ANDREW GRAY (PERTH)

grayperth

SERMON II
THE LAST ADAM.

Cor. xv. 45. - " And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."
WHEN Christ is called "the last Adam," a twofold relation between him and Adam is implied. By giving him the name of "Adam," the text implies one relation between him and our original progenitor; and, by prefixing to the name the term "last," it implies another.
I. In the first place, there is the relation which is implied in the name. Let us consider it.
A name used in this way - that is, to designate a party whose proper and ordinary name it is not - expresses, if it is the well-known name of another party, the idea of whom it naturally suggests, a symbolical or typical relation between the two, the party to whom it belongs and the party to whom it is ascribed. Thus, in Rev. xi. 8, the world is called "Sodom and Egypt," by which we understand that Sodom and Egypt were types of the world. In Rev. xvii. 18, the apostate Church is call Babylon; and we understand by it that Babylon was a type of the apostate Church. In Heb. xii. 22, the true Church gets the name of Mount Sion; which, of course, means that Mount Sion typified the Church. Elsewhere, John the Baptist is called Elias ; as much as to say that he was typified by that prophet. And we find our Lord himself called David at one time (Ezek. xxxiv. 23, xxxvii. 24, 25; Jer. xxx. 9), and Solomon at another (Song iii. 7-11) ; the meaning of which must be, that these famous kings were symbols or types of him.
So here, the application of the name of Adam to our Lord is to he regarded as announcing that Adam was typically related to him. It is equivalent to what the Apostle affirms of Adam in another place, - that he "is the figure of hint that was to come." (Rom. v. 14).
This, then, is our first great lesson. Adam was a type of Christ - he prefigured Christ. Certain facts and truths concerning Christ were portrayed, and in a shadowy manner exhibited, through time providential assemblage of facts and truths bearing some resemblance to them in Adam and his history. In the life, circumstances, and position of the father of mankind, there were things that were put there by the Creator, for this among other reasons, - to present a similitude of great and essential realities in connexion with the Saviour, and afford a likeness of things wonderful and glorious in him that was to come.
1. Adam prefignred him in the holiness of his nature. Of all the human race there have been two men, and only two, who were free from every taint of sin when they came into the world. Two men there have been, who were holy, harmless, undefiled, at the very outset of their earthly being; and there never will be more. In the word made flesh, the woman’s promised seed, we see the one; and, looking across the intervening ages, back to the day when God made man in his own image, we descry the other, "a figure of him that was to come."
2. Adam was a type of Christ in his dominion. That we may perceive this, let us turn to the eighth Psalm: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas." All this dominion is ascribed to man. And the words bring before us the first man, with the decree that accompanied his creation, - " Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." But the first man is not here alone. A greater than he is in the words. We go to Paul’s exposition of them, in the second chapter of Hebrews, and we learn that Jesus is here as well as Adam - the Man of God’s right hand, as well as the first man. "Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet," says the Apostle, quoting the Psalm; and then, in the way of comment and explanation, - "For in that he put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him; but we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour." All which implies that it will not do to see in the Psalm only man in general, and Adam as the head representative of the race - that, while Adam is in it, and Adam’s rank and ascendancy are described, the language is, at the same time, descriptive of a wider and more absolute dominion than that which Adam enjoyed, and that the reason why it is so expressed as to bring our progenitor into view at all is, that in the dominion which was given to him, as well as in other things, he was a type and figure of one more illustrious than himself, whose power and sovereign rule it is the chief design of the Psalm to celebrate. The grandeur of the position of Adam as the lord of this world, and the creatures contained in it, symbolised the grandeur of that King who has on his head many crowns, and in his hands all power in heaven and on earth, with the keys of hell and of death, and of whom it is told that God has highly exalted him, and given him a name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth!
