The First Adam
Out of idle curiosity, or a genuine attempt
to find out how to become a Christian, or
from some other motivation, you may have
picked up the Bible at one time or another
and commenced reading at the first chapter
of Genesis.
Very likely you managed to cover a few pages,
or even chapters, and that was it. All that
you read failed to make any sense, and you
were quite certain that it didn't relate to
your situation anyhow.
You don't mind being totally wrong if it
leads to becoming totally right, do you?
Let's open the Bible to the first chapter, and consider the 26th verse. "And God said,
Let us make man in our image, after our
likeness" (Genesis 1:26).
This bit of Scripture embodies the truth that
has to do with you personally, the key that
will explain the new birth.
LOUD AND CLEAR -- Before we settle down to the business of the Bible, let it be said that we
are not going into great detail -- you will
have the rest of your life for that. You only
have time now for the basic essentials.
You may already have been victimized by the
wrong practice of many evangelists and
preachers. In their well-meaning zeal they
often berate and exhort their hearers for an
hour or so, and almost as an afterthought tack
on a brief summary of the Gospel. Then the
bewildered and uninformed sinner is pressured into "going forward" to make the eternal
decision to be saved... before he is even
aware that he is lost!
To help rectify the above deficiency, our
purpose here is to make the truths of salvation crystal clear to you. One has the right to be
given sufficient truth whereby to make a clear decision.
GOD'S PURPOSE -- With that ever in mind, let
us lock in on this Scripture: "God said, Let
us make man in our image." That is precisely
what God did. "The first man, Adam, was made
a living soul" (1 Corinthians 15:45). God is
love, and love must have an object upon which
to lavish itself. Hence God made the first man
in His image that He might give His love, and
in turn receive man's love.
GOD'S IMAGE -- Adams's likeness to God was not a physical image, but one of personhood. God is a Person, man is a person. Man was endowed with the faculties of intellect, emotion, and volition
so that God could share with him His life, love,
and purpose. Thus they would enjoy fellowship.
God is infinite, uncreated, heavenly, the
source of all life; God's first man was finite, created, earthly. God exists on the divine
plane; Adam was made on the human plane --
hence they were immeasurably separate in being,
but alike in the faculties of personhood.
This "image" verse has to do with you
personally, so keep your eye on Adam and you
will be halfway to your goal!
God made Adam to be the source, the prototype,
the head, the representative man of the entire
race. All the human family was to spring from
Adam and Eve. In that way the personhood and
the human characteristics of Adam would be
instilled in the race through the inherited
oneness of nature.
The initial phase of God's eternal purpose for
mankind was that this representative man would
grow in His moral image, and thereby become increasingly like God. By that means the race
that came from Adam would continue in
fellowship with God, and God with man.
GOD's CONDITION -- God was Creator, and Adam
created; therefore, God was sovereign, and
Adam subject. While Adam had complete liberty
to develop in every way in line with God's
eternal purpose and for his own eternal
benefit, he must remain within the circle of
God's beneficent will.
To establish the sphere of His will for Adam,
God set forth a single condition. He said to
Adam, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest
freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it,
for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:16,17).
In order for Adam to develop into a responsible
and loving companion to God, not a mere
automaton or slave, it was necessary that God
give him a choice: to accept God's will --
the way of eternal life; or to reject God's
will -- the way of eternal death.
Any deviation from the will of God is
lawlessness; it is sin. And, of necessity,
"the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
God is so utterly holy and pure that the result
of sin must be eternal banishment from his
presence.
At first thought one might be tempted to think
that God was extremely harsh and unreasonable
with Adam. Death for just one disobedience,
and the first one at that? Why, God didn't even say, "That's once!"
But when one realizes something of the only
possible relationship between Creator and
creature, the unbelievable consequences of
creature rebellion allow, there was no choice
on God's part but that He to lay down the
ultimate penalty for sin. "Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord, my God, mine Holy One?
Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil,
and canst not look upon iniquity"
(Habakkuk 1"12,13).
