After God created Adam, He authorized Adam to have dominion over all creatures in the seas, in the air, and on the earth (Gen. 1:26, 28). That is, He established Adam as His deputy, one who would exercise His authority to rule on the earth for Him, especially to have dominion over the earth in order to deal with His enemy, Satan, typified by the serpent, the chief among the creeping things (Gen. 1:26; 3:1; Rev. 12:9), and to restrict Satan’s movement on earth. Because the earth was seized and usurped by Satan and became the place of his activities (Luke 4:5-6; 1 John 5:19), it became a strategic place. If God would have His kingdom come on earth, have His will done on earth, and have His glory manifested on earth (Matt. 6:10, 13), His authority must be brought in through man that His enemy might be dealt with and that man might represent Him in ruling on the earth, thus fulfilling God’s economy.
Adam was created as the head of mankind. Mankind is the center of God’s creation. As the head of mankind, Adam was also the head of all creatures. All his actions, whether successes or failures, gains or losses, are related to and represent mankind and all things. Adam, as the head of mankind and all things, is a type of Christ as the Head over all things (Eph. 1:22; 1 Cor. 11:3; Rom. 5:14b). Adam was the first man; Christ is the second Man. Adam was the first Adam; Christ is the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:47, 45). Adam was the head of the old collective man (mankind); whatever he did and whatever happened to him is participated in by all mankind. Christ is the Head of the new corporate man (the church—Eph. 2:15-16); whatever He did and whatever happened to Him is participated in by all the members of His Body, the church (Eph. 1:22-23).
When Adam, the father of all mankind, was created by God, all his descendants were included in him. God did not create Adam as only a single person; He created mankind collectively in Adam. In Genesis 1:26 God said, “Let us make man...and let them....” Man is singular, but the pronoun used is them. This proves that this man is a corporate man, a collective man. When Adam was created, all mankind, being included in him, was created as God’s vessel (Rom. 9:21, 23) to contain God and to express God’s glory. Therefore, Adam and all his descendants should receive God as their life and content that they may be God’s expression. Otherwise, man is but an empty shell, and with him everything is vain and limited. Man’s mind, emotion, and will are empty, and so are man’s wisdom, prudence, good works, and virtues. Only when God enters into this man, this vessel, can all these items have reality and content and thus become God’s expression and manifestation.
Adam listened to his wife and ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which signifies Satan as the source of sin and death. Thus, he entered into an illegal union with Satan and received the evil nature of Satan, the nature that rebelled against God. Satan’s evil nature became the sinful nature within Adam, and Adam was thus constituted a sinner condemned by God. Since he was a corporate man who included all mankind, in his one act of disobedience he included all his descendants, all who would later be born of him, in his sinning and becoming fallen. Thus, Satan and the sinful nature entered all mankind, and all men were constituted sinners (Rom. 5:12, 19) and were subjected under God’s condemnation.
When Adam sinned and fell, we all, being included in him, participated in his sinning and becoming fallen. In him we also participated in the consequences of his sin. We came out of him, and since his life and nature became sinful, the life and nature that we received from him also are sinful.