3. Adam was a type of Christ in his marriage. A careful study of the passage in Ephesians, commencing, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church," may shew that we have warrant for saying this.The language of the Apostle, when he says, in name of the Church, "We are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones," is evidently borrowed from the language of Adam: "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh ;" and it seems to glance at the fact, that it was a "member of his body," one of his ribs, where of the woman was made; and the words which Adam spake when Eve was brought to him, "For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh," are affirmed to contain "a great mystery," and be applicable to Christ and the Church. The union between Christ and the Church is often described as a marriage. He is the bridegroom; she is the bride. He is the King, whose garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces; and she is the Queen, who stands at his right hand in gold of Ophir. A whole book of Scripture is devoted to the subject, considered in this aspect alone. It was not unsuitable that the first marriage that ever occurred, and the only marriage which has the distinction of having been celebrated by Jehovah himself, should be a special type of the glorious union of Christ and the Church. The marriage of Adam was preceded by a deep sleep, into which the Lord God cast him. That was a proclamation that the marriage of the antitype should be preceded by a similar sleep. The sleep of Christ was deep. It was the sleep of death; and he was cast into it by the Lord. The sleep of Adam brought him a helpmeet, who was ready for him when he awoke; and a corresponding relation between Christ’s death and the Church is indicated by the words of the prophet: "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied." When he sees his Church in her beauty as his spouse, his dove, his undefiled, he sees of the travail of his soul, the fruit of his death: He began, very specially so, to see her at the day of Pentecost, soon after his resurrection, when the Spirit was poured from on high. Fair as the moon stood the daughter of the King before her Bridegroom then; and the words were strictly true, if we conceive him saying, in his joy, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!" Adam’s side was opened to provide a wife for him. The symbolic act was repeated on the body of the Saviour. It was ordered so that his side was pierced, and blood and water flowed out. And we can say, in a most truthful figure, that from that side of his the ransomed Church derives her being as such, - her being, her beauty, her holiness, and every grace with which she is adorned.
4. Adam was a type of Christ in his trial. The trial of Adam was twofold, - his trial by God, and his trial by Satan. He was a type of Christ in each.
1st. As soon as he was created he was put upon his trial. A course of obedience was prescribed to him, and a reward was promised if he followed it. God gave him a law, and set life before him as the prize to be gained by keeping it. Do this and thou shalt live, was the substance of what God said to Adam. Here is thy work, there is thy recompence: perform the one, enjoy the other. Prove now thy regard for the will of thy Creator; shew thyself devotedly and unswervingly loyal to his government: let it. appear that thy conduct is in all things, and at all times, determined by his command. Do this, and thou shalt have life; eternal happiness shall be thine.
To the Son of God also a course of obedience was prescribed: and on this account he took the form of a servant; and we find him saying, that he came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. To him, too, it was said, Do this and live; here is thy work, there is thy recompence: obey the Father’s will, and behold the everlasting inheritance that awaits Thee. Thus much the type may tell us. But there is much beyond. The course of obedience which belonged to Adam’s trial was easy, compared with thatwhiehwas prescribed to Christ. While the essential principles of law that were involved were the same in both, they differed exceedingly as to positive enactments or commands. The difference was great in the number and in the nature of such commands. By positive commands we intend such as create the duties, or the sins, which they enjoin or forbid. Idolatry, blasphemy, theft, slander, and the like, are sins in their own nature - Divine praise, prayer, justice, charity, and the like, are duties in their own nature - independently of express command; and no command could make it warrantable to commit the former, or to neglect the latter. But it is otherwise with the use of, or abstinence from, certain meats or drinks, the practice of certain washings, the offering of certain sacrifices, and the like, where the duty or the sin cannot be in the nature of the thing, and must depend entirely on the positive command.
Now, in Adam’s course of obedience, we may say there was but one positive command. Almost the only command of that description was what related to the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But the law of God was in a very different state, as to its positive developments, when Christ appeared. And the course of obedience on which he entered bound him, not only to that unalterable righteousness which the law must always require, but to a multitude of ceremonies and ordinances besides, which Peter characterised as a yoke which neither the fathers nor those of his own generation had been able to bear. It pertained to Christ’s appointed trial, that he behoved to observe and obey them all. For this reason it was that, when he went to be baptized, he silenced John’s protest by saying, "Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness." All righteousness. If he was to come through his trial with success, if he was to win the life, and the kingdom, and the glory, one jot or one tittle could not pass from the law till all was fulfilled.
