We all know that the “Big Bang,” which happened 13.8 billion years ago, was a big deal.

What is lesser known is that there was an “Even Bigger Bang” that happened 2,000 years ago, which we celebrate as Christmas — at the instant of “the Christ’s” conception in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit, to be exact.

The resulting birth of Christ not only reversed the immeasurable damage done to God’s original creation by Adam and Eve’s treason, but more important, it replaced it with an infinitely superior new creation.

Scripture tells this story in terms of God’s “two Adams” as follows in 1 Corinthians 15:22-49:

“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. So also, it is written: ‘The first man, Adam, became a living person.’ The last Adam was a life-giving spirit … The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy one, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly one, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.”

Enter the First Adam

The biblical narrative tells us in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Up to that point, God had fashioned His Cosmos with blinding speed by the power of His Divine Word (lit. “Logos”— Divine reason, creative order) from a distance. Then, everything slowed down as God tenderly, personally, focused upon hand-crafting the pinnacle and point of all His creation … His Divine imager.

As the heavenly principalities watched breathlessly, Yahweh reached down and scooped up a handful of plain-old dirt.

He hand-formed the clay lovingly into the shape of a man and breathed, ever so gently, upon the lifeless form. God’s seminal imager immediately sprang to life. God named him Adam.

God then fashioned the woman directly, surgically, from the side of the man (Not from dirt, but from Adam’s own flesh) while he was in a deep sleep. She was initially named “Woman,” but was later renamed “Eve” by Adam.

These two progenitors constituted the first “drops” in what became mankind’s collective gene pool. Trouble soon followed.

Exit the First Adam

Alas, these two miscreants eventually refused God’s gracious care, and went their own way. Tragically, all creation fell along with them.

Worse, Adam and Eve’s gene pool became instantly poisoned — the birth of genetic mutations. Succeeding generations inherited his fallen “nature” full strength.

Banishment from their formerly secure Garden of Eden soon followed.

In the succeeding millennia, there was NOTHING mankind could do to save themselves. All of creation groaned, waiting for the time when, as written in Romans 8:21-23, “the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”

But how? Only God could reach across the infinite chasm that sin had caused.

Enter the Last Adam

From Luke 1:30-33: “And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High;’ … ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the holy Child will be called the Son of God.’”

How quietly, tenderly, unceremoniously the Incarnate Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God’s very own Image, His “Even Bigger Bang” launched His long promised new creation, headed by mankind’s sinless Savior.

In Hebrews 1:1-4, the writer of Hebrews announced: “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, to the extent that He has inherited a more excellent name than they.”

How About You?

Which Adam are you associated with? If to the first Adam, you must eventually die spiritually. If you belong to God’s Last Adam, you will live, starting now.

For a moment lay aside the gaudy spectacle of the world’s Xmas and ponder the true significance of the true Christmas FOR YOU.