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Bible Dictionaries
Adam (1)
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or ("red earth".) The name given by God to the first man, to remind him of his earthly nature; whereas Ιsh was the name whereby he designates himself, a man of earth (as opposed to Enosh "a man of low degree" Psalms 62:9) (Genesis 2:23). The Hebrew Αdam never assumes any change to mark the dual or plural numbers, men. Probably the Syro-Arabian is the primitive tongue, whence sprang the Hebrew and other so-called Shemitic tongues. The names in Genesis are therefore essentially the same as were actually spoken. Adam's naming of the animals in Eden implies that God endued Adam with that power of generalization based on knowledge of their characteristics, whereby he classified those of the same kinds under distinctive appellations, which is the fundamental notion of human language.
Its origin is at once human and divine. divine, in that "God brought" the animals "to Adam to see what he would call them," and enabled him to know intuitively their characteristics, and so not at random or with arbitrary appellations, but with such as marked the connection (as all the oldest names did, when truth logical and moral coincided) between the word and the thing, to name them; human, in that Adam, not God, was the name. "He did not begin with names, but with the power of naming; for man is not a mere speaking machine; God did not teach him words, as a parrot, from without, but gave him a capacity, and then evoked the capacity which He gave." (Abp. Trench.)
As the crown of creation, he was formed at the close of the sixth day. Adam came into the world a full grown man, with the elements of skill and knowledge sufficient to maintain his lordship over nature. The Second Adam came as an infant by humiliation to regain for man his lost lordship. Original records are perhaps traceable as employed in the inspired record of Moses. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is one concerning creation and man in a general summary. A second is Genesis 2:4-4:26, treating in a more detailed way what was summarily given as to man (Genesis 1), his innocence, first sin, and immediate posterity. A third is Genesis 5:1 - 9:29, "the book of the generations of Adam," and especially of Noah.
But the theory of an Elohist author for Genesis 1, and a Jehovist author for Genesis 2, distinct from Moses, on the ground that ELOHIM is the divine name in Genesis 1, but JEHOVAH ELOHIM in Genesis 2, is untenable. Nay, the names are used in their respective places with singular propriety; for ELOHIM expresses the mighty God of creation, and is fitting in His relation to the whole world. (Genesis 1) But JEHOVAH, the unchanging I AM (Exodus 6:3), in covenant with His people, always faithful to His promises to them, is just the name that the Spirit of God would suggest in describing His relation to man, once innocent, then fallen, then the object of an everlasting covenant of love. It is just one of the undesigned proprieties which confirm Scripture's divine origination, that the JEHOVAH of the covenant with the church is the ELOHIM of the world, and vice versa.
The Elohim in man's creation use anthropomorphic language, implying collective counsel: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," Abp. Trench remarks: "The whole history of man, not only in his original creation, but also in his after restoration and reconstitution in the Son, is significantly wrapped up in this double statement; which is double for this very cause, that the divine mind did not stop at the contemplation of his first creation but looked on to him as renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him (Colossians 3:10); because it knew that only as partaker of this double benefit would he attain the true end for which he was made." In 1 Corinthians 11:7 man is called "the image and glory of God." This ideal is realized fully in the Son of man (Psalms 8:4-5). Man is both the "image" (Greek eikon , Hebrew tzelem )), and made in the "likeness" (Greek homoiosis , Hebrew demuth ) of God (James 3:9). "Image" (eikon ) alone is applied to the Son of God (Colossians 1:15); compare Hebrews 1:3, "the express image of His person" (Greek character, the impress). Eicon, "image," presupposes a prototype, as the monarch is the prototype and his head on the coin the image.
But "likeness" implies mere resemblance. Thus the "image" of God remains in some degree after the fall (Genesis 9:6; James 3:9; 1 Corinthians 11:7). The likeness of God is what we are to be striving toward. The archetype is in God; man in his ideal is molded after the model realized in the Son of Man, "the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of every creature," the incarnate God, already existing in the divine point of view (Colossians 1:15), with body and animal life akin to the animal world, yet the noble temple of an immortal spirit, with reason, imagination, freewill finding its true exercise in conformity to God's will, and a spiritual nature resembling God's, reflecting God's truth, righteousness, and love; capable of reasoning in the abstract which the lower animals cannot, as they have no general signs for universal ideas.
