“for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”
(Rom 3:23, NKJV)
In his fallen state man is for the first time called on his name – Adam. Almost all the commentaries declare this naming of the first man as linked to the fact that he was made from soil or dust. But this is somewhat hard to swallow – although there is indeed red soil, there is also brown, grey, black, gold, yellow and even white soil. Red could never be considered as the representative colour of soil.
In no commentary could I find any reference to the fact that Adam only received his name after the fall. (In many translations the word ‘man’ is inaccurately translated, in earlier chapters of Genesis, as ‘Adam’, even in the KJV.) This naming that occurred only after the fall, and the fact that man and earth were both cursed, is very important information.
The first man was filled with the glory of God. Ps 8:5 spells this out: “For you have made him a little lower than the angels, and You have crowned him with glory and honor.” Webster’s explains that the root meaning of glory is “bright, shining; brightness, splendor”. In the Word the glory of God is often manifested through shining light (as in Rev 18:1 & 21:23; Isa 60:1). Man as image of God clearly had different bodies before and after the fall – I suspect the pre-fall body might have been filled with the glory of God – shining light (1 John 1:5). Man was made in the Image of God – Christ (Gen 1:26; 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15) and in Him, according to John 1:4, was “life, and the life was the light of men”. The first man literally glowed because of the glory of the light of God! The first man had the life of God within him, light in his veins! Sela.
Rom 3:23 beautifully explains what happened to this light after the fall – like the first man all who originated from that “one blood” (Acts 17:26), without them necessarily having chosen it themselves, have “sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. Clearly the “Spirit of glory” (1 Pet 4:14) departed from the first man when sin and decay and death moved in. “Because all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers and its flower falls away …” (1 Pet 1:24).
The life that was light (John 1:4) had to be replaced, with blood. From then on man would have blood in his veins, and not light, and life would henceforth be in this blood, “for it is the life of all flesh. Its blood sustains its life” (Lev 17:14); “The life of every living creature is in its blood.” (CEV).
It is only after the fall that the first man, for the first time, showed his fallen colour – red. And thus he was appropriately named Adam.
- Sela: Pray and ask God about Rom 3:23 in your life.
- Read: 1 Chr 24; Jer 50; 1 Pet 5
- Memorise: 1 Pet 5:7
- For a deeper understanding: Read chapter 1 in Floyd McClung’s The Father Heart of God.
