Edgework

It comes as a surprise to many that the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 is not repeated again in all of the Christian Old Testament. “The stories of the founding patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – Moses, the liberator from slavery in Egypt and the covenant maker between God and Israel, and David, the first great king of the Israelite people, are told often, but the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis is missing in the rest of the Old Testament” (Toews, 14).

So it is not surprising that Jesus does not pick up that story in his life and ministry either. If the primary purpose of Jesus’ coming to earth was to undo the curse attached to the ontological Fall of Adam and Eve, as many western theologians postulate, one would expect that Jesus would have said as much at least at some point in his ministry. But Jesus does not speculate about the cosmic origin of sin; instead simply assumes the universal presence of sin defined in terms of relational brokenness.

In giving a defense of his visiting the house of the despised and corrupt tax-collector, Zacchaeus, Jesus simply says, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 9-10). This stance is perhaps best articulated in the parable Jesus tells of the lost son: a relationship has been broken between father and son, the father eagerly awaits his son’s return, and when he does come home the father showers him with grace and forgiveness. In his heart, the prodigal had always remained his son and the father is overjoyed at a restored relationship. (Luke 15:11-32).

As in the Gospels, so in the Acts of the Apostles, there is no mention of the Adam and Eve story, even though the apostles proclaimed the gospel message and many were converted. The message was, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord” (Acts 3:19). It was all about a voluntary turning toward a restored relationship, not about having one’s DNA miraculously altered.

It is when we get into the writing of Paul that the story of Adam and Eve resurfaces. On two occasions he cites the deception of Eve as a warning. In 2 Corinthians 11:3 the warning is not to be deceived by false prophets. In I Timothy 2:14 Paul uses Eve’s deception as an argument for women to learn in silence rather than teach – a surprising twist in Paul’s generally pro-woman agenda.

In I Corinthians 15:22 Paul draws Adam into his text basically to say that, “Whatever happened in Adam is reversed in Christ. Paul provides no explanation of what he means by in Adam all die”(39). But it is his longer passage in Romans 5:12-19 that has given the most oxygen to the debate about the role Adam played in the origin of sin in the world. We should note that Paul is drawing in Adam at this point to bolster the central argument of the Book of Romans, “That all people, Jews and Gentiles equally, are under the power of sin, that Messiah Jesus makes right and liberates Jews and Gentiles equally from the power of sin, and that salvation, peace, and righteousness through Messiah Jesus answers the problem of Sin that is fracturing the relationships of Jewish and Gentile believers” (43).

Toews suggests that Paul is here formulating an apocalyptic theology of sin. To do this he draws upon the apocalyptic vision of some of the later Jewish prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah and Daniel which divided all time into the Present Age and the Age to Come, separated by a decisive intervention by God. But Paul reformulates this vision in light of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

To begin with, Paul introduces Sin as a power present in the world, not as individual acts of wrong-doing. “Sin as a cosmic power was present in the cosmos before Adam. It strode onto the stage of human history through one person. The one person is not identified in the text (v:12), but reference to Adam is unmistakable for Paul and his audience, as v. 14 indicates. Adam turned Sin loose in the world. And with Sin came Death, also personified in Romans” (42).

Second, it is important to note that Paul does not say anything in this text about how Sin was transmitted to Adam’s progeny. On the other hand he does make the point, that while Adam may have turned Sin loose, the Death that follows for all happens “because all sinned.” In other words all persons become responsible for and suffer the consequences of their own sin. “Universal sinfulness in Paul had to do with the cosmic power or rulership of Sin, rather than the biological transmission of sin from one generation to another” (46).

Third, it is clear from this text and many others that Paul sees the death, resurrection and coming again of Messiah Jesus in apocalyptic terms, that is to say they are acts of God which reverse the cosmic introduction of Sin that came through Adam. “Paul believed that the apocalyptic events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection meant history now existed at the mingling of the ages, that is the overlap of the present evil age and the age to come” (41). (See also Romans 4:25; 8:18-25, 2 Corinthians 1:20; Galatians 1:4; I Corinthians 15:53-57.)

Nowhere in this text does Paul define sin in ontological categories – that is the changing of one’s nature – but always he sees Sin as broken relationships that need restoration through the faithfulness of Christ.

At least according to John E. Toews, a careful reading of the New Testament does not provide a solid base for the doctrine of original sin. So where does it come from? We will keep looking.