ADAM: THE SON OF GOD

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Basic Assumptions:

* The first two human beings were Adam and Eve.

* The Garden of Eden was a life-giving real place where God set Adam and Eve right after their creation.

* God created the angels in Heaven as part of His Heavenly family.

* Men and women are completely equal in God’s sight even though they at times have differing roles.

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The Garden of Eden introduces us to Adam and Eve who are the first people created in the image of God. They were given the capacity as imagers to reflect GOD (the Trinity). They turned from the path of reflecting God (they sinned).  Eve, being deceived, and Adam willfully followed after the deceit (1 Timothy 2:14-15).  Adam is the son of God (Luke 3:38) that broke the covenant relationship with God and we find their fallen account in the first three chapters of Genesis.  The son (Adam) is to reflect the Father (God), but he does not. We must note God’s desire to restore the son and daughter from rebellion right from the start.  ‘I will be your God and you will be My people’ was God’s intent from the beginning which speaks to a whole connected complete family involving God and all human beings.  In many ways, humanity is a ‘wayward son’ that spurned their Father’s will and affections and went their own way (see Hosea 6:6-7).  Sin and the wandering nature of Adam and his descendants does not change God’s life-giving nature.

Adam is a direct creation of God and His Son.  In that way, Adam is unique.  Angels in the same way are called ‘sons of God’ as direct creations, but Adam is the son of God and holds headship on God’s Earth. 

Women are called forth from man and are unique in their life-giving nature.  Eve gives life and Eve is the helpmate.  She is the helper.  Such language is also specifically used of the Holy Spirit.  In no way is Eve ‘less than’ Adam, but simply has a different order/role as an imager of God.

Ideally, Adam and Eve would have both/together reflected God.  They were not only to reflect God in His character but also in both of their roles as images of God.  Adam and Eve together reflect God Almighty in their mutual submission to one another and their production of life and have dominion over Creation. 

They did not. 

They fell in their very being… not just ‘made a mistake.’  Sin is a big deal.  The imagers made soul-endangering forever decisions because of their rejection of God’s design.  It was a forever decision also because of God’s nature.  They were lost.  The wages of sin was death (their days were numbered). 

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Basic Assumptions:

* Jesus the Christ was not an afterthought or ‘plan b,’ but rather the premeditated will of God to redeem humanity.

* Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical flesh-and-blood human being.

* Jesus is 100% God and 100% human being.

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The arrival of Jesus Christ is the recapturing of human sonship at peace with Father God and imaging the Nature that was lost to Adam.  He is the second Adam (Romans 5:14-15).  He is the means of redemption (not just the washing away of sin).  What’s more, Jesus is a life-giving Spirit, even as God the Father maintains His life-giving nature.  God became flesh.  Jesus fulfills all of God’s plan to give human beings access again to the Sonship that was lost with Adam (human) and Eve (life) (1 Corinthians 15:21-23).  Jesus rose from the dead becoming a human life-giving Spirit.

The gift of God is Jesus Christ Who is life-giving. 

Resurrected Jesus changes and secures our eternal life because He is the life-giving Spirit.