It is not uncommon to hear Christ referred to as the “second Adam” in Reformed churches today, but technically this is incorrect. Paul does not call him the second Adam but the last Adam (ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ, 1Cor. 15:45). There were many characters between the first Adam and Christ who could be referred to as “second” Adams. Noah is the new head of the human family who enters a new world as lord, commanded to be fruitful, multiply, and fill it with life and glory. The nation of Israel is Yahweh’s “son” whom Pharaoh is commanded to release. God leads his (national) son to a “land flowing with milk and honey,” a new Eden which was to be subdued to the glory of God. David is also a type of Adam, a “man after God’s own heart,” the image of God ruling over God’s people and overcoming all of his and their enemies. But the second, third, fourth, and every other Adam failed to fulfill God’s covenant and bring the world to its eschatological (final) and teleological (designed) glory. Like the first Adam, every other man and nation fell short, proving they were true “sons of Adam” and not the faithful “son of God.”
When Jesus was born to the virgin Mary, he came as the Son of God, without an earthly father, descended from the “mother of all living” whose promised seed would crush the head of the serpent. Like the original and earlier Adams, Christ was cast out of the land of milk and honey, hunted by earthly kings, tempted in the wilderness, and confronted by giants of unbelief, hypocrisy, and idolatry. But whereas Adam and all of his posterity were overcome by these enemies and dangers, Christ conquered them all. He was faithful where Adam had been unfaithful, obedient where all of Adam’s sons were disobedient. He trusted God and conquered by faith, leading all who similarly trust in him to victory.
The Church is united to Christ; we are his Body; he is our Head. We were sons of Adam by nature, but we have become sons of God by grace and adoption. We once were dead in Adam, but now we are alive in Christ, the last Adam. There are two humanities, two covenants, and two ways. The former is the way of sin and death under the broken covenant of creation. The covenant of life became for Adam’s offspring a word of condemnation and death. But Christ’s work has fulfilled the demands of the first covenant so that all who trust in him are pardoned and glorified under a covenant of grace. The curse of that former transgression has been broken, and God’s saints now inherit the glory which Adam and all of his posterity were made to enjoy.
The story of creation and redemption is the context of our worship. We enter the assembly as Adam’s children, but we are welcomed not as law-breakers but as law-keepers, counted as righteous for the sake of Christ, cleansed by his blood and consecrated by his Word and Spirit. We commune with God in the garden-temple, enjoying the fellowship which Adam fled in his guilt and shame. We sing with joy as we hear the Lord walking in our midst. We do not hide from him because we know that we are hidden in him. The serpent cannot harm us, because the serpent-slayer has overcome. --JME
