Paul’s contrast between Adam and Christ (first and last) is an appeal for us to have an “image-change.” Hence, in Christ, we are a “new creature” (II Cor. 5:17).
Without the new birth experience, we remain in the image of the 1st Adam and fail to rise to the image of the 2nd.
Nicodemus, confused at the command to be born again, referenced being born of his mother (image of the first Adam) but Jesus responds: “except a man is born again of the water and the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed is more than just a question of resurrection; it’s a question of “whose image do you bear?” The first Adam or the second Adam?
Colossians 3:10: “Having put on the new (Gk. Neos, “recently born”) which is renewed (Gk. Anakainoo, made new) after the image of him that created him.”
2 Corinthians 3:18: But we all, with open (unveiled) face beholding as in a glass (mirror) the glory of the Lord, are changed (transfigured) into the same image…glory to glory…
It’s an image thing! Whose image do you reflect? The dusty image of the first Adam or the heavenly image of the second?