The Second Adam

I was reading Genesis 1:26-30 the other day and I was amazed at how rich these five verses are. They also contain some of the most contested theological topics of the last 10 years. Male and female equality, relationship between mankind and the rest of creation, stewardship, procreation, authority and imago Dei, to name not a few. Let us read the section and see if you can pick out the topics. It is from the New International Version. 



²⁶ Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, ^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
 ²⁷ So God created man in his own image,
       in the image of God he created him;
       male and female he created them.
 ²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
 ²⁹ Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so.



Did you see them? You probably saw those and others. There is definitely a lot to talk about and it would be fun to sometime go through each one. But for now I want to just pick out one and look more closely at it. Verses, 26 and 28 both contain language about authority. God seems to straight forwardly direct mankind to "own" His creation. After spending the first 25 verses of the books of the Bible on creating the whole earth and more, God turns it over to  mankind. Clarke in his commentary remarks how tender a love God had for us in that he got all of creation ready for the Adames. He placed them right in the middle of it and turned it over to them. That is quite a move. I can almost see Adam and Eve deciding who gets authority over the fish and who rules the furry animals or who has to take the creepy things. I am sure they were in the process of working out this "ruling and reigning" one day when God came walking through the garden. All the trees were bowing and clapping their hands (Is.55:12). The animals were on their best behavior and being very obedient. Adam turns to Eve and says something like "now why don't they behave for us that way?" Or maybe he thought "I would like to be like God someday." Anyway whatever he was thinking, he and Eve, Satan figured out their weak spot and said "Oh by the way the day you eat of that fruit you will be like God." Lights went on for the Adames or off depending on how you look at it.  Well the rest is history. Unfortunately its our history. 


History changes though when the second Adam, the last Adam, shows up(1 Cor.15). He has a different attitude. He doesn't think equality with God is a thing to be grasped. He takes a different route than the first Adam. He becomes a servant. And because he becomes a bond servant God puts him above every principality and power. The road to authority is by serving, who would have guessed? Notice also that Christ didn't try to be placed above every name, God established him (Phil.2). John Stevens in his book entitled Authority Over Futility claims that the job of authority is to serve. 
If the husband wants the wife to submit, he should serve her.  If a pastor wants a congregation to listen to him, maybe he should find a way to be more of a bondservant. A teacher yelling at his class might do better if he/she looked for ways to "wash their feet".  


I was turning into the drive way at our church's school and noticed some red-shirted people sweeping the curb and sidewalk. I slowed down to get a better look and the shirts read "Adopt a Street, Church of Christ".  I thought those people know the secret. They will have leverage with God concerning this neighborhood. Real authority comes through serving. Thank God for servants. Thank God for Christ. Hey, thank God for the Church of Christ.


Now if the first Adam had known to exercise this principle think what a different place this would have been. If instead of wanting to be as God he had chosen to be a servant, satan may have been defeated right at that famous old tree, instead of Calvary's tree.