The Two Adams

THE TWO ADAMS

1 CORINTHIANS 15:45-49

Introduction: There is a amazing contrast presented in 1 Corinthians 15 between two Adams — the first Adam created in the Garden of Eden, and the second Adam born in Bethlehem. Every person listening to this message to-day is either in the family of the first or second Adam. Which family you are in will determine your eternal destiny. For the next few minutes let us consider the two Adams.

I. The First Adam

A. Created from the dust of the earth

1. 1 Corinthians 15:47a “The first man was of the earth, made of dust…”

2. Genesis 2:7 “"The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.”

3. The creation of man is described in this passage as from dust. The verb translated “formed" normally means to be forged from pre-existing material.

4. The material from which Adam was forged is aphar which refers the common earth.

5. Either God created man directly from the dust of the earth or He didn’t.

6. It is interesting to note that scientists at NASA’s Ames Research Center have confirmed that all of the elements in people can be found in soil.

7. 1 Corinthians 15:45 “The first man Adam became a living being.”

B. Created in the Image of God

1. Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’”

2. Genesis 5:1-2 “This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.”

3. Man is the special creation of God, in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. Adam was created in God’s image, free and spiritual, competent to deal directly with God, with an upward look. He was created with a free will and the ability to choose his actions and with the purpose of fellowship with and the worship of God.

4. Adam was created sinless and perfect.

C. Chose to Sin

1. Genesis 3:6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.”

2. The Bible opens with man being created in God’s image. Sin shows up and messes that image up.

3. Disobedience of God’s Word almost always affects someone else. Most tragically, it affects those we love the most. Eve’s disobedience affected her husband, her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren, and every descendant since. The problem of sin doesn’t stop with the choice. Choosing to sin leads to consequences. The word “with” is what is so devastating about this verse. Adam was with Eve while this tempting dialogue with the Serpent was going on. Sadly, Adam did not say a word and then he sinned willfully by eating of the fruit.35 Make no doubt about it; although the woman was deceived, the man was not (see 1 Tim 2:13-14). Adam passively watched everything. He sinned willfully, eyes wide-open, without hesitation. His sin was freighted with sinful, self-interest. He had watched Eve take the fruit, and nothing happened to her. He sinned willfully, assuming there would be no consequences. Everything was upside-down. Eve followed the snake, Adam followed Eve, and no one followed God. – Keith Krell, "Paradise Lost" (Genesis 3:1-7), bible.org

4. 1 Timothy 2:14 “And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.”

5. Satan can’t make temptation work unless he can convince us to buy into the deception that yielding won’t hurt us. – Kent Crockett’s Sermon Illustrations, www.kentcrockett.com

D. Carrier of death to the human race

1. Genesis 2:15-17 “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

2. Had Adam and Eve retained their original state, they never would have died. But Eve and then Adam yielded to the serpent’s temptation, and death came into the world. Before that moment, they were in a beautiful, pristine state. They existed on a level far above the present condition of the human race. It is difficult to imagine what man was like then by viewing him as he is now. It would require something like trying to reconstruct the original version of an aircraft from its wreckage. If we knew nothing of flying, we would hardly suspect that it had once soared above the earth. The material would be the same; the capability of flight, however, would be lost. – David Breese, Living For Eternity, Moody Press, 1988, p. 99