had he become?
My questions have led me to some rather interesting conclusions, but before I get there I would like to present my evidence. You are of course free to agree or disagree.
First of all the Adam story is divided into several sections.
Adam before he sinned
Adam soon after he sinned
Adam days, weeks and years after he sinned
Adam as he passed his genes on through history
Adam before he sinned.
We have to allow for a great deal of speculation in this essay, not just here, but in all the points listed. Please bear with me if you have a wealth of superior knowledge. I am an amateur doing my best to sort out matters which far better thinkers than I ought to deal with.
The Bible gives us some clues as to what Adam was like at the time of his creation. Perhaps we catch glimpses of this when we see a newborn puppy, or hold a baby mouse in our hands? As Wordsworth put it “Trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy!” When we look into the bright, innocent face of a little child, we see a shadow of the glory that was in Adam when he was created.
The words “pure” come to mind, and “absolute”. There were no blemishes in Adam. He had a human form, but every cell in his body was perfect. Every movement he made was perfect. He was like the sun, radiating God’s glory, with God in his whole body, and God’s perfection shining through every part of his being. His symmetry was perfect, his logic, his thinking, his memory, his perception. Whatever he considered became quickly clear to him. Whatever he wanted to know was either plain to him, because of his union with God, or he worked it out with his vastly superior intellect (compared to ours), or he knew he could never know it.
Compare this with the human race today.
If the media is to be believed, we humans eventually forget most things we try to learn, as time gradually erodes our memory. Given enough time we would probably forget everything, unless we revised it. We are at the dictates of the physical – hunger, cold, heat, sleep, boredom – unlike the first Man, who was in control of himself to the perfect degree. Adam wouldn’t have had cravings, or the beginnings of addictions. He wouldn’t be pre-occupied with trivia, or the banale.
We do not know the God who made us, except in a limited measure. We are not in perfect harmony with creation and creation is not in harmony with us, in fact Mankind seems to be intent on desolating rather than blessing the planet, and Nature seems to be our enemy at times. We are robbing our planet of all things edible, poisoning it, covering it with buildings, and mismanaging the resources. Vast amounts of food are wasted – enough to feed all the hungry if they were distributed rather than dumped. Humans generally prefer to take rather than give back to the planet, exploiting its resources to make things we do not need but simply want… and so on. Man is barely in harmony with nature at the best of times, and the environment groans as a result, and we largely do not care! As long as we can buy what we want at the supermarket, we are content to let the planet carry the cost.
Man smokes and drinks to excess and abuses drugs, despite the fact that these things impair his health and kill him. Man is readily likened to a parasite on the planet, and the evidence is stacked against him that he, as a species, is of any real benefit to anyone or anything. Without war, billions would have had the chance to live a lifespan with reasonable happiness and fulfillment, but every nation has a defence force. Why is this? Because of Adam and his sin, which has spread to every heart.
But returning to Adam before his disobedience, at that time he lived in pure, uninterrupted joy. His sensual, and spiritual, and intellectual aspects were a trinity of life, rejoicing in God and dancing so to speak, the dance of love.
Having said this we also have to include Eve when we speak of Adam, because God was not fully represented in just the male human. God is male and female, so Eve was necessary to compliment Adam and also to present in a created way, the male/female Creator. So when we say ‘Adam’ we mean Adam and Eve.
Another aspect of Adam was his obedience. As a freewill agent, he did not have any problem with doing whatever God wanted. He understood that God’s will was the best will, and surrender for Adam was no burden. Like a child who loves his father, and would do anything to please his father, Adam rejoiced in God’s will.
Compare this with today’s sinful human, who resents surrender to anything but his own rules. Those who are outside the church fight against any and all submission to the true God, of course, but they do this not always obviously, or overtly, but by inventing distractions, or alternative religions, or replacement spiritualities. They call themselves agnostics, or atheists, evolutionists or pantheists. They find a hiding place in dry theology, or religious studies, or philosophy, but in every case, and behind every smokescreen, they are all doing exactly the same thing. They are hiding from obedience and submission to the God who is there, the God who made them, the God who requires of them allegiance to His will.
Adam was a joy to God. God loved what He had made, and He had great joy in fellowshipping with a small ‘fragment’ of Himself. There is a wonderful mystery here. Just as human parents today are happy to see a child born to them, which has some physical similarities to themselves, God was joyful when He was communing with His own children. Adam and Eve bore His likeness in every important area, and they rejoiced in this harmony of natures, yet they were different from God, and had their own individuality.
