It’s
been said that the history of the world can be told with three apples:
The
apple Adam ate, the apple that fell
on Newton’s head and the Apple Steve Jobs gave us. Of course, that’s not quite
true as nothing in the biblical text suggests that it was an apple Adam ate!
The apple is a good image for what happened.
…And
then there was sin.
One
thing is certain sin has tarnished, disrupted and distorted God's good
creation.
Because
of the "apple" humanity, God and the world are estranged (Gen 3:17; 9:2). This
decisive biblical event is well described by Walther Eichrodt:
This
event has the character of a "Fall", that of a falling out of line of
the development willed by God.
The
fall is a falling out of line of the development willed by God. It’s not the
way it’s supposed to be. As Romans 8 has it the creation is now groaning. God’s
intention in creation was for humans to fill and subdue the earth, to till and
to keep it: in other words to build civilisation. When we think of creation we
think of solar systems, sun, sea, sky, sharks, starfish and spiders. But
creation is more than that; within the creation order there is culture and
civilisation. Humans were to develop and help the whole of creation to
flourish. This unfolding of creation was to result in institution such as
government, education, farming, art and music, business, science and
technology.
However,
Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They didn’t want to do things God’s way, they
wanted to be their own bosses. That is the essence of sin – it wasn’t just what
they did it was about the heart, an act of the will, an act of defiance. In
essence it’s: We don’t want to be ruled by God we want to rule ourselves.
It
might seem odd to suggest that science, technology, government, work and so on
were part of creation. But look at the activities that Adam was doing before
the fall.
Genesis 2: 19
God
bought the animals to Adam – and Adam had to name them. He would have to
distinguish between each animal, numbering them – the start of mathematics, he
had to name them, observation and classification, the start of science. We could go on.
Genesis 2: 5
There
was no man to work the ground – so humans were created. We were created to
work! We don’t work to get money, we work as part of our God-given creational
task.
So
what went wrong? There was a falling out of line of the development willed by
God. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be!
God
placed humans in a garden. The Bible ends in a city, the new Jerusalem. That
involves development and the production of culture and civilisation. But then
came the fall – a falling out of line. That, fortunately, is not the end of the
story. God is in the business of redemption.
Structure and direction
The
distinction between structure and direction is important here. Structure refers
to the form in which things have been created; direction refers to the pull of
sin or grace on that structure. The fall means that it is the direction not the
structure of the world that has altered.
In
Genesis 1:28 we were given what has
been called the cultural mandate; it
has not been annulled because of the fall.
Be
fruitful and increase in number
Fill
the earth
Subdue
it
Rule
over the animals
Genesis 2: 15
Placed
in the garden of Eden to
Work
it and
Take
care of it
That
is still our task and our calling.
What
has happened, though through the fall, is that it has been made all the more
difficult.
Genesis 2: 16
Filling
the earth is made all the more painful as childbearing pains are increased.
Rulership
becomes deformed: "the husband shall rule over the wife".
Genesis 2:17-18
Subduing
is made all the more difficult as work in the garden will be a "painful
toil".
Most
initiatives of the development of creation such as cities, music and technology
(metal working) arise out of the line of Cain (in Genesis 4). The development
of clothes also comes as a result of the fall (Gen 3:7, 21). Were humans
intended merely to remain in a pristine garden?
If
we take the example of cities we cannot declare them inherently evil, because
the new heavens and earth are pictured as a city in Revelation. To see all
human post-fall development as evil is to confuse the structure and direction
of creation. Cities, music, fashion, science, technology, art ... all have a
creational structure, the fall has not affected this but has changed their
direction of these God-given aspects have been distorted and mis-directed. They
can be developed obediently or disobediently to creational norms.
The
task of civilisation, however is rooted in the creation narrative. When God
created the heavens and the earth he first formed it and then began to fill it.
It is this task that humans have to continue. This is what civilisation is
about; it is part of the human task to be the image bearers of God.
Ironically
it seems that it is a step of rebellion that leads to a development of
"civilisation". God works all things together for good. God wasn't taken by surprise.
No
area of life is left untainted by sin. Sin affects every area of life.
All relationships are broken: with God, with the world, with other humans and
with ourselves.
Adam
and Eve are banished from the garden. It appears that out of defiant rebellion
God is working out his purposes for the fulfilment of the cultural mandate.
Adam's expulsion from the garden means that the rest of the world can be
"civilised"; similarly with the tower of Babel it means that humanity
is scattered throughout the globe and as they are they take the image of God
with them.
We
may live in a world that is not the way it’s supposed to be, a world that has
fallen out of line of the development willed by God. But God is working on
that. The expulsion from the garden is the beginning of redemption. The
remainder of the Bible is the story of God redeeming, through Christ, his good
but fallen creation.
As
sin has affected every area and aspect of life, so too does redemption.
And
that’s the story that will be unfolded in the next few weeks.
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