Adam [Ăd'ăm]—of the ground or taken out of the red earth. The first human son of God (Luke 3:38), and God’s masterpiece and crowning work of creation.

The Man God Made

All men should be interested in the history of the first man who ever breathed, man’s great ancestor, the head of the human family, the first being who trod the earth. What a beautiful world Adam found himself in with everything to make him happy, a world without sin and without sorrow! God first made, as it were, the great house of the world, then brought His tenant to occupy it. And it was not an empty house, but furnished with everything needed to make life content. There was not a single need God had not satisfied.

The Bible does not tell us how long Adam’s state of blessedness and innocence lasted. But Paradise was lost through listening to the voice of the tempter. Relieved of his occupation as a gardener, Adam was condemned to make his livelihood by tilling the stubborn ground, and to eat his bread in the sweat of his face.

I. Adam was a necessary complement to the divine plan. “There was not a man to till the ground” (Gen. 2:5). The accomplishment of God’s plan required human instrumentality. God made the earth for man, and then the man for the earth.

II. Adam was fashioned a creature of God, bearing the image of God and possessing God-like faculties (Gen. 1:27; Ps. 8:6; Eccles. 7:29).

III. Adam was created a tripartite being, having a spirit, soul and body (Gen. 2:7; 1 Thess. 5:23).

IV. Adam was alone and needed companionship to satisfy his created instincts (Gen. 2:18), thus Eve was formed.

Society, friendship and love

Gifts divinely bestowed upon man.

V. Adam was enticed and sinned (Gen. 3:6). After the satanic tempter there came the human tempter, and the act of taking the forbidden fruit offered by Eve ruined Adam and made him our federal head in sin and death. “In Adam we die.”

VI. Adam received the promise of the Saviour. The first promise and prophecy of One, able to deal with Satan and sin was given, not to Adam, but to the one responsible for Adam’s trangression (Gen. 3:15), and in the coats of skins God provided to cover the discovered nakedness of Adam and Eve we have a type of the sacrifice of the Cross. In Adam we die, but in Christ we can be made alive. The first man Adam was of the earth earthy, but the Second Man, the last Adam, was from heaven and kept His first estate of sinless perfection.

Adam was not only the name of earth’s first man and the joint name of both Adam and Eve (Gen. 5:2), but also the name of a town on the east of Jordan (Josh. 3:16).