The First & Last Adam

The First & Last Adam

Wed. Eve. – July 20, 2005

Photo Albums: Almost every family has one. It’s good to go back and look at the pictures of family of friends. Lots of memories are brought to mind looking through an album. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words and that’s true but if you don’t have a picture, 1000 words will have to do.

If you really want to know someone, let’s say someone you have just met, you can take a picture of them and study it for hours. The picture will tell you a lot about their appearance but you can’t get on the inside, to the heart of that person with just a picture. If the only way you can communicate with that person is by reading a letter from them you will learn much more from their words than from a picture.

The Bible is a picture album of words.

I. Book of Revelation is known as the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

A. But the whole Bible is a Revelation of Jesus because He is revealed, or pictured on every page.

1. Jesus is pictured at the very beginning of the Bible.

2. Genesis 1:1 begins with, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

B. John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”1

C. Verse 1 tells us that the Word was in the beginning. The Word was with and was, God.

1. Verse 14 identifies the Word. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us”

2. The Word was made flesh and became Jesus.

II. Jesus is the spoken Word of God, Who became the Living Word, Who is known through the Written Word, the Bible.

A. The Bible is the written Word of God describing the Living Word of God, Jesus.

1. We can admire the paintings of the old master painters but the Bible is the only true picture of Jesus that we have.

III. In Luke 24, it tells about Jesus meeting 2 people on their way to Emmaus.

1. The two didn’t recognize Jesus.

2. After a discussion concerning the crucifixion, Jesus opens up the scriptures for them.

3. In Luke 24:27, “And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

4. Notice it says “in all the scriptures”. The O.T. was all they had.

5. The O.T. is a photo album containing word pictures of Jesus.

IV. We’re going to look at a couple of those pictures of Jesus in the Old Testament.

A. Many of the men of the O.T. are types & shadows, or pictures of Jesus.

1. What do we mean when we say types? It means in that person’s life there are similarities to the life of Jesus.

B. Isaac is a type of Jesus. Joseph & David are types of Jesus.

C. There is one we seldom think about as a type, or picture of Jesus and that is Adam.

D. Let’s look at some scriptures to help us find Jesus in the life of Adam.

V. Genesis 2:21-23, “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

A. As Adam slept, God took a rib and created a wife for him.

1. When God took a rib from the side of Adam blood was shed.

2. Adam had a wife but he paid for her by the shedding of his own blood. Which by the way, established the first Blood Covenant. We still honor it today as the marriage between a man & a wife.

B. When Adam woke up, in verse 23 he said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”. Here we see a picture of Jesus referring to His Bride.

1. Turn to: Ephesians 5:30-31, “For we (That’s us, the Bride of Christ) are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

2. Here is just one of the pictures we have of Jesus in the Book of Genesis.

3. In many ways, Adam is a picture of Jesus.