"So also it is
written, The first man Adam became a living soul. The
last Adam became a life-giving spirit... The first man is
of the earth, earthy: the second man is of heaven. As is
the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is
the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And
as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also
bear the image of the heavenly (let us also bear the
image of the heavenly - Margin)" 1 Cor. 15:45,47-49.
Here we have some
distinctions and definitions which are of the greatest
importance to our spiritual understanding and progress.
There is one similarity, but for the rest all stands in
contrast.
Adam
a Figure of Christ as Representing Headship
The one similarity is
in the same name - Adam, the first Adam, the last Adam,
signifying, as we know, two heads of two races. That is a
simple and well-known thing, that both Adam the first and
Adam the last stand by Divine order and appointment as
the heads of races. In them headship is gathered up by
God. To that we shall probably come back presently, but
now, with just that mention of the one similarity, we
move at once into the differences: and the differences
are immense.
The
Radical Difference Between Christ and Adam
Of course, on the face
of it, we agree and assent to the fact that there is a
great deal of difference between Adam and Christ. Without
any thought we would agree to that, but it represents
something more than we have perhaps recognized. The whole
of this statement, this section of the letter, is
tremendous in what it is signifying, especially in this
matter of difference. What I mean is this: I think there
are a lot of Christian people who have the idea that what
God is seeking to do through the redemptive work of the
Lord Jesus in atonement for sin, in the salvation and
recovery of man from his lost state, is to get him back
to the place where Adam was before he fell. Now, have you
got that idea? Is that your idea of redemption, that you
just undo everything that went wrong in and through Adam
and restore things to that unfallen. state in which, Adam
was before he fell? If that is so, you are entirely
wrong. God is not seeking to do any such thing. He is not
conforming to the first Adam at all, not even to an
unfallen first Adam. He has gone immeasurably beyond an
unfallen first Adam. He has left him behind altogether
and has One who is an entirely different order of being
from the unfallen Adam. The first Adam was a living soul;
the last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. The first man was
of the earth, earthy: the last is of heaven, heavenly.
Therefore "as we have borne the image of the earthy,
also bear the image of the heavenly." That marginal
rendering I think, is a very good alternative, because it
does not imply that all will bear the image of the
heavenly. Let us make sure. However, we can leave the
marginal suggestion for the moment and see what this
says.
This heavenly Man, this
last Adam, this life-giving Spirit, is of an entirely
different order from unfallen Adam, of a higher order
altogether. Now, that does not mean that the first Adam;
had he not fallen but been obedient, would not have come
to a time when he would have been transfigured and have
taken on the heavenly order, been conformed to that
order. But that is not our point. That might have been.
I do not know whether we have very much to go on other
than assumption or deduction in saying such a thing.
Probably it would have been, but it was not. It did not
happen, and therefore Adam remained of a certain order;
and God's full order is not that, that is not God's full
thought. That was not the goal to which God was working.
God has something transcendently greater than unfallen
first Adam. His last Adam, His second Man, is of a
heavenly order, a spiritual order, and, blessed be God,
an order - and this is the whole point of 1 Cor. 15 -
which cannot know death. 1 Cor. 15 is the chapter of
resurrection and what the resurrection order of things
is. It deals with what the resurrection body is, and what
the risen man, unlike the first Adam, is not capable of,
and what the risen man is beyond the possibility of
knowing, namely, corruption. Therefore of the last Adam
it is written, "Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy
One to see corruption" (Psa. 16:10). You see the
tremendous difference. So do not let us drop down on to
that poor level of an unfallen first Adam. It might be a
great deal better than our present natural condition, but
it is not good enough for God, and it should not be good
enough for us. Therefore, "let us bear the image of
the heavenly". There is your first basic and great
distinction between the two, the first and the last.
Conformity
to the Image of God's Son
That brings clearly
into view what God's objective is. Having made the Lord
Jesus the Head of His new creation, His new race, His
objective is to conform the race to the likeness of its
Head. Christ becomes the one object in the eye of God
concerning which and unto which He is doing all His
works. Perhaps at some other time, we might look at that
fully and see how all the works of God in the first
creation were toward, and headed up into the bringing in
of the man after His own likeness and image. And the Lord
is now working in the new creation, in you and in me, to
conform us to the image of His Son. We may take it that
God has no other work on hand. God has only one work on
hand, and that is His work. That is to be taken account
of when we realize the Lord is trying to do something.
