Adam: the First and the Last
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Introduction
Introduction
The most recent lesson in our Sunday School curriculum was an Overview of the Epistles.
Of course, many of those epistles were written by the Apostle Paul.
In his epistles or letters Paul mentions several people by name.
Phoebe, Prisca, Aquila, Epaenetus, Mary, Andronicus, Junias, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys, Apelles, Aristobulus, Herodion, Narcissus, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, Persis, Rufus, Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, Philologus, Julia, Nereus, Olympas—and that’s just in the final chapter of Romans!
But there is another name that Paul mentions in his epistles that we want to focus on this morning, and that is the name of Adam.
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve.
Today there are many who claim to be Christians who deny that Adam and Eve ever existed or they try to blend what the Bible says in Genesis 1-2 with evolutionary science.
For example, a well-known Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, says…
“I take Adam and Eve to be the original human pair, miraculously created by God a few thousand years before Christ. They are the parents of the entire human race, so that every human being who has ever lived on the face of this planet is descended from them.”
Sounds good so far, but keep listening…
“I think that Adam and Eve were members of Homo heidelbergensis, and that God selected a pair from this population and furnished them with rational souls, thereby making them truly human.”
In other words, out of a population of evolved creatures, Craig believes God selected two—Adam and Eve—to become the first human beings.
Does this agree with what the Bible says about Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-2? Does this agree with how Jesus thought of Adam and Eve? Does this fit with how Paul and other New Testament writers thought of Adam and Eve?
This morning we want to think about the historical Adam and Eve.
We want to think about them scripturally—seeing what God says about them in Genesis 1-2 and in the pages of the New Testament...
...but before we go further, let’s ask God to guide our time together.
[PRAYER]
Discussion & Teaching
Discussion & Teaching
Let’s begin with Genesis 1:26-31
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 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 God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
There are four popular approaches to the creation account, which we’ve just read.
Young-Earth Creationist View
Believes Adam and Eve were real historical individuals created by God around 6,000–10,000 years ago.
Takes Genesis as literal history.
Holds that all humans descend biologically from Adam and Eve.
Non-Historical View
Believes Adam and Eve are symbolic figures in a theological narrative, not historical individuals.
Views Genesis as myth or allegory.
Holds that humanity emerged through evolution without a single ancestral pair such as Adam and Eve.
Genealogical Adam View
Believes Adam and Eve were real people chosen by God and given His image, but they were living among other human-like beings.
Views Genesis as theologically meaningful but not strictly literal.
Holds that all humans today can trace genealogical ancestry to Adam and Eve, even if not genetically.
Mytho-Historical View
Believes Adam and Eve were historical individuals embedded in a mythic narrative.
Views Genesis as combination of mythic storytelling but with a historical core.
Holds that God gave His image to two evolved hominins, making them the first true humans.
This is the view held by Dr. William Lane Craig whom I mentioned earlier.
When you read Genesis, how does it read to you...
...like literal history?
...like myth or allegory?
...like something theologically meaningful even if not strictly literal?
...or does it read like a combination of mythic storytelling and history?
[ILLUS] I didn’t grow up in a Christian home, but we did have a big family Bible on the coffee table.
I remember opening to the beginning pages of Genesis when I was about 7 or 8 years old. After reading the first chapter or so, I remember thinking, “This reads like a combination of mythic storytelling and history!” Or maybe I thought, “This reads like a myth!”
No, when I read the beginning chapters of Genesis as a child, I understood it was claiming to be history.
It was claiming God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th.
It was claiming that God made the first man, Adam, from the dust and the first woman, Eve, from Adam’s rib.
I didn’t think Genesis was claiming to be myth or symbolism but literal history.
In fact, it never would have occurred to me to think of Genesis in this way if someone hadn’t said, “We should think of Genesis as myth or symbolism or as a combination of myth, symbolism, and history.”
Let’s look at Genesis 2:4-9, 15-25…
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This passage begins to fill in the details of Adam and Eve’s creation on day six, which we just read at the end of Genesis 1.
What caught your attention as we read through Genesis 2:4-9?
Verse 4 - ‘This is the account’ or ‘These are the generations’ - the first of 11 headings like this in Genesis (2:4; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 36:9; 37:2).
Verse 4 - ‘Day’ = ‘in the time’; this is unlike Genesis 1 where in Hebrew ‘day’ is joined with a number like ‘the first day’ or ‘the second day,’ which as I understand it, means that day always refers to a 24 hour period (cf. Exod. 20:8-11).
Verse 7 - ‘formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils’ - what’s special about man is not what we’re made of but who made us and who breathed into us
The whole passage - reveals that there was no suitable place for a man made in God’s image to dwell, so a place had to be made (Gen. 2:5-8).
This leads us to Genesis 2:15-25.
15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” 18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
What caught your attention as we read through Genesis 2:15-25?
v. 15 - work
vv. 16-17 - the command
vv. 18-20 - God made and Adam named all the animals, but no corresponding helper for Adam; (also Adam’s no idiot)
vv. 21-22 - the creation of Eve
If someone was to say that Adam evolved from the dust as part of some divinely guided evolution, what would that mean for Eve?
Did she evolve too but by a different means?
Better to just leave evolution out and to take the test literally.
Let’s jump forward to the New Testament and see what it has to say about Adam and Eve. Does is think of them as archetypes, symbols, myths, or as real people in real history?
Let’s go to Jesus first…
4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
What stands out to you in this passage?
v. 4 - only two genders
v. 5 - marriage relationship above all relationships
v. 6 - what God has joined together let no man tear asunder
*We should especially note, given the topic of our lesson today, that Jesus refers to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as real history.
Let’s go to Jude (Jude 14) next…
14 It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones,
Genesis 5:24 tells us that Enoch walked with God and then was no more.
He was seventh in the line of Adam (Gen. 5:1-24).
Here Jude, inspired by the Holy Spirit, mentions both Enoch and Adam as real historical individuals.
Note: Enoch’s prophesy concerning the return of Jesus is validated by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration of Jude. The fact that his prophecy is also recorded in the nonbiblical Book of Enoch does not mean the rest of that work is accurate.
And finally let’s go to Paul…
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come. 15 But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
What does Paul say about Adam in this passage?
What does Paul say about Jesus in this passage?
Paul understood Adam to be a real historical person just as he understood Jesus to be a real historical person.
Next, let’s go to 1 Corinthians 15:20-22…
20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
What does Paul say about Adam in this passage?
What does Paul say about Jesus in this passage?
Paul understood Adam to be a real historical person just as he understood Jesus to be a real historical person.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Tremper Longman III, a respected Old Testament scholar, said, “I don’t think Genesis 1–3 is trying to tell us about a historical Adam and Eve. It’s telling us about the human condition.”
I don’t understand how Dr. Longman can make that statement when he reads the words of the Apostle Paul concerning Adam.
If Jesus, Jude, and Paul understood Adam to be a real historical person, then we should understand him to be a real historical person too.
The world may think that’s dumb, but I think it’s smarter to be faithful to God’s Word.
