1 Corinthians 15:45 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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1 Corinthians 15:45

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Here is the theological basis for it – ‘the first man Adam was made a living soul.’ It is safe to read there an animal soul, because you are a human being, but you have a physical body, an animal body, with a soul. He means ‘living’ in the sense of an animal soul. So you are better than an animal, but you are only an animal with a soul. Adam was made as a living being, with animal life and consciousness, and a soul; but his body considered apart from his soul was not adapted for eternity. He was the representative man; and he fell. And the whole of humanity fell in him. But Christ was the second representative man. He was God and man. He was the next representative; and he had the power of life. He rose from the dead, and extends that life to all who are in him by virtue of the covenant of grace. Where does the apostle Paul get all this? He gets it from God. These things have been revealed to him. He has received it by revelation. But not only was it revealed to Paul, but it was previously revealed in the word of God. All the things that he has been saying are scriptural things. And so, as he sums up this particular passage, he says ‘And so it is written’. ‘The last Adam’ – you won't find that term anywhere else in the Bible. ‘The last Adam’! There are only two Adams, two representative men who determine the fate of so many who would follow them. The first representative man was the first man, Adam, our father, our original, and he fell and we fell with him into corruption and sin, alienation from God. So the human race was lost, so that God's great project, project earth, would be lost. Human beings would be forever lost. So a second representative man came. This time it was the Lord from heaven. The second person of the Trinity became incarnate and came to earth and he is called ‘The last Adam’: the second and the last great representative man who would have a host of followers who trusted in him, who would have the benefits of his work and his triumph, his atoning death.’ And so it is written, The first man Adam was made an [animal] soul, but the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit’, a quickening spirit. He gives that life partially at conversion, when he brings our souls to life. He will give us, from his abundant store, complete and eternal resurrected life when he comes again and brings in the fulfilment of all things.

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Now, this brings a mystery, because there are two things said here: ‘The first man Adam was made a living soul; [and] the last Adam [which is Christ] was made a quickening spirit’. We know where the first comes from. It comes from Genesis 2.7; it is almost a direct quote. But where does the second come from? Here is one reason why we suppose that, the Gospel of John, in spite of what people say today, may well have been written even before the apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, because these words are certainly in the apostle John: ‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself’ (John 5:25-26). So too in John 1:4, ‘In him was life’. But then, it is probably in Psalm 36 also, ‘For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light’, and in Deuteronomy 30.

‘The last Adam’ – notice that it is ‘the last Adam’. The old preachers always used to pause there. You find this in the old sermons. They would always labour this point – it is not actually the second Adam. The second Adam is a phrase which we shouldn’t really use it. It does not come from the Bible, but from a hymn, and the hymn writer probably meant to say the last Adam, but he had to make up the number of syllables in the line, so he went for the second Adam. But actually it is the wrong thing to say. Christ is not a second Adam. It would be no good at all to have a second Adam, if that implied he was no better than the first one. Then the second Adam would fall just like the first one.

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

1 Corinthians 15:45 Commentary and Bible Study