1 Corinthians 15:45–49

To understand it we must consider the contrast between the two Adams, the first and the last. The first was made a living soul, as Genesis 2 tells us. The last is of another order entirely. Though as truly Adam (that is, Man) as the first, He is a life-giving Spirit. The one, then, is "natural" or "soulish"; the Other, spiritual. We might have expected that the spiritual would take precedence of the soulish as to time. But it is not so, as verse 46 points out. The first Adam had a "natural" or "soulish" body (verse 44), which was "earthy." All who come from him are earthy too, since they belong to his order.

Man has become sinful; he fell at once after his beginning. God has purposes of grace toward him. Yet it is still a settled fact that as a sinner he first begets sons in his own image. They have no connection with the divine counsels. They are the seed of a fallen and corrupted nature. If God in His mercy does not step in, man can only beget evil. So we find the line of the flesh first, and the line of the Spirit second. God does not beget until sinful man has first shown what his nature could produce.

Cain, the first man born into the world, was set aside in favour of the second, Abel... Ishmael, the seed after the flesh, set aside in favour of Isaac, the seed according to promise. Esau, the profane despiser of the birthright, set aside in favour of Jacob... Saul, head and shoulders above the people, and their choice, judged and set aside for David the young man, but the "man after God's own heart."

It is well to notice that what is after the flesh always succeeds at first, to put the faithful to the test. Cain and his doings come first, before we hear of the true seed. Ishmael, the apparent heir, came long before the birth of Isaac. Esau remained in the promised land, while Jacob was a fugitive. Saul was king before David, and for a long time Saul seemed to hold the title to God's power, while David did not resist him.

Here a great principle stands revealed, and it marks all God's ways. Once we see it, we can see that it has marked them from the beginning. From the very start of man's history as a sinner, God shaped His dealings with men after this pattern. This shows that His raising up of Christ, His sending of Him as a sacrifice for sin, and so His bringing in of spiritual and heavenly blessings, was no afterthought. It was a settled purpose, formed before man's sad history began.

Notice first how God, when teaching us about His Spirit, divides mankind into two vast families. We cannot be in both — we are all in one or the other. There is no place in between, since birth decides entrance into each of them. First comes the natural family. We all entered it when we were born into the world. Afterwards comes the spiritual family. Grace brought us into that one, when we were born again.

Again and again God makes it clear that His thought was first the natural, and then the spiritual, and that the second is what God had before Him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is the last Adam, the great Head of a new race, humanity truly, but new and altogether according to God. So perfect is He that never to all eternity will there need to be a third; the second is the last.

We were, and are, naturally the family of the first man, and bore his image (compare Gen. 5:3); we, as now in Christ, shall also bear the image of Christ in the day that is coming... it is the full and final likeness. That cannot come until Christ completes salvation and transforms our humble body into the likeness of His body of glory.

Here we see a contrast: the material beginning and make-up of the first man, and the heavenly origin of the second... The first man is earthly in where he came from, and earthy in what he is made of. He is both of and for earth. The blessings of Paradise were suited to the nature his Maker had given him. He was not made for heaven.

"Of the earth, earthy" — the first phrase gives the cause that makes him what he is; the second gives the character itself. But the cause came from origin; and so with "out of heaven." It is characteristic, but because of the place of origin. He has not ceased to be that now. The words do not describe what He is now because He has gone to heaven. They describe His character, which comes from His origin. It belongs to His Person. He is so now because He cannot be otherwise: because His origin was such, He was so on earth. Not that He came from, but that He was from, and of, and ever is.

Verse 47 names the two as the first and second man, and gives their further character as "out of the earth made of dust" and the "Lord out of heaven," (or perhaps "out of heaven" only).

There is origin, verse 47; character, verse 48; and destiny, verse 49; all in contrast between those under Adam and under Christ. The word "out of" for the Greek here may be a little too strong in English. It is even more so if it is taken to mean that the Lord brought His body out of heaven. That would go far to affect the reality of the incarnation, as Luke 2 shows. It is characterization by source.

Let us keep it clear in our minds that He is not only "last Adam," but also "the second Man." This second title shows that God counts no man between Adam and Christ. Cain was not the second man. He was only Adam reproduced, and so were all men in their various generations. But when Christ was born, He was not Adam reproduced. In the virgin birth, by the work of the Holy Spirit, that inherited line was broken. A new and original Man appeared, worthy of being called "the second Man."

The very fact of there being "a second man" proves that the first man had been set aside: for if the first man had proved faultless, then no place would have been sought for the second. The first man is a total wreck — an irreparable ruin.

And why the Second Man? Because evil has come in and spoiled the glory of the first. And here too is a difference beyond words. If manhood is to be raised up again, it cannot be in the old condition only. There is no good in bringing back what was so soon lost, and which might therefore be so soon lost again! God never simply restores: He replaces the first with what is different from it and far better. Yet it is not the mere setting aside of man in judgment, but help, salvation for him, and "the Second Man is the Lord from heaven."

