November Newsletter: The Last Adam and the Image of the Heavenly Man
November Newsletter (PDF)
O the leadership of this Crucified One
O the leadership of the Lamb
and he’s plotting my death
and he’s digging my grave
O he works all things for good.
The other week found me singing this simple chorus in my car and, now, at the end of our Christology class a month later, I find it to be the perfect summary of all that encompasses the beauty of this most excellent man. He, Jesus Christ, who is the sum of our thoughts, our obsession, our meditation, and as Paul puts it so elegantly “who is your life” (Col. 3:4) is the most perfect of leaders, the most radiant of companions and the most excellent of friends.
“This is my beloved and this is my friend” (Song 5:16) the maiden calls out and we the Church, his body, call him our head (Col 1:18). He is the “captain of our salvation” (Heb 2:10), the “author and finisher of our faith” (Heb 12:2) and it is fitting that he would be called also in his life and death the “last Adam” (I Cor. 15:45) and with glory in his resurrection, the “second man” (I Cor. 15:47).
The program of the Son of God was not merely the improvement of humanity through a social program to rehabilitate them from sin. Christ instead came to put the race of Adam in the ground for all eternity. Humanity was married to Sin and any attempt to leave her husband and be united to another was adultery. The plight of all the sons of Adam and all the daughters of Eve was their marriage to sin and their bondage to death (Rom. 7:1-6). Jesus Christ came to put to death all the Children of Adam, that through our union to his death and resurrection, we might pass from death, our marriage to sin, to life, our union to him.
The Mystery then is that every son of Adam will lie locked in the grave and burn in the Lake of fire. Jesus came as the last of that race to put an end to its progeny. What is more mysterious is that whenever anyone is “in Christ there is a new creation” (II Cor. 5:17). When he arose with light and the glorious splendor of resurrection power, Christ was shown to be the second man. He is the firstborn and father of an entirely new Humanity and those united to him are a part of a new race of mankind.
While it may not look like it presently, there are two races of Humanity walking upon the surface of the earth; one is of Adam, destined to destruction, and the other is of Christ, destined for a resurrection such as his. The mystery of the gospel is that, right now, those in Christ, those walking around unified in to death and resurrection do not now know what they will be. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God”
(Col 3:3), because you “died with Christ” (Rom. 6:8) and the life you now live you “live by faith in the Son of God” (Gal 2:20) and so it is that “when Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:4).
And so, as I drive to class, as we got throughout our lives; face circumstance, hardship, suffering disappointment, joys, and elation, I entrust my life and my song to the leadership of this most glorious One. Our Resurrection is as sure as his was, our vindication as confident as the Son of God’s, our hope as sure as his. He came to put Adam in the grave, and it is all unto my good, that I might shed my linage, be “born again” (John 3:3), become a “[child] of God”(John 1:13), a member of the New Humanity — a new creation (II Cor. 5:17) — and ultimately rise in “the image of the heavenly man” (I Cor. 15:49).
