1CO 15:45 "So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.
48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
50 I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable."

As we come to our text this morning we see how Paul is going to make a comparison between the natural man, including those ungodly traits which resulted from sin, and the spiritual man, who will one day, in Christ, be free from any restraints as it relates to the physical, being also set free from any traces of the sinful nature.

Keep in mind that all of this is in the context of the resurrection of believers and the apparent doubts from these Corinthians that the dead are not raised. Paul is answering two questions he raised in this letter which deal with how the dead are raised, and with what kind of body do they come?

If believers are not raised from the dead then answering these two questions would be an exercise in fantasy and futility. But Paul is about to go so far as to give an explanation of the vast differences between the natural and the spiritual as it relates to the final state of the human body of believers.

1CO 15:45 "So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit."

Paul begins by placing side by side two distinct people and showing how each is different in glory and yet both are still quite human. The comparison is between the first and the last Adam.

We know who the first Adam is. This is the Adam who is described in Genesis as the one whom God created from the dust of the earth, as Paul mentions here in verse 47 of our text. It is this Adam who was created a living being. What does Paul mean by this?

Well, in the beginning there was a time in which man was no more than a composite of elements of the earth. Unfortunately, segments of the world, including parts of the scientific community, still continues to view man in this way. In fact, it’s not uncommon to hear of descriptions of human beings in terms of what we would be worth on the market if we were broken down into our basic elemental parts.

I’ve heard it said that each of us might be worth a couple of hundred dollars considering the amount of hydrogen, calcium, oxygen, and so on, which make up a human body.

It’s not uncommon to read in any biology text book found in our public schools that human beings really are nothing more than a complex evolutionary animal. But what Paul is describing in our text, and what we read in Genesis, is that man is not simply a compilation of elements found in the earth, nor some ancestor of an amoeba, but a living being.

This living being is a product of one who can give life. The whole concept of evolution stands or falls on the ability of matter to create itself from nothing and then for that non-living, non-intelligent matter to produce complex life on it’s own.

If our children were to come home from school with a pebble in a jar and inform us that they were going to plant that pebble in the earth and expect it to produce a butterfly we would be amused at their creativity to dream such things and to believe that they could expect such life and beauty from a rock.

If I were to come to you this morning with that same jar and rock and story, it would no longer be cute and amusing, it would be a real concern on your part that maybe I’ve finally snapped. And yet, when scientists tell us that these things actually happen, otherwise smart people, somehow lose the ability to reason as human beings and jump at the opportunity to believe such nonsense.

We are not the product of globs of protoplasm formed in some primordial soup millions of years ago, which then decided it would like to live on dry land, or a condo on the beach. We are the product of the only Creator God who chose to form us from the dust of the earth and give us life which was meant to be shared with Him for eternity.

This life goes way beyond the ability to breathe and eat. This life includes in man’s very makeup, not only the physical but also the spiritual. Man is body and spirit. Or as some would describe us, body, soul and spirit, with the spirit of man being that part which was designed to transcend the physical.

And so, when Paul makes this comparison between the natural and the spiritual he doesn’t negate that even the natural man has a spirit. What Paul is doing here is describing the bodies of men, and how one body is designed for this natural world, whereas the eventual spiritual resurrection body of man is designed for a spiritual habitation.

But more than that Paul is also showing how one man was given the opportunity to represent the entire human race. With this responsibility man was challenged to either obey God and live, together with all of his offspring, or disobey and die, along with all of his offspring.

Had Adam chosen to obey during his probationary period, and had he passed the test, all of humanity would have inherited that perfect and sinless nature in which Adam was created. The world would have continued to be a paradise and we would have lived happily ever after in the presence of God who would have continued to walk among us in this earth.

But like a bad nightmare man was given the curse of his own sin which included death. And when Paul speaks of the natural man this is what he is describing. He is describing human beings who have inherited the sin nature from Adam. But together with that sin nature we have also inherited death and the curse which infects the entire universe to this day.

To that end Paul is saying that we are truly human, which means we are truly alive in one sense. We are alive as we live in this world because the One who is life has infused into us the ability to commune with the life-Giver. And yet unfortunately, our life ends in this world, and our bodies go back to the dust.

Because you see, life for human beings was never meant to simply breathe, eat, sleep, reproduce and so on. Life ultimately was given for one reason and one reason only; to share in God’s eternity in fellowship with Him. That is what life for human beings was always meant to be.