The pre-eminent difficulty of the. trial of Christ, as compared with that of Adam, appears, however, more in the nature than in the number of its positive commands. Eat not of the fruit of that tree, said the Lord to Adam. Eat of all the rest - as to them use thy freedom; but let this one be untouched. That was all. What said the Father to Christ? Behold that sea of trouble: that wild tempestuous sea. It is not a sea thou mayest walk upon, like that of Galilee, nor a sea to be divided, as Red Sea was. My pleasure is, that thou go down into its depths, so that all my waves may pass over thee, and thou mayest be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, as man never was before. What more did the Father say to him? Behold that fire - that fire of Almighty wrath, kindled by sin. Thou art sinless, 0 my well-beloved! Yet my will is, that thou go into the furnace, where my wrath is burning, and give thy body to its flames. And, at the same time, take this cup - this cup of trembling, and unexampled bitterness - the very thought of which casts thee into an agony, so that thy sweat is falling in drops of blood to the ground - take, take the cup and drink it, for it may not pass from thee; and drink it thou must! What more did the Father say? The obedience I require of thee, 0 servant of my choice, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth, is obedience to the uttermost, obedience unto death! Thou must lay down thy life. Thou must go a willing victim to the cross of shame, and walk through the valley of darkness alone, forsaken even by me, without staff or rod to comfort thee! When I give the death-dealing sword its commission, - " Awake, 0 sword, against my Shepherd, against the Man that is my fellow; smite the Shepherd," - thou must welcome the stroke, and not refuse to die, for it is an indispensable part of thy trial; and this commandment thou receivest from thy Father.
When we find Christ’s trial involving an obedience so great and arduous, we could begin to doubt of any typical relation in Adam’trial to it, did we not remember that the earthly cannot but come short of the heavenly, that the type is but the shadow and not the very image of the things it represents, and that the antitype always has a fulness and intensity, which we can only know when we have itself before us as the object of direct contemplation.
2nd. Next there is Adam’s trial by Satan, The devil was allowed to invade the privacy of the garden, and to make approaches to man in his happy home. He had liberty to tempt God’s holy creature, to address him in subtle proposals, and, if he could, to persuade him to swerve from his obedience and embark in rebellion. Satan went to work accordingly. Using that licence to the full, he sought, with cunning speech and glozing tongue, to kindle desires which were contrary to Adam’s duty, and which he could not gratify unless he broke the bounds which had been assigned him.
As with Adam, so with the Saviour. Jesus had a trial by Satan, and was tempted of the devil. For forty days the bold deceiver had his opportunity, and practised his clever arts, and shot his poisoned arrows, to debauch the heart and soul of the second man. How the adversary did strive, what insidious suggestions he threw out, what plausible requests he made, what crafty applications of Scripture he resorted to, that Jesus might simply forget, if but for the briefest space of time, that he was a servant and under the law, and be so filled and engrossed with the idea that he was the Son of God, as to lose hold of the idea that he was also the Son of Man! And the trial occurred in the wilderness. That of Adam had been in the garden. The difference was against the Saviour. The tempter was more at home among the desolations of the wilderness, than among the fair and happy scenes of the garden. And Adam, in the abode with which he was familiar, and where every possible good surrounded him, was in a better position for courageous resistance oi the foe than Jesus was in the cheerless and inhospitable waste. It would seem, too, that Satan was under less restraint when he dealt with Jesus, than in the case of Adam, and that a larger licence was accorded him. He was permitted to go the length of laying hands on the Saviour. In the desperate pursuit of his ends, he took Him to the top of a lofty mountain at one time, and he carried Him from the wilderness to Jerusalem, and set Him on a pinnacle of the temple, at another.