There was a One stamped on the God/Adam union. It was unbroken and full. It was perfect. One God, one creation, one will, all in balance and harmony, like every instrument in an orchestra playing one note in perfect pitch, and all the octaves surrounding it all tuned to fit within the chord. A majestic, beautiful sound.
Memory: “Whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” “Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field;” Gen 2:19,20.
Harmony: Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” Genesis 1:27
Created: “And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul.” 1 Corinthians 15:45
Adam soon after he sinned.
In my opinion, Adam was far diferent to the usual illustration we find in most illustrated Bibles, or even in most of the great works of art which are supposed to portray Adam and Eve before they sinned.
In my opinion, Adam was a glorious being, clothed in light, similar to the vision which the apostles had of Jesus on the ‘mount of transfiguration’ (Matthew 17:2 and Mark 9:2) On that day Jesus was brighter than the sun, radiating power and glory so powerful the apostles were almost blinded. (See also Paul, in Acts, and John in Revelation 1)
I also think Adam and Eve were much larger than they are usually portrayed. Before the fall, creation was far bigger, and stronger, and vital than it is today. Conditions were perfect for life. No harmful radiation, no extremes in weather, no harsh climate. Everything was conducive to growth, hence the abundance of huge fossils in the sedimentary record of the great flood. That flood buried the world that existed from creation day to about 1300 years later. The earth was different then, and the fossils affirm this clearly. Dragonfly fossils with a wingspan of a metre, and many other giant insects of similar size have been found. Giant versions of what are today’s pygmies by comparison have been discovered. Giant plants which are enormous compared to today’s identical offspring. Humans are no exception. Even within the last few hundred years some portions of the human race have changed in size. One has only to look at the suits of armour in a museum, or try to get into the cabin of the ship Captain Cook sailed to NZ in, to see that humans today are larger than they used to be.
I believe Adam and Eve and their children were, by comparison to people today, close to what we would call giants, but in the context of their own world they were not out of proportion. They had much larger brains, and greater intellect, and they were physically stronger. From this I would extrapolate that when Noah used a cubit to measure the Ark, his cubit was much longer than our modern cubit (From the tip of the longest finger to the elbow), so the Ark was much larger than it is usually pictured.
But tree stumps have been found, some in Australia at least, which, if they were tapered at normal angles based on modern trees, would have provided boards so long they could have stretched the length of the Ark in one go.
Cro Magnon and Neaderthal skulls have larger craniums, which means larger brains. Man has devolved, shrunk, become a small version of his once glorious original, and probably his general intelligence has dropped too, on average. Einstein and his like might have been mere students in a pre-flood education centre.
So imagine the world of Adam, now that evidence of the flood is taken into account. Huge creatures lumbered about, grazing on huge trees and crunching into huge fruit. Huge insects flew, or glided, or crawled about. The growth rate of every living thing was at its maximum, and the Earth was a thriving, ‘boiling’ living system of vast variety and numbers. The sea teemed with life. There were no ‘dead’ domains where the water was deep and dark, no continental shelves where most sea life now mainly lives. The world then was not like it is today, with pygmies everywhere, and miniature versions of many organisms, and asmmetricality, and mutations, and hybrids. We tend to accept our present world as ‘normal’ because we have known no other, but the pre-flood world makes this world look like an impoverished, decimated place, like a land after a nuclear war.
Adam knew no other world, and even after he sinned his world remained largely intact for quite a while. There was no rain. The land under his feet was stable. The weather was gentle. Life in all its forms continued to thrive. Even bacteria and viruses were largely beneficial and a blessing. Adam and Eve had children, and their children had children. Resources seemed unlimited. They had no need to build fortifications, at least for a while, because humans were not forming warlike tribes, and the basic needs of clothing and shelter were hardly a problem. Like contented, overfed animals in a zoo, humans enjoyed themselves, and entertained each other, and as far as material things were concerned, they had a sumptuous, overflowing feast of all good things. The pre-flood world was the golden age of Mankind, and is probably the source from which many of the fairy tales, myths and legends draw some of their ideas.
But something had happened to Adam and Eve, and this ‘something’ was what caused God to destroy the world with a flood.
Adam and Eve were judged when they chose to disobey God’s clear command. Much has been said about this event so I won’t go too far into it, but what happened to Adam when he sinned? This is a question that needs to be answered.