When we take that aspect of life out of the equation for man, we do become something less than human in the true sense of the word, at least in terms of what our purpose in life is really meant to be.

The world would have us believe that to be truly human involves simply our quality of life. This is why the issues of abortion, infanticide and euthanasia are so popular in the world today. They measure the quality or potential quality of life for a person and determine that it would be less than perfect if permitted to continue to live.

"We don’t want to bring an unborn child into this world because who knows what kind of a life they’ll have. And for those elderly people who can’t get around any more, who don’t have the same quality of life they had when they were younger, they should be given the opportunity to exit this life with dignity, and we’ll be the one’s who determine that."

And then to add insult to injury they call this compassionate, and yet this is the identical reasoning Adolph Hitler used during his reign of terror in Nazi Germany. He would actually instruct doctors in mental institutions to experiment on the patients in whatever way would help them to avoid future mistakes in creating the master race.

They systematically killed those mental patients. If children were born less than perfect they were instructed to be killed by doctors. If the elderly were no longer useful for the war effort and if there was a choice to give medicines to the elderly or the soldiers on the front, those elderly people were not given the medicines needed to sustain life.

Now, in Nazi Germany the people who determined who lived or who died were the Nazi’s themselves. What is scary in our world is who is determining who lives and who dies in our country? And the answer is, the one’s who not only wield the power, but who have the ability to carry that power out in pursuing their agenda.

I’m not talking about conspiracy theories here, I’m talking about human beings who have decided to play God and to assume the role of God, without the compassion and goodness of God.

When God created you and me He created us to be truly human. And every person is truly human, albeit less than perfect, no matter what malady or imperfection we may possess. Why? Because we were created by the hand of God and we were created with a body and spirit which has been given a second chance to be a completed human.

We’ve all heard the term "completed Jew." When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, I fellowshipped with a ministry called "Beth Yeshua", which in Hebrew means House of Jesus, or House of the Savior. Pastor Ray Cohen taught and discipled all sorts of people, both Jews and Gentiles.

But his heart was to equip both Jews and Gentiles to reach out to the Jewish community in Ft. Lauderdale and Miami. And it was not uncommon to speak of those Jewish converts as completed Jews. And what that meant was that these chosen people of God, separated from God because of their rejection of the Messiah, had now come back and were completed in their relationship as the chosen people because of their faith in Christ.

And yet what they really became were completed human beings. The original design by God for man was to be united to God forever. And now, in Christ, both Jews and Gentiles have become completed humans as we have been given a new life, and a new goal which is no longer earthly, but heavenly.

Paul assures us of this completion and this unification to God forever in Christ.

PHI 1:6 "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

The apostle John addresses the same thing as he describes what it means to be complete human beings who enjoy the fellowship of God in this world and the one to come.

1JO 4:12 "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him."

This is the true quality of life God intended for all mankind. And this type of relationship is available for all who would come to Christ for completion in the best sense of the word.

Outside of Christ there are no completed human beings, again being less than what a human was originally created by God to be; a worshipper of, and fellowshipper with God. And so, when the world tells us that we can only be complete or fulfilled by the type of job we have, or the amount of money we possess, or the status of life we hold, they are speaking non-sense.

Don’t ever be intimidated by uncompleted humanity as they try to dictate to us what it means to be human as they pursue a path of destruction.

To be complete is to be united to Christ. To demonstrate that completeness is to walk in that relationship everyday in the power of the Spirit. But to be completed in Christ carries the responsibility to let the world know what a completed human being truly is. A human being who trusts and follows the Lord. As fellow human beings we owe it to the rest of humanity to make them aware.

COL 1:10 "And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,
11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully
12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

This completion as true human beings was purposed by God who created all humanity. If anyone knows what it takes to complete us, the Creator ought to know. In fact, He knew from eternity past that we would become less than complete as the first man, Adam, rebelled against God.

So, how do we become complete? What is it going to take? Well, Paul brings this out in verse 45 as well.

ROM 5:15 ".... For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ."

Now the reason Paul uses the term Adam back in our text for both the first man and for Jesus Christ is because both were unique representatives of the human race. Both were responsible as perfect, sinless representatives to stand in the place for all human beings and deliver to them an inheritance based on their obedience on behalf of all humans.

The inheritance the first Adam gave us is death as the result of sin. The inheritance the second and last Adam gave us is eternal life

JOH 5:21 "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it."