Some indeed, as the parrot, can frame articulate sounds, but they have not the power to abstract ideas from the particular outward objects, so as to generalize; as their want of a general language proves. Man is the interpreter of nature's inarticulate praises to nature's God. The uniformity of type in the animal kingdom, including man in his bodily nature, and the affinity of structure in the homologous bones, are due not to development from a common parentage, but to the common archetype in the divine mind, of which the cherubim was probably an ideal representation. When man fell, he still is called "in the image of God," with a view to his future restoration in the God-man. It is a "palace" in God's design, for a while spoiled by the "strong man" Satan, but to be reinstated by the "stronger" Man with God's archetypal image and likeness more vividly than ever standing forth (Luke 11:21).
Adam is the generic term for man, including woman (Genesis 1:26-27). Christ came to reveal not only God, but MAN to us; He alone is therefore called "THE Son of man"; the common property of mankind; who alone realizes the original ideal of man: body, soul, and spirit, in the image and likeness of God, the body subordinate to the animal and intellectual soul, and the soul to the spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23), combining at once the man and woman (Galatians 3:28); and in whom believers shall realize it by vital union with Him: having the masculine graces, majesty, power, wisdom, strength, courage, with all woman's purity, intuitive tact, meekness, gentleness, sympathetic tenderness and love, such as Roman Catholics have pictured in the Virgin Mary. So the first Adam, the type, combined both (Genesis 1:27). The creation of woman from man (marked by the very names isha, ish) subsequently implies the same truth.
The Second Adam combined in Himself, as Representative Head of redeemed men and women, both man's and woman's characteristic excellencies, as the first Adam contained both before that Eve was taken out of his side. Her perfect suitableness for him is marked by Jehovah's words, "I will make for him a help suitable as before him," according to his front presence: a helping being in whom, as soon as he sees her, he may recognize himself (Delitzsch). The complement of man. So the bride, the church, is formed out of the pierced side of Christ the Bridegroom, while in the death sleep; and, by faith vitally uniting her to Him in His death and His resurrection, is "bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh" (Ephesians 5:25-32.)
The dominion which Adam was given as God's vicegerent over the lower world, but lost by sin, is more than regained for man in the person of Christ. Even in His humiliation He exercised unlimited sway over man's bodily diseases and even death itself, over vegetable nature (the fig tree), the dumb animal kingdom (the ass's colt), the inorganic world, the restless sea, and the invisible world of demons; compare Psalm
8. In His manifested glory, His full dominion, and that of His redeemed with Him, shall be exercised over the regenerated earth: Isaiah 11; Isaiah 2:4; Isaiah 65:25; Isaiah 35:9-10; Psalm 72; Ezekiel 34:25; Hosea 2:18; Revelation 11:15-17; Revelation 11:20; Revelation 21; Revelation
22. The first man Adam was made a "living soul," endowed with an animal soul, the vital principle of his body; but "the last Adam a quickening spirit" (1 Corinthians 15:45). As the animal souled body (1 Corinthians 15:44) is the fruit of our union with Adam, an animal souled man, so the spiritual body is the fruit of our union with Christ, the life-giving Spirit.
Eden (See EDEN) is by Sir H. Rawlinson identified with Babylonia; the Babylonian documents giving an exact geographical account of the garden of Eden, and the rivers bearing the same names: the Hiddekel is certainly the Tigris, and the Phrath the Euphrates; the other two seem tributary branches, though some make Gihon the Nile and Pison the Indus (?). Any fruit tree (some have supposed, from Egyptian representations still extant, the pomegranate) would suffice as a test of obedience or disobedience, by the eating of which the knowledge of evil as well as of good would result. To know evil without being tainted by it is the prerogative of God. Man might have attained this knowledge by making his will one with God's, in not eating it; he then would have attained to a Godlike knowledge of good and evil, and would have exercised true liberty in conformity with his likeness, to God.
