God’s Jurisprudence
I promised you something insightful; I hope this fits the bill. Sorry it took so long. Here we go:
Let’s say that a man kills his neighbor and is later convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Let’s also say that the man has a ten-year-old son who was at school at the time of the murder.
Now, does that son bear any responsibility for the man’s crime? Should he be executed too, since he descended from so monstrous a man?
Of course not. Surely it’s plain to see that the sins of the father have no bearing on the status of the son. The Bible backs this up in Ezekiel 18:20:
The soul that sinneth, it shall die . The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
So then, by our own law and by the law of God, people are responsible for their own actions, not their ancestors’ actions.
Now, here’s a problem:
My Bible Doctrines class, in studying anthropology (the study of man) and hamartiology (the study of sin), took an in-depth look at the story of Adam & Eve.
In this story, humanity’s parents committed the only sin available to them, eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Because of that action, all of humanity is cursed, in sin, and condemned to hell apart from the help of Christ, according to the book of Romans, especially verses 5:12-14. (The following is from the NASB, which I selected for ease of readability.)
Rom 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned–
Rom 5:13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
So, because of the sins of our ancestors, we are declared guilty. Adam’s sin is imputed unto us. We bear the iniquity of the father of all men; “the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
Is this not a contradiction in God’s law?
February 9th, 2005 at 1:57 pm
See Matthew Henry’s commentary on this passage at http://www.ccel.org/h/henry/mhc2/MHC45005.HTM
February 11th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Yep, just one of many contradictions in the Good Book, my friend.
For a good case study, sometime when your bored, compare accounts of the resurrection across the gospels - no two accounts read the same way. It’s oddly as if human beings wrote them.
I’ve seen bibilical scholars tie themselves up in knots trying to explain away the difference between the different accounts. You don’t have to tie yourself up knots if you just accept the fact (my POV) that each gospel was written by a fallible human.
(Aside: should I change my name to Stephen now?
February 12th, 2005 at 9:06 pm
Maybe you should try something witty instead of something insightful?
February 13th, 2005 at 12:04 am
Bah!
Thanks Joel.
Looking at the link my Mom left, Mathew Henry seems to be saying that 1) Adam acted as a representative of all men, as a leader is to his followers, and 2) Adam’s nature was corrupted by sin and that that nature was passed on to his descendants. (Go to the page, hit Ctrl-F and search for “for it is agreeable” and read from there.) First point: Can he really be my representative if I’m not even born yet? Don’t I get a say in who represents me?
On the second point, that’s not what the verse is saying: Imputation is a legal term. It’s being declared innocent or guilty. This verse is not saying that we have corrupt natures, but that we are declared guilty by God’s judgment.
And so my point stands: We are declared guilty for a sin that we did not commit.
It’s also interesting to note another verse further on in the context: “18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
Shouldn’t that mean that Christ’s work saved everyone, without the need for accepting/believing/confessing of sin? Of course pretty much the rest of the Bible contradicts that idea, but isn’t that what this verse communicates?
February 13th, 2005 at 5:21 pm
>>And so my point stands: We are declared guilty for a sin that we did not commit.>>
Well, we’ve comitted plenty, so we’re guilty anyway.
February 13th, 2005 at 6:38 pm
The question is this: What is the Bible?
A. It is the Word of God.
B. It contains the Word of God.
C. Its an interesting collections of history, myths, and legends which tells the story of the jewish people.
Does your faith depend on your answering A? Or could it survive B or C?
If I could recommend two books: Neither of these would be sold in the University book store but
they are very respectiful of the Bible and of believers.
If Grace Is True
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/006251704X/qid=1108337641/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-8295131-4512820
Who Wrote the Bible?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060630353/qid=1108337731/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/002-8295131-4512820
February 13th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
I purposefully didn’t read other’s comments before I posted my own. I recommend that you have as your core believe that the Word of God is true. When you take this position and you find a seeming contradiction your reaction then is NOT “ah ha God or the Bible is untrue!” or “the Bible is wrong!”. Rather your reaction is “what is it that I don’t understand about this that presents a seeming contradiction”? Then you can learn and let the Bible speak for itself.
It is the difference between being PROUD and judging the Bible or being HUMBLE and letting the Bible teach and judge you.
