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28-673: The Last Adam , also given as the Final Adam or the Ultimate Adam , is a title given to Jesus in the New Testament . Similar titles that also refer to Jesus include Second Adam and New Adam . Twice in the New Testament an explicit comparison is made between Jesus and Adam . In Romans 5:12–21, Paul observes that "just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through

56-561: A mere Adamic model does justice to the language of "the fullness of God" dwelling in Christ ( Col 1:19–20 ; cf. Col 2:9 ). The context of Colossians 1:15 , therefore, prompts one to interpret "the image of the invisible God" as pointing to Christ being on the divine side and being the perfect revealer of God — a thought paralleled by John 1:18 and 2 Corinthians 4:4. Like the hymn or poem in Colossians , Hebrews also portrays Christ as

84-412: A reference to Adam in two hymnic or at least poetic passages: Colossians 1:15–20 and Philippians 2:6–11 . Colossians 1:15 In Colossians 1:15 , Christ is called "the image ( eikōn ) of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation". In isolation, this verse could be taken merely in an Adamic sense as referring to Christ as the first created being, the archetypal human being who visibly reflects God,

112-520: Is little doubt among scholars that Paul is the author, there is discussion over whether the Epistle was originally one letter or composed from two or more of Paul's letters. Although the New Testament contains only two letters to the Corinthian church, the evidence from the letters themselves is that he wrote at least four and the church replied at least once: 1 Corinthians 7:1 states that Paul

140-457: Is no longer extant. Others argue that although the letter of tears is no longer extant, chapters 10–13 come from a later letter. The seemingly sudden change of subject from chapter 7 to chapters 8–9 leads some scholars to conclude that chapters 8–9 were originally a separate letter, and some even consider the two chapters to have originally been distinct themselves. Other scholars dispute this claim, however. Some scholars also find fragments of

168-497: Is the "first-born" in the sense of being prior to and supreme over all creation, just as by virtue of his resurrection from the dead he is supreme vis-à-vis the Church ( Col 1:18 ). The emphatic and repeated "kai autos" ( Gr. for "and he") of Colossians 1:17,18 underline the absolute "pre-eminence" of Christ in the orders of creation and salvation history; he is pre-eminent both cosmologically and soteriologically . He through whom

196-594: The obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19, NIV ). In 1 Corinthians 15 :22, Paul writes that "as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive," while in verse 45 he calls Jesus the "last/ultimate/final Adam". In terms of implicit portrayals of Jesus as the new Adam in the New Testament, it has been argued that John the Evangelist portrays Jesus as one who recapitulates Adam's life and death in his Gospel. John Henry Newman used

224-494: The "warning letter", or of other letters, in chapters 1–9, for instance that part of the "warning letter" is preserved in 2 Cor 6:14–7:1, but these hypotheses are less popular. There is evidence that Paul wrote 2 Corinthians from Macedonia in 55 or 56 AD, roughly a year after writing 1 Corinthians and a year before he wrote his letter to the Romans from Corinth. The book is usually divided as follows: Paul's contacts with

252-461: The Corinthian church can be reconstructed as follows: In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he again refers to himself as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and reassures the people of Corinth that they will not have another painful visit, but what he has to say is not to cause pain but to reassure them of the love he has for them. It is shorter in length in comparison to

280-487: The apostle more than any other. "Human weakness, spiritual strength, the deepest tenderness of affection, wounded feeling, sternness, irony, rebuke, impassioned self-vindication, humility, a just self-respect, zeal for the welfare of the weak and suffering, as well as for the progress of the church of Christ and for the spiritual advancement of its members, are all displayed in turn in the course of his appeal." —Lias, Second Corinthians. Online translations of Second Epistle to

308-576: The earthly Jesus' obedience (Rom. 5) and the risen Christ's role as giver of the Spirit (1 Cor. 15). The same symbol, used to express Christ as the corporate, representative personality (and Adam as his foreshadow or "type" , per Rom. 5:14), was taken up to express Christ's being: he is "the last Adam" (1 Cor. 15:45), or the "second man from heaven", and one not made "from earth, of dust" (1 Cor. 15:47; see Gen. 2:7). Some scholars detect an Adamic reference in several other New Testament passages: for example, in

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336-455: The exact (divine) counterpart through whom the Father speaks and is revealed, and who is the one that sustains the entire universe: "He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power" ( Heb 1:3 ). The whole context of Colossians 1:15–20 suggests a more than Adamic and human interpretation of "the first-born of all creation". Christ

364-606: The first and can be confusing if the reader is unaware of the social, religious, and economic situation of the community. Paul felt the situation in Corinth was still complicated and felt attacked. Some challenged his authority as an apostle , and he compares the level of difficulty to other cities he has visited who had embraced it, like the Galatians . He is criticized for the way he speaks and writes and finds it just to defend himself with some of his important teachings. He states

392-455: The fruit in disobedience, Jesus drinks the sour wine in obedience." Makowiecki also claims that, in addition to recapitulating Adam's life, Jesus recapitulates his death as well. Whether one accepts the wider circle of references to Adam or limits oneself to the clear references in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 , the New Testament used Adamic language to express the being of Jesus and, even more, his task and goal. In post-New Testament times,