Nor did the trial, to which Satan subjected the Redeemer, terminate soon. It is recorded that, at the close of the temptation in the wilderness, the devil departed from Him for a season. But it was only for a season. When the hour of Jesus arrived, the devil returned to aggravate its terrors. "The prince of this world cometh," said Jesus. The prince of this world came like a roaring lion. The treason of Judas, the denials of Peter, the taunts and calumnies, and buffetings in the high priest’s hall, the indignities of the soldiers, the clamours of the people, the tortures of Calvary, were contrived and instigated by him, one and all, no thanks to him if it was the heel, and not the head, of our champion, that was bruised!
5. Adam was a type of Christ in his covenant Head-ship. We say that God made a covenant with Adam. And, when we say so, the thing signified is, that He engaged Himself to bestow a specified good upon certain conditions which were binding upon Adam.
We say also that God made a covenant with His only-begotten Son. And the meaning is the same. He engaged Himself to bestow a specified good upon certain conditions which were binding upon Christ. That these statements are true, and that God did engage Himself both to Adam and to Christ for the bestowal of a specified good upon certain binding conditions, the declarations of Scripture make abundantly manifest.
The covenant with Adam, indeed, was expressed in the form of a threatening (Gen. ii. 16, 17), while the covenant with Christ was expressed in the form of a promise (Gal. iii. 16) ; but the fact is unaltered that there was a covenant with each. Every covenant with conditions has both a promise and a threatening in it; a promise to be fulfilled, if the conditions are kept, and a threatening to be executed, if the conditions are broken; and the forms employed respectively were the forms most suitable - the threatening, for the upright, but fallible man; the promise, for the glorious Son of God.
The trial, to which Adam was subjected by God, was the result of the covenant with Adam. And so of the trial of Christ it was involved, like the other, in the conditions of the covenant. The interests of many were bound up in God’s covenants. Many were concerned in the covenant with Adam, and many in the covenant with Christ. This opened the way for the position of Headship, which was assigned to Adam and to Christ respectively.
Now Adam, in his Headship, typified Christ. And there were four points which his Headship involved, and in respect of which he sustained that typical relation.
I st. There was the representative character which he bore. The covenant was not made with him as a private individual Others were concerned in it. For these others he appeared, and on their behalf he was dealt with. When God made the covenant with Adam, be made it with us, with you and me, and with the human race to the latest generations. The first progenitor represented his posterity. Such representation is not unusual. Sometimes we are represented in important transactions by persons of our own choice, and sometimes by persons, whose appointment is from the Providence of God, without our own nomination at all. Parents represent their children, in the engagements of baptism, and occasionally in obligations of civil life. Princes represent their subjects, and make covenants or treaties with foreign states by which unborn generations are bound. But these are cases of representation on comparatively a small scale. The only case, which for magnitude and grandeur can be likened to that of Adam, is the case of Christ. As Adam was the representative of all mankind, so Christ was the representative of them who are described as "a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues." Adam, the first great representative of human beings, was, in that capacity, the figure of him that was to come as another, as the only other, great Representative of human beings; and the federal comprehension which we see in the former stands forth as the proper and undoubted symbol of the federal comprehension which we see in the latter.
2nd. There was the vicarious action of Adam under the covenant. He did not drop the representative character when the covenant which bound his posterity in him was made. Having represented them to the extent of bringing them under the covenant, and subjecting them to all its obligations, through the dealings of God with himself on their behalf; He continued to represent them by acting vicariously, by acting for them, and in their stead, under the covenant, and as regards the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of its obligations. When the covenant was made with him, there were two ways of it - either to bring upon those whom he represented, obligations which were to be personally fulfilled - as the parent does in the baptism of his children; or to bring upon them obligations which were to be vicariously fulfilled by himself - which it was to be his duty to fulfil in their stead, and on their behalf. This last was what was done, and Adam entered on a course of vicarious action accordingly.
