Last modified on February 14, 2017, at 22:03

Adam, the First Man: an Essay

Adam, the First Man: in the language of men

"Doing theology" is necessary in this day and age, however unappreciated the rarified and abstract theological thought might be. But it need not be that way, that is, if one tells it to them between the eyes. This is a plea for telling the truth. The truth doesnt titillate the mind, give enormous swells of emotion -taking you nowhere. No it is far deeper than that. To speak the truth is to tell it to a person, in the way that he needs to hear it. Grab him where he is, how he is, give him what he needs, get past his excuses, his noble defenses. Use words that plead, that paint, that love him beyond what he'd rather, use a little exposure, a little irony, even sarcasm, a lot of kindness, and give him a way out, to save his face, and affirm what he's got right, what he knows to be right, what you know also that's right about him. Leave something unsaid, out of respect. Bring him to the nest stage in life. He'll love you for it. That's what God does. That's how He talks.

The doctrine of the Last Laugh

The progressively revealed Doctrine of the Last Laugh, I find first prophesied in Psalm 2:4 " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision" From this verse, I wish, out of politeness, only to ephasize the first phrase, He that sits in the heavens shall laugh. As applied to Professor ______ 's lecture, I firmly believe, though adherence to this belief is not required for salvation, that at the end of the day, there just might be, and I express this from something more than just a hunch, a deep laughter that shall roll around the earth, the vindicating laughter of God, whithering all the mythologists of the world, as up from the ground, at the Last Day known as the Day of Resurrection, shall stand once again, a man, a single man (perhaps his wife with him), the First Man...let us give a name to him - Adam.

I find the theological basis of the Doctrine of the Last Laugh further explicated in 1 Corinthians 1:7,

"But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise"

I also believe (though slightly less than my belief in Adam) that God just may have one tree which somehow everyone in the world shall see when Christ comes again, but which surely everyone in the world shall hear, that shall clap its hands, which it will have (just because it is a beautiful passege of poetic imagery in the Scripture) in HALLELUYA to the Lord- just to show this sceptical world of ours, that even though there is no need of it, there is a need for it, the need to say that God can do anything to lower the haugty looks of mankind - no names of any person, and especially of Dr. _______, intended. Now that I think of it, I can hear them now, those virgin trees rustling their leaves (swoosh.. whooosh..) as they lift up their arms to welcome the Bridgroom, their Creator. Can't you hear them? Are you that deaf? (I do not insist that those trees be actual literal Virgins. I, too, believe in the distinction between prose and Poetry)

And I do believe in a key to understanding that the "myths" contain a greater-than-myth-reality and the "truths" are not the "noble or ethical abstracts" but, rather, realities on another level and very much of the concrete stuff that is real enough to sit on. C.S. Lewis also believed that way (he, also, by the way, smokes a pipe!). I remember in one of his books, Perelandra it is, I think, the protagonist, I think it's a man named Ransom, is wrestling with an embodiment of Evil. While he is wrestling, he is thinking (my remembering, and probably my faulty wording), "... so this is what it means to wrestle with evil. a grimy sweaty man or thing, a 'spirit' of the sort I can clutch on to and choke, or let go and be choked. No abstraction, no ethical anything. And, God, I am losing strength. How much longer!" Ransom then realizes that for him, the final or decisive wrestling with evil, is physical...and real! And the will to hold on, to live, not to be vanquished by this Evil Thing, rested only in this his decision, " I shall not give up!" This is the real setting of the Garden of Delight- a thicket, a tree, and a choice..(and a woman)

Why not? Why could it not have been? Why could not the First Adam, "Adam", have been as real, and concrete and singular- all after his kind and order- as was the Second Adam (in Whom we have believed and into Whose body we were baptized), Jesus Christ, after His kind and order? All it takes is a little imagination.

See also