The Husband’s Headship: An Original Model?

Is the husband’s headship in the home merely a post-fall development, reflective of sin? Or was Eve originally created in a submissive role to Adam?

 Scripture indicates in several ways that Eve was indeed originally created in a submissive role to Adam. First, in Moses writes in Genesis that Eve was created as Adam’s “helper” (Gen. 2:18). She was created to assist him. She was to be his companion, yes, but she was also to be his helper.  Further, Adam named Eve (Gen.3:20). Giving a name is always a symbol and function of authority.

 Next, the apostle Paul tells that it was no accident that Adam was created first — it was reflective of God’s intention that man was to be the leader (1 Tim. 2:12-14).  Moreover, the fact that Eve came from Adam, and not Adam from Eve, also reflects God’s original purpose for man to lead (1 Cor. 11:7-8).

 We might conclude all this also from the fact that the marriage relationship is designed to picture the relationship of Christ to the church and in which the church is subject to Christ (Eph. 5:22ff).

 In any case, both Moses and Paul state plainly that this relationship is one of creation and not of the fall only. To be sure, the woman’s submission to her husband now involves the struggle and labor and competition of the curse (Gen. 3:16b), but it was God’s original intent for marriage nonetheless.   Continue at Fred G. Zaspel

If We Reject Paul’s Adam, Why Not Reject His Christ?

Daniel Kirk, associate professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, recently wrote an article titled, “Does Paul’s Christ Require a Historical Adam?” (It Would be helpful if you followed the link and read the entire article). To date, the article has been shared over 1700 times through social media. Kirk is coming against the notion that a person must affirm a historical Adam before he can affirm 

1) the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture, 

2) a good world gone wrong, 

3) the sinfulness of all humanity, and 

4) a historical Christ. 

Kirk agrees that the Apostle Paul assumed there was a historical Adam (In Rom. 5 and 1 Cor. 15), but he argues that the Apostle was reimagining the Genesis creation account in light of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.

Kirk argues, “the gospel does not, in fact, depend on a historical Adam or historical Fall in large part because what Paul says about Adam stems from his prior conviction about the saving work of Christ.” Kirk believes Paul’s account in Romans 5 leaves room, “for a person who was chosen by God from a developing or, at any rate, numerically numerous, human race to play the role of representative in obedience and disobedience.” Make no mistake, Kirk affirms Paul’s main point in Romans 5, “that God’s grace, righteousness, and life abound to the many because of Christ.” Yet, he rejects the assumptions with which Paul “illustrated these things to be true” [a historical Adam]. Paul’s emphasis is that God has one worldwide people in Christ. Thus, according to Kirk, Paul does not ask or answer the question of whether an evolutionary account of human origins might stand within the story of God’s new creation work in Christ.

I Disagree with Kirk’s Conclusions for Several Reasons:   Continue at SBC Voices

Better Than a Pre-Fall Adam

Herman Bavinck explains how Adam, in his pre-Fall state, lacked "absolute certainty" regarding his present state of bliss and its continuity, whereas the believer in Christ, now in this present sin-ravaged age, possesses it:

Still, on the other hand, the state of the first man should not be exaggeratedly glorified as is so often done in Christian doctrine and preaching. No matter how high God placed man above the animal level, man had not yet achieved his highest possible level. He was able-not-to-sin, but not yet not-able-to-sin. He did not yet possess eternal life which cannot be corrupted and cannot die, but received instead a preliminary immortality whose existence and duration depended upon the fulfillment of a condition. He was immediately created as image of God, but he could still lose this image and all its glory. He lived in paradise, it is true, but this paradise was not heaven and it could with all of its beauty be forfeited by him. One thing was lacking in all the riches, both spiritual and physical, which Adam possessed: absolute certainty. As long as we do not have that, our rest and our pleasure is not yet perfect; in fact, the contemporary world with its many efforts to insure everything that man possesses is satisfactory evidence for this. The believers are insured for this life and the next, for Christ is their Guarantor and will not allow any of them to be plucked out of His hand and be lost (John 10:28). Perfect love banishes fear in them (1 John 4:18) and persuades them that nothing shall separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus their Lord (Rom. 8:38-39).  Continue at Underdog

When People Look Like Satan

God made humans to reflect his image and advance the display of his glory over the created world (Genesis 1:26–28). But Adam failed in this commission. 

Rather than have dominion over the serpent he succumbed to its craftiness. As Greg Beale explains, "Instead of wanting to be near God to reflect him, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8 [so also 3:10])" (NTBT, 359).

Sin brought chaos and disorder. Things got all messed up. In fact, things became so backwards that Adam could be seen as actually suppressing the image of God to reflect the image of the serpent, like a back-story to Romans 1:18–25.

Adam was the first human idolator who became something he was not supposed to become, looking more like the snake than he did his Creator. Beale explains how:

"Idol worship" should be defined as revering anything other than God. At the least, Adam's allegiance had shifted from God to himself and probably to Satan, since he came to resemble the serpent's character in some ways.