So, then, Adam furnishes a typical illustration of that which was vicarious in the Saviour’s career. The chief glory of the covenant, which was made with the Son, consists in the vicarious proceedings to which it pledged him. If it had imposed obligations which were to be personally fulfilled by His people, it would have been an abortive transaction, and the fulfilments would never have come. But the obligations it imposed, so far as they were concerned, were to be vicariously fulfilled, and the duty of that fulfilment was undertaken and executed by our Lord. The obligations amounted substantially to the work of magnifying the law and making it honourable. Personally, the believer never could have done it; but he does it by his substitute, by Christ. Christ did it vicariously in his room and on his behalf. Vicarious procedure in ordinary life is what one may do through an agent or counsel, a wife through her husband, an infant through its guardians, a lunatic through his administrators, a nation through its armies and fleets.
3rd. There is the imputation and legal reckoning of Adam’s vicarious procedure. What he did vicariously under the covenant is imputed to his posterity, and they are legally reckoned with on account of it.
Analogous, in some measure, to this, is the legal reckoning which we see applied to great trading companies for the doings of their managers. These doings, in the eye of the law, are the doings of the companies, and of the individuals of whom they consist.
But here, as elsewhere, the type is incomplete as a symbol of the antitype. Adam’s covenant bound him to vicarious action, and gave his action, whether good or bad, a vicarious character. He became a vicarious agent, and did what he did as the representative and substitute of others. He was our federal head; and that which he did, his posterity did in him; because he did it, it was done by you, by me, by all. Thus far, he was a type of the Saviour. Vicarious action was binding on Christ. It was part of his duty as the Father’s servant, by the provisions of the covenant which had been made with him by the Father. He had to act, to do, in the name, as the representative and substitute, of others - in the name, as the representative and substitute, of those who had been the Father’s gift to him before the foundation of the world. Vicarious action was binding both on Adam and on Christ. But Adam’s covenant did not require vicarious suffering. It made him vicarious as a doer, but not as a sufferer.
And so it came to pass that the vicarious position of’ Jesus was not completely typified by our progenitor. On. him there lay a covenant-obligation to suffer - to suffer as the substitute of his people. The antitype went beyond the type. In his position we find the grander and more awful element of vicarious endurance of misery and wrath. He was to be the substitute of his people in the reckonings of justice for their sins. They for whom he appeared were not only under the law; they were also under the curse. And therefore the covenant, whereof he was the head, had placed him under both - under the curse, as well as under the law. Hence it is written of him, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." (GaL iii. 13.) And the common feature of imputation in the relation of the two Adams to those whom they represent is emphatically brought out by the Apostle Paul, in that passage in the Epistle to the Romans, in which he sums up his teaching on that subject (Rom. v. 12-19). Thus of Adam he says: "By one man sin, entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." And then he adds, connecting Christ, as the second Adam, with the first, in a contrast implying a common character, "But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."
4th, There is the transmission of moral qualities and tendencies from Adam to all his posterity. The first man, by his fall, not only contracted guilt, but brought upon his nature the taint of corruption; and that taint is communicated through him to all mankind. In Christ, the Son of God, there is a holy human nature. And by the power of his Holy Spirit, effecting a real and vital union between him and his people, they become holy as he is holy. They are renewed after his image. They are "made partakers of his holiness." In him they are "made partakers of the Divine nature."

II. The relation which is implied by prefixing to the name "Adam" the term "last," is now to be considered. Christ, as has been said, is called "David," and "Solomon." But he is not called "the last David," or "the last Solomon." John the Baptist is called "Elias," but not "the last Elias." These were types, and only types: Elias of John, David and Solomon of Christ. They had no other public relation to Christ. But Adam was not a mere type. There was, beyond this, a public and official relation between him and Christ; so that if Adam had not gone before, or if he had been other than he was, or had acted otherwise than he did, there would have been no need of Christ. This is more than could be said of a mere type.
