How Is Jesus a Second Adam?
In 1 Corinthians, Paul cites Genesis, saying, “Thus it is written, ‘The first person, Adam, became a living being” [Gen 2:7]; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit…. The first person was from the earth… the second person is from heaven” (1 Cor 15:45, 47). For Paul, Jesus is a heavenly messiah whose bodily resurrection proves him to be the “last Adam.” The Gospel of John also envisions Yeshua as a second Adam—most notably, while he hangs on the cross. The fourth Gospel presents the piercing of Jesus’ side as a life-giving event that echoes the forming of Eve—the mother of all living—from the side of Adam.
God built the first woman from Adam’s “side”—not his “rib.” In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures called the Septuagint, God “took one of his sides (πλευρῶν, pleurōn)… and the side (πλευράν, pleurān) that he had taken from Adam the Lord God fashioned into a woman” (Genesis 2:21-22 LXX). Later, Adam will call his wife “Eve,” meaning “Life”—in Greek, Zoe (Ζωή, Zoē)—“because she is the mother of all living” (3:20). Thus, God takes from the “side” of the first human being and out of it creates “life.”
While Jesus was on the cross, “one of the soldiers pierced his side (πλευρὰν, pleurān) with a spear” (John 19:34). The fact that the Greek term for “side” in John is the exact same word used for Adam’s “side” confirms that “rib” is a mistranslation of the original intention of Genesis. John goes on to note that both “blood” (αἷμα, haīma) and “water” (ὕδωρ, hūdor) came out of Yeshua’s side. Earlier in the Gospel, these liquids are associated explicitly with “life” (ζωή, zoē). First, Jesus promises the Samaritan woman “a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (4:14), and then he tells onlookers, “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (6:54). Just as Eve (the woman called Life) came from the side the first Adam, life-giving blood and water flow from the side of the second.
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