If the Incarnation is about "the undoing of Adam" then re-thinking about Adam and Eve is important to the process. Ever hear this: Adam and Eve disobeyed a clear command of God, sin is a violation of a known law of God, they suffered the consequences and were expelled by God from the Garden and we all wind up sinful because of what they did and lost and going to hell because of their disobedience? The Fall ruined everything good and is the cause of everything bad. I've even heard people speculate that pesky mosquitoes resulted from Adam and Eve's disobedience.
In re-thinking the story it is important allow the story to tell itself rather than impose the common narrative on it. For example, the disobedience did not come out of thin air but out of doubt born in a lie about the love of God. Their actions followed a changed perception about God having their best interests in mind.
It is critical to be aware that feelings and actions are affected by perceptions of what is true. Change your perception and you often change feelings and actions. Yes, it is also true that intentionally changing our actions may lead to changing feelings, i.e. act our way into feelings, but that is not the way we normally function.
The "truth" in the story was that Adam and Eve were the apple of God's eye. They lived perfectly loved and with perfect freedom. They were free of self-centeredness and free to fully experience relationship with the Trinity. They were given meaningful roles to do to participate in the process of creation. There was no condemnation from the Trinity or from each other as symbolized but unashamed nakedness. If anyone ever had assurance of being loved, they had every reason to know it and abounding life.
Believing the mis-perception presented by the Serpent was not based on any change in God but the "lie" that God did not really have their best interest in mind blinded them to the truth about God's love and about themselves. Rather than assurance they experienced the feeling of deep anxiety. They believed that in the midst of giving them everything that made them free God was withholding something that would really make them free. The paradox is that believing the lie destroyed freedom.
Here is Kruger's take on the story:
The actual Fall came before they ate the fruit. They fell when they stopped believing the truth and believed the lie of the serpent. In that moment, the razor cut through their souls, assurance was shredded, and anxiety infiltrated the scene of human history. ...such knowledge shot fear running through their veins like lightening -- and fear short-circuited their freedom, which short-circuited the great dance and its joy. And in the vacuum, isolation and loneliness and alienation rushed in, along with guilt and sorrow and inexpressible angst. Moreover, this quagmire of brokenness and estrangement and frustration soon gave birth to anger and bitterness and depression, envy and jealousy, gossip and slander and murder. Anxiety became the matrix of human existence, the poisonous roux (broth) permeating the whole dish of human life, and indeed of creation.
- Jesus and the Undoing of Adam p. 24-25
The hiding of Adam and Eve from God is an indication that their perception about Him has changed from the assurance they had to anxiety they felt, but did God really change because of their disobedience? Was he angry at them in response to what they did? Was their "expulsion" from the Garden the beginning of punishment or something else?
How do you read it? How does this re-thinking challenge what you have assumed about the story? What difference would it make for your perception about the Trinity?
More later .... Dr. Paul You can read the previous posts here.
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