[He Lied]
The serpent was a liar (Genesis 3:4) and a deceiver (Genesis 3:1, 13). Likewise Adam, when asked by God, "Have you eaten from the tree of the which I commanded you not to eat?" (Genesis 3:11), does not answer forthrightly. Adam replies, "The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate" (Genesis 3:12). Adam was deceptively blaming Eve for his sin, which shifted accountability from him to his wife, in contrast to the biblical testimony that Adam, not Eve, was accountable for the fall (e.g., see Romans 5:12–19).

[He Didn't Trust God's Word]

In addition, Adam, like the serpent, did not trust the word of God (with respect to Adam, see Genesis 2:16–17; 3:6; with respect to the serpent, Genesis 3:1, 4–5). Adam's shift from trusting God to trusting the serpent meant that he no longer reflected God's image but rather the serpent's image. . . .  Continue at  Jonathan Parnell

Peter Enns on Paul, Adam, and Evolution

For Peter Enns, evolution denies the historical Adam and Eve, and that gives rise to the questions he’s trying to answer. The fact that Paul viewed Adam as the first human being has, for Enns, been shown to be wrong scientifically. Enns asserts that Paul is theologically right on the point that Jesus defeated sin and death, but that he “may be wrong” on what caused the problem–Adam’s sin. Though he “may be wrong” on that, Enns asserts, Paul is right about sin and death and the solution. Enns says that even if Adam and Eve didn’t bit an apple, sin and death are real.

Enns seems to want to keep the theology while discarding the history as he explains: “I don’t need a historical Adam to make all that happen… I understand why Paul says what he says, cause he’s an ancient man, cause he’s a Jew.”

For Enns, the theory of evolution carries as much authority as Scripture, and it shows that Paul was wrong about Adam being the first human. Moreover, the interpretations that Paul and the other biblical authors provide of earlier Scripture are just possibilities, not necessarily correct readings that function as controls on how those earlier texts should be read.

Peter Enns is trying to combine two different religions, evolution and Christianity...  Read the rest HERE

Adam and Eve: Clarifying Again What Is at Stake

Recent evangelical discussion concerning Adam and Eve has served at least one good purpose — it has helped to clarify what is theologically at stake in the debate. The recent report by National Public Radio [NPR] alerted the larger secular culture to the debate, but the debate is hardly new.

What is new, however, is the candid admission on the part of some that the denial of an historical Adam requires a new understanding of the Bible’s basic story — and thus of the Gospel as well.

One of my recent articles, “False Start? The Controversy Over Adam and Eve Heats Up,” made this point clearly. As I argued there, the denial of a historical Adam means not only the rejection of a clear biblical teaching, but the denial of the biblical doctrine of the Fall as well, leading to a very different way of telling the story of the Bible and the meaning of the Gospel.

By the way, those who try to deny that Genesis requires the affirmation of a historic Adam as a real and singular human individual (arguing, for example, that the Hebrew word translated “Adam” means only “the man”) must face the fact that the Genesis narrative clearly presents Adam as a singular individual who acts, speaks, marries, reproduces, and is listed even in the genealogy of Jesus. Hebrew vocabulary offers no escape hatch from historicity.   Keep Reading...

False Start? The Controversy Over Adam and Eve Heats Up

Each generation of Christians faces its own set of theological challenges. For this generation of Evangelicals, the question of beginnings is taking on a new urgency. In fact, this question is now a matter of Gospel urgency. How are we to understand the Bible’s story, if we can have no confidence that we know how it even begins?

In terms of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the most urgent question related to beginnings has to do with the questions related to the existence of Adam and Eve as as them first parents to all humanity and to the reality of the Fall as the explanation for human sinfulness and all that comes with sin.

A report from Barbara Bradley Hagerty of National Public Radio a few weeks is an undeniable sign that even the secular world now recognizes that this is a question central to Christianity. Hagerty, a skilled religion reporter, also talked to several others. Her interviews were broadcast as report on August 9, with Steve Inskeep of NPR as host.    Keep Reading...

Perspective: What Impact Did Adam's Sin Have on the Rest of Humankind?

Why am I writing this post? See Theology (is) for Girls. And you can read another perspective via the link at the end of this post.

Before answering the title question, let me emphasize: Adam and Eve were actual, historical individuals, specially created by God in His image at the beginning of the world. I don’t have space to defend it here, but Adam’s actual existence is assumed in my answer.

Adam’s sin, eating fruit from the tree that God commanded him not to eat, is briefly described (Genesis 3:5b), but his one act had implications for every person throughout the rest of human history. In the same way that children of alcoholic parents may suffer from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, poverty, and emotional scarring, the children of Adam suffer the consequences of his sin.

