Gentle Reader,
I have found that this study brings more to the surface than I had expected for example: Original sin for example was term used by Saint Augustine (354-430) was the first theologian to teach that man is born into this world in a state of sin. The basis of his belief is from the Bible (Genesis 3:17-19) where Adam is described as having disobeyed God by eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.
This, the first sin of man, became known as original sin.
My understanding of original sin certainly was coloured by my childhood where I was raised in a Roman Catholic home by good Irish Catholics. And it has only been recently that I have looked once again at this concept. For many years as a pastor when teaching through the book of Romans, I would make a distinction between SIN and sins SIN being "a hereditary corruption" from Adam and sins then being "accumulated transgressions".
Note: There is a vital distinction in the New Testament between the word SINS and the word SIN (when used generically). SINS are to be distinguished from SIN as the fruits of an evil are to be distinguished from their root, and as symptoms are to be distinguished from the disease. SINS are committed offenses: SIN is the defect which we inherit from Adam by natural generation, SINS must be forgiven for we are morally accountable for them. SIN, the disease, is not forgiven but covered (in the Old Testament), and cleansed, or taken away, or put away (in the New Testament). SINS are the cause of our spiritual death: SIN is the cause of our physical death.
On the Day of Atonement, two goats not one were sacrificed. One was "sent away" into the wilderness, there to perish in isolation, the sins of God's people having been laid upon its head. This goat represented the break in fellowship between the Son and the Father during the three hours of darkness. The other goat was slain and its blood sprinkled on the altar in the Holy of Holies. The first sacrifice was an offering for SINS; the second was a SIN-offering.
These two requirements, an offering for SINS and an offering for SIN, were both fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ on the day He made an atonement. Since these sacrificial animals which prefigured Him as Saviour and Redeemer had to be perfect, so He also had to be perfect both in spirit and in body.
In the Old Testament ritual on the Day of Atonement, the two goats were brought before the judges in the Temple. They were, first of all, declared satisfactory and then both were "slain," one by banishment, the other by being slaughtered. Two goats were required because a single animal could not physically be both ritually slain and banished.
But the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled both roles. His innocence having been established, He was then in a position to be appointed to both kinds of dying ? under circumstances which were altogether exceptional. Moreover, the manner of his dying (by crucifixion) was not at all customary in Jewish law. Yet the mode of his execution was necessary in order to provide a stage which would allow both kinds of dying to be fulfilled.
But this is not the final act. The Lamb of God has been sacrificed. In this sacrifice He was both victim and High Priest. He offered Himself. It was then necessary that He, as High Priest, present the blood of his own sacrifice before the very presence of God in the Holy of Holies which is in heaven. For this, his bodily resurrection was essential.
He then returned in Person, bodily, to present Himself before his people, as the High Priest under the old Covenant presented himself again before his people the signal that his atoning sacrifice had been accepted before God. Any other form of resurrection than a bodily one would have placed in doubt the efficacy of his role as our sacrificial victim and his role as our great High Priest.
We may think of the Lord's work in salvation as a purely spiritual exercise. Yet so much that He accomplished depended upon the possession of a body. It was through his body that He lived out a perfect human life and thus qualified as our sacrificial victim. It was through his body that He was able to die. And it was in his resurrection body, a body which was not allowed to see corruption, that He returned to proclaim God's acceptance of the sacrifice He had made.
Returning to our study of Genesis,
Based upon Romans Chapter 5 where we read from the pen of Paul the apostle "Wherefore, as by one man[Adam]sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:"(For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Rom 5:12-19)
The "wherefore" refers to the reconciliation (atonement) of Christ spoken of in Rom 5:11. Christ's work of atonement and the effect of Adam's sins are contrasted.
Some say that it was Turtellian who first coined the phrase "original sin" but in any case it was well established by the time of Christ and Paul that something momentous had taken place that had removed man from intimate fellowship with his Creator. That which we refer to as sin, with all its attendant sufferings exists throughout our world, (perhaps we could call it evil, but sin is just as good a name) How did it get in?
The Scriptural explanation is given to us in Chapter 3 of Genesis. It would do no good to try and vindicate the Scripture explanation against the contrary opinions of men (although to be perfectly frank I have, along with Marti and even my brother-in-law have examined hundreds of commentaries to see what other have thought). We are touching on it expositorily, not controversially. So Gentle reader, we accept the account from Scripture and its explanation; and we note three things which make up the account.
First, we have the tempting "Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat." (Gen 3:1-6) The first thing we notice is that the tempting was permitted (see Job 1). It is not easy to see how it could have been otherwise in the educating of a rational and volitional being such as man. The real tragedy is that there was a tempter. The fact that man was under a simple probation mentioned in chapter 2 " But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Heb. Dying thou shalt die)" (Gen 2:17) meant that he was liable to temptation. But consider the tempter could only tempt. There need not have been sin. And there was no reason to yield. We note too, that the temptation was introduced to Eve in solitariness.