420-544: The godhead which was his, v. 6 might also be contrasting his humility (in becoming human and dying the death of a slave) with the presumptuous aspiration of Adam (and Eve) to enjoy illegitimate equality with God and become "like God" ( Gen 3:5–6 ). According to Makowiecki, Jesus performs a series of five redemptive actions in John 18-19 which methodically reverse Adam's five fallen actions in Genesis 3. He writes, "Jesus retraces

448-447: The image of both Adam and Christ (1 Cor. 15:49). Where Adam's disobedience meant sin and death for all, Christ's obedience more than made good the harm due to Adam by bringing righteousness and abundance of grace ( Rom 5:12–21 ). As a "life-giving spirit", the last Adam is risen from the dead and will transform us through resurrection into a heavenly, spiritual existence (1 Cor. 15:22, 45, 48–9). Thus Paul's Adam Christology involved both

476-465: The importance of forgiving others, and God's new agreement that comes from the Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3), and the importance of being a person of Christ and giving generously to God's people in Jerusalem , and ends with his own experience of how God changed his life (Sandmel, 1979). According to Easton's Bible Dictionary , This epistle, it has been well said, shows the individuality of

504-449: The invisible Creator. However, the context suggests finding the background in personified wisdom, the perfect image of God ( Wisdom 7:26 ) and the agent of creation ( Prov 8:22–31 ). The verses which follow speak of "all things" being "created through him and for him", of his being "before all things", of "all things holding together" in him, and of the plenitude of deity dwelling in him ( Colossians 1:16–17,19 ). Any parallelism with Adam, who

532-431: The language about "the glory of Christ, who is the image ( Gr. : eikōn ) of God" (2 Cor. 4:4). Perhaps this is an echo of the language of Genesis 1:26–7 about Adam being created in the divine image. If so, Paul would be thinking here of Christ as the ideal Adam, with his humanity perfectly expressing the divine image. But this exegesis is not fully convincing. One may likewise be less than fully convinced by those who find

560-581: The latter reversing the failure of the first. In a typical passage of his Adversus haereses , he wrote: The Son of God ... was incarnate and made man; and then he summed up in himself the long line of the human race, procuring for us a comprehensive salvation , that we might recover in Christ Jesus what in Adam we had lost, namely the state of being in the image and likeness of God" (3. 18. 1) The Quran directly compares Jesus to Adam in terms of how he came into existence. Sura Al-Imran says, "Verily,

588-690: The likeness of Jesus before Allah is the likeness of Adam. He created him from dust, then He said to him: 'Be!' – and he was." Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 528554764 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:43:23 GMT 2 Corinthians While there

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616-719: The phrase "Second Adam" in his hymn "Praise to the Holiest in the height", first appearing in The Dream of Gerontius : O loving wisdom of our God ! When all was sin and shame, A second Adam to the fight And to the rescue came. The title "New Adam" is emphasised in the Recapitulation theory of atonement . Paul the Apostle contrasted Adam and Christ as two corporate personalities or representatives ( Rom 5:12–21 ; 1 Cor. 15:20–3, 45–9) and saw human beings as bearing

644-399: The steps and corrects the missteps of Adam, but from the opposite direction: Adam departed the garden, Jesus enters the garden; Adam hid, Jesus comes forward; Adam blamed the companion God had given him, Jesus has the companions God has given him spared; Adam, who was naked, clothed himself with an apron of sewn fig leaves, Jesus, who was clothed with an unsewn tunic, is stripped naked; Adam ate

672-589: The subsequent state of "assuming the form of a slave", "being born in human likeness", and "being found in human form" ( Philippians 2:7 ). It is what is said in v. 7 that first puts Christ with the community of human beings and their collective image, Adam. Christ belonged to the eternal sphere of divine existence ( Philippians 2:6 ) and joined the human (and Adamic) sphere only when he assumed another mode of existence ( Philippians 2:7 ) which concealed his proper (divine) being. Nevertheless, in talking of Christ as refusing to use for his own advantage or exploit for himself

700-479: The symbol of Adam proved a valuable foil for Clement of Alexandria , Origen (d. c. 254), St Athanasius of Alexandria ( c. 296–373), St Hilary of Poitiers ( c. 315–367), St Gregory of Nazianzus (329–389), St Gregory of Nyssa ( c. 330–395), and other Church Fathers , when they presented and interpreted the person and work of Christ. St Irenaeus ( c. 130–200), in particular, did much to elaborate further Paul's antithetical parallelism between Adam and Christ,

728-526: The universe was created is the same Christ who formed the Church by rising from the dead. He has been active in both creation and redemption. In the hymn in Philippians 2 , any Adamic interpretation of Christ's prior state of being "in the form of God" and enjoying "equality with God" ( Philippians 2:6 ) seems to be made doubtful by what follows. This divine status and mode of existence stand in counterpoint (the emphatic "but" of "but he emptied himself") to

756-403: Was replying to certain questions written and sent to him by the church in Corinth. The abrupt change of tone from being previously harmonious to bitterly reproachful in 2 Corinthians 10–13 has led many to infer that chapters 10–13 form part of the "letter of tears" which were in some way appended to Paul's main letter. Those who disagree with this assessment usually say that the "letter of tears"

784-417: Was simply made in the divine image and likeness, gets left behind here. On the contrary, every created thing, including the angelic "thrones, dominions, principalities, and authorities" ( Col 1:16 ), is said to have originated through Christ (as creative agent) and for Christ (as final goal), who likewise is the principle of cohesion in holding the universe together. Further, it strains plausibility to argue that

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