Enter Sin
It’s
time for Genesis 3, otherwise known as the fall of mankind and the introduction
of sin into the world. There are a few
things I’d like to point out in my reading of these passages.
Enter Blame
I
will always smile when I read through the act of sin and then read through God’s
recognition of the act. The serpent
tempts the woman, but the woman chooses sin for herself. The woman tempts the man, but the man
nonetheless chooses sin for himself.
Then God comes calling and the man and woman hide. They know what they’ve done. Guilt takes over in the presence of God.
However,
we God finds the man and woman and he questions them we get an interesting
result. Man blames woman and woman
blames serpent. Human beings hate the
moment of truth. We hate the moment
where someone exposes us to the mirror of our sin. Our first instinct is to pawn it off
elsewhere and get the blame to rest elsewhere.
I
don’t think it is actually about avoiding consequences. I think it is actually about avoiding the
need to see ourselves for the way that we are.
I can handle consequences. I can
take punishment. You get caught and you
get through it. What I hate is having to
accept that I really am that depraved person who sinned. The consequences are nothing to recognizing
truth about myself.
Enter Judgment
I
am struck by the curse put upon the woman in juxtaposition of my blogging
comments the last two days. The last two
days I have been focusing a ton on the creation of man and woman as a
harmonious creation. The creation
stories don’t give us a hierarchy but rather they give us a harmony. And then we get to the curse put on the
woman. Here she is told that she will
long after a husband but that the husband will rule over her.
At
long last I have come across the mysterious “creation of the hierarchy” that I
have been looking for. But it is
important to understand what exactly brings about the hierarchy. It is the interaction with sin that brings
about the curse. It is our sinful state
that brings about the hierarchy. God did
not create us to be hierarchical beings.
God did not make the hierarchy implicitly within us as a part of
creation. No, the hierarchy comes as a
product of the sinfulness.
So
where does that leave us as spiritual beings?
I’m thinking right off the cuff here, but it makes me wonder how much we
actually want to be spiritual beings at all.
What does Paul tell us in Galatians?
“If we live by the Spirit, then let us also walk by the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25) And what about Galatians 3:27-28? “For as many of you as were baptized into
Christ have put on Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek, There is neither slave nor free, there is no male and
female, for you are all one in Christ.”
It
would seem that I agree with Paul on this point. If we want to be spiritual beings, we should
live like it and act like it. If we do
truly live by the Spirit then we should walk it, too. If our hierarchical understanding of man and
woman comes out of our interaction with sin – should it have predominant
importance in our spiritual interactions with each other? Or if our hierarchical gender structure does influence
our spiritual interactions with each other, then what does it say about our
understanding of what it means to be spiritual?
Does it not confess that while we might “want” to be spiritual or “talk
about” being spiritual, if we still structure ourselves by the method that
comes from the results of sin are we not saying that we do not think that God
has the power to spiritually supersede our sinfulness?
As
I ponder this, I think of all the people in the world who live by the “man
shall not be under a woman’s leadership” principle. After reading through the first three
chapters of Genesis, I wonder what God really thinks of that. Is it truly how He has created us to be? Or is it more like divorce – which God only
makes rules to govern because of the hardness of our heart? Are we really sending the highest spiritual
message – the truth of God’s creative spirit – by having such a policy in our
lives?
My
wife and I have always laughed about the fact that she has 49% of the vote and
I have 51% of the vote. We both really
know she wins because most often I vote the way she wants because I love her
and want her to be genuinely happy. But again
I’m wondering if there isn’t an inherent flaw in the message I am sending to my
wife. Am I telling her that I expect our
marriage to be governed by our sinfulness – thus we structure our marriage in a
hierarchy? If I truly thought our marriage
was to be a spiritual one, would I not want it structured out of the unity originally
found in Genesis 1 & 2? What is the
better focus to put on the marriage? Is
it better to remind her that I will rule over her or is it better to remind her
that I am made complete by her? Seeing
it like that, I know my answer.
Enter Grace
One
of the other points that struck me here as I read was Genesis 3:21. God curses the serpent, woman, and man in
Genesis 3:14-19. God kicks them out of
the Garden and permanently bars the door in Genesis 3:22-24. But something amazing happens in between the
curse and the judgment: grace. God
fashions clothing for the man and woman.
God took them in their fallen state and embraced them by caring for
their needs. Yes, God judged them. And God forced them to live in their
consequences. But God did not “throw
them to the wolves” completely. God
paused and clothed them. God allowed
them to have their newfound knowledge and equipped them to deal with life under
this newfound knowledge. It would not be
easy, but here God is saying that He will continue to be with them. That is what we call grace.
That’s
true for all of us, no? God will judge
over us. God does allow us to live in
the consequences of our actions. But God
provides us with the means to endure those consequences. God is gracious. Amen.
I agree God is very gracious and he will judge us in our next life. Do you think this was part of God's plan?
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts John. Having been associated with churches on both sides of the "woman in ministry" debate I find your analysis helpful. Like you (it seems), its not something I've fully decided on at this point, but rather a place I continue to gather more information.