They were successive competitors for the same great prize, namely, eternal life to man. They were successive workers at the same great task. The divine glory on earth, and in connection with mankind, was to be provided for; and eternal life was to be secured. This was the task assigned to the first Adam. "The last Adam" suggests the idea of one who completed that which his predecessor began to do - or, who succeeded in that in which his predecessor failed. A series of more than two may be conceived. Had an angel taken flesh, after the first Adam had failed, to try what he could do, he would have been the second Adam. But he too would have failed, and the series must have been continued. There would then have been, in succession, the first Adam, the second Adam, the third and last Adam. The common name is suggestive of the unity of obligation being derived from the first member of the series. The special term "last" is suggestive of the obligation being at last fulfilled. Christ is "the last Adam." There is no need for another. The great work is done. The series may stop now! .
1. Let the two Adams be contrasted. First, in respect of what they were. "The first man, Adam, was made a living soul; the last Adam, a quickening spirit." "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven." Secondly, and chiefly, in respect of what they accomplished. The first point of contrast is suggested by Rom. v. 19: "As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." The first Adam entailed only sin upon his posterity; the last Adam has for his people righteousness: He is their righteousness. A second point of contrast is brought out in Rom. v. 18: "As by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." The first Adam condemns all; the last Adam justifies all. In the first Adam, there is the condemnation of all of whom he is the covenant head ; in the last Adam, there is the justification of all A third point of contrast is in the issue, or fruit, which is sin and condemnation on the one hand, righteousness and justification on the other. In the first Adam, all die, all are dead (Rom. v. 15-17); in the last Adam, Christ, all are made alive (1 Cor. xv. 22). They whom the two Adams respectively represent share their respective characters and destinies. "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly," (1 Cor. xv. 18, 19.)
2. Let our Lord’s success, as the last Adam, be considered in opposition to the failure of the first Adam. Christ, as the last Adam, succeeded, first, by fulfilling the obedience to the law in which the first Adam failed; and secondly, by overcoming the obstacle which the first Adam’s failure created. Thus Adam is more than a type of Christ, especially in his trial, and in his headship, or in the representative capacity which, in his trial, he maintained. If his trial had had a better issue, and his headship had not borne the fruit it did, another Adam would have been unnecessary. This shows him to be more than a type of Christ. It shows Christ to be more than the mere antitype of Adam. In their position and undertakings, the relation between them was typical. Therefore Christ is Adam.
In the fruits of their position and undertakings, in their respective achievements, there is another relation which is expressed when Christ is called the last Adam. It is a relation indicating the perfection of Christ. The last Adam is perfect, as a competitor for the prize, - eternal life to rnan, - which the first Adam lost; as a worker at the task in which the first Adam broke down. In particular, he is perfect, in the first place, in respect of his vicarious action. In that respect, he is emphatically the "last Adam." His vicarious action was perfect. There was no flaw in it. "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." (Heb. v. 8, 9.) "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." (Rom. v. 19.) Again, secondly, he is perfect as the last Adam, in respect of the imputation and legal reckoning of his vicarious action. As there is no flaw in his vicarious action, in his work of obedience and atonement, as the Covenant-Head, so there is no flaw in the title with which all the members are invested, as one with him, to claim an interest in the whole of it - in all its virtue, and efficacy, and value. "Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." (Rom. v. 18.) And, thirdly, as the last Adam, he is perfect in respect of the actual transmission and communication of all the life and holiness which his vicarious action involves. As the last Adam, he has the Holy Spirit to give. And by the gift of the Holy Spirit he effectually secures the salvation of all who are his. Thus Christ is Adam, and the last Adam.
Sometimes a name designates an office rather than an individual. Thus we speak of the kings of Egypt as Pharaohs, and of the Roman Emperors as Caesars. There may also be, in such cases, the last of a name. There is the last Caesar. That title indicates decay, degeneracy, death. It is the race wearing itself out. In a very different sense is Christ the "Last Adam." To his people he is "the Last Adam," for they need not, nor shall ever need, another. To those who neglect "the great salvation," he is "the Last Adam," for they never can have another." "There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin." "There is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved."

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