I grasp for some illustration. Was it like a radio unplugging itself from the source of power that makes it work? Was it like a sailor cutting a hole in the hull of his own ship? What was Adam thinking! Did he really imagine he could disconnect himself from God and still maintain his glorious life without God’s power, which was the source of that life?
As every religion in the world has demonstrated, this path of seeking the ‘power within’, of saying ‘we are gods’, of being like a powerful wizard and drawing on inner power to do great acts, leads to sterility, empty platitudes, legalism, barbaric behaviour and darkness. It is this same desire for personal power that makes so many ‘superhero’ movies popular.
I imagine that as soon as Adam sinned he realised something terrible had happened. I imagine that he felt it in his body – perhaps he lost his covering of light, or perhaps he felt the reversal of his will over his body, and now his body started to exert its own appetites over his will? In the area of fellowship he had with God – suddenly he felt a barrier in his spirit, suddenly he didn’t know for sure if God was there? He perhaps wondered about God as his former knowledge began to fade? Perhaps Adam slipped from knowing God to merely knowing about God? Perhaps the first inkling of religion started as Adam thought about what he might DO to please God? Adam also slipped in his communion with nature – no longer did he feel in harmony with the created world? And with his wife – they suddenly did not have the same harmonious mutual feelings towards each other.
Their perfect love was disintegrating. They became critical of each other? The problems common to all marriages began to emerge.
All these are guesses, but we do know that God drove Adam and Eve out of their garden (orchard), and set a guard, so they could not reach the tree of everlasting life. It is one thing to have bad people on planet earth – it is quite another to have them living for ever! I imagine that as the human population grew, quite a few people looked into the Garden of Eden and longed for a taste of that fruit. I wonder if any died as they tried to pass the sword?
We know that Jesus accomplished this great task, some 4000 years later, when he took the justice of God on our behalf, as the sword of God’s righteousness cut him on the way to the cross. This is why God can now give everlasting life to all who trust in the Lord Jesus. He has become the Tree of Life.
“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…” Genesis 3:22 This verse is not completed. What would we add?
3, Adam days, weeks or years after he sinned.
Something dreadful began to happen to Adam and Eve and to the world they lived in. At first there was little to see, I suspect. The weather was still perfect, and because the gene pool was perfect there were no problems with life, but gradually, almost impercibly, a change began to creep over thwe world. It was probably like a faint shadow. Adam and Eve of course were shocked by what they had done, and terribly sad. They had seen the first animal sacrificed for sin, and they had worn the skin of the lamb, as a token of their need for a Saviour.
With their huge intellect they would have analysed and understood a tremendous amount. Possibly all the great theology of the ages was started by Adam, and he probably wrote a lot of it down. I see no barrier to Adam and Even being about to write, draw, and record accurately the details of their time. I also think with the later flourishing of the Arts, there was probably a great deal of literature in the world, along with plays, music, dance and sculpture, the beginnings of religion, the separation of the main philosophies which are opposed to God’s truth, the rise of astology, demon-worship and hedonism, until the flood came. Noah probably salvaged some documents, or copies of documents, and it seems likely to me that Moses, when he wrote the first five books, used many of these records as a reference as the Holy Spirit guided him.
But speculation aside, Adam knew things were different. He was now a man of flesh, and his carnal nature was rising, while his spiritual nature was shrinking. He was become a ‘typical, normal’ human, by today’s standards. Ask your average Christian how much time, percentage wise, he or she spends reading the Bible. This will tell you what Adam was now like. He was led about by apetites, and emotions, desires and whims. He developed the “lust of the eyes” (1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.) He was no longer fully devoted to God, but shared God with many other interests, separating things out so some things were ‘compartmentalised’ and no longer integrated with the fellowship he once had with God in all things.
Gradually the worl changed. Ageing and sickness began to appear. I imagine Adam standing beside a fallen seizmosaurus, utterly amazed at the sight of tons of putrefying, rotting flesh. Perhaps he thought the first time he had a stomach upset he was about to die? He found he could no longer jump, and run, and lift things as he used to. He noticed the things we take for granted: dandruff, grey hairs, wrinkles, stiff joints, itches, spots, small infections, ingrowing nails… his health was probably unbelievably vital, but he would have noticed its decline.