Note also that this is Satan’s common method. The temptation was connected with the beautiful: its real character was concealed. There was the gradual growth in the strength of the temptation. First, God’s word was merely questioned (verse 1) then it is flatly contradicted (verse 4). And then, as the tempted one continues to listen, the very motive behind God’s word is maligned (verse 5). Consider also it there were two trees in the garden (the tree of life-which would have given mankind conditional immortality).
It was not Eve's failure but Adam's that resulted in the introduction of physical death into human experience. "By one man," not by one woman, nor even by one pair, death entered and passed by natural generation upon all men (Romans 5:12). The language of both Romans 5:12 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 is precise and is surely to be taken to mean exactly what it says.
Consider, then, the circumstances surrounding this fatal test of Eve and of Adam in the Garden of Eden. I believe we should accept the fact that the forbidden fruit was a real fruit, even as the Tree of Life was a real tree with leaves having therapeutic value. That both trees may also be used symbolically to teach us spiritual truths is not in question. But in this study it is the actual trees in their physical character that we are examining. By gathering all the explicit and implicit information available from the biblical account we appear to have a situation in the temptation of Eve and of Adam in that order which was far more complex than the childish stealing of a forbidden fruit as traditionally presented.
Consider the circumstances. Scripture, it seems to me, has gone out of its way to make it perfectly clear that Adam really was entirely alone in the world. First of all, it is apparent that although he was in a real sense complete in himself, God evidently considered that this kind of self-sufficiency was not a good thing. Perhaps even in a state of perfection Adam needed some fundamental human inter-dependence in order to develop his character. As a potential companion, God may have brought to him certain of the creatures which man has since domesticated and whose company he has learned to enjoy as pets. In his fallen state, man can now often find solace in the 'companionship' of a dog or a horse or even of a bird or a cat. In his unfallen state such creatures were inadequate companions. Certainly God knew this of course: but perhaps He wanted Adam to discover it for himself. To none of these creatures which came to him by divine impulse (Genesis 2:19,20) did Adam respond in such a way as to indicate their sufficiency as true companions or mates. His response was revealed by the names which he gave them. He did not assign his own name to any of them as a groom now assigns his name to his wife.
So God performed an operation isolating part of Adam and constituting that part into a new whole which, when brought to him, he at once identified as the companion he had not found among the other animals. Accordingly, he named her "Woman," which is a translation of the Hebrew word Ishah - And Ishah is the feminine form of the word Ish which means man, the name by which he himself was called. Surely he must have loved her at once, for she was literally part of himself.
Without sin, radiant in health, and beautiful as only God could make her in the full perfection and maturity of womanhood, she must have returned his love. In the truest possible sense they were verily made for each other. Each completed for the other the cup of happiness in their idyllic garden home. Without doubt, her presence became as essential to his own fulfillment as his presence was to hers. And thus, in their earthly paradise, Adam and Eve passed cloudless days (because sinless) in fellowship and open communion with God, * with neither fear nor shame, and with complete freedom to do whatever they willed and to eat whatever they desired of the fruits of the garden except one tree which was forbidden them.
And then Satan put Eve to the test. Whether Satan used a serpent as an agent by controlling its behaviour from without, or whether he indwelt a serpent (as the legion of demons indwelt the Gadarene swine, Luke 8:32,33) or whether he assumed a serpent form, we cannot tell precisely from the record. Indeed, the word rendered serpent may not even mean a serpent at all.† But one could well imagine such a creature reaching up into the forbidden tree in Eve's presence and there eating its fruit with complete confidence and manifest enjoyment and, to her amazement perhaps, with apparent impunity. Possibly the thought came to Eve that if other creatures could eat of the fruit with safety, why could not she? It is a common practice of country people in all ages to be guided in their choice of safe foods by observing what animals can safely eat. Why should the same thought not have occurred to Eve?
Yet the serpent may well have actually spoken to Eve in some language clear to her understanding, as Balaam was spoken to by his ass (Numbers 22:27-32). Or was it that Eve was really speaking to herself? Perhaps when doubts arose in her mind, the Satan-inspired creature reassured her by deliberately returning to the tree sometime later and taking the fruit a second or a third time, until in her own mind she came to doubt that there were any fatal consequences involved. And yet, her intuition persisted in warning her that she should neither eat the fruit nor even touch it. To touch was to take. In the end she was deceived as the New Testament tells us (1 Timothy 2:14) and, having plucked the fruit from the tree, she tasted it and found it to be all she had anticipated, not only beautiful to look at but good to the taste and in some unexpected way enlightening to the mind . . . as some modern drugs are.
