Quotes of the Day for March 26, 2026 – Thoughts on the first and second Adam
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“The word Adam in Hebrew comes from “adamah” which means earth. The word Christ, in Hebrew, Messiah, means the “anointed” of God. As Christ is the new Adam, so His mother Mary is the new Eve, for she is the true “mother of all living,” which is the meaning of the name given to the original “helper” of man (Gen 3.20).” (Fr. Thomas Hopko)
“Readers of the New Testament are familiar with St. Paul’s description of Christ as the “Second Adam.” It is an example of the frequent Apostolic use of an allegoric reading of the Old Testament (I am using “allegory” in its broadest sense – including typology and other forms). Christ Himself had stated that He was the meaning of the Old Testament (John 5:39). Within the Gospels Christ identifies His own death and resurrection with the Prophet Jonah’s journey in the belly of the fish. He likens His crucifixion to the serpent raised on a staff by which Moses healed the people of Israel. Without the allegorical use of the Old Testament – much of the material in the gospels and the rest of the New Testament would be unintelligible.” (Father Stephen Freeman)
“…Christ comes as the New Adam to rectify what the old Adam did. The first man was in Paradise, living in perfect abundance, where there was no hunger, thirst, or need—and yet he succumbed to the temptation of the evil one, was seduced by the fruit, broke the fast given to him by God, and fell through it. The Second Adam, the Lord Himself, comes to a world lying in wickedness, to the wilderness where there is nothing, where He is exhausted by hunger after forty days of fasting, where satan tempts Him with exactly what the first Adam fell into—the stomach, the desire to be satiated, and distrust of the Father. And Christ triumphs where Adam fell. He does not respond to the tempter with His Divine power (although He could have turned stones into bread with a single word), but with a word of the Holy Scriptures, humility, and obedience to the will of the Father. He shows us the way: it is not by magic or miracle that evil is vanquished, but by faithfulness to God, even in the most acute need.” (Priest Tarasiy Borozenets)
“…we must all approach Lent with a deep awareness of how we far we are from sharing in the New Adam’s completion of our vocation to become like God in holiness. The only way to escape our self-imposed exile is to take intentional steps to share more fully in the life of the One Who has opened up Paradise through His glorious resurrection. As St. Paul taught, we must “put on the armor of light” and “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” That means mindfully investing our energy, time, and attention in conforming our character to His. It means refusing to invest our energy, time, and attention in whatever makes us less like Christ. Lent calls us to give ourselves so fully to prayer, fasting, generosity, and other spiritual disciplines that we will have nothing left for “the works of darkness.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“Why did the sinless Savior, in Whom two natures—Divine and human—were united, need to be baptized by a man, the holy Prophet and Forerunner John the Baptist? The “new Adam”, as Christ is called by the Holy Fathers, assumed the whole human nature…not only human nature, but the whole world: water, land, forests, fields, rivers, mountains, deserts, animals, birds and fishes—all living and non-living things together with man changed because man, the crown of God’s Creation, fell through his pride, disobedience and lack of abstinence, thus perverting his nature and the nature of the whole earth…to rectify this situation and transform the nature of man and the entire universe, it was necessary to sanctify it by Divine power of the grace of Christ. And so, the God-Man descended into the waters of the Jordan and performed two deeds in one immersion.” (Hieromonk Zosima Melnik)
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