Adam lived 930 years. His first son was born before he was 130. This was Cain, and then Abel was born. Eventually when he was 130 he had Seth, whose name is included in the family line as a link from Adam to Jesus – to show us that Jesus truly was the second Adam. Adam had many sons and daughters, but the story of Cain and Abel is very important, because it shows up what Adam was now like.
We are not suggesting that Adam went about killing people, but Cain did, and Cain was an extension of his father. Adam the murderer who did not actually commit murder, produced a son who did.
The world prior to the great flood is described this way by the Bible:
“They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” Luke 17:27
“For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away” Matthew 24:38,39
Jesus said the conditions on Earth just prior to His return in glory would be similar to the conditions just prior to the great flood, so if the world is similar NOW, (and I think it is), we have a good picture of what it was like THEN. Logically, if we want to describe the pre-flood world, all we need to do is look at our present world. What characterises today’s world?
It would be too easy to run off the words ” a rise in violence, materialism, crime, poverty, religion…” but these are things which have been true to all nations at all times. If we based our description on these things we could have expected Jesus to return as the last of the Roman Empire fell, or during the 16th century as Protestantism was rising in Europe, or during the late 1700’s at the time of the French Revolution.
I think the words of Scripture tell us that the world before the flood was quite without any particular or specific feature. Apart from the fact that Jesus said the Jews would be back as a nation prior to His return, the main feature of the age then and now was ‘business as usual’. Eating, drinking, marrying, and swapping in marriage (which possibly refers to the civil unions men and woman are going for) and “they knew not” which implies a willful refusal to acknowledge the warnings of Bible-preaching Christians.
I can only speak for my own limited view, from a Western perspective, but when I listen to the radio news, or ead the newspaper, or watch the TV news, I NEVER see any item about the return of Jesus. All day, all night, on all the secular media, the secular items flow by, informing us about entertainment, politics, wars, natural disasters, social scandals, deaths, accidents, crimes… but never a word about the possible return of Christ. The world does not want to know about that. As it was in the days when Noah was preaching repentance to a fallen world, and no-one wanted to heed his warnings, the same things is happening today.
Sure, the Church is growing, and there are many miracles here and there, and millions scattered through the nations are standing firm for Jesus, but the vast majority of people in this world are more concerned with their own pursuits, their own religion, their own education, their own job, their own entertainment…. than what God is saying. A person, even a Christian, will devote thousands of hours to gaining a degree from a university, but almost no time at all to reading the Bible. This is the imbalance of today’s world. The most important book is given the least attention. The least important things are given the most attention.
This was the world in which Adam lived, and for 930 years he watched as the vast majority of people turned to self-centred things, and physical and sensual, and materialistic. I imagine that Adam walked the streets of beautful cities, which were built with architectural beauty and grandeur, gazed at marvellous works of art, stood in awe and looked at at some wonderful sculptures, and attended many wonderful musical events. He saw streets jostling with crowds, shops displaying fine cloths, fashions, jewellery, instruments and ornaments. He probably read many great books, listened to many fine speeches, and ate sumtuous meals in fine restaurants.
His world was a good and prosperous one, and the civilization of that period was flourishing, and optimistic. Land was cleared and roads were stretched out. Explorers came back from distant places with reports of great natural wealth. Territories were drawn up, and the courts settled disputes. There was probably law and law enforement, and the beginnings of prison all that goes with it.
Outwardly the people were going well, and having forgotten the true God, they would have the idea that He had left the universe, so they could carry on in the manner they preferred.
“And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5
Notice the word “thoughts”.
It was the thought life that brought judgement.
Jesus confirms this, when he says in Matthew how we only have to think something to have sinned in God’s sight, because to think it is the same as to do it. This condemns all people as sinners. Even the best Christians fail to keep their thoughts pure at all times. We have inherited a sinful nature, we have Adam inside us, so we veer towards sin as surely as a bowling ball swings in a curve because of its built-in bias.
After the flood God said: “Genesis 8:21 “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Evil from his youth! We are evil from childhood upwards which is why there is so much advise in the Proverbs about “training up” a child, and using discipline. (For more on this read Jeremiah 9:14, 11:8, 13:10, 16:12, 18:23, and 23:17)
But the aspect that relates to Adam here is the notion that just because he was the first man, and thus the most perfect of all humans, he must have been the most godly. I believe such was not the case. I think, because Adam had the greatest ability to be whatever he wanted to be, he could easily have become the most evil of all men. I have no evidence to back this notion up, but I think the behaviour of the human race, Adam’s offspring, is evidence of something quite frightening. In every evil act, as seen in the children of Adam, we see an aspect of what Adam himself was capable of doing.
