Adam from Bethlehem? No, God purposefully placed him in a region called the Garden of Eden. Bethlehem didn’t exist when the first man walked on planet earth.
True, God’s first created human named Adam began life in Eden. But God raised up a man Scripture calls the last Adam. This man started life as a baby in Bethlehem, Israel. Christmas celebrates the birth of an infant who matured into manhood, sacrificed his life for the sins of the world, and was raised from the dead. At his resurrection, Jesus became “the last Adam, a life-giving spirit,” 1 Corinthians 15:45.
There was an Adam from Eden and also an Adam from Bethlehem.
First and Last?
How can Jesus be referred to as the “last Adam” During the past 2,000 years, thousands of parents named their baby boys Adam.
These babies descended from the first Adam, the man created in Eden. Scripture refers to the Adam from Eden as “the son of God.” Adam was God’s son by creation; he was truly first. Jesus was not conceived in the normal way. His Father was God, the eternal Spirit. Jesus’ conception by the Holy Spirit made him uniquely the Son of God. There could never be another human like Jesus; he alone had a Heavenly Father and an earthly mother. He was both Son of God and Son of Man. His uniqueness qualified him to become the last Adam.
The first Adam became the father of all flesh and blood humans. After his resurrection, the last Adam became the father of everyone born again by the Spirit of God. Jesus is the last man our heavenly Father will use in raising up a new race of humans.
Let’s gain new appreciation for the Adam from Bethlehem by contrasting him to the Adam from Eden.
Environments
Adam from Eden came alive in paradise. The word “Eden” means “delight.” All was pleasant, peaceful, beautiful, fascinating, thrilling, and enjoyable. Work was fun, not grueling. Eden amply supplied all physical, emotional, and intellectual desires. But best of all, Eden served as a sanctuary in which Adam and his loving Creator frequently and freely fellowshipped. Eden was Eden because God was there. No barriers prevented the Creator and his man from experiencing one another’s friendship.
The last Adam was born into much less than paradise. Jesus’ first shelter was an animal stable and his first bed a feeding trough. His step father’s occupation provided only a meager existence. When Joseph and Mary dedicated Jesus to the Lord, they could only afford the least expensive offering required by Jewish law. When Jesus became a man, he declared that “the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Tests of Love for God
The sinless Adam loved God and wanted to love God more. By its very nature, love wants to enlarge, to expand, and to experience greater affection for the loved one. Love only grows as it is tested. So God provided one single test of Adam’s love for his Creator. This test provided an eternal opportunity for Adam’s affection for his Creator to enlarge. But Adam failed, and his love for God diminished.
Baby Jesus began a trek through innumerable tests of His love for God. He walked through a minefield of one enticement after another. Satan, humans, and his own emotions continually attempted to distract Jesus from loving his heavenly Father. Tests of love did Jesus a huge favor. Overcoming these tests prepared him for the severest trial of his earthly life–the last 24 hours of persecution, torture, rejection, and death.
Everlasting Father
About 700 years before Jesus’ birth, an Old Testament prophet referred to him as “Everlasting Father.” How can Jesus be called Father? He was Father’s offspring and should be called Son.
Scripture refers to the last Adam as “a life-giving Spirit.” Forever and ever, the Spirit of the resurrected Jesus imparts divine life to our human spirits. We enjoy the fruit of the last Adam’s many choices to obey God and love him supremely. The Adam from Bethlehem continually generates his love for God in the children of God.
All of us can live our lives on earth loving God and putting him first because the Adam from Bethlehem lives in us!
Scriptures Referred To: Luke 2:22-24, 3:38; Matthew 8:20; Genesis 2:16-17.
