Monday, October 4, 2010

If there was no first, then there is no need for the second

In the booklet Creationism and Evolution, the co authors Buffaloe and Murray discuss the possibility of certain Genesis accounts never truly being reality, but fable. Here is an excerpt of the book: “When we read the ancient Hebrew accounts of the creation—Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, man’s fall by listening to the seductive words of a serpent, and God’s Sabbath rest—we must understand, says Napier, that these things never were……”(1981, p. 8, italics added). If there was not a first Adam, then could there have been a second Adam? Scripture addresses the reality of there being a literal Adam.
All men were made from Adam. Paul in describing the UNKNOWN GOD while addressing the Greeks in Athens makes a bold statement, From one man he made every nation of men...(Acts 17:26a). Who is this one man or in some versions, one blood? It has to be Adam. There is no difference of mankind in God’s eyes, making him no respecter of persons.
All men sinned when Adam sinned. Paul takes on the reality of inherited sin from one man. Read Romans 5:12-21 in context, but in particularly Romans 5:19, For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. Paul even mentions Adam’s name in Romans 5:14 to define this one man. 1 Corinthians 5:22 states, For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. If there was not a first Adam who sinned condemning all mankind then a savior (a second Adam) would not be needed.
A literal Adam is crucial to the redemptive story of Christ Jesus, the second Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15:45, Paul answers the question about the dead being raised up in verse 35. He explains that through the first Adam, we receive our natural bodies, which are subject to death due to the fall of man but through the last Adam we will receive our spiritual bodies which is the result of resurrection from the dead.
Therefore it is crucial that there be a literal one Adam who was a type of the one to come. If it were not so, then it would not be possible for one man’s actions to affect all mankind for the negative (Adam) or for the Positive (Christ).

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