Who
The first man, formed by God from the dust of the earth and given the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). By his disobedience sin and death entered the world, and God answered it at once with the first promise of a Redeemer, the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). Wisdom says that she “delivered him out of his own transgression” (Wisdom 10:1). Paul calls him “a foreshadowing of him who was to come” (Romans 5:14): Christ is the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45), and Irenaeus describes his work as recapitulating in himself the whole history Adam began (Against Heresies III.22). Luke’s genealogy ends with him: “the son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38).
Key verses
- Genesis 2:7
The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
- Genesis 3:15
I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
- Genesis 5:3
Adam lived one hundred thirty years, and became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
- 1 Chronicles 1:1
Adam, Seth, Enosh,
- Wisdom 10:1
Wisdom guarded to the end the first formed father of the world, who was created alone, and delivered him out of his own transgression,
- Luke 3:38
the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
- Romans 5:14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those whose sins weren’t like Adam’s disobedience, who is a foreshadowing of him who was to come.
- 1 Corinthians 15:45
So also it is written, “The first man Adam became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Where the Bible names him
Named 24 times in 11 books.
- ✓ In the deuterocanon, which the verse index does not cover: found in the text and checked by hand.
Verse index: TIPNR, STEPBible.org (Tyndale House), CC BY 4.0.
Family
- Wife
Discussed by
Comments on the verses that name him (8 of 156).
- Origen on Matthew 24:29–30 (4)Catena Aurea on Matthew
Therefore shall they see with the bodily eyes the Son of Man, coming in human shape, “in the clouds of heaven,” that is, on high. As at the transfiguration, a voice came out of the cloud, so when He shall come again…
- Origen on Luke 3:23–38Catena Aurea on Luke
Having related our Lord’s baptism, he next enters upon the generation of the Lord, not bringing it down from the higher to the lower, but beginning with Christ, he carries it up to God Himself. Hence he says, And…
- Gregory of Nazianzus on Luke 3:23–38Catena Aurea on Luke
We must therefore consider who He was who was baptized, and by whom and when: seeing He was pure, baptized by John, and at a time when His miracles had begun, that we might thence derive the lesson of purifying…
- John Chrysostom on Luke 3:23–38Catena Aurea on Luke
Or, He waited accomplishing the whole law until that age which takes in every sin, that none might say that He abrogated the law because He was not able to fulfil it.
- A Greek expositor on Luke 3:23–38Catena Aurea on Luke
For this reason also He came at thirty years to be baptized, to shew that spiritual regeneration makes men perfect as far as regards their spiritual life.
- Bede on Luke 3:23–38Catena Aurea on Luke
The thrice ten years also which our Saviour had passed when He was baptized might intimate also the mystery of our baptism, because of the faith in the Trinity, and the obedience to the Decalogue.
- Gregory of Nazianzus on Luke 3:23–38 (2)Catena Aurea on Luke
Still must a child be baptized if necessity demands it. For it is better to be insensibly sanctified, than to pass from this life unsealed. But you will say, Christ is baptized at thirty years old, and He was God,…
- Cyril of Alexandria on Luke 3:23–38Catena Aurea on Luke
Although in truth Christ had no father according to the flesh, yet some fancied he had a father. Hence it follows, As was supposed the son of Joseph.