My name is Adam, I never cared much for the name as a kid. I think my parents chose the name not for any biblical reason but because I was born several months premature. They were scrambling for a name, Adam appears pretty early in the baby name book and well, I guess the rest is history.
As I grow older, I grow fonder of the name; it’s unique. None of my other classmates or teammates had the same name. Recently however, I seem to have bumped into a bazaar parallel universe in my life. At the gym, there’s another young man who works out with me, whose name is, you guessed it, Adam.
We have these awkward exchanges in the gym.
“Hey Adam, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine, Adam, how are you?”
“Adam, what body part are you lifting today?”
“Well, Adam, I’m doing chest and back.”
Occasionally it gets really weird when one of the guys from across the gym yells out,” Hey Adam, can I get a spot?” And suddenly to two of us arrive on the scene. Bazaar, right?
Regardless of the madness I experience at my gym, the bible has much to say about two Adams.
In 1 Corinthians 15:44-45, says, ‘So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.’
Having been a Christian for over 30 years I am acutely aware of the struggle within my own heart between two Adams. My fleshly nature, the one that refuses to bow its knee to Christ and the spirit of Christ that dwells in me. That part of me that loves God and loves his commandments. Perhaps, you too have experience this inner struggle. We aren’t alone in our struggle, the apostle Paul in the book of Romans chapter 7 says that the things I want to do I don’t do and the things I don’t want to do I do. What a wretched man I am.
The moments when I give in to my flesh and refuse to obey God are the times I need to take hold of the provision God made to the first Adam in Genesis chapter 3. See, immediately after Adam’s sin in the garden of Eden God gave the promise of a savior, “the seed of the women who would come and rescue.”
When you stumble in sin, we need to lean into that promise, by faith, and ask Jesus to rescue us from that sin.
God also provided a sacrifice, a covering for Adam’s nakedness and shame. God provides us with a covering, the righteousness of Jesus Christ that we put on like a garment.
My daily hope is to walk in the steps of Jesus, the last Adam, who loved God and loved people. I find he grows ever stronger in my life as I surround myself in the community of faith, the word of God and prayer. If you identify with the struggle of the two Adams, my encouragement to you is to grab hold of the provision and the promise of God found in the cross of Christ and the gospel and to plug yourself into the people of God, his church.