Cracks in the Foundation - part 2

In this series of posts I propose that dismissing a literal interpretation of the biblical account of Creation will undermine our confidence in what we believe about the rest of the Bible?

Having looked at the Sabbath in my previous post I now focus on Adam.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-27

The creation of Adam is a fundamental building block in our understanding of God’s plans and purposes for humanity but a denial of which causes major structural damage in our faith foundations. Having presented the basic facts about Adam’s beginnings in this passage the following chapter then gives us the precise detail of how God created the world’s first man (and woman).

It tells us that Adam was formed out of the dry ground and that Eve was made from part of Adam’s body.

To an evolutionist this will no doubt appear both fanciful and incredulous. The belief that life evolved from bacteria through multiple mutations over millions of years is clearly at odds with the biblical account of Creation. I’m not about to comment on either of these propositions, rather to continue to make a case for a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 being foundational to having confidence in the ensuing books of the Bible.

I’ll continue my line of reasoning with this brazen statement.

No first Adam - no last Adam!

What I mean by this is that if we dismiss the Genesis account of Creation in favour of an evolutionary model, and with it the notion of humanity beginning with two God-created people, our theological dashboard will immediately give us a red warning light that all is not well.

The apostle Paul explains all.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. 1 Corinthians 15: 45-49

In the context of the passage, Paul is evidently speaking of Jesus. He is developing a theme about the virtue of Jesus as Saviour in connection with the problem of sin which entered the human experience with Adam, but we’ll tackle that later. For now I want to stick with Paul’s linkage of Adam to Jesus.

This is a conundrum for those who dismiss a literal interpretation of the biblical account of Creation

In 1 Corinthians 15:22 Paul also makes a direct link between Adam and Christ.

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 

Rejecting Adam - and therefore the Creation narrative - necessitates erasing the concept of Jesus as the Last Adam. More than that, these cracks of unbelief that start in Genesis necessarily continue into our understanding of who Christ is. If he is not the Last Adam come to take atone for our sin, then who is he and for what purpose was his incarnation?

It doesn’t stop there. It also calls into question the theological integrity of Paul. If he is wrong about Jesus being the Last Adam, what other errors are there in his teaching? You see how quickly these cracks in our faith foundation spread.

Just to add, Paul wasn’t alone in referencing Adam. Luke does too, albeit quoting Paul. In Acts 17:26 Luke records the following:

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

I hope that these posts are giving you food for thought along with underscoring the importance of putting our complete trust in the word of God.

In my next post we’ll look at the Fall.