Second Adam

Note: this page on the term 'Second Adam' originating by Paul is closely related to the topic page Cleansed phantom and should be studied together

The first Adam is the label used for the spiritual seed of the stream of physical humanity, in which the monad (see Man's higher triad) consisting of higher soul and spirit of humanity could incarnate, and that had to go through 'the Fall' or Luciferic infection.

The Second Adam is Christ's resurrection body (see also Christ Module 8 - Resurrection) as the seed of the stream in which future spiritualized humanity will integrate towards the end of the Earth's evolutionary phase. The term originates with Paul's Epistel to the Corinthians (see below).

The 'Nathan soul' is the first Adam's 'sister-soul' and part of primordial man Adam Kadmon, un-affected by 'the Fall', that incarnated in the Nathan-Jesus child and later merged with the Zarathustra-Jesus child to provide the lower bodies in which the Christ being would incarnate. See Schema FMC00.377A and more on the two Jesus Children.

The concept of the Second Adam describes the group soul bundling effect of the souls who, during the Earth development stage, have ennobled their lower bodies - as opposed to those who have not. When Man uses his human 'I' to consciously work the improvement and spiritualization of his lower bodies (see Man's transformation and spiritualization, and Initiation), this effects his structural components in the spirit world. How this happens is described in 1911-10-11-GA131 (also below) and 1909-12-07-GA266A (on Cleansed phantom)

And these will, through the process of transformation during the pralaya between Earth and Future Jupiter, make up the next progressed kingdoms on Future Jupiter (see 1908-06-26-GA104 and1921-10-09-GA207 on Seeds for future worlds).

At the end of the Earth stage of planetary evolution, there will be seven white lodges as foreposts of brotherhood of the whole humanity, that will re-appear after the pralaya as the seven leading spirits of the coming Future Jupiter stage. (1904-06-25-GA090A).

This also links to the 'creation of a new center' (see Christ Module 7 - Cosmic dimension), and the concept of future group souls (see Group souls of humanity).

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.189 depicts, on the left, the descent of Man on Earth with the first Adam. The other spirit represents the so-called Adam sister-soul that incarnated in the Nathan-Jesus child and formed the pure etheric body for the Christ later on.

After the resurrection following the Mystery of Golgotha, the resurrected pure ether body forms the basis for what will attract, or attracts - as a magnet - and unifies, all future human beings who will join with purified ether bodies. It will thereby form a unified Group Soul and this point of convergence is called the Second Adam.

The drawing also illustrates the fact that the first stream of physical-material humanity is divergent (with reference to the various races, the mixing of the blood - see eg the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences in Human races), whereas the latter spiritual is convergent.

See also Unification, and for further introduction 1911-10-10-GA131.

FMC00.384 shows the second of the seven apocalyptic seals, the two left illustrations are sketches provided by Rudolf Steiner as indications, the two on the right are paintings by Clara Rettich of 1907 and 1911. It shows the past with the four group souls that led upto current humanity, and in the center the Mystical Lamb symbol of the Christ group soul as the future group soul of humanity, see also Unification and Second Adam.

For explanation of the seal, see Group souls of humanity

Schema FMC00.377A: is an alternative presentation of Schema FMC00.377 showing various steps for the coordinated guidance of the development of the I, with the three pre-MoG interventions of the Christ, the preparatory working of the Krishna impulse and the being of Elijah, and the great enactment by Christ-Jesus and John the Baptist where the Adam sister soul worked as part of Christ-Jesus' structure and also 'from outside'.

The same colour code mapping is used for the green and blue streams as in Schema FMC00.377. The dark green box connecting John the Baptist and Nathan Jesus refers to 1912-09-19-GA139 and Schema FMC00.381.

See also related (but not yet on this schema): Wotan Impulse

Schema FMC00.594: offers a visualization of the process that humanity goes through, from the group souls of humanity, over individuation (and fragmentation through human races and folk souls), to the future spiritualization into future group souls based on moral ideals. For further explanation see Unification#Individuation and differentiation.

The small insert on the lower left references that this is part of a universal process whereby the logos goes from one universal divinity to many, see also the theosophical 'mahat' concept on the IAO topic page.

