With the words of 1 Corinthians 15:45 and 47 before us, we now turn to the other side of this whole matter of the place and meaning of Jesus Christ as the second Man, the last Adam.
We have taken a lot of time—not enough to cover all the ground, but a lot of time—to see, to review, the necessity, the divine necessity, for a second Man, a last Adam.
That consideration of God’s demonstrating, through all the generations of history, the terrible entail and inclusive consequences of the choice, or decision, and the wrong use of the great trust of free will, demonstrates how deep and terrible a thing it is to move out of the will of God into self-will.
I say, God has taken all time and used all history to demonstrate to the world—to the universe—the terrible thing that is involved. We have dwelt a little upon that side of history and that interpretation of history.
We are led to this one quite fair conclusion: that God, when He does anything, has very good reason for doing it, whatever it is. God never acts on any flimsy and unsubstantial ground.
In this matter, God has given us this terrible, terrible story. It is not all told yet, to let us know that when He did act in answer to Adam’s rebellion and disobedience, He acted with a full knowledge of what was involved in that.
And He has shown by history, and is showing by history, what He knew to be involved in a single act of disobedience. As Paul puts it, “by one man’s disobedience,” and by one act of disobedience. What a story!
But there is another thing to which all this brings us. When God sent His Son into the world as the second Man, the last Adam, there was an unspeakably great thing bound up with that.
We have just passed through a season of a vast amount of sentimentality, prettiness, and a good deal of childishness. All right. But, dear friends, in the coming into this world of God’s Son, no less and no smaller thing was involved than the total overwhelming of this entail of the first Adam—one act of disobedience.
And some of you may have wondered why we took all that time on that sorry, sordid, dark side of history. Perhaps you saw a little point in it. Perhaps you had little glints of it. But you know, you can never understand or recognize the greatness of Christ unless you see the immensity of the background against which He stands.
And that is not our conclusion, and that is not the conclusion of this platform. That is what God has done. He has, in effect, said, “Do you want to know how great My Son is? Then I will show you by at least ten thousand years of history that He has got to clear up.”
And if you can fathom that, if you can comprehend that, then you will get near to the appreciation of how great He and His work really are. That is why our object is not to tell the miserable story of human failure. That is only a means to an end. Our object is to present the greatness of Jesus Christ.
So we turn now to this other side: the second Man, the last Adam, coming into humanity to supplant and dispossess the first, the original Adam.
We have seen that seven words, or seven phrases, describe the state into which the first man, the first Adam, brought the race: the utter loss of human peace; rest; security; ascendancy or victory; liberty; purpose; and dominion.
Everything man can conceive of has been brought in to bring about peace. The older the world becomes, and the longer the shadow of human life, the less the peace—less peace in human life today than at any time in human history.
Man has been striving, and is striving with all his resources—which are not small, as we have seen—all the while for rest: relief from tensions and stresses, and to find leisure. And the longer history draws out, so the more dissatisfied, discontented, and restless man becomes.
Man has striven for security. The human race is shot through with fear, born of a sense of insecurity and the defeat of every effort to bring about a state of security.
Man has striven for ascendancy or victory, and today, more than ever in his history, he is conscious of the defeat of all his acts. Indeed, only within these past few days, the question has arisen out of this sense of frustration and inability to cope with the world situation as to whether, after all, the United Nations organization is worth retaining.
Man has striven and is striving for liberty, and his greatest inventions are his greatest enslavers. So it is.
What about the second Man, the last Adam? Are these not the very words that come in with Him? Are they not?
Yes, of a different kind, it is true; of another quality and nature, and in a realm that is altogether different. That is what is meant to be. Nevertheless:
Peace I leave with you;
My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth.
Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And when you say that, have you not gone right back behind the first man, the original Adam, who broke that peace with God? You have gone right back behind and undercut all that Adam the first let in.
I say, it is of a different kind and a different realm. It is in the heart. But is that not the place to have it? What can you stand up to in the world if you have the peace of God in your heart? And how much can you stand up to if you have not? Peace.
Jesus said:
Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
We know what that means. No, it is not what the world calls rest: release from responsibility, escape from labor, from work. But there remaineth a rest for the people of God, into which we are brought in Christ Jesus.
There can be rest in labor, and even in conflict—something spiritual within.
What about security? The apostle gives us a long catalogue of the things which, to the world, speak of insecurity:
Death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
He finds his stock exhausted. He has to lump all the rest together in “any other creature.” And I am persuaded that none of these things will separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Is that not security?
Life can be a formidable thing, and death can be formidable. All these other things may be very disconcerting things; but, as the apostle says, the whole lot put together, and anything else you like to mention and add, cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Is that not security?
And so you could go on with all that comes in with the last Adam that He is. But what a difference! What a difference!
