If Jesus is the new Adam, is Mary the new Eve?
A viewer asks that, if Jesus is the new Adam, whether Mary is the new Eve.
Answer
Scripture itself tells us Jesus is the last Adam; that is the phrase Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 15, 'as in Adam all die, so in Christ all shall be made alive,' and there he calls Jesus the last Adam, not the second Adam. So that is a scriptural term for Jesus. With Mary, this is something we attach to her not because Scripture says so; there is nothing in Scripture that calls Mary the new Eve. The reason is that Adam is the pivot point of whether all mankind benefits from his obedience or suffers for his disobedience, not Eve. Eve is not a pivot point; she is the one who precipitates the situation that leads Adam to make his decision. Once Adam made his decision, it was over; Adam could have stopped it right there and said, no, Eve, that was wrong, which would have pleased God to no end. So Eve was not the pivot point for whether the human race would be cursed or blessed; she only precipitated the situation in which Adam had to decide. Likewise Mary cannot save anybody; her role is to bring Jesus onto the stage where He must make all the right decisions, suffer, and die for our salvation. So both Eve and Mary play a precipitous part, bringing their respective 'Adams' to the stage. Scripture gives us the model by calling Jesus the antitype of Adam, and on that theological basis we can safely apply the parallel to Eve and Mary, even though Scripture does not specify it that way.