This is part 4 of a series exploring how the Bible teaches that Jesus was greater than all who came before him.  This series is not intended to be exhaustive.  The topic of Jesus as “greater than” or “better” than those who came before him is inexhaustible.  Libraries could and should be written on this subject.  But we have attempted in these pages to explore what such a rich subject would look like. (Each entry is excerpted from There Is No Greater Love)

Christ Greater than Adam (2 of 6)

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept, God took one of his ribs and then closed up the flesh under it. Then the LORD God made the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman and brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man.” Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and will cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Gen 2:21-24).

In the beginning, God blessed Adam and commanded him to be fruitful and to fill the earth and to rule over it. But God’s purposes could only be fulfilled once Adam was given a bride, for the Lord said that it was not good that the man should be alone (Gen 2:18).

Adam was given the authority to name the animals and to bring them under his dominion (Gen 2:19-20). But by naming the animals and observing their creation in sexual pairs, Adam learned about his own inability to fulfill God’s command to be fruitful as long as he was alone. God was teaching the man to understand his weakness and loneliness. Only once Adam had learned this lesson did God provide Adam with a bride.

The manner in which God presented this gift of a bride to Adam is instructive. We might have expected God to make the woman out of the ground, out of the same dust from which He had created Adam. Instead, He made her in a most unusual way.

While Adam was still innocent and had not yet committed any sin, God brought upon him a deep sleep like death itself. Then He wounded the man by piercing his side and making a great and bloody wound. Out of that wound, God took the substance from which He would make the bride for the man. Then He healed the man’s wound and awakened him in the garden to receive his bride in all of her purity and perfection. Adam rejoiced to see his bride, and he called her “woman”—celebrating the fact that she had come forth from his very flesh and bone. Meanwhile, the bride saw the scar her husband bore and knew that he had suffered so she could live.

In the fullness of time, Jesus too would leave His Father and come to rule the earth as a Man, a new Adam (Rom 5:14). But even for Him, it was not good that He should rule alone. Once Jesus was made authentic man, He also needed to have a bride.

So, although He like Adam was innocent and had committed no sin, Father God brought upon His Son the sleep of death on the cross. Then Jesus too was wounded. His side was pierced by a spear that made a bloody wound. Out of His side came forth the water and the blood—the blood for His bride’s purchase and the water for her purification (John 19:34). Then Father God healed Jesus’ wound and awakened Him from death in the garden to receive the one who had been chosen to represent the bride of Jesus. The new Adam also called her “woman” (John 20:15)—because Mary Magdalene was given the honor to represent all of the people of God who are called to be the bride of Christ (Eph 5:25-27; Rev 21:20). This new Adam, with His bride, will fill all the earth with a spiritual seed made in the true image of God. Jesus together with His bride will subdue the serpent and thus rule over the beast (Rom 16:20) in fulfillment of the great task given to the first Adam in the beginning. All of God’s purposes for man will indeed be complete through the new Adam and His bride, and God will be all in all (1 Cor 15:25-28).

In Adam, the woman was made from the man’s own flesh and bone. But in the new Adam, we are not only flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, we are made blood of His very blood! Our dignity in Adam was great. But our dignity in the last Adam is greater!