You see, with Him, that thing of which we have said much dogs every effort of man to realize his destiny. For man was made to have dominion—that is it—but he was made to have it in relation to God. And he decided to have it without that relationship. He lost it.
History is one long, long story of man’s effort to get it without God. And running alongside every effort of man is a dogging thing. He takes a step forward, and something comes up either to make him take two steps backward or to frustrate the full realization of his effort. Just that, just like that.
So that his most advanced technique, as we are seeing it today, has running alongside of it the most terrible threat, which takes the very heart out of it and makes it all, after all, a very doubtful thing. A very doubtful thing. Better if we had never found that out, never discovered that.
But that is what is meant by the curse which dogs man’s steps and runs alongside until the end. The end is what we can so clearly visualize now: wonderful, wonderful development ending in the most ghastly tragedy.
But for the intervention of Another, where would this world end? Well, we know. The curse has had its whole sting taken out and is plucked out by the last Adam. The curse is taken, and that element of neutralizing and destroying is destroyed in the cross of the Lord Jesus.
That undercuts all the nature and history produced by the defection of the first Adam.
Now note: how did He do this? How does He do this? What is the strength of this, the law of this, the secret of this that He does? For He does it; there is no doubt about that.
Well, He does it by completely reversing and contradicting the way that the first Adam took, which led to all this disaster.
What was the motive by which the first Adam acted and opened the door to this history? The motive was, “My will. My will.”
The motive of the last Adam: “Not My will, but Thine be done.” That sounds a very simple way of putting it, and takes few words, but there is an infinity of meaning in that.
The law and watchword of the last Adam was, from the beginning to the last breath: “Not My will, but Thine be done.”
And on that basis, see the greatness of Christ as Man, representative Man. See His greatness.
Man today, at his most advanced, with all his might and greatness in the physical realm, comes into this world, into this physical consequence of the first Adam’s act, and finds this state of physical sickness, infirmity, and terrible physical conditions.
Physicians have spent their whole lifetime, all their strength and all their energies—thank God for them—upon health, in order to do what? Keep it for a moment. In a moment, a life-long disease gives way. All the entail in the physical body was cancelled out by a word from His lips.
Do not you doctors wish you had that greatness? This is the last Adam.
Men struggle to get mastery over the natural forces, the forces of nature, and they think they have got a long way in doing this. And then something happens: some disruption, some disturbance in the heavenly bodies, some terrific storm or hurricane, something in land or nature; and man is rendered utterly impotent and helpless. Things just run away with him. He can do nothing about it.
Mighty, threatening storm, wind, and sea—under the word from His mouth, the whole thing subsides. “Peace, be still.” And there was a great calm. Natural forces yielding to Him. Oh, greatness!
Men and women tormented, distracted, bewildered by evil forces. There was the one woman out of whom He cast seven demons. Men just tortured by evil powers, others trying to tame them, putting the poor fellow in chains. No one could tame him.
Evil forces—with a word, with a word, out they go. The poor victim sits clothed and in his right mind. And what shall we say about Him?
The horrible thing of sin, soul distress, souls mastered by evil habit and an evil nature. And with a word: “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” And it is not only a word; something happens. He goes away heartily forgiven and delivered.
Social and family disruptions, factions, if you like, broken homes—you know something about that today. And all the efforts of social institutions and other things—and they do, and they do.
And He comes into the scene: there is reconciliation and there are mended relationships. How great He is, this last Adam! Without any of the organization, the institution, the paraphernalia, the effort, the expenditure—His greatness, with a word, just undercuts the whole entail of the first Adam.
He is great. And one of the greatest things, I think, that the last Adam recovers and restores is that vital factor of the central purpose in life.
You think of that. That goes to the heart of a great deal. A well-known psychiatrist and psychologist has put it on record that a third of all the people who go to consult him are plagued and distraught by the malady of having no sense of purpose in life.
Frustrated—that is the great word, perhaps only another way of saying, “No purpose for living.” What a door that opens up! How much rushes in through that door when you are robbed of a sense of purpose in life and being altogether.
And do you not see that this is a growing malady today? It is spreading. It is spreading like a disease everywhere. Men are asking, “What is the purpose of it all? What is the purpose of it? What is the meaning of life?”
The loss of a sense of great purpose in having a being—I repeat—but it is just there which is a root thing in human life and history. It is just there that the last Adam comes in.
I have often put it like this—suffer this repetition—that when a person really comes in surrender to God in Jesus Christ and accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as their own Saviour, the very first thing in their consciousness is, “I have something to live for. I have something to live for,” and they did not have it before.
They may not be able to explain what that is. “I cannot tell you now what this great purpose is,” but there has been born—born like a new child born within that consciousness—this realization: life was meant for something; I have a being for something; there is a purpose for which to live.