We began our existence as part of the race of the man "made of dust." Now, through grace, we are joined to the Man "out of heaven." In the first condition we could only show the features of the first man. Now, by the power of the Spirit of God, we are able to show the features of the "second Man." We still bear the image of the first man in our bodies. But we shall yet bear the image of the "second Man" — the heavenly One. Our destiny is to be with Him and like Him forever at His coming again.

Here we have, first of all, the two heads contrasted: the earthy and the Heavenly. Next we have the two races. The earthy race comes from the earthy head, and the heavenly race comes from the heavenly Head. It is the old creation and the new; the old in Adam, and the new in Christ.

As to origin, the first man, Adam, was of the earth, "made of dust," as one translation correctly puts it. So God said to Adam after the fall, "you are dust, and to dust you shall return." In contrast, the "second Man" is "out of heaven." So the "first man" had his origin in dust — earthy. The "second Man" came "out of heaven."

Adam was, and still is, continued in his descendants. In the same way Christ is continued in the family that comes from Him. "As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust" — fallen, sinful, ruined, lost, death-doomed, haters of God. And "as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven" — lovers of God, obedient children, holy, righteous, overcomers of the world, the antichrists, and the devil.

Let us not overlook this. We must wait for this perfection to be realized. But we do not have to wait to come under the headship of the last Adam, to be linked with the second Man. The end of verse 48 does not say that they shall be of heaven — it says they "are of heaven." We ARE heavenly. Is not that wonderful! Does it seem too wonderful? Are we inclined to shrink from it?

The union of the Christian with Christ is founded on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. By the power of the Spirit he is even now united to Christ at the right hand of God. Is it not very striking that the apostle wrote this to the disorderly Corinthians? Every beginner takes a swipe at the Corinthians. They were indeed very faulty. Yet there are few believers now who are not far below the Corinthians. Yet these were the persons to whom the Holy Spirit addressed these words. If this had been said of the choicest saints on earth, one might have said — "Oh, yes, these are heavenly men." It does not, however, rest on personal merit. It is not a question of superior intelligence or of higher spiritual gifts. Of course, there ought to be intelligence, and there ought to be practical spirituality.

We still bear the physical features of the "first man." Verse 49 assures us that we shall bear the physical features of the "second Man." We understand this to be the meaning of the word "image." We use the word physical on purpose. Ephesians 4 shows that we are to bear His moral features now. His characteristics are to be shown in us at the present time, while we wait to be conformed to His image.

So let us beware of trimming the truth down to suit our low walk. Behaviour that is low, fleshly, earthly and worldly does not suit those who are heavenly.

Such as was the dusty one (Adam), such also the dusty ones (the race). Such as the heavenly One, such also the heavenly ones (Christians). Just as we bore the image of the dusty one, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly One. By nature we were, and still are, the family of the first man, and we bore his image (compare Genesis 5:3). Now that we are in Christ, we shall also bear the image of Christ in the day that is coming.

Brought to Christ, we became the subjects of God's own workmanship, and we find ourselves moved out of the earthy and into the heavenly. That move, however, has not yet touched our bodies. We still bear the image of the earthy, so our bodies decay and remain under death and the grave. In resurrection we are to bear "the image of the heavenly." God will conform us to the image of His Son, not only in our characters, but in our very bodies.

In 1 Corinthians 15:49 the revisers have translated "we have borne," and they are right… Here too — and I have no doubt they are right — they have not simply followed the manuscript evidence to read "let us bear" for "we shall bear."

Looking at God's saints in Christ, Paul treats their mortal image as a thing already gone… Mortality is our condition here, but it is no longer our nature. We carry it as a burden that does not belong to us. Glory, not humiliation, is the proper home of the Christ who lives in us. As men, we were born into this world to die out of it again… But Christ has died, and is risen again, the Firstfruits of those who are asleep. And His death and life are ours also, by the grace of God. The harvest, then, will surely follow in its time.

In Christ we see the image of the heavenly that we shall wear in the coming glory… As He prayed, the disciples saw in the Person of Christ the earthly changed into the heavenly. Peter says, in effect: "We saw Him as a lowly Man. In an instant the garments of humiliation gave way to garments of glory. His face, that was more marred than any man's, became shining as the sun. We saw in Him the mighty power that, in 'the twinkling of an eye,' will change these bodies of humiliation into bodies of glory like His own."

While we still bear the physical features of the "first man," verse 49 assures us that we shall bear the physical features of the "second Man." We understand this to be the meaning of the word "image." … Ephesians 4 shows that we are to bear His moral features now. His characteristics are to show in us at the present time, while we wait to be conformed to His image.

Our hope is to be conformed to the image of God's Son in glory… Such is the desire, the object of hope in the soul. Now we are bearing the image of the earthy, but we hope to be made like Christ on high. "We know that when He appears we shall be like Him." A moral change is indeed worked in us now, but its effect is to produce the desire to be conformed to the image of God's Son in glory.