The Last Adam

Brothers and sisters:
It is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being,” the last Adam a life-giving spirit. But the spiritual was not first; rather the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven. As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly, and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.

1 Corinthians 15:45-49

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Spirit-Breathed Communion

In Paul’s allusion to Genesis 2:7, the word “adam” appears in the Hebrew Scriptures as both a common noun (humankind) and a proper name (Adam). Thus in Hebrew, Paul says: “The first adam, Adam, became a living being.” In Greek, the word anthrópos (man, human) substitutes for the common noun adam.¹

What does a man from heaven look like? At the Transfiguration, God the Father opened the eyes of Peter, James, and John to witness the glorious rays of light emanating from the body of his Son, Jesus Christ. From the moment of his conception, every atom of the second Adam abides in the Godhead, for the hypostatic union is indivisible. Not even death could separate the divine and human natures in Christ.²

Throughout Christ’s earthly sojourn, the ever-present Light of God in his being was veiled from the eyes of his people. But at the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John beheld the glory of the Son of God in communion with his Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ’s Transfiguration clues us in on the deified life of the communion of saints Spirit-breathed in God’s image.

For the Son of God became man
so that we might become God.

St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation

In Christ, the last Adam, adam is deified.
Jesus breathed his Spirit that dust be glorified.

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References

¹ See the New American Bible (Revised Edition) footnote to 1 Corinthians 15:45.

² St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, 50, 2.