Anthropology: What is an Adam and How Do You Make One?

The Sanctuary Downtown / Relentless Love

Most people seem to think that Adam was a mythical man without a belly button who has nothing to do with any of us. Or, if he does have something to do with us, it’s that thousands of years ago he ate an apple, and so God will torture most of humanity forever without end. Most people think this is what the Bible says, and it’s not even remotely close to what it does say. On the Sixth Day of Creation (Please remember that this is the third sermon in an eight-part series), “God said, ‘let us make man [adam, in Hebrew] in our image after our likeness... So, God created man [ha adam, ‘the man’] in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” – Genesis 1:26-27 In Genesis chapters two and three, we read about the creation of Adam and His expulsion from the garden of delight on the Sixth Day and before the Seventh Day when “everything is good” and “it is finished.” “This is the book [Bible, Pentateuch, Genesis?] of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man [adam], He made him in the likeness of God... and named them Man [adam]... and he (Adam) fathered a son in his likeness after his image... and he died.” – Genesis 5:1-5 After Genesis 5:5, the word “adam” appears 530 more times in the Old Testament and only three times is it translated as “adam” (There is no capitalization or punctuation in Hebrew.) But 527 times adam is translated as “man, mankind, body, somebody, someone, anyone, person, people, etc.” Adam is always singular. And apparently, to drive this point home, about 140 times adam appears with the definite article as ha adam, “the adam.” Even if the text seems to be speaking of one particular adam, one adam plus another adam always equals adam —“The Adam.” And this changes things! ...like Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man [ha adam, ‘the Adam’] by man [ha adam, ‘the Adam’] shall his blood be shed [or ‘is his blood shed’].” Well . . . whoever sheds the blood of Adam is Adam, so whatever Adam does to Adam, he does to himself. You can take this as a law, and everyone dies. Or you can take this as a statement of fact, and everyone lives — like members in one body, the body of the Adam, who all bleed blood even as blood is bled into them. The life is in the blood. When Hebrews like St. Paul wrote in Greek, they had to find another word for adam — there are no Greek or English equivalents. So, the Hebrews normally used the Greek word, “anthropos,” from which we get our word, “anthropology (adam-logos).” St. Paul wrote, “For as by a man [anthropos] came death, by a man [anthropos] has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive... Thus, it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being [psyche: soul]; the last [eschatos] Adam became a life-giving spirit [pneuma: breath, wind, spirit].” –1 Corinthians 15, 21-22, 45 This is one of what I call, “The Bible Verses Banned By Bible Believing Believers.” And that’s so tragically ironic, for it’s absolutely central to the theology of the New Testament and the Early Church. We need to ask, “What is an adam, and how do you make . . . ONE?” Genesis 2:7, “The Lord God [Yahweh Elohim—three persons, one substance] formed the adam of the dust of the adamah and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the adam became a living soul.” I am spirit in dust, consciousness in matter, “I” in “me.” And yet, “I” can’t observe “I,” for the moment I do, “I” has already become “me.” “I” am eternal, and “me,” myself, is temporal. “I” seem to create “me” in space and time. “I” am more real than matter. The matter that “I” control is called my “body,” and the matter that you control is called your “body.” And all our problems arise when we want to control each other’s bodies but don’t want to be controlled by anybody. Ephesians 4:22, “Put off your old man [anthropos, adam] and put on the new man [anthropos, adam] created in the likeness of God (already ‘created for good works which God prepared beforehand that you would walk in them.’).” St. Paul believes that “I” have a “me” that I think I made in space and time — an old adam (Things only get “old” in space and time.) And I have a “me” that God has always created — the New Adam (Forever New, for He is Eternal.) My old man corresponds to Hell #1 (hades/sheol), the experience of the absence of God. And because I think I made him — he is the revelation of who it is that I think I should be, but I Am not. The New Man corresponds to Hell #2, The Eternal Fire, The Substance of Heaven, The Manifest Presence of God. He is who it is that I Am. In Romans, Paul taught us that our old adam is a “type,” an empty imprint of the “one being about to be.” So, I experience my old man as shame — who I should be, but I am not. And I can only know the New Man by Grace through Faith, manifesting as ceaseless gratitude, joy, and worship. Even now, “The Heavenly Man” dwells in the inner Sanctuary of the Temple of my body. For some, the curtain has ripped, and holiness is filling their temple. For others, the curtain has yet to rip, and so their consciousness remains exiled from the garden and longing for Love in the outer courts of their own temple. We’re usually both. But, in reality, there is only one Adam. The New Adam is imprisoned in your old adam like a baby is imprisoned in a womb. “Who will deliver me from this body of sin...and death,” writes Paul. The body of sin and death, “the psychikos body,” is “flesh.” And yet, Jesus also had flesh . . . then lost it . . . then rose with a different kind of flesh. One evening, 25 years ago, after our Saturday night service, a young girl came to me rather traumatized and said, “I was in the service tonight, and I saw something... When people came forward for communion, ‘cutters’ (big knives) swung out of the walls and cut people — cut off parts of the people that were coming forward.” I expressed great concern for her, for it must have been such a violent sight. But she said, “It was so cool because they kept coming, hobbling forward. And when they got to the communion table, they would, like, bump into each other . . . and fuse at the point of the wound. So, if a man had no right leg and a woman had no left leg, they’d fuse together. Everyone fused together and grew into one enormous man who couldn’t be hurt.” Imperishable, undefiled, “not fragile:” The Eschatos Adam. She saw eternal reality manifesting in a temporal experience. Everyone had come to church that night, stuck on themselves, and so alone (And it’s “not good for the adam to be alone.”). But the Word drew them, then cut them, and then bound them all together. Humbled, they were then surprisingly exalted, for on the other side of the table, other people were no longer a curse but a blessing; they were no longer “others” but the missing parts of themselves. No one was alone; everyone was “saved.” Once you’ve seen the Eschatos Adam, the very last thing you would want to do, is to send anyone to some sort of endless conscious torment. And the very first thing you would want to do is to forgive all of Adam, which would cut all of Adam, and yet liberate all of Adam to be Adam and liberate you to be yourself. For you would know that what you do to even the last and least of these, you do to Jesus, and what you do to Jesus . . . you do to yourself, “the Adam.” In a body, the joy of one is the joy of all, and the joy of all is the joy of one. And on the other side of the communion table there is no more pain, for all pain comes from division in a body. On the other side of the table, there is no such thing as an adam that is ‘alone.’ You are not alone. To think that you are is Hell #1. To know that you are not, is Heaven. To wake from your illusions is the Judgment. Waking is painful. To be awake is absolute Joy. You are Adam. Jesus is Adam. There is only One Adam. [Click here for a list of questions for reflection and/or discussion related to this sermon]