The Lord is at work. We may not be able to see what He is
doing at the time, but if we ask the one general,
all-governing question, What is it that the Lord is
seeking to do? the answer is one, and comprehends
everything, every method of God, every means of God,
every interest of God. It is reduced to one simple,
comprehensive thing: He is seeking to reproduce His Son
in us, to conform us to the image of His Son.
From eternity, God has
been governed by a great desire to express Himself, and
all creation is God's way of seeking to express Himself.
Now, when we look at the Lord Jesus, we see God realizing
His desire, and then, when we look at His activity with
us, we see God seeking in this yet more fully extended
way, beyond the individual Person of the Lord Jesus, to
reproduce Himself in the Church which is Christ's Body;
that is, to make it Christ in expression. That is very
simple and very elementary; but this heavenly order of
which Christ is the Head is what God is seeking to bring
about in a new race.
A
Life-giving Spirit - Begetting in His Own Likeness
Then the next thing is
this: the last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. Thank God
for that! You see, Adam could only produce after his
kind, and his kind was an earthly order, a soul order
of man. He could not produce after the full, complete and
final thought of God. It was not in him to reproduce
himself in an order above his own level. Even as
unfallen, he could not do that. The Lord Jesus is bound
by the same law, but the difference is that as a
life-giving Spirit, producing after His own kind, He has
power to accomplish the Divine purpose, by bringing in
this heavenly, this spiritual order.
You see, that brings us
back to the simple presentation of these things in the
Gospels, where we have all Divine principles in just germ
form. There, in Matthew 3, the Lord Jesus emerges from
the river, the type of the grave, in which one race has
been representatively set aside and blotted out from the
eye of God, and in His emergence, the new race is brought
into view in its new Head - Jesus Christ. Immediately
that Head and race are in view the Holy Spirit comes upon
Him, and from that moment, every movement, every word,
every time in His life, is by the energy and direction of
the Spirit. The next step, as we have noticed was,
"Then was Jesus led of the Spirit": and so it
was to the end. You have, then, a new race in view set
forth in its Head, and in union, as one with Him, not as
two, the Spirit with the Son becoming the energy by which
the end shall be reached - a life-giving Spirit. The Lord
Jesus in us, the Holy Spirit in us, which means the same
thing in effect, is the energy and power to produce or
reproduce after His own kind. That makes a heavenly order
possible.
What
Baptism Signifies
Now, that is a very
simple word bringing you right back to the kindergarten,
but it leads up to our testimony this afternoon. What are
we doing? Having a baptismal service, baptizing people,
following the steps of the Master? Is that all? No, we
are testifying to this immense thing, that the creation
of which we are a part by nature is no longer the
creation in which we voluntarily live, but which for us
is a closed realm because God closed it. It is shut down
in burial, and now there is but One in view, our racial
Head, the Lord Jesus. We are baptized into Him and as
Head He governs all our concerns, interests, aspirations,
and the one thing which is in view for us is conformity
to His image; to be as He is, of the same order, heavenly
and spiritual, in the inmost reality of our being. If you
look more fully into the Word (but we will not do so now
beyond this suggestion), you will find this, that
everything to which God set His seal related to the
making of the Lord Jesus Head. Pentecost was that. We
have been asking in these messages what a life or church
governed by the Holy Spirit will do. At Pentecost, the
Spirit came upon the believers and they stood up, and
began to speak: and what was it that they said as
directed and governed and compelled by the Holy Spirit?
"God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus
whom ye crucified" (Acts 2:36). God hath made Him
Lord, and, on the strength of that testimony, men in
their thousands were brought under conviction. A new
creation was ushered in and many were born that day. The
last Adam abundantly saw His seed that day born from
above, and God's attestation is always and only upon the
ground of the established Headship and Lordship of Jesus
Christ. You and I never come into the real living fulness
of the Divine attestation until Jesus is Lord. We have
blessing when we have Him as Saviour; but oh! the fulness
is held up until He is established as Lord.
I trust that this is
going to mean to us all a new acclamation of Jesus as
Head, Sovereign Lord and Christ, and that will mean a
move on in the heavenly order of things - conformity to
His image.