Adam was a real man, not some kind of religious myth or symbol. Throughout the Bible he is always referenced as an individual rather than as a group of people, or as a descriptor for humanity as a whole. He is described as the person through whom sin was able to enter and corrupt the earth. When we look at this first human person, we discover a fundamental truth about ourselves. This is not something that we will read in most ‘self-help’ books, but it is foundational to an understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to love. I am referring to the fact that God made us image bearers. Incredibly, we are made in His image: And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:26,27). We were made like God, and we were made to love but look at what we have become. Something has gone badly wrong. We still have the capacity to love, but love is no longer the modus operandi of humanity. Other drivers, including greed and hate, have taken loves place.

God has not changed, but we have. He is still the same loving Father, who made us at the first.