Underlined terms reference FMC wiki topic pages. The metaphoric imagery consists of, upper left, a cake crumbling from monolithic to ever smaller pieces - like from ocean to droplets (to represent the spiritual hierarchies, each human being is connected to the archangelic and archai level); and on the lower right, small metallic particles in free chaotic order but organizing themselves, as attracted to magnets (the magnets are unifying soul qualities, hence virtues and moral ideals).

The crumbling into ever smaller crumbles is ongoing, today mankind is only physically separated into separate physical bodies, but humanity is still connected to the Third Hierarchy. Through Man's transformation and spiritualization also the other bodily principles will be separated, but also unified, as separation is an attribute of the lower worlds (from the lower spirit world downwards). In the higher spirit world, the principle of buddhi or Christos or selfless love (see Schema FMC00.481) is a vantage convergence point also called the Second Adam.

The idea of this schema is not to take it literally, but to imagine it at a higher level in one's mind and soul.

Lecture coverage and references

Paul - Letter Corinthians, Ch. 15

see coverage by Rudolf Steiner o.a. in 1908-06-26-GA104 below

Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. ² By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

³ For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance^[a]: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas,^[b] and then to the Twelve. ⁶ After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

⁹ For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. ¹¹ Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.

[The Resurrection of the Dead]

¹² But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³ If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

¹⁵ More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. ¹⁶ For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. ¹⁹ If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

²⁰ But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

²¹ For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. ²² For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. ²⁴ Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. ²⁵ For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶ The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ²⁷ For he “has put everything under his feet.”^[c] Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. ²⁸ When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.

²⁹ Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? ³⁰ And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? ³¹ I face death every day—yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. ³² If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”^[d]

³³ Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”^{[e] 34} Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.

[The Resurrection Body]

³⁵ But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” ³⁶ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

³⁷ When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. ³⁸ But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. ³⁹ Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. ⁴⁰ There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹ The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

⁴² So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; ⁴³ it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; ⁴⁴ it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

⁴⁵ So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

⁴⁶ The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we^[g] bear the image of the heavenly man.

⁵⁰ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— ⁵² in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. ⁵³ For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”^[h]

⁵⁵ “Where, O death, is your victory?

   Where, O death, is your sting?”^[i]

⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁵⁸ Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1904-06-25-GA090A

(end of the lecture, p 198-199)

Christianity will stribe towards brotherhood of and between all human beings. The white lodges are foreposts of this that put different goals but work together. They are nuclei, around which Individualities group.

At the end of the Earth stage of planetary evolution, there will be seven such lodges, with a single goal, harmonically.

After the pralaya these will re-appear as the seven leading spirits of the coming Future Jupiter stage.

See Transition between Earth and Future Jupiter

1905-10-21-GA093

The Spirit of the Earth is living with the Masters today and this Spirit of the Earth will be the physical clothing of the next planet [Future Jupiter]. The slightest thing we do will affect the smallest atom of the next planet. This feeling gives us first a full connection with the Lodge of the Masters. That should provide a central focus for the Theosophical Society, since we know what the Wise Ones know.

When Goethe speaks of the Spirit of the Earth⁸ he is expressing a truth. The Spirit of the Earth is weaving the clothing of the next planet.

’In life's floods, in the storm of action’ [In Lebensfluten—im Tatensturm] the Spirit [of the Earth] weaves the clothing for the next planetary Godhead.

1906-01-13-GA262

extract from letter

.. And you know about the foun­dations of the being of Christ. The 'being' of Christ should be thought of as the inverse macrocosmic human being, but identical with the second aspect of the Divinity, the Logos.

Think of the moment when the so-called 'Monad' (the sum of all monads) descends to incarnate in the bodies of animal-man prepared up to that point. The animal kingdom up to that point — insofar as it existed, i.e. without the mammals — had physically represented everything which had to be drawn into one being to produce the lower human being. In the first instance the Moon [Monad] sphere descends into this Lemurian animal-man by splitting off manas from budhi. Thus manas is incarnated in Lemurian man, which unites with kama to become kama-manas, and budhi-atma only remains linked with manas in potential.