But now a subtle change took place in her body, for she had unknowingly introduced a fatal poison. Even when she went back to Adam and invited him to share her experience, she still apparently had no real comprehension of what had happened to herself. And here we come to the crux of the story. For while Eve was, in one sense, as innocent as a child who has disobeyed but is not sure exactly in what way, Adam was not deceived at all. In a moment he realized that he was once again completely alone, but now it was an aloneness of a different kind, for he had lost his other self, his love, his sole human companion in the whole wide world. Part of him was missing.
We know that he was alone in this sense, for Eve became (so the Hebrew says ) the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20). There was no other woman who might have taken her place. She stood before him; yet she stood completely apart from him. They belonged to different kingdoms. Adam knew it at once, and in that moment he faced a trial surely more heart-rending than has ever been the lot of any man since who is called upon to surrender his dearest possession. For while many other men have made such a sacrifice for one reason or another (millions were forced to do so by the Nazis), Adam could never for all he knew expect to recover a helpmeet again. There was no other woman in the world...Nor was there any other man who, placed in similar circumstances, might have shared the burden of loss with him. For a little while he had been alone before in his undivided state as he came from the hand of his Creator but very probably without any awareness of loneliness as he now felt it in his divided self. He had to face the prospect of an aloneness made acute because of what he had experienced and what he had now lost. And for all he could see, this loss was for ever. Adam was still immortal: but for Eve a subtle change had already begun and she was, as God had said she would be, from that very day a dying creature. Here lay the gulf between them: a mortal creature could not be a proper companion to a still immortal one.
Thus God, who overrules all human history, had allowed the first man to be brought into a position of trial, the severity of which is far beyond our true comprehension. Adam was faced with a choice that was quite literally a matter of life and death for him. And it had all been brought about by the eating of the fruit of a forbidden tree.
In the Hebrew original, at verse 6, there is a small mark which indicates a pause after the words "and gave also unto her husband with her" and before the words "and he did eat." The little 'mark' in the Hebrew text at the word which is translated into English "with her," is called a Tiphkha. Every Hebrew sentence is given certain accents to guide the reader as to the appropriate emphasis, and some of these are called 'separation' marks. They are somewhat analogous to our comma, colon, and so forth. The strongest separation mark in a Hebrew sentence is called a Silluq. It marks the end of a sentence, and usually in translation also marks the end of a verse. The strongest separation mark within the sentence, and therefore standing for a pause by way of emphasis, is called a Tiphhha. It is this little mark that tells us there is to be a pause after the words "with her."
It might be thought that this was hanging too much weight on so small a thread. But I think it is necessary to bear in mind that when a literary work is characterized by extreme simplicity and brevity, as Genesis is, and when the circumstances are of tremendous significance in human history, it is important to observe all the clues that the writer has given as to his intention. Adam was about to make a choice which was to affect profoundly all subsequent generations. If he joined Eve, he was settling once for all the question of whether mankind would retain the potential immortality which God had provided for. When he followed his wife and ate the fatal fruit, he, not she (as we shall show), introduced death into human experience. Death entered by one man and passed upon all men so that every one of us now lives out his whole life under the shadow of a sentence of death. This was the consequence of Adam's decision.
There is no knowing what might have been the course of history had Eve been allowed to go out of the Garden alone, for ever separated from Adam. We know from Genesis 4:1 that Eve was not pregnant at this time since Adam did not "know" her until sometime later. Such a separation would therefore seem to bring an end to the human race in terms of further multiplication, unless we suppose that God might have allowed Adam to go with her into exile even though he had not disobeyed. Their children would still have been immortal in such a case, for the seed of the man was still uncorrupted and the seed of the woman had been protected against corruption. Though she herself would die, since she had fatally poisoned her own body, yet Adam and her children would still have retained their potential immortality for we know that the fatal poison is not transmitted through or in the woman's seed, and the seed of Adam still unfallen would in such a circumstance have retained its purity also. But it seems most unlikely that God would have permitted Adam to leave the Garden, and the hypothesis has very little validity: but it is an interesting one to contemplate.
Adam cannot perhaps have anticipated all the profound consequences of his action, but we should not underestimate the perceptive powers of the human mind untouched by any poison and perfect as God created it. As Rev. J. B. Heard rightly observed, even Aristotle was "but the rubbish of an Adam."
I cannot imagine Adam simply agreeing to follow Eve's unhappy choice, blithely and without thought. We know in fact that he was not deceived (1 Timothy 2:14). He must surely have known at least something of what the consequences would be. When he decided to eat the fruit, he must have done so only after pondering the matter deeply. It must have been an agonizing decision to make.