JOH 6:33 "For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

Which inheritance do we want to possess? An inheritance from the first Adam or the last Adam? You would think it would be a no brainer. But when the world thinks they are complete or fulfilled in themselves they reason that they need no one but themselves or that they can attain unto completion with God through their own good works. But Paul says this to the Ephesians.

EPH 1:13 "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession - to the praise of his glory."

No belief in Christ, no inheritance with the Lord forever, only the inheritance of the first Adam.

EPH 5:5 "For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person -such a man is an idolater - has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
7 Therefore do not be partners with them."

When we understand and appreciate the inheritance we have in Christ, who is our last Adam, the One who completed what our first Adam did not, then we can begin to appreciate what it means to be human as we give thanks with lives of love and obedience to our Lord and Savior.

COL 3:23 "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
24 since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving."

Part of this inheritance involves being given life from the One who is spiritual, and becoming a completed human being with a body which is glorious, fit for the new heavens and the new earth. It will be a body unlike what we now possess.

1CO 15:46 "The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
47 The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven.
48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven."

What all of this essentially means is that our present bodies were meant to be part of this world. There is no place else in the universe where man was meant to live. Now, we’ve all heard the argument that if there is one earth it stands to reason that there are other similar planets where man could actually live.

And so, our space scientists are spending billions of dollars to find that elusive planet, hoping beyond all hope that there are other people out there like us in some way. I’ve never really understood what all of the fuss is about. We can’t get along with our neighbors in this world, what makes us think we could get along with neighbors hundreds of light years away?

In fact, the only redeeming value of having neighbors that far away is that we don’t have contact with them. Who needs another group of people to be potential enemies?

The truth of the matter is that there are no other neighbors out there. When God created man He placed them on this planet and this planet only. Now, I’m not necessarily against space travel, but I’m certainly not in favor of space travel with the idea of finding a new place to live or to meet some potential space creature.

We were created to live in only one place. It’s called earth. The first man was of the dust of the EARTH. This was meant to be his home forever. Sin changed all of that. And so, now we will one day be given a new home. It will still be earth, but a new recreated earth.

But we will not be limited to earth since the new heavens will be part of our new existence with the Lord forever.

But the point Paul is making is that there is no life to look forward to on this planet since Adam trashed it for us. Rather, our second and last Adam is now a life giving spirit. This doesn’t mean that Jesus Christ wasn’t truly human, it just means that he was more than human. He was God Himself. That’s what Paul infers from the term life-giving spirit.

In other words, all things will be made new including our bodies. Remember, after all, this is the context of what Paul has been addressing. The first bodies we receive are natural, of the earth, as was Adam’s. They are earthy and can only survive naturally in the earth.

But our second bodies in Christ will be spiritual. They will possess all of the qualities of the glorified body of Jesus Christ who has resurrected from the dead, and who promises to raise us as well.

JOH 6:38 "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

And this is what Paul means in our text when he says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The natural man, the man who has only life in this world outside of Christ, cannot live with God because his present life is only suited to this world and will one day find himself eternally separated from God, never to be completed.

1CO 15:50 "I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable."

This by the way takes us back to what Paul told these Corinthians earlier about their responsibilities as new creatures in Christ as he showed them the distinction of our present bodies and world, and then compared that to what is in store for us.

1CO 6:13 "Food for the stomach and the stomach for food" - but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
14 By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."
17 But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit."

Despite the fact that we are living in natural bodies, we are still to be operating in the spirit. In other words we, in a sense, operate in both spheres, unlike the natural man outside of Christ. The question is how well are we doing being those new spiritual creatures in Christ?

We are to be spiritual beings here and now in the sense that we are spirit-controlled and spirit led to the glory of God, and yet we know that this world is not our home. And for that reason we long for the Lord’s return and for His presence.

PHI 3:20 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

2CO 5:1 "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
2 Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,
3 because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.
4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

The perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. The natural man cannot inherit that which is spiritual. But if we are spiritual in Christ, what keeps us from living in the Spirit as we demonstrate to the world that the spiritual not only exists, but it’s a much better place to live?

The Corinthians had a problem living in the spiritual which is why this letter was penned in the first place.

1CO 3:1 "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly -mere infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?"

We have not been called out by Christ to live like mere men of the world, but men and women of the Kingdom of God. That’s an awesome place to live, but along with that comes an awesome responsibility to represent our King and Savior as we submit to the Spirit of God in love and obedience. Remember who you are in Christ.

1PE 2:9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

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