But man aspired to it by his own way, and fell. Only in Christ shall he know it and triumph over it. To distinguish good and evil is the gift of a king (1 Kings 3:9) and the wisdom of angels (2 Samuel 14:17). The tree of knowledge suggested to man the possibility of evil, which in the absence of lust might not occur. If he was to be tried at all, it could only be by a positive precept; and the smaller the subject of the command was, the more it tested the spirit of obedience. Satan's antitrinity, the lust of the flesh ("the woman saw that the tree was good for food"), the lust of the eye ("and that it was pleasant to the eyes"), and the pride of life (and a "tree to be desired to make one wise") seduced man: 1 John 2:16; compare ACHAN; Joshua 7:21. As this tree was the sacramental pledge of God's requirement, so the tree of life was the pledge of God's promised blessing.
ArchbishopWhately thought the tree of life acted medicinally, and that Adam and Eve ate of it; and that hence arose his longevity and that of the patriarchs, so that it was long before human life sank to its present average. Genesis 2:16 seems to imply his free access to it; but perhaps Genesis 3:22 that he had,tot actually touched it. Indeed it is only sacramentally, and in inseparable connection with faith and obedience, when tested first as to the tree of knowledge, that the tree of life could give man true immortal life. In the day that he ate he died (Genesis 2:17, compare Hosea 13:1), because separation from God, sin's necessary and immediate consequence, is death; the physical death of Adam was deferred until he was 930.
Sin's immediate effects on Adam and Eve, after she in her turn became a seducer, having first been seduced herself (Genesis 3:6 end), were shame (Genesis 3:7), concealment and folly (Genesis 3:8-9; compare Psalm 139), fear (Genesis 3:10), selfishness on Adam's part toward Eve, and presumption in virtually laying the blame on God (Genesis 3:12), the curse, including sorrow, agony, sweat of the brow in tilling the thorny ground, death. All these are counter worked by Christ. He bore our shame and fear (Hebrews 12:2; Hebrews 5:7), denied self wholly (Matthew 20:28), resisted Satan's temptation to presumption (Matthew 4:6), bore the curse (Galatians 3:13), was "the man of sorrows" (Isaiah 53), endured the agony and bloody sweat of Gethsemane, the crown of thorns, and the dust of death (Psalms 22:15, compare Genesis 3:19). The temporary exclusion from the tree of life was a merciful provision for fallen man, (for immortality in a lost state is a curse), until that, through Christ, he should have it restored (Revelation 22:2; Revelation 22:14; Revelation 2:7).
The cherubim were not outside the garden, blocking up access to it (as Genesis 3:24 is often explained), but "keeping the way to the tree of life," doing what man had failed to do (Genesis 2:15). So the cherubim's position implies, not at the threshold, or even before the mercyseat, but in immediate connection with it, the throne of God (Exodus 25:18). So in Ezekiel and Revelation they are the living ones, combining the highest forms of creaturely life, suggesting to man his interest still in life and in paradise, and even in a share of God's throne through divine grace. As the flaming sword represents justice excluding man's access by his own righteousness, so the cherubim represents man reunited to God upon the ground of the mercy-seat, which is Christ our propitiatory.
The unity of the human race is plainly asserted in Acts 17:26 (See CREATION). The co-extensiveness of sin's curse upon all men as Adam's offspring, and of Christ's redemption for all men (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:22-47) implies the same. "That the races of men are not species of one genus, but varieties of one species, is confirmed by the agreement in the physiological and pathological phenomena in them all, by the similarity in the anatomical structure, in the fundamental powers and traits of the mind, in the limits to the duration of life, in the normal temperature of the body, and the average rate of pulsation, in the duration of pregnancy, and in the unrestricted fruitfulness of marriages between the various races." (Delitzsch.) The brain of the lowest savage is larger than his needs require, usually five sixths of the size of a civilized man's brain. This implies the latent, power of intellectual development, which proves he is essentially one with his more favored brethren.
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Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Adam (1)'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/a/adam-1.html. 1949.
