Metaphors of the Church: One New Humanity

When God destroyed the earth with a flood, He destroyed all humanity except Noah’s family, and started a new humanity. It was still descended from Adam. The world will be destroyed again, this time by fire (2 Peter 3:3-7), but yet again there will be a new humanity rescued and created by the Second Man/Last Adam/Heavenly Man (1 Corinthians 15:45-49), Jesus Christ. The Church is that new humanity.

¹⁴ For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, ¹⁵ by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, ¹⁶ and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

The humanity in the first man/first Adam was, in essence, divided into two, Jews and Gentiles, when God adopted Israel. This was the saved versus the unsaved, those who received the revelation of God and those who didn’t. That revelation, the Law, separated them. But Jesus in his crucifixion set aside the Law that separated these two people groups and in his body he reconciled both to God. He did this to create a new, in a sense, third race (made up of both Jews and Gentiles).

This new humanity will carry the sons of Adam into eternity, never again to be destroyed, forever living in unity with each other and the Triune God in His eternal kingdom.