Adam Eve and Jesus
I believe that one reason we do not pay more attention to the record of Adam and Eve is that we do not understand the enormity of their fall; and I believe one reason we have trouble recognizing this is because we do not understand who they were before they fell. We look at them through our own sin-laden eyes, and we realize that we would have eaten of the forbidden fruit, just as they did -- and we wouldn't have needed a serpent to talk us into it, either! We look at the situation that God placed them in, and we conclude that the fall was inevitable, a matter of time.
But nothing could be further from the truth. In the history of the world, there have only been three perfect people: Adam, Eve and Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve were real, live, red-blooded human beings, like you and me. But before their fall, they had more in common with Jesus Christ than they did with us.
God, by means of His written Word, invites us to compare and contrast Adam and Jesus Christ by referring to Jesus as "the second Adam".
1 Corinthians 15:45.
15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Adam is also identified in scripture as a figure of Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:14.
5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
Adam, Eve and Jesus Christ had certain characteristics in common that set them apart from the rest of humanity. Let's take a moment and look at some of these characteristics.
All three were brought into being supernaturally. Adam was created by God, and on this basis is called "the son of God" in Luke 3:38. Jesus Christ was conceived supernaturally in Mary's womb, by the power of God, without the agency of a human father. For this reason he is called the son of God (Luke 1:35). Eve was uniquely made by God from Adam's flesh and bone. Thus she was uniquely "one flesh" with her husband Adam (Genesis 2:21-24). As for the rest of us, we were "born of the flesh" (John 3:6).
All three were neither mortal nor immortal. By mortal we mean doomed to death. Until they sinned, Adam and Eve were not doomed to death, as we are. And because Jesus Christ never sinned, but always did his Father's will, he was never doomed to death. He died, not because he had to, but because he chose to obey his Father, even when obedience meant death. By immortal we mean immune from death. The presence of the tree of life in the Garden, which, we are told in Revelation 22:2, is for the healing of the nations, indicates that they required healing, even in the Garden. This implies that they could be hurt or even killed. Satan's repeated attempts on the life of Jesus -- and especially his attempt to get Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the Temple -- suggest that the same thing was true of Jesus. Neither Adam nor Eve nor Jesus started off possessing eternal life. Had Jesus sinned, this would have quickly become evident, just as it did in the case of Adam and Eve. As for the rest of us, "death reigned over us" (Romans 5:14).
Each started off with a mind perfectly in harmony and agreement with God's. Adam and Eve lost this when they sinned. Jesus maintained this throughout his life. The rest of us started off with minds that were at war with God (Romans 8:7).
None of the three started off with the "old man" sin nature, which comes as standard equipment on the rest of us. Jesus said in John 14:30 that the prince of this world "hath nothing in me." The same was true of Adam and Eve until they disobeyed God. For the rest of us, the "old man" was our lifestyle before Christ (Ephesians 4:22).
We can best understand the enormity of the fall if we put Jesus Christ in the place of Adam and Eve. Eve being deceived by the serpent into eating the forbidden fruit would have been equivalent to Jesus jumping off the pinnacle of the temple and expecting angels to catch him before he hit the ground; he might have meant well, but the result would have been disaster to himself and the rest of humanity. Adam's disobedience to God without being deceived (I Timothy 2:14) would have been equivalent to Jesus Christ bowing down and worshipping Satan.
Had Jesus done either of these things, he would have been acting in a way that might be natural for us, but would have been unnatural for him. By the time he went toe to toe with the devil in the wilderness, Jesus had developed a lifetime habit of obedience to God. It was his nature to obey God. It would have been unnatural for him to disobey.
In the same way, Adam and Eve had developed a habit of obeying God before they were confronted by the serpent. Obeying God was natural to them. What we often miss in looking at the fall is that Satan caused them to act UNNATURALLY in the Garden. What they did was totally out of character for them.
And right here we learn a key lesson about the fall. The fall was not inevitable. It was not the result of a "design flaw" in man. It was brought about by an outside force causing the man and the woman to act totally out of character. What could have brought about so great a change in so short a time?
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