"The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven" (I Corinthians 15:47).

Paleoanthropologists, seeking to trace man's supposed evolutionary ancestry, have widely different opinions as to the when and how of it. As one evolutionist lamented: "Paleoanthropologists seem to make up for a lack of fossils with an excess of fury, and this must now be the only science in which it is still possible to become famous just by having an opinion."

There is no need to speculate. The Bible solves the problem when it speaks of "The first man Adam" (I Corinthians 15:45) and says that Eve "was the mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20). There were no "pre-Adamite men" (as even some Christians have alleged, hoping thereby to accommodate evolutionary speculations).

Adam alone was "the first man," and he had been formed directly by God "of the dust of the ground" (Genesis 2:7)--that is, out of the same basic elements as those in the earth (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, etc.). He was "earthy," like the materials of earth. But then, how can Jesus Christ, who is "the Lord from heaven" be "the second man"? Adam had millions of male descendants before Jesus was born.

The answer can only be that He was "the second man" in the same way that Adam was "the first man." That is, His human body, like that of Adam, was directly made by God, from earth's elements--not produced by reproduction, like all other men. He was "made flesh" (John 1:14), but only made "in the likeness of sinful flesh," for He must not inherit the sinful flesh of His human parents, if He is to "condemn sin in the flesh" (Romans 8:3). "A body hast thou prepared me," He said (Hebrews 10:5), and as the angel told Mary: "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). HMM