Another Adam?

Romans is clear that sin was passed down to the human race through Adam. However, most people will quickly remember that Adam wasn’t the first human to disobey God. Eve disobeyed first.

I recently read a few literary retellings of the story of Adam and Eve. I read Perelandra by C.S. Lewis (a fantasy/science fiction work set on Venus) and the epic poem Paradise Lost by John Milton. Though these stories need to be read as literature, not Scripture or theology, they illustrate theological truths. I think there is a reason so much of the Bible is narrative. Hearing a story makes you think in different ways than reading a textbook makes you think.

The Bible puts the fall (and consequently death) pretty squarely on Adam’s shoulders, not Eve’s, even though she ate first. Romans said that sin came into the world through one man (not through one woman) and that death was passed on to all the descendants through the man (while the woman’s seed actually offers hope of a coming Rescuer). In a sense, it might have been easy for the early church fathers who wrote the New Testament to pass the blame to Eve, as Adam himself did in Genesis 3:12. After all, other cultures of the time saw women as the beginning of trouble (such as the Greek story of Pandora). It makes me wonder. Was Eve’s fall into sin somehow different than Adam’s?

Adam’s Motive

The story in Genesis 3 gives a lot of detail about the conversation between Eve and the serpent and even offers insight into her heart. The fruit was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and was to be desired to make one wise (3:6). However, there is hardly any commentary on what words or persuasions the serpent or Eve used to tempt Adam. It simply says that he took the fruit and ate.

In a romantic twist, Paradise Lost explains Adam’s capitulation as a love for his wife, resigning himself to share her fate. Satan speaks to Eve because she was Adam’s weakness.

On the other hand, Eve gave the fruit to her husband who was with her, so Adam was passively allowing Satan to tempt Eve, allowing her to eat, and then eating the fruit himself. The absence of discussion makes him seem almost mindless and that his greatest fault was apathy. Was Adam’s sin too much love for Eve or too little care for his responsibility? Though it isn’t recorded for us, I tend to think he had the same reason for eating as Eve did, the desire to be wise.

The Last Adam

1 Corinthians 15 refers to Christ as being the last Adam. Why on earth would we want another Adam when the first one ruined everything? Why not label the Messiah as another David or Moses?

The fantasy Perelandra (which imagines a first couple who resists temptation) brought me back to an earlier question. Were the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sins somehow different? What if only Eve had eaten the fruit? What if Adam had stood his ground in the face of all the serpent’s wiles and his beloved wife’s charm and chosen to obey God? Eve’s sin was fatal, deserving the death God had already named as the punishment for disobedience. Maybe her fall was different though because after her sin, there was still hope for the human race. For a short time, there remained a sinless human, one who was meant to be her protector and authority.

What if Adam loved God enough that he would obey, even if that meant losing Eve? What if he loved his bride (bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh) enough, not to earn the fate of death with her, but instead to die for her? What if he, still innocent, had taken the place of Eve and received her punishment? Could she have been redeemed?

As C.S. Lewis says, we can never know what might have been. After Adam ate the fruit, he was no longer qualified to redeem his bride so we will never know if he could have or would have done such a loving, sacrificial thing. But we do know that another Adam came. One who was tempted in every way, just as the first Adam was. Yet an Adam who resisted temptation and brought righteousness instead of guilt, life instead of death. An Adam who ransomed His bride in a lavish display of love, taking the punishment for the sins of not just one person, but of the whole world. And so, Adam is a fitting name for our Savior, not because He acted as Adam did, but because He acted as Adam should have, not only in obedience, but in loving sacrifice.

Photo by Ghana Shyam Khadka on Unsplash