Last week we looked at the stipulations of the covenant:
1. Subdue and have dominion over the earth
2. Guard and keep the garden
3. Be fruitful and multiply
4. Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
This week we are going to look at the covenant sanctions.
Sanctions - Death would result from disobedience represented by the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil
- Continued access to tree of life, and entering of God’s Sabbath rest
There is a parallel between Israel and Adam. Israel can be viewed as a corporate Adam, they are given the command to be fruitful and multiply, and are prohibited to do certain things lie, commit adultery, murder. Deuteronomy 30:19-20, says the choice they are making is between life and death and that if they obey they will enter the promise land as a place of rest.
This is why we have spent so much time learning about the covenant. The kingdom and its method of administration, the covenant, is a recurring theme throughout scripture. It is not to impress you about my knowledge of ancient near east diplomacy. The covenant is what connects the Old Testament together and why the Old Testament is not just a random collection of ancient texts.
Covenants are structured into parts:
1. Introduction of the parties
2. Historical prologue of the relationship between the parties
3. Stipulations
4. Sanctions
We can see the Old Testament follows this pattern. We learn who God is in Genesis 1 and we learn about his relationship with man in Genesis 1-11. The rest of Genesis continues to flesh this out and we learn about the salvation of Israel in Exodus 1-19. The rest of the law contains the stipulations and sanctions. The historical books record the history of Israel in relation to the covenant. The prophets contain exhortations to obey the covenant as well as warnings of the sanctions that will result from disobedience. The prophets also act as God’s lawyers prosecuting the covenant lawsuit. The wisdom literature contains meditations on the covenant.
The phrase knowledge of good and evil is complex. We should not just read this and decide what we think it means. We must be careful to try to understand it the way the original audience understood it. Recently, I have heard several people talk about the passage in Isaiah that talks about the Messiah being a counselor and then go on to describe a counselor like a psychologist. Yet the ancient Israelites would have no concept of a psychologist. The word counselor here refers to a political figure who would provide strategic advice for a king the way Joseph did for pharaoh or Daniel did for Nebuchadnezzar. A good way to do avoid this problem is to look at the rest of the Old Testament to see how the phrase is used.
Elsewhere knowing good and evil is used in terms of rendering decision in judgment as would a civil judge. It is not viewed as negative throughout the scriptures. It usually refers to figures in a position of judging or ruling over others.
2 Samuel 14:17 Here the woman of Tekoa appeals to King David’s ability to make sound judgment in a judicial matter.
1 Kings 3:9 When God asks Solomon for anything he wants, Solomon asks for wisdom so he can properly administer justice.
The word know means much more in Hebrew than in English. To us, knowledge usually means to know a fact or a proposition. In Hebrew it refers to an intimate relationship or to experiences. It would therefore be wrong to reduce the knowledge of good and evil to knowledge of some sort of fact that God wants to keep secret.
The word knowledge is in the infinitive form meaning the tree to know good and evil or knowing good and evil. Elsewhere when know is in the infinitive form it takes the meaning of discerning or determining.
In the Ancient Near East, trees were often the place where judgments were pronounced. Saul and Debra are described as rendering judgments under trees.
I think the best interpretation is the tree of the discernment of right from wrong. Knowledge of good and evil is a neutral term. It was the way it was obtained that was issue. In other words, it was not the content of the knowledge that was the issue but the manner by which it was obtained.
Adam and Eve decided to obtain the knowledge of good and evil in a way forbidden to them by God. They wanted to attain knowledge of good and evil without reference to God whereas they should have relied on God to understand good and evil correctly. Adam and Eve wanted to be like God, positioning themselves above the law deciding good and evil for themselves.
Under this interpretation, Adam and Eve’s failure is that they claimed the judging of right and wrong for themselves. This makes sense with the story of the temptation because the serpent did not frame the debate as listen to me or listen to God, but rather decide for yourself if God’s prohibition makes sense. There failure was in seeking moral autonomy rather than relying on the word of God. Clearly judging for themselves the truthfulness of the Serpent’s words and ignoring God’s command demonstrates this disregard for God and desire for moral autonomy.
A second point in favor of this interpretation it is not a magic tree that causes the problem, but rather the tree is symbolic of what happens at the temptation. It is a symbol of the testing that Adam and Eve would undergo, just as the tree of Life is not a magic tree but symbolic of eternal life. A good analogy would be a sacrifice. The mere act of sacrifice did not appease God, it was the heart of contrition symbolized by the sacrifice that was important.
What would it have looked like if Adam obeyed God’s command perfectly?
- As God’s image man would have administered the earth as God would. The imitation of God would guide man’s conduct. Romans 1:19 & 32 tells us that man does not just know that there is a God but man knows what God is like.
- God created the universe, subdued the chaos, ruled over, and created and filled the earth with life. Humanity was to essentially imitate God’s work.
- God created the universe for His own glory, and man in imitation of God would also work to develop the earth for God’s glory.
- God is love and cares for His creatures, humanity would do the same for on another.
- Here we have the two greatest commandments - love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.
- God’s judges His work good and humanity in imitation of God must also produce good work.
Q. How is being fruitful and multiplying being like God?
God had not created the earth empty but filled it. Man by being fruitful would reproduce and fill the earth with humans who would also be the image of God.
Q. How would man have subdued and have dominion over the earth?
- Humanity would have overcome the chaos of the world outside the garden and expanded its borders overcoming the barriers of the untamed world to make it suitable for human habitation. Eventually he would extend paradise until it covered the whole earth.
Q. Humanity is told to guard the garden. What is humanity guarding the garden from?
- Anything alien to the holiness of God - the serpent. The serpent is a bizarre aberration - it speaks which only God and humans can do, it attempts to rule the rulers, the serpent questions God’s authority by disputing His word.
- The garden can be thought of as a temple. It was a holy place where God’s presence manifested itself. The temple incorporates garden imagery with images of trees and fruit into its decoration. Later when John describes the heavenly temple in Revelation, he uses imagery derived from Genesis like precious stones, rivers, and the Tree of Life. Adam was a priest serving in a primeval temple.
Q. What action should Adam have taken with the serpent?
- Adam should have recognized the serpent as an unholy being infringing on the sacredness of God’s garden. As guardian of the garden and possessed with dominion over the beasts, Adam should have used his authority to slay the serpent.
- The text even hints at this since Genesis 1:26 & 28 specifically mentions Adam is due rule over every creature that creeps on the earth.
Q. What is the purpose of man’s imitation of the Sabbath?
- Just as God’s work ended with his royal enthronement rest, humanity would eventually completely the task assigned and enter God’s rest. This is the rest that Hebrews is describing in chapter 4. We would call this heaven. Therefore there is a purpose and end point for man’s activities. The sabbath was given to man as a reminder of this goal that humanities’ labor was directed toward.
- After defeating the serpent, Adam would have continued in his task toward subduing the entire earth. There would be a increasing phase of ruling and a climatic point in which he would fulfill the goal of worldwide dominion.
How do we see Jesus, as the second Adam, fulfilling Adam’s task?
No comments:
Post a Comment