Daily Word

What is the incredible thing that Paul is saying in these important Bible verses?

That the first “spiritual man” ever is Jesus Christ!

And that we only through Him can reach our destiny to become spiritual people, god-like people.

Jesus Christ is the image of God that man was intended to be from eternity.

He is the first ‘complete’ man: the first with a living spirit, with a deep spiritual contact with God.

It therefore took thousands of years before God’s original purpose for man was realized.

Adam never became what God intended man to be.

He was a “soulish” man: an incomplete man limited to his psycho-physical abilities, limited to the natural, created world.

Furthermore, through the Fall, he became spiritually dead, invaded and constituted by the spirit of sin: a man with a “carnal mind” – in his innermost being rebellious and hostile to God.

Thus Adam became the origin of fallen Adamic humanity: all who are born into it are born “in sin” – have the same spirit-nature alienated from God and are under the death sentence of God’s wrath.

As the “last Adam” Jesus took this death sentence upon himself and became on the cross the end of the whole fallen Adamic humanity.

Through his resurrection and glorification He was given the power to invade man with the Holy Spirit and re-create fallen people into “heavenly, spiritual” ones: thus he became “a life-giving spirit” – the head of a completely new humanity.

To be born again is to become part of this new, spiritual humanity – a complete human being with the same qualities and possibilities as Jesus Christ.