Christ now is the being who brings budhi into life as a first spark. For this it is necessary that the Christ-being takes possession of a chela who has reached the third grade (Jesus).

In this way, we have to see the Christ-event on Earth as the reversal within the Monad sphere of the process which took place with 'Adam’. Paul speaks quite clearly of that when he calls 'Christ' the 'inverse Adam’.

The outer historical process is merely the factual symbol of the inner spiritual process.

One has to think of the matter in approximately the following way:

then follows Schema FMC00.185

1908-06-26-GA104

We might say that the important stage of passing over into the Earth which has become spiritualized, is wonderfully expressed in the Bible where it says that everything which man now accomplishes within himself in the physical body during the earth period is like a sowing whose fruit will appear when the earth has become spiritual.

“And that which thou sowest is not the body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body” (1 Cor. xv. 37).

That is, the body which is the expression of the soul of the individuality.

“There are also celestial bodies and bodies terrestrial, but the glory of the celestial body is one, and the glory of the terrestrial body is another.”

The earthly bodies will be dissolved, the celestial will appear as the luminous expression of what the soul is.

“It is sown corruptible and will rise incorruptible.”

The incorruptible body will then be resurrected.

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

Paul calls the etheric or life-body, spiritual body, after the physical has dissolved and the etheric passes into the astral Earth. Paul here sees beforehand the incorruptible spiritual body, as he calls it.

And now let us consider what it is that man will embody as the expression of his capacity for receiving the Christ. It is the same that hovered before Paul in spirit, and that he calls “the last Adam,” while he calls the first Man who entered into existence in a physically visible body “the first Adam.”.

At the end of the Lemurian epoch we already find various animals below, but man is not yet visible to external eyes; he is still etheric. He condenses, and absorbs mineral constituents and appears in his first form; the physical man gradually appears, just as water condenses into ice, Physical evolution then proceeds so far that what is earthly can dissolve and eventually disappears. Hence the Man who has the etheric body appears as the last Adam. The first Adam has the capacity of seeing the Earth in the physical body through the physical senses; the last Adam, who assumes a spiritual body, is an expression of the inner capacity for receiving the Christ.

Hence Christ is called by Paul the last Adam. This comprises the whole of human evolution; in spirit we see what Man will become in the future, whereas before we saw how he descended to the earth.

Now to understand the following we must look a little more deeply into the mysteries of becoming man.

1911-09-21-GA130

... uses the 'group soul'-like description:

The Christ-Individuality was on the Earth in the body of Jesus of Nazareth for three years only and does not come again in a physical body; in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch He comes in an etheric body, in the sixth epoch in an astral body, and in the seventh in a mighty Cosmic Ego that is like a great Group-Soul of humanity.

1911-10-10-GA131

.. ([1] re GA114) describes the Second Adam:

What, from the event of Damascus onwards, was the Being of Christ for Paul?

The Being of Christ was for him the ‘Second Adam’; and he immediately differentiates between the first Adam and the second Adam, the Christ.

• He calls the first Adam the progenitor of men on Earth because he sees in him the first man, from whom all other men are descended. For Paul, it is Adam who has bequeathed to human beings the body which they carry about with them as a physical body. All men have inherited their physical body from Adam. This is the body which meets us in external Maya, and is mortal; it is the body inherited from Adam, the corruptible body, the physical body of man that decays in death. With this body men are ‘clothed’.
• The second Adam, Christ, is regarded by Paul as possessing, in contrast to the first, the incorruptible, the immortal body.

Paul then affirms that through Christian evolution men are gradually made ready to put on the second Adam in place of the first Adam; the incorruptible body of the second Adam, Christ, in place of the corruptible body of the first Adam. What Paul seems to require of all who call themselves true Christians is some-thing that violates all the old conceptions of the world.

As the first corruptible body is descended from Adam, so must the incorruptible body originate from the second Adam, from Christ. Every Christian could say: ‘Because I am descended from Adam, I have a corruptible body as Adam had; but in that I set myself in the right relationship to Christ, I receive from Him, the second Adam, an incorruptible body.’ For Paul, this view shines out directly from the experience of Damascus.