ReplyDeleteA thought I would emphasize because I beleive it isn't enough is that in v6 we read "She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it." Many seem to think that Eve was tempted, sinned, then went and found ol' innocent Adam and dragged him down too. Clearly, this is not the case. Adam as right there, heard the whole thing, and ate as well. He is in my opinion just as guilty and perhaps a bit more cowardly, since he first saw eve didn't die immediately. (not understanding that physical immediate death was not the punishment promised, but actually a much worse kind)
Linda: Ultimately, I cannot answer your question with a yes or no. I can only answer with both. No, I don't think it ultimately was a part of God's plan in that I do not think He created us with the desire that we fall into sin. Yes, God did create us with the potential to fall into sin and thus it was part of the "foreseeable consequence of creation." As God is a loving God, I do believe He foresaw this outcome and thus as a part of creation He already had a plan of redemption in play. But I must believe that God's #1 choice would have been for sin to remain outside of creation. I guess that last comment of mine is a little more "captain obvious" than I intended it to be. Sorry! :D
ReplyDelete(I am finding it unfortunate that blogger does not allow people to comment specifically on the comment to which I intend. Rather it makes a long list of comments it seems)
ReplyDeleteTom: Thanks for the comment on the v. 6 stuff. I absolutely wholeheartedly agree. Eve gets the bad reputation. And while certainly she deserves it for her part in the act, she is clearly not alone in the act! Adam is right there; he could have refused the apple himself. And I like the "cowardly" spin you put on it. Don't know for sure if he was using her as a geaunia pig ... but it almost comes across that way, doesn't it? LOL
You are being honest. Yes, I think his redemption was to send his son (Jesus)to die for our sins.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts. I will pose more of an argument about men and women when I know more and can better say what I want to without looking silly :).
ReplyDeleteWith that said I bring your attention to verse 3 where it says, "but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’" This is Eve telling the serpent what God had said. Now if you look back God never said you should not touch the tree, he said you should not eat of the fruit of the tree.
Now where do you think she got this command from? I may or may not be playing devil's advocate here but what would you say to me saying that Adam posed this problem. You see, Eve was formed and Adam said FINALLY someone I can live with. Now God did not make Adam with all the rules of living in his head already, he told him the rule, eat of every tree except this one. So Adam had to pass on this rule to Eve, because doubtful that God made Eve with the rules already "programmed" in her brain. So Adam says, "You know what Eve, God said do not eat, no no, God said do not TOUCH the tree.
Now if you are following this so far and if this is what happened, I present to you a fall before the fall. Because Adam is not telling Eve what God said, Adam is putting his own words into God's Word. Which God's word is enough, we don't have to add anything to it to make it any more special or any more "right".
Thoughts?
In His Grip,
Adam
I would be a little careful in going through those steps and jumping to the conclusion that it was a fall before a fall. It could have happened as you say, absolutely. But it didn't necessarily happen that way.
ReplyDeleteImagine this. Adam is telling Eve the rules just as God told them to Adam. In a perfectly good conscience, Adam says, "Wait, if we aren't supposed to eat the fruit, then if we just don't touch the tree then we'll add an extra layer of protection. So let's not even touch the tree." Eve agrees that it sounds like a pretty good idea, and the two of them agree to the principle.
Now, in some ways this could still be seen as a fall before the fall. If a person wants to take a hard-line approach, the person could say that adding anything to the Word of God sets us up for a fall because we are adding to what God has already declared. However, I would imagine that a person taking that approach would really have a problem with the Jewish Midrash and especially the Lutheran Book of Concord. Both of those books are teachings that take the Word of God and "add to their fullness by adding layers of interpretation and explanation." So I would refute the premise that adding to the Word of God is always sinful. It certainly can be sinful, but sometimes as a matter of course of explanation, it can actually be helpful. Shoot, for that matter, is not the best sermon taking God's Word and "adding to it layers of meaning?"
Having said all that, I can imagine Adam saying this to Eve - or even Eve saying to Adam, "Hey, if we can't eat it, then let's just not touch it." In either case I can see how they could add that stipulation without intending to twist God's Word. Parents do it all the time with their kids. They add in buffers of protection to keep their children safe until they are ready to really handle the truth.
So, I don't think it is necessarily a fall-before-the-fall type scenario. It certainly could be ... but it may not necessarily be. For me, it goes back to motivation. If Adam (or Eve) added to or altered God's instructions for the purpose of misrepresenting them, then there is sin and there is definately a fall-before-a-fall. But if the addition was simply an added buffer of protection, it need not necessarily be sin. There is no sin in prudent caution.
However, in either case you notice that it is something that Satan can use to His advantage. For that record, I would lift up the scary reality that anytime we add to or even explain the Word of God we are in danger of giving Satan ammunition to use against us. Satan can use the Jewish Midrash, the Lutheran Book of Concord, a sermon on the Word, or any commentary you and I might read to try and twist the Word of God to His advantage. Regardless of whether it is sin or not, Satan is the master of deception.
This doesn't mean we don't preach. It means we are consistent in our approach to test everything according to the Word. Shoot, Satan even tries to use the Word against Jesus in the temptation in the wilderness. If Satan is willing to do that with Jesus, why shouldn't we accept that anything we write - sinful or not - can be ready ammunition for the Adversary?