First, we now live in a sin-bruised world. As I tell my kids: It’s a fallen world; stuff breaks. We see the consequence appearing almost immediately after the sin. The previously pleasant callings of subduing the earth and multiplying (Genesis 1:28) now result in thorns (3:18) and heartache (3:16). We get the flu, our pets run away from home. Stuff breaks.

Second, we are sin-filled people. This consequence rears its head pretty quickly, too, “the wickedness of man was great on the earth. . .every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). And our native sinfulness is emphasized throughout Scripture: “I was brought forth in iniquity” (Psalm 51:5), “the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9) and “none is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). We tell lies, we fight with our spouses. We love to sin.     Keep Reading...

The Temple of Eden

In his book The Temple and the Church’s Mission (IVP/Apollos, 2004), G. K. Beale argues that the Garden of Eden was the “first archetypal temple.” He provides 14 conceptual and linguistic parallels between Eden and future tabernacle/temple structures. My brief summary:

1. The Garden as the unique place of God’s presence. Eden was the place where God walked back and forth with man, paralleled this with later references to the Tabernacle (Gen. 3:8 with Lev. 26:12, Deut. 23:14; 2 Sam. 7:6–7).

2. The Garden as the place of the first priest. Adam was placed in the garden to “cultivate and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Taken alone, “cultivation” has obvious agricultural meaning. But this pair of terms (“cultivate/keep” also translated “serve/guard”) is used elsewhere in the OT to describe the work of the priest (Num. 3:7–8; 8:25–26; 18:5–6; 1 Chr. 23:32; Ezek. 44:14). Thus “the task of Adam in Genesis 2:15 included more than mere spadework in the dirt of a garden. It is apparently that priestly obligations in Israel’s later temple included the duty of ‘guarding’ unclean things from entering (cf. Num. 3:6–7, 32, 38; 18:1–7), and this appears to be relevant for Adam, especially in view of the unclean creature lurking on the perimeter of the Garden and who then enters” (p. 69).

3. The Garden as the place of the first guarding cherubim. After sin was introduced into the garden, Adam and Eve are barred from the tree of life by cherubim. This reveals that Adam’s work included more than gardening—he was to protect the garden from evil and uncleanness. (Gen. 3:24 with Ex. 25:18–22; 1 Kgs. 6:29-35, 8:6–7; Ezek. 28:14–16, 41:18). Keep Reading...

Federal Headship and Original Sin

"How come I am guilty of someone else's sin?  Why am I condemned because of what Adam did?"  This is a common objection to the doctrine of Original Sin (also called Inherited Guilt).  If you reject the idea that we are guilty in Adam, then you have to reject the opposite as well. What do I mean? Well simply put, if you look at the last half of Romans chapter 5 it becomes clear that the way death is passed to us from Adam is the way life is passed to us from Christ. If you think one is unfair you are forced to think both are unfair. Why should I be guilty of Adam's sin? Well, why should you be pronounced innocent because of Jesus death and resurrection? It's the same thing. If we don't inherit guilt from Adam, then we don't inherit life from Christ. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:22 KJV) The last half of Romans five is all about this.

If then, sin and death are passed to us from Adam is the exact same way righteousness and life are passed to us from Christ, how is that? Keep Reading>>>

Why the Gospel Is Good News for Believers . . . Now

What Is the Gospel?

The gospel is the good news that God sent Jesus to undo what Adam undid (see, e.g., Heb 2:5–9; 1 Cor 15:20–28; Rom 5:12–19): Jesus died and rose again for sinners, just as God promised (1 Cor 15:1–8). It is the good news that we can once more be truly human. No longer are we, like Adam, evicted from God’s presence and under his wrath. The garden—the kingdom—has been regained with a plus. It is the good news that we sons of the second Adam have been remade—not just considered to be remade (Rom 3:21–26)—but actually remade—not fully . . . yet (2 Cor 3:18)—but actually, truly. We’ve been re-born, made new, which is to say re-generated. We sons of the second Adam were remade, raised with him to new life. His resurrection guarantees our own (1 Pet 1:3; Eph 2:5–6; et al.). We are new creatures (2 Cor 5:17). Yes, this means something terribly important for the future (1 Cor 6:14; 2 Cor 4:14). And, yes, it means we’ve got something we must share now with our unbelieving neighbors before its too late. However, for far too long we’ve missed what the gospel means for us now. We’ve missed why the gospel is good news for Christians today. Read it all HERE

How Adam Violated All Ten Commandments

I'm only a fourth of my way through The Marrow of Modern Divinity, but already I am prepared to call it the greatest thing outside of the Bible that I've ever read. At one point in the book, Evangelist sets forth an argument against the Legalist and the Antinomian that hinges upon Adam's violation of the whole decalogue in the Fall. He then explains exactly how it is that Adam violated all ten commandments; and he goes one commandment at a time:

1. He chose himself another God when he follows the devil.

2. He idolized and deified his own belly; as the apostle's phrase is, "He made his belly his God."

Read the rest HERE

Two Federal Heads - Adam and Christ