Given Life and Giving Life

“Hold on,” you might say. “How could Jesus be the last Adam?”  Isn’t that like saying Jesus was the Last Man?  And haven’t plenty of men been born and lived since Jesus?  What on Earth is Paul saying as we continue our study of 1 Corinthians 15  to answer the question, What Does It Mean to Be Resurrected?  Well, it’s not hard to understand when we see it’s as easy as the difference between being given life and giving life.

1 Corinthians 15:45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.

When Adam was created out of the dust of the earth, he was given life.  God breathed it into him.  Easy, right?

Jesus was and is not a created being.  He’s God.  He’s always existed.  In a sense, it was Jesus (before He had a body of flesh) breathing life into the very first Adam and Eve.  About Jesus we read, John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

To any men looking in the wrong place (among other men) in order to find life, Jesus makes it clear that He is the last Adam.  In effect, He’s the other bookend to the Image of God in man.  If one bookend on the shelf was Adam made in God’s Image and Adam’s decision to sin extended into every volume on the shelf, the other bookend is Christ’s forgiveness.  It is finished.  Jesus is the Last Man standing when it comes to being sinless and therefore, the only Man we’ll ever need.

John 6:31 “Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'” 32 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world … 38 I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day”

Are you still looking among men and among the created things of this world to find true life and eternal happiness?  Are you looking to acquire life for yourself by amassing all the things you can and thinking they are giving life? 

Or have you chosen to trust Christ, the last Adam and life-giving Spirit of God?  He is the bread from heaven and is the only One who is giving life to you.  What Does It Mean to Be Resurrected?  Listen and hear the words of Jesus who said,

John 6:. 40 “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.” 

It’s the difference between being given life and giving life.