Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the creation of life and biological diversity, part 25.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Today we want to turn to Paul's use of Adam in 1 Corinthians 15, 21 to 22 and 45 to 46,

and then in Romans chapter 5 verses 12 to 21.

John Collins, the Old Testament scholar, has remarked that while it's not easy to insist that Paul's argument in the texts that we looked at last week

depends upon the assumption of Adam's historicity for its validity, the case is different when it comes to 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans chapter 5, not to mention Acts 1726.

In these crucial passages, Paul lays out his Adam Christology. Now, we'll not try in our brief time to unpack

all of the theological riches in these passages, but we'll restrict our attention to their

implications for the issue of the historical Adam.

In dealing with Paul's two passages about Adam in 1 Corinthians 15,

the question we face is whether his use of Adam is a merely literary figure, whether that suffices to capture Paul's meaning

with respect to Adam.

So let's review what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 21 to 22, and then 45 to 49.

Paul writes, for as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. And then down to verse 45, thus it is written,

the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

But it is not the spiritual, which is first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so are those who

are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image

of the man of heaven. Now in verses 45 and 46, Paul's expression, thus it is written,

followed by his paraphrase of Genesis 2.7 directs our attention immediately to the Genesis

narrative of Adam's creation.

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