So, while it was Cain who murdered Abel, it was also Adam who murdered him. It was Adam’s inherited hatred that provoked Cain to murder.
Looking at other deviations, we see that it was the children of Adam who intermarried with angels, which was adultery of the worst kind, and it was Lamech who took two wives and confessed to them that he had “killed a (young) man for wounding me!” Lamech was afraid of retribution for his gross overreaction to what may have been simply an accident.
Noah and his family “:found grace in the eyes of the Lord” because they resorted to the sacrificial system instituted by God right from the beginning, and because Noah obeyed God, he and his family were spared.
4. Adam as he passed his genes on through history.
We have reached the main point of this essay now. This is where we look at ourselves in the context of biblical history. There is no doubt that every human on planet Earth is a child of Adam. Biologically we are all the offspring of the first two humans, which means we are all biologically related. We are all cousins, or brothers or sisters. Each of us has received a body, in various states of similarity or conformity to the general model, and none of us can do much about the length of time this body lasts, give or take a few years, and barring suicide or accidents. We were destined to be conceived, and if we escaped the abortionist’s claws, and the drugs or bad habits of our mother, we were born and grew to what we are now.
But the fact that we are physically related to our first parents means we have also inherited their nature. I think this point has not been fully grasped by most Christians (if I may be excused such a sweeping statement!) The fact is, we are all copies of Adam.
Now if Adam had remained perfect, we would be perfect, but Adam was fallen, so we are fallen. Adam was a sinner, so we sin. His defects are built into us. The only way we can escape from Adam, that is, the body which we have inhherited from Adam, is by dying, and that is not a pleasant option, because we tend to enjoy life, and dying ends everything. However, if we try to stay alive we die anyway, because we are in Adam – meaning we have inherited his decaying body. We are programmed to die, from the moment of conception. (It is a bit like having a dead body tied to our back, which we have to carry and wear all our lives.)
So here is the dilemma: born to sin, born evil, born to decay, born to die. What an inheritance to pass on to your children! Thanks for nothing Adam.
“Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression…” Romans 5:14
“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:22
Adam’s children were just like him, but what we (possibly) fail to realise is what Adam was like. If we were able to listen in to his thoughts, say, a hundred years after he rebelled, what do you think we would have heard? Beautiful pure thoughts? I doubt it. Probably thoughts similar to those that go through our own heads, because after all, we have Adam in our head as well. We have inherited his manner of thinking.
Before we go any further, please do NOT get the idea that I am invoking shizophrenia, split personality, or multiple personalities. Adam is long dead, and he does not pop in and out of our brains. It is the inherited nature, the bias toward sin, the likeness of Adam built into our biology that I am talking about.
Perhaps an illustration of inherent, biological traits might be the sheepdog, which has it in his genes to chase and push sheep about, whether he is taught to do so or not. I have seen this with my own eyes. It is simply ‘in the breed’ to do this. The dog cannot help being good at rounding up sheep. Somehow or other it has this trate already in its genes.
Or the disposition of certain dog breeds to be friendly, or aggressive. Or perhaps the reluctance by most cats to be restrained or confined. Or the orang utan, a mild, peacable, gentle ape as compared to others in the primate family who are quite different. It is always difficult to press an example from nature to illustrate something in humans, but readers may have already understood what I am driving at.
So Adam was a bad man saved, like Noah, by grace. Adam’s children were extensions of himself, and they diod and said things he would have done and said were he less restrained, or given opportunity.
By implication this means that all the bad things people have done and said down through the ages are all expressions of Adam, enacting himself, or expressing himself, through his children.
Open a newspaper and read about the latest crimes by Adam. Listen to the news and hear about the latest atrocities by Adam. Tune into a TV sports channel and watch Adam cheat. Even in international rugby games, watched by millions, Adam eye-gouges, tackles round the nexk, rucks unfairly at bodies, slips forward passes, and tries to get away with other illegal moves! There is no end to the audacity of Adam, even when he is being filmed.
Adam steals, lies and vandalises. He peddles drugs and smuggles weapons. He is the worst criminal, the sneakiest businessman, the most dishonest politician. He preaches lies from pulpits, and deliberately misleads children into thinking they are nothing but apes. He produces and sells pornography, he blasphemes, he swears and he curses. He destroys marriages, beats up children, and throws people into prison without a trial. He is the leader of the Nazi Party. He is the author of Mein Kampt, he ordered the mass graves in the Cambodian ‘killing fields’ and the concentration camps in Belsn and elsewhere.