He was faced with a choice, the choice of staying in the Garden and living for ever in complete and daily fellowship with God, in perfect health and sinless but without Eve. Or he could surrender his immortality and his innocence, and his sojourn in the Garden and his daily sense of the Lord's fellowship but preserve the companionship of his love, the woman whom God Himself had "given to be with him." And who can tell but that his own awareness of the reality of the situation may have communicated itself to Eve. Would she not appeal to him not to desert her? How could he contemplate a separation on such terms as these which would leave him in the sunshine of Eden and God's presence, while exiling her to the unknown world outside the Garden. I do not think we can really grasp the situation that Adam found himself in, because wherever we go we are likely to find people. Adam and Eve were entirely alone in the world.
This, then, was the situation. Can one imagine what must have been Adam's thoughts as he contemplated the sending forth of his beautiful help meet out of the Garden into an entirely unknown and supposedly uninhabited world while he remained within the Garden. And can we imagine what Adam's thoughts would be as he looked into the future and saw his beloved lying somewhere "out there" dying alone and unattended, in her aged condition? There can be little doubt that he perceived at least something of what such a future could mean both for her and for himself.
As for the yielding (verse 6) we see the Satin first captured the ear, then the eye, then the inward desire and finally the will. Eve allowed her ear to listen to the tempter. Then she allow her eyes to feast on the object of the temptation. Then she allow desire to run away with the will. Compare verse 6 with that of 1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. The first temptation in Eden and all the myriad temptations by which men and women have been lured into sin ever since, are fundamentally the same. And the tempter’s great purpose is ever to divorce the will of man more and more from the will of God.
The results we know in part, 1) there was shame (they realized they were naked, I think that they had be clothed with the reflection of the Shechinah glory of God, which was immediately removed when God first command was violated. 2) Their eyes were opened! And they knew! But what and eye-opening and what a knowing! 3) Note also there was a change in the human body, in Romans we read For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Rom 8:3) That cannot mean that our Lord’s human nature was in any way infected by sin. How was it that he was in the likeness of sinful human flesh? The answer may be that he did not have about his body the pristine glory, the original glory of unfallen man, in Eden.
The inference is that before the fall there was a radiant glory about the bodies of Adam and Eve which was itself their resplendent covering. We are told that the very skin of Moses’ face shone after his 40 days of communion with God on Sinai. Lost, departed immediately after the fall, and "they knew they were naked." that was the third result.
Nor was that all. There was a tragic inward change. There suddenly sprang into consciousness a strange war within where all had hitherto been love, joy and peace. There came the terror of a newly-awakened faculty- the faculty of conscience. Thus with the first temptation and the first sin came the first fear: Adam and Eve fled from God (something we have all done at some time or other until God calls us back to Himself) and tried to hide from Him. This was the fourth result- note for the record there did not seem to be any humble contrition, even when the sin was exposed before God.
The result: immediate spiritual death, alienation of man from God. Spiritual death had set in. Man is expelled from the Garden, Why? The Tree of Life was there, and if eaten of that fruit, man would have never been able to have his fellowship restored! The ground is cursed, the Serpent is cursed. Yet amid all of these effects God is merciful, and the first great promise of the coming Saviour is given in verse 15 as the full music and revelation unfolds. The promise "the seed of the woman" should break the head of the serpent. Remember not the seed of the man, think about how it is the egg within the woman encased not penetrated by the man, that our Saviour comes. Sinless....
Next time we look at the flood.
Love,
Denis
* It has no historical value, but it is interesting that in an apocryphal book known only from an early Slavonic manuscript titled The Secrets of Enoch (Chapter XXXII, 3) the unknown author states that "Adam was five and a half hours in paradise"! The same view appears in several of the Adam Books. In the Book of Jubilees the life in Paradise is said to have lasted seven years: so also Syncellus taught. Josephus puts its duration as at least several days (cf. John Damascus, De. orth. fide, 11. 10; Augustine, De Civitas XX. 26; Gregory (Great), Dialogue, IV. 1). These authorities are followed by Pererius and Ussher. R. Anuni (Bereshith Rabba II), Irenaeus, Ephrem, Epiphanius, and some scholastics fix upon one day as its limit. Eusebius (Chronicles 1.16, 4, edited by Mai) said no one could tell anything about it! He was probably the most correct...
† The Hebrew original nachash, which Driver suggests is onomatopoeic (= the word hiss) is of uncertain root but might possibly be related to the word for bronze, or even to a verbal root connected with divination.
Addendum:
a sin said to be inherited by all descendants of Adam; "Adam and Eve committed the original sin when they ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden of ...
The Hebrew words rendered "sin" are also to be distinguished:
('asham), is sin moral or ceremonial committed through mistake or ignorance. Usually translated trespass.
(chatah), sin, as a missing of the mark; a falling short of what ought to be done.
('avon), sin, as to its nature and consequences, iniquity.
(pesha'), sin, as revolting from constituted authority.
(shagah), error through inadvertence.
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