Some might say this is a “sheep” or “blind mentality”. It is called “faith” (without faith it is impossible to please Him…), but it is a intellectual faith–one that opens the door to letting the Holy Spirit teach us.
When you come across a dilemma in scripture ask the question–don’t ignore it. But analyze the passage–who, what, where, when, why, to whom, etc. and use scripture to resolve. Remember that the Bible is the Word of God, it is settled in Heaven and you are going to be blessed by analyzing and learning more as you resolve questions for yourself having only the Word and the Holy Spirit to help you.
Jim
February 15th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
I recommend that you have as your core believe that the Word of God is true.
That is a very poor argument for believing that the Bible is the Word of God. I could just as easily say, “I recommend that you have as your core believe that the Koran is true” and then go on with the rest of what you have said. No offense, but I don’t have to believe, Jim. Therefore, the contradictions prove very obvious to me and I have every right to ask for an articulate explanation. “The bible is the word of God” is not an explanation. It’s a tautology. In fact, while I was at BJU I brought up the idea that it seemed like circular reasoning to say that: the bible is the word of God - how do I know? because God told me so - where? in the Bible? The Doctrines teachers didn’t really have an answer. I brought it up with some fellow students and they agreed that it was circular reasoning. Unfortunately, none of them decided to pursue their doubts.
February 15th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
Jim: It’s like you and I were talking about earlier: It’s important to always be willing to question your own position, from every angle. That includes questioning the veracity of the Bible.
It’s nothing more than making my “calling and election sure.”
The way I figure it, if Christianity is right, it should be able to stand up to the questioning of a mere college student. As the songwriter said, “The Bible stands every test we give it/For its Author is divine.”
Incidentally, however, I note that no one has given an acceptable answer to my original question: Isn’t it a contradiction to on the one hand say that everyone will be punished only for their own sins, and on the other hand to say that the sins of Adam are imputed to our own accounts?
February 15th, 2005 at 6:37 pm
When the Bible talks about Adam’s sin, is it talking about a literal Adam, or a symbolic Adam. If its saying that a real man who lived in date and time certain sinned and that sin is imputed to you, then yes its certainly a contradiction. Its also troubling on many levels and would lead one to question whether the Bible is not only coherent, but moral.
If Adam is a metaphor - a representation of mankind’s sinful nature, then no, its not a contradiction. The verse is saying that none of us is better than any other.
February 15th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
See, but if that’s the case, then Paul’s argument in Romans 5 is meaningless, unless you hold that both the fall and the crucifixion are metaphorical. Paul is saying that as Adam’s sin was imputed to the world, so is Christ’s righteousness imputed to those who believe.
February 15th, 2005 at 10:51 pm
When Adam sinned, a lot of things fundamentally changed. The principle of sin, not just that one act of disobedience, entered the world. The roses grew thorns, the lion became carniverous, the principle of death entered man’s system (the fact that we start to die as soon as we’re born, as someone once said), and our bodies became able to be diseased, and so one. Anyone issuing from mankind in that state would also be in that state. The only way for that not to be so would be if God created every person as He did Adam, from “scratch,” sinless, and gave each one a choice. But since we’re born of Adam we inhereit his nature.
That is a different thing than an individual son not being held responsible for an individual dad’s individual sin sin (i.e., I would assume that after that decree in Ezekiel about each person answering for his own sin, if a situation such as Achan’s “sin in the camp” happened, his family would not have been destroyed along with him. Just he would have been.) This is not to say that people don’t suffer the consequences of another’s sin (the innocent bystander killed by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting), but people are answerable, accountable, for their own individual sins, not anyone else’s.
Make sense?
February 15th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
Can he really be my representative if I’m not even born yet? Don’t I get a say in who represents me?
Not in this case — just like you can’t choose your great-grandparents.
On the second point, that’s not what the verse is saying: Imputation is a legal term. It’s being declared innocent or guilty. This verse is not saying that we have corrupt natures, but that we are declared guilty by God’s judgment.
Yes, but the declaration is based on the nature we inherited. Once we inhereited it, it’s there, and the only way it van be changed — both the nature and the judgment — is accepting His provison for it.
February 15th, 2005 at 11:06 pm
In fact, while I was at BJU I brought up the idea that it seemed like circular reasoning to say that: the bible is the word of God - how do I know? because God told me so - where? in the Bible?
Well, you’d expect that, wouldn’t you, that the Bible would declare itