Is Jesus the reincarnation of Adam? Somewhere in my travels, I read that Jesus can be considered as Adam reincarnated. Is that a possibility? "First Adam flops, second Adam triumphs" - is that an idea some of you know?
No. Jesus may not be considered Adam re-incarnate.

Yet it's not hard to figure out where somebody might have gotten that idea. This is just a case of not understanding the terminology being used. Somebody got some of the words cross-wired¹ without understanding the concept.

In Christianity Jesus is known as the "Second Adam" or "Last Adam" but the naming has nothing to do with reincarnation! The title refers to a role rather than a personal ID. As far as personas go they are actually quite different. Adam was a man like you or me. He died and stayed dead. Jesus was God himself who had taken on human form. God and man at the same time.


Adam was given specific assignments, he had a role to play in the created order.

He failed it. Spectacularly.


  Romans 5:12 (ESV)
  12&nbsp; Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

The "Second Adam" Jesus came to set right what he first Adam messed up.


  1 Corinthians 15:22 (ESV)
  22&nbsp; For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.



Jesus not only did what neither Adam nor of his descendants could do (live in perfect obedience to God) but by taking on himself Adam's guilt he also reversed the process Adam started and provided a way for those who had rebelled (Adam and all us after him) to be reconciled back to God.


  1 Corinthians 15:45 (ESV)
  45&nbsp; Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.


When Christians talk about a  "Second Adam" it is not a reincarnation being talked about, but this principle of reversing the curse brought by the "First Adam".

¹ This could be intentional or accidental. History is full of deliberate miss-understandings of Christianity (e.g. the accusation of cannibalism in reference to communion) but I suspect this is simply a case of lack of knowledge. Rather that actually researching what is properly meant by various expressions, it is a natural tendency to run with them out of context. This tendency can not only result in very bad doctrine, it is the source of most of the worlds conspiracy theories.