It is the Adam, the fallen, corrupt Adam, the evil rebellious inner man Adam who lives inside us, that God is at war with. The Law was written against Adam. The sacrifices were offered for Adam. It was for Adam that Jesus came to die. There is no escape for Adam on the Day of Judgement.
All through history Adam has been the Jekyll and Hyde of human life. Always lurking in the subconscious, always there like a ghostly presence behind every crime. Evil, malevolent, dark lord of the underworld. Adam is Sauron, who wanted absolute control of Middle Earth. Adam is Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Polpot, the worst of the Caesars. Adam poured oil on Christians and partied while they burned. Adam is the ghastly human in horrow movies, with ghastly face, and ghastly hands, distorted, mutilated by horror, blood-soaked and howling hatefully for more, feeder on death… Adam is the godlike creature that became a living nightmare and through his offspring shaped the human race into a race of warring, polluting, destroying creatures whose end must be hell or there is no justice in the universe.
Within all of us, even from the time we are conceived, Adam waits for opportunities to grow stronger, and to take rule over us. He wants to coerce us into following the ‘other path’, the path away from God, and he wills you and I and every thinking person on this planet to come with him.
With this in mind, let us look again at that moment when Even was tempted, and sinned, and then she gave of the fruit to Adam, “and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Genesis 3:6
You might say, “What was so bad about Adam’s sin. It was only ONE small sin. He didn’t charge off in open rebellion against God. He simply disobeyed in one small area?”
The Bible answers this question.
“For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James 2:10
I think there are two senses in which we can understand this verse. First the obvious way, that by sinning in one area we become sinners, and God’s decree is death for sin, so we might as well have broken every law. The punishment is exactly the same. One sin makes us a sinner. We have all sinned. It doesn’t matter how you park you car, if you park it in any way the law forbids, you will get a ticket. Or, do whatever you like between the warning signs, but just being between the signs means you have committed an offence.
The other sense is by comparison. Imagine Adam in his perfection. He was like a brilliantly white sheet of paper. Now place one dot of black on that sheet. He is no longer perfect. God can allow only perfection in His presence. Adam has failed, as we might say, in only one tiny area, but compared to God’s standard, that one small dot is an enormous offence. It is vile. It is a terror of sin. He cannot abide that dot.
Now apply this to yourself. Is there a tiny dot of sin in your heart? If you are honest, you will see not a dot – no, far, far more than a mere dot! There are years and years of horrible black sins piled up from your thought-life. There are hundreds of ‘imperfect’ words stacked in the Vault of Time. There are many boxes of ‘regrettable’ actions filed away. Add them all up and you will see your need to fall on your knees before a holy God, begging for forgiveness. The flames of hell are already licking your back when you are a youth – how much hotter will they be when you are fifty?
The Law of God, given by Moses to Israel, condemns the world. It also condemns Adam. It was he who first broke the Law, and he produced a race of law-breakers. By our very nature we break the Law, whether we know it or not. God has written his Law on our hearts, so we know what we ought to do, without having to read the Bible or ask a Christian.
(Even non-Jews who don’t have the Scriptures)…”shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another.” Romans 2:15
“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” Romans 3:19
There is no escape for Adam. He cannot claim ignorance. He cannot claim ‘cultural norms’. He cannot cover his sins with legislation. He cannot use philosophy to wheedle his way out. He cannot outsmart God. He is not a good enough lawyer to defeat God legally. He is in the dock and condemned as a sinner, and hell is the only place he can go.
Unless…
Unless a second Adam could come into the world. Another human, who has no spot or blemish. Whose thoughts, and words, and actions are pure and perfect. A human who CANNOT sin. And when this human has demonstrated, over about 30 years, that He is in fact as pure and perfect as the first Adam was supposed to, or designed or planned to be, this second Adam gave His life for the first Adam, then the first Adam can finally throw his body away and enjoy the life he was originally meant to enjoy.
Just as the first Adam produced copies of himself, which were so defective they had to be scrapped, the second Adam now makes copies of Himself, which are, “in Him” so perfect, they cannot be discarded because they have been drawn into the Godhead. God cannot reject Christians because they have been made new, and will be perfected so they are an eternal part of the God who made them.