In the Image of Adam (Genesis 5)

In the Image of Adam

When God created Adam he was made in His own image. Men was made with an innate capacity to rule creation and a greater power of reasoning. He was also created righteous and good.


[Gen 1:26 NKJV] 26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."


[Gen 5:1-2 NKJV] 1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female, and blessed them and called them Mankind in the day they were created.


All was perfect at that time.

But Adam sinned and he fell away. He now came under the rule of Satan and he was cursed.

He was now a sinner.

But when Adam gave birth his posterity received his fallen image and characteristics.


[Gen 5:3 NKJV] 3 And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot [a son] in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.


It is often so that the character of the parents leaves an impression on the children. But this is especially the case with Adam who was the head of mankind.

His whole posterity was now born as sinners and with those characteristics.

For proof of this we need to look no further than ourselves. And if we wish to present a spirit of self-righteousness we can look around us for even more sinfulness which may be easier to see when we delude ourselves thinking that we are the exception.

This is unfortunately how humanity works naturally.

Still there is something left from the image of God. We still have a greater ability to reason than animals and Adam's posterity still ‘ruled’ earth in a sense.

But they were given over to the kingdom of darkness. With the head of humanity the body was submitted to Satan.

But Christ is the second Adam. From Him we receive somewhat of a ‘second’ nature that is not natural to us and we can get a new character.

Christ is He who broke the chain that has gone from Adam to all of his posterity.

And when Jesus returns we will be completely transformed to His image.


[1Co 15:49-52 NKJV] 49 And as we have borne the image of the [man] of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly [Man]. 50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed-- 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.


But in the meantime we have to deal with the fact that our flesh is born in the image of Adam, a sinner.

This is the reality of men.

 

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