Why Jesus is not the Last Adam
Taking a look at Biblical scriptures to understand why Jesus Christ is not the last Adam like Theology teaches.
Theology teaches us that the last Adam is Jesus Christ (see here). And that our ‘new bodies’ in the resurrection will be like His (see here). But this understanding holds some contradictions.
The First and Last Adam
We are taught that the last Adam is Jesus Christ because Jesus was the Man who came after Adam who did not sin. And also, that Jesus was the Man from heaven. Let’s look at the scriptures Paul writes:
“So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:45–49).
While it is true that Jesus did come after Adam and Jesus did not sin during His time here on earth. That is not what Paul is speaking about here in this verse. Paul is writing about the resurrection of the dead, “But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’” (1 Corinthians 15:35). Paul was not speaking of Jesus being sinless at this moment. He was not comparing Adam and Jesus like he did earlier in the chapter and in other books. Paul was answering a potential question that might arise about the kind of body the dead will have. And Paul tells us that, “But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own” (1 Corinthians 15:38). Paul is letting us know that God has given us a body. He explains the differences between the two bodies:
“It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42–44).
Paul then writes of the two Adam’s right after he says, “If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body”, Paul says, “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit”. Paul is showing us the spiritual and natural body in this verse. And if the reader looks carefully at verses 42–44, they should notice that Paul always mentions the natural body first and then the spiritual body. This is on purpose because Paul is speaking of the order of our resurrection. We have to die naturally in order to be raised spiritually. But if you notice in the verse right after Paul speaks about the first and last Adam, he corrects the order by saying, “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual”. Paul realized that the first Adam was in a spiritual state first, then the last Adam became a spirit in the body. This is why the Bible uses soul and spirit interchangeably in certain context. In my previous post, I show the reader the verses in the Greek to really show what Paul says (see it here).
‘New Bodies’
Since we have been taught that Jesus is the last Adam, we have also been taught that our ‘new bodies’ will be like that of Christ’s resurrected body (another example of this teaching here). This understanding holds some confusing contradictions.
Paul, in the same chapter of 1 Corinthians, says to us in verse 50, “Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable”. When the women went to the tomb of Jesus the stone was rolled away and His body was gone. Jesus physical body was gone. It was risen like He proclaimed and like the scriptures said. Jesus Himself also confirmed that He was not a spirit in Luke 24:39, “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have”. Yes, it seems as though Jesus was able to appear and disappear as we read the text on the events after His resurrection. But we must remember, He is still God. Angels, while in their physical form here on earth were able to do the same thing. John also tells us in 1 John 3:2, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is”. John tells us that it has not yet appeared what we will be, meaning, we have not seen it yet. We have seen this body.
Paul tells us clearly that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”. Jesus tells us that He is not a spirit and He is of “flesh and bones”. But we still are taught that Jesus is the second Adam and our ‘new bodies” will be like Jesus’. That makes no sense and holds a contradiction. The Bible cannot contradict itself. So, this leads me to the understanding that Theology holds the contradictions not the Bible. The Bible tells us time and time again, that this body will return back to dust. The Lord God tells us that in Genesis 3:19, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Ecclesiastes 12:7, “then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it”. What is not clear about these statements and what happens to the physical body? Theology has taught a big error. And as you can see, this is not my interpretation. Anyone can see these contradictions.
What the Bible Teaches on the Resurrected Body
The bodies that will be in the resurrection will be spiritual just as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15. In 2 Corinthians 5:1 he says, “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. Our “earthly tents” are our physical bodies as we see now. Our physical bodies were formed by the Lord God in Genesis 2:7. It was appropriate for Paul to say “a house not made with hands” because in order to form something “from the dust of the ground”, the individual would have some type of hands. Genesis 3 depicts the Lord God as if He was in human form, “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day”. How can you hear someone walking unless they have some type of feet? The “building from God” that we have is that of Genesis 1, in the day He created Man. In Genesis 1, God doesn’t say how He created us; it just says He created us in His image. This is the building that is “eternal in the heavens”, the building “not made with hands”, the building that is “imperishable”. This building is our soul, our soul is the “spiritual body”. Paul was writing about the resurrection of our soul.
Conclusion
If God wanted us to understand that Jesus was the last Adam, He would’ve had Paul write that. But at this time, in this passage of scripture, Paul is showing us who we are spiritually. And how we as believers will rise or be changed at His second coming. We will rise with our spiritual bodies which is our eternal soul.
