When you hear the name Adam, you automatically think
about the first created human being. God created him from the dust of the
ground to be in His image and of His likeness. Adam was designed for perfection
from the beginning because God said that his creation was good, and that
included man. Adam was the first self-governing human being in history, and God
gave him law and freedom. The law was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, and freedom was to be able to eat from every other tree in
the Garden of Eden. Eating the forbidden fruit made one know good and evil, and
the consequence of that led to death. Breaking the law of God is sin, and the
wages of sin is death.
Had Adam
not sinned, he could have been the perfect being to give mankind eternal life
through the tree of life that was planted in the Garden. But, Adam sinned, ate
the forbidden fruit and broke the law, and death reigned from Adam. Because of
his sin, God had to separate Adam and Eve from the tree of life. Man wanted to
do it their own way without God by knowing good and evil—even though the only
way to truly know good and evil is to learn it from the Being that can discern
good from evil: God. But, God wanted something better for us: he wanted us to
have life and life eternal. Because death reigned from Adam, we were in
desperate need of a Savior to reverse what Adam did.
Then the
second Adam came through the womb of the Virgin Mary, and he was called Jesus
the Christ. It was said from Gabriel the archangel that Jesus was to save us
from our sins, and He was to be the Son of God. It’s true that Jesus is the Son
of God, and the signs and wonders that were performed through Him were proofs
of his divinity. Jesus had a union with God the Father that only a family
relationship can have between a Father and His Son. Adam could have had this
family relationship with God, but he chose to separate himself from God. Jesus
chose to stay close to God with every move that he made on earth—even in
prayer. There are other attributes that the second Adam had that the first Adam
didn’t have.
According
to Robert Lewis’s Raising a Modern-Day Knight, the first thing that Jesus
had that Adam didn’t was the following: he rejected passivity. While Adam
looked on when Eve was seduced by the serpent to eat of the forbidden fruit,
Adam didn’t try to stop Eve from eating the fruit or defend God’s command to
not eat of it. He passively let the serpent seduce Eve. On contrary, Jesus
rejected being passive. He was active all throughout his ministry. He even
provoked the Scribes and Pharisees by healing on the Sabbath. It was forbidden
to heal on the Sabbath according to the Pharisee’s oral law, but that was a
tradition of men. Jesus knew it, and actively broke the oral law to heal on the
Sabbath.
The second
thing that Jesus had that Adam didn’t was the following: He accepted his
responsibility while Adam ran from his responsibility. When Adam sinned and his
eyes were open knowing good and evil, what did he do when God confronted him
with what happened? He ran away, hid himself because of his shame, and even
blamed Eve for eating the forbidden fruit. He didn’t take responsibility for
his own actions. Jesus did the opposite. He accepted his responsibility of the
crucifixion for us even though he prayed that the cup pass from him. He prayed sweating
blood to avoid the suffering, but once he realized the will of God, He faced it
like a man. “For the Lord God will help me; / Therefore I will not be
disgraced; / Therefore I have set My face like a flint, / And I know that I
will not be ashamed.” (Isaiah 50:7).
The third
thing that Jesus had that Adam didn’t was the following: He led courageously. Adam
let Eve eat of the forbidden fruit, and did not rebuke her. He also let Eve
convince him to eat of the fruit; he didn’t lead courageously to stop the
serpent or Eve from sinning. He let Eve be in charge, and that’s why God said
that the woman had to submit to her husband. On the contrary, Jesus actively
provoked the Scribes and Pharisees because of their traditions. Jesus even
proclaimed a series of woes against them knowing that they were plotting to
kill Him. Jesus publicly proclaimed that the temple would be desolate because
of the sins of the Scribes and Pharisees. It took a lot of courage to publicly
proclaim destruction for a place, but Jesus did it.
The fourth
thing that Jesus had that Adam didn’t was the following: He expected a Godly
reward. Adam was handed everything that He had by God. He had abundance of
food, had animals to play with, and a wife to love. Adam didn’t have to expect
a reward for his actions because he was already handed the best things by God.
Adam even had the tree of life in the Garden with him, but didn’t eat of it. Adam
lost the best things when he sinned. Jesus, on the other hand, often spoke to
the disciples about his death and the reward of His resurrection. Jesus looked
to the Godly reward of the resurrection in order to face the terrible torment
of His crucifixion. Jesus knew that His Father would resurrect Him from the
dead after the 3rd day.
The last
thing that I will mention that Jesus had that Adam didn’t was the following:
He’s a life giving Spirit while Adam was made from the dust of the ground. Adam
was an example of how man can fail without God. Adam was a life-taking person
that drew his life from Eve, and not from God. But Jesus is the giver of life
to all men, and He’s in union with God the Father. Jesus didn’t speak anything
unless the Father gave Him the words to speak. Before He became flesh, Jesus
was the Word of God. Through Him, God created the Heavens and the earth as well
as all of mankind. He gave man his very breath of life. Adam never knew what it
was like to live eternally, but Jesus did. Jesus can also give life eternal to
the children of God by the authority of God the Father.
