Q. ZETA: (1) Was Christ the first Adam? etc.
(2) What is the difference between the “day of Jesus Christ,” and the “day of Christ”?
A. (1) 1 Corinthians 15 is explicit as to your first question. Christ was not the first Adam in anywise. He is said to be the “Last Adam,” and “The Second Man.” The Second man, in contrast to the first — retrospectively. The Last Adam — perspectively (prospectively?), for there can be no advance beyond Him, by whom God Himself is made known. He is not said to be either of these, in terms, until He was glorified. Doubtless in title He was all that and much more; but He is not said to be either until He is on God’s throne, and God’s eternal counsels are then revealed as to Him and all belonging to His glory.
As the “first Adam” was so in title before he left Paradise, the ruined head of a lost world; yet, he was not named so until the Second was brought in; so the Last Adam was not named such until He entered His glory as Man.
God substitutes the Last Adam for the “first,” when the “first” had run his course in responsibility, from innocence to the cross. Then He brought in the man of His counsel, to make good in Him all His purposes from eternity. The very terms, “Second” and “Last,” show the “first” morally judged and set aside, and that there can be no advancement beyond Him who is brought in.
It is of course another thing to speak of substitution in atonement for His people. For them He was absolutely and positively “made sin” — the very thing — sin itself. “He that knew no sin was made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:2121For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)). The full and righteous bursting forth of the whole, unmitigated wrath of God fell upon Him, as thus made sin. This He met, as one alone able to do so, and answered all that was in God’s nature against sin — exhausting the wrath by so doing, and adding thus to God’s glory.
All this, in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him: the expression of God’s just appreciation in and by what He wrought. It is but the just value put upon that work to constitute him who believes in Jesus an unsullied ray of God’s righteousness in Christ.
(2) As to the “day of Jesus Christ,” and the “day of Christ,” there is a difference between, and in, the use of the varied names of the Lord in the New Testament. “Christ” is His official name. “Jesus Christ” more His personal name, as ascended, looked upon as having gone through the whole path — incarnation, life, sufferings, death, resurrection, ascension, glory. He is first named “Jesus Christ” in Acts 2. The Gospels were written after that day, and when “Jesus Christ” is then used, it would seem that the mind of the Spirit is upon Him as on high. He then returns and traces His path and history as to how He reached that place.
Hence, in Philippians 1:66Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: (Philippians 1:6), when the course of the saints is before Paul’s mind, and the unfailing love and working of the Lord to bring them through, it is more suited to speak of the Person who will have His day, and had run the course Himself; it would then be “Jesus Christ’s day.”
In Philippians 1:1010That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ; (Philippians 1:10), the expression “day of Christ,” brings the day of the appraisal of all things — even of their present walk before the mind; this, more than the Person whose day would come, after His path of persevering service here. He prays that they might be “pure and without offense for (the) day of Christ.”
Words of Truth, New Series 2:77-79.