We can perhaps express what Paul wishes to say by means of a simple diagram: [ see illustrations] Here we have (x, x ...) a number of people at a given time. Paul would trace them all back to the first Adam, from whom they are all descended and by whom they are given the corruptible body. According to Paul's conception, however, something else is possible. Just as human beings can say, ‘We are related because we are all descended from the one progenitor, Adam,’ so they can say, ‘As without any action of ours, through the relationships of human generation lines can be traced back to Adam, so it is possible for us to cause something else to arise within us; something that could make us different beings. Just as the natural lines lead back to Adam, so it must be possible to represent lines which lead, not to the corruptible body of the fleshly Adam, but to the body that is incorruptible. Through our relationship to Christ, we can — according to the Pauline view — bear this incorruptible body within us, just as through Adam we bear the Corruptible body.’

There is nothing more uncomfortable for the modern consciousness than this idea. For looking at the matter quite soberly, what does it demand from us? It demands something which, for modern thought, is really monstrous. Modern thought has long disputed whether all human beings are descended from one primeval human being, but it may be allowed that all are descended from a single human being who was the first on earth as regards physical consciousness. Paul, however, demands the following. He says: ‘If you desire to be a Christian in the true sense, you must conceive that within you something can arise which can live in you, and from which you can draw spiritual lines to a second Adam, to Christ, to that very Christ who on the third day rose from the grave, just as all men can trace lines back to the physical body of the first Adam.’ So Paul demands that all who call themselves Christians should cause something within them to arise; something leading to that entity which on the third day rose out of the grave in which the body of Christ Jesus had been laid. Anyone who does not grant this cannot come into any relationship with Paul; he cannot say he understands Paul. If man, as regards his corruptible body, is descended from the first Adam, then, by receiving the Being of Christ into his own being, he has the possibility of having a second ancestor. This ancestor, however, is He who, on the third day after His body had been laid in the earth, rose out of the grave.

1911-10-11-GA131

.. contains the key paragraph with the 'cells multiplying' analogy, see also and more (eg 1909-12-07-GA266A) on Cleansed phantom and Principle of spiritual economy#cellular multiplication process

Such question as this might be asked: If indeed Paul really believed that a spiritual body had risen, what has this spiritual body which had risen out of the grave to do with what every man now bears in himself? This is not hard to understand: we need only consider the analogy offered by the coming into existence of a human individual.

• As physical human being he begins from a single cell; a physical body consists entirely of cells which are all children of the original cell; all cells which compose a human body are traceable to the original cell.
• Now imagine that, through what we may call a mystical Christological process, man acquires a body quite other than the one he has gradually acquired in his downward evolution.
• Then think of each of these new bodies as having an intimate connection with the pure Phantom that rose from the grave, somewhat as the human cells of the physical body are connected with the original cell. That is, we must think of the Phantom as multiplying itself, as does the cell which gives rise to the physical body. So, in the evolution which follows the Event of Golgotha, every man can inwardly acquire something which is spiritually descended from the Phantom which rose from the grave, just as — to echo Paul — the ordinary body which falls into dissolution is descended from Adam.

Discussion

Note 1 - Group soul characteristic

See also: Unification and the 1911-09-21-GA130 excerpt above

Describing the kingdom of Man on Future Jupiter, one finds the group soul characteristic from the moral group nature of the area in lower spirit world, and how that is part of the current I of Man, see the 1921-10-09-GA207 quote on Seeds for future worlds.

We can imagine how the work done on Earth to refine our lower bodies effects what we write and contribute in the spirit world, and is then transformed afterwards after the pralaya process to the new 'good' kingdom of Man on Future Jupiter.

In this lecture is described how the inner soul characteristics of today, be they Luciferic or Ahrimanic tendencies, will transform to outer expressed characteristics.

For perspective, see also Group souls of humanity, and Moral ideals#1908-06-07-GA098

Related pages

• Christ Module 8 - Resurrection
• Unification
• Cleansed phantom
• Love
• Moral ideals
• Adam Kadmon and Giant_Ymir
• Group souls of humanity