§50 The First and Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45–49)
Paul completes his arguments concerning the question “what kind of body” (from v. 35b) in another form of argument in verses 45–49. Paul concludes this discussion by using Adam typology. Paul takes this new line of reasoning and introduces still another illustration to reemphasize three ideas: (1) The spiritual body will be distinctive; (2) God gives the spiritual body; and (3) those who are raised from the dead will have or be or get their bodies in the future as they are transformed by God from being like Adam to being like the risen Christ. Paul is both countering the claims of some of the Corinthians and clarifying the understanding of the resurrection of the dead as it relates to the lives of the Christians in Corinth. Verse 46 is a crucial statement that both puts the Corinthians on notice about the resurrection of the dead and gives them a proper understanding of their current status in the world: The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. In other words, the Corinthians have not arrived at their final calling through Christ. They are only in transit, although God has set a destination for them and they are being called toward it.
15:45 / As in verse 42, Paul’s opening words here indicate that he is forming a comparison to draw a conclusion or to make a point, So (Gk. houtōs kai; lit. “And thus”). Paul probably intends to look back and comment further on the discussion of verses 42–44, that there are two distinct kinds of bodies, natural and spiritual. As is clear from what follows, Paul insists that there is a divine order to the sequence of these bodies. Here Paul refers to Adam to illustrate and to prove his point.
The reference indicates that Paul is citing Scripture, specifically Genesis 2:7, although he offers a version of the text that is slightly different from the LXX: The first man Adam became a living being. (The italicized words reflect the original text.) This scriptural reference, however, is cited to provide a firm antithesis to the statement that follows: the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. These are Paul’s own words, not a quotation from the Scriptures, despite the careful way in which Paul set up these balanced, contrasting declarations. The crafting of the lines into such sharp rhetorical contrast raises the profile of both statements but brings the main weight to bear on the second declaration, which comes as if it were a statement “greater than” the first.
The force of Paul’s observation and the purpose of the contrast is partially lost in translations. The word translated living in reference to the first Adam is psychē in Greek and comes from the same root as the word translated “natural” in verse 44; likewise, the word translated spirit in reference to the so-called last Adam (Christ) is pneuma in Greek and comes from the same root as the word translated “spiritual” in verse 44. In forming this contrast, Paul is arguing that humanity inherits one kind of body and life from Adam and a new, different body and life from Christ—through faith and the resurrection of the dead. Moreover, Adam was a living being, as are all humans, but Christ is a life-giving spirit, something that neither Adam nor any other human can be. In this verse Paul uses the idealized figures of Adam and Christ to represent humanity in this (“natural”) life and in the (“spiritual”) life to come through resurrection of the body. But the readers should note that humans are indeed like Adam, living beings; unlike Christ, they are not life-giving but rather receive life through him.
15:46 / This concisely written statement makes the central point that Paul is attempting to register, saying literally, “But not first the spiritual but the natural, afterward the spiritual.” The Corinthians cannot know the reality of the spiritual body until they experience receiving it as God determines in the resurrection of the dead. Paul insists that the life granted through the resurrection from the dead is real, but it does not precede the transformation of life in the context of this world; rather, that transformation is an indication and an anticipation of the final reality of new, unexperienced existence through the resurrection of the dead.
15:47 / Paul restates the same point in both more mundane (the dust of the earth; Gk. ek gēs choikos) and more exalted (from heaven; Gk. ex ouranou) terminology. The language of both phrases is highly reminiscent of the LXX account of creation in Genesis 1–2. Interpreters debate whether Paul meant to indicate the distinct origins of the two Adams or whether he meant to create a contrast between their natures to illustrate his basic argument in this section. A final decision is impossible, but the thrust of the passage makes it far more likely that Paul is creating contrasts in illustration of his discussion of different natures of bodies rather than attempting to comment on the cosmic origins of the first and second Adam.
15:48–49 / The argument in verse 48 is like by like: as was the earthly man, so are humans of the earth, and as is the man from heaven, so are the ones of heaven. Verse 49, however, makes a crucial point about Paul’s understanding of the resurrection of the dead: in the present life humans bear the likeness of the human Adam, and in the future (so shall we) believers will bear the likeness of the one from heaven who has already been raised from the dead when they too experience the resurrection of the dead.
15:45 / Paul’s introductory phrase, So it is written, contains formulaic language recognizing and leading into a citation of Scripture (here, Gen. 2:7). The simple word so, however, is an ambiguous reference in Gk. (houtōs kai), best translated “and thus” or “so also.” This manner of reference can look either backward or forward, although the occurrence of the same phrase in v. 42 probably indicates that at this point in his argument, Paul intends to draw a conclusion from what had been said, not what was about to be stated. Moreover, the Gk. word prōtos, translated first, is introduced by Paul for two apparent reasons: (1) it anticipates and sets up a contrast to the subsequent reference to the last Adam; and (2) it prepares for the repetition of the word “first” in v. 46 in Paul’s declaration of sequence—“first … not spiritual … but natural.” Furthermore, this verse is another way of saying what Paul had said in v. 22.
15:46 / This simple-seeming verse is quite complicated. First, Paul is unusually adamant in making his statement, which the NIV renders into smooth English. Paul actually employs two strong adversatives, “But … but …,” both the Gk. word alla. Literally Paul wrote, “But not first the spiritual, but the natural; afterward, the spiritual.” Second, in arguing for this particular sequence, Paul vigorously reverses the order advocated by the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, whose own neoplatonic outlook colored his reading of the OT so that spiritual things were prior to and greater than natural or material things. Third, in using the language of spiritual (Gk. pneumatikos) and natural (Gk. psychikos), Paul reintroduces vocabulary used both in the last segment of his discussion (see 15:44) and earlier in the letter in reference to the ability or inability of “spiritual” and “natural” persons to receive “the things that come from the Spirit” (see 2:14). If Paul’s choice of words is indicative of his concerns, part of the problem in Corinth is that some of the Corinthians are carried away with an unacceptable, self-centered, self-aggrandizing, so-called spirituality.
15:48 / This verse is the first of a pair of neatly balanced statements made by Paul in his defense of the reality of the resurrection of the dead. The language used of “the second man” (v. 47) echoes the discussion of “heavenly bodies” in verses 40–41. Remarkably, in that previous reflection, Paul talked almost exclusively of “glory” as the character of heavenly things.
15:49 / This verse is also a beautifully balanced rhetorical construction. Paul refers to the likeness of both the earthly man and the heavenly man. The word likeness is eikōn in Gk., the same word used in the creation account of Gen. 1:26–27 LXX thus, Paul’s meditation is likely built on or related to that part of the OT. In relation to the likenesses of these two archetypal figures, Paul says that believers have borne the earthly man’s “image,” using an aorist to indicate simple past occurrence; and he declares that they shall bear the image of the heavenly man, using a future tense. There is a serious textual variant for the second of the verbs in some old and reliable manuscripts; it reads, “let us bear,” using an aorist subjunctive (or hortatory aorist) rather than the future tense verb. The matter is far from certain, though it is not a major theological problem; nevertheless, the future form of the verb fits Paul’s normal pattern of reference to the resurrection of the dead, and “the likeness of the heavenly one is hardly to be achieved by exhortation“—see Orr and Walther (I Corinthians, p. 344), who cite the fifth-century Christian writer Theodoret, who wrote, “He [Paul] has said ‘we shall bear’ in a predictive, not a paraenetic, sense.” If Paul uses the future tense here, he once again makes the point that the resurrection of the dead is real and in the future, as God wills.