Both Adam and (new Adam) Jesus Christ are human beings. Probably Paul thought of both of them as historical figures. Both of them are set forth by Paul as representative figures, but they perform their representative roles in different ways.
Adam, as Kierkegaard saw, is ‘every human being’ or the ‘average human’, in the sense that every human being repeats Adam’s experience of temptation and falls into sin. We could say that Adam is a mythical figure construct representing a universal human experience.
![New Adam](https://mahasoe.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/IMG_20210227_234619-1024x576.jpg)
Adam is a hypothetical figure postulated to account for the universality of sin, the human race. Jesus Christ on the other hand is a historical figure. He is not every human being’, not the average human who is also the fallen human; but rather the exceptional one who is also the true man, the fulfillment of the humanity which God indented in his work of creation.
Jesus represents humanity by having fulfilled the form of the human, a form in which the form or image of God in which human beings have been created shines clearly forth and humanity is transfigured.
Paul’s Teaching
Paul says, “The first person Adam became a living being, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit”. The first person was from the earth, a person of dust, and the second one is from heaven. The contrast here is between Adam, the person who sank into sin and death, and Jesus the one from heaven, who has risen above death.
The teaching here is that Adam remains on the level of the earthly. The second or last Adam transfigured into the true humanity which reflects the glory of God. Paul puts Adam at the beginning and acknowledges him as a living being’ though a person of dust. Only after the physical do we come to the spiritual, to the ‘last Adam’, the transfigured one whom Paul describes as a ‘life-giving spirit.’ If you want to read about the story of Mahabharata, then click here….
Paul’s Christology
Here Paul’s basic Christology contrasts the first man (the one who failed) with the last Adam, the man Christ Jesus who fulfilled God’s intention for humanity.
Paul’s Christology is not revolutionary but restates the Christology already current among the earliest Christians. He also shared a primitive Christology. He teaches Christology from below’, this has considerable significance.
In a secular age like ours when teaching that begins from God or heaven or logos falls on deaf ears, Paul’s Christology and in particular his use of the imagery of the two Adams acquires new relevance. (John Macquarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought, pp. 59 – 65).
The new Adam and new creation
Adam is a key figure in Paul’s attempt to express his understanding both of Christ and of man (and women). Paul neither understands the human being as he/she nor is heavenly influenced by the narratives about Adam in Gen 1-3 and especially the account of Adam’s fall in Gen.3.