Why Is Jesus Called the Last Adam?

Once Adam fell into sin, he disqualified himself and his offspring from being able to fulfill the requirements of the covenant of works. God did not rewrite Adam’s vocation but sent One who would faithfully fulfill it—namely, Jesus, the last Adam. The Apostle Paul showcases this in several places where he sets Adam and Jesus side by side so that we can see that they are the two covenant (or federal) heads: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were constituted sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be constituted righteous” (Rom. 5:19, author’s translation). The representative actions of Adam and Jesus determine the destinations of those whom they represent.

Paul draws this same point in his explanation of the resurrection: “For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:21–22). All who are covenantally united to Adam die, and all who are covenantally united to Jesus live. Paul spells out this point in greater detail later in 1 Corinthians 15:

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor. 15:45–49, author’s translation)

Paul quotes Genesis 2:7, which refers to God’s creation of Adam, to show that Adam became a fountain of life but produces only natural offspring. Given his fall and consignment to the dust of the earth, Adam can produce only children who return to the dust. Jesus, the last Adam, on the other hand, is from heaven and is spiritual—that is, characterized by the Spirit—and those who are united to Him in covenant will share in His heavenly image. Jesus as the last Adam perfectly, personally, and definitively obeyed His heavenly Father and therefore became a life-giving Spirit—He unleashes the work of the Spirit, who goes out to gather the bride of Christ, the church, the last Eve.

The Bible presents Jesus as the last Adam, the obedient Son, who stands in contrast to God’s disobedient sons, Adam and Israel. Recall that Adam was God’s son (Luke 3:38; cf. Gen. 5:1–4), and yet he sought to grasp equality with God by taking and eating the forbidden fruit. Yet Jesus, who did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, came as a man, humbled Himself, and was obedient unto death, even death on the cross (Phil. 2:5–11). Likewise, Israel was God’s son (Ex. 4:22; Hos. 11:1), but Israel was stiff-necked and disobedient. The Spirit led Israel into the wilderness, where the people were disobedient over the supposed lack of food; yet when the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness and He was tempted by Satan three times, He was obedient and faithful. As the church father Ambrose of Milan once wrote in his exposition of the gospel of Luke, “It is fitting that it be recorded that the first Adam was cast out of Paradise in the desert, that you may observe how the second Adam returned from the desert to Paradise.” Ambrose presses the point: “Adam brought death through the tree. Christ brought life through the tree.” Jesus ushers in the new creation that Adam was supposed to inaugurate. Whereas Adam failed in the covenant of works, Jesus succeeds through the covenant of grace to bring salvation to those who trust in Him. In the words of the sixteenth-century poet John Donne:

We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ’s cross, and Adam’s tree, stood in one place;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me;
As the first Adam’s sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam’s blood my soul embrace.

We cannot understand the covenant of grace unless we first understand the covenant of works. Correlatively, we cannot understand the work of the last Adam unless we understand the work of the first Adam.