That grows. It is a normal spiritual growth, and becomes stronger and deeper, and becomes clarified. If you know, you know.
The last Adam brings that. There was a great purpose, but in relation to God; it was lost when that relationship was broken. He recovers it. He recovers it and gives the sense of it.
Now I must hasten to this. Earlier, I said that the most important things which every person who takes life seriously—and especially every Christian—wants and must know, seeks to know, include the meaning of spiritual experience.
Well, dear friends, if you can read your spiritual experience, can you not read these parallel columns? On the one side, the Holy Spirit has got hold of you and is making you know what you are in yourself, in old Adam.
No one like a true Christian knows what old Adam really is. Does that sound terrible? Yes, but that is just it. That is just it. Because a true Christian is one who is going to really, really appreciate the grace of God.
And you never appreciate the grace of God unless you see the necessity for it. So there is a long line in the spiritual history of a Christian: the discovery, and the growing discovery, of our own utter worthlessness. I was going to use another word—is it too common a word to say how rotten?
You may feel you are a very respectable, nice person. Forgive me; I do not want to insult you. But I do not think that is too strong a word. The depravity of this old Adam life is unfathomable, and it has got to be shown in order that really God’s Son may be understood and appreciated, set over against that background.
But, thank God, spiritual history runs along another line. It is all too slow, I grant you—far too slow. Nevertheless, by the grace of God, by the work of the Holy Spirit, the impartation of the life and nature of the second Man, the last Adam, is taking place.
We learn more and more about Him. We cannot do it enough. Indeed, we will never say anything about our attainment in that matter. But God only knows where we would be but for Jesus Christ.
Sometimes I have to look at things and ask, “Where would I be today if it had not been for this?” Knowing now what I did not know then of the steps and the awful possibilities that are in it.
The Holy Spirit has got hold of a Christian life, a truly committed Christian, and is working, is working into that life this disposition—the disposition of the last Adam.
And what is that disposition? It may be your battlefield. It really may be your battlefield. Thank God for the measure of victory. But is it not here nevertheless: “Not my will, but Thine”? Is that not it?
Are we not more and more being brought by the Spirit of Jesus Christ to that place where this will of ours becomes subject to the will of God?
True, we are discovering the need for, and, thank God, being more and more enabled to accept absolute dependence upon God for everything. All the resources in ourselves, all the self-resources, are being undercut and removed; and our resource is found to be in God—truly in God, but only in God.
And we are put onto a very wonderful basis. Oh, dear friends, if you are a truly born-again child of God, you are put onto a marvellous basis.
I have spoken of this last Adam, of His greatness. What is the word that sums all that up? Supernatural. Supernatural, is it not? That is not natural.
Do you not realize that your very new birth is a supernatural thing? That is the truth. Do you not recognize that your continuance and endurance are supernatural things? If you do not, well, I do not know what is the matter with you.
We are put into those positions where, for endurance—endurance, going on—there is no possible hopeful ground other than God Himself carrying it on. And that is supernatural history. It is supernatural history. That is not natural.
Some of you may not know what I am talking about, but some of you do.
So, you see, what was true of Him, in a spiritual way—mark you, in a spiritual way—is being made true in us. I say again, all too slowly, all too meagrely, and yet it happens. We are put onto a supernatural basis.
I believe that there is a very much larger need for us to prove this, to know this.
I might carry this into the Body of Christ, the church, whatever it may be represented in local companies. You know, the supernatural elements ought to be far more in evidence.
A great deal of our physical troubles ought just to yield to prayer. And our family disturbances ought to yield to prayer. And these other things ought to yield supernaturally. They ought to yield.
We are brought into much of this in Christ to be known now. What a helpless, weak thing the church ought not to be like that, with the last Adam resident within, with all this meaning.
Well, dear friends, I am going to leave things for the present. You will find that quite enough, I am sure. But there it is: here is this second Man, this last Adam, who has come in, on the one side, to expose the old, to condemn the old, and to put away the old by His cross, in which the whole old Adam was crucified.
And on the other side, He has come to bring in, to introduce, to establish, constitute, build, propagate, and extend a race—a race of men and women who are taken up into His own potentiality, who are given His own gifts, spiritual and moral, who are learning by His working and by His grace the mighty power of the Holy Spirit.
For, after all, there is a dominion for which God meant man; and that dominion, that ascendancy, that victory, is found in Christ—in real measure now.
And the end—the end—is that race of which He is the first and the last, reigning, glorified: the complete reversal of all the old.
When you read at the end, as we heard yesterday, “No more”—no more pain, tears, death—no, no, but everything to the contrary, you see the triumph of the second Man, the last Adam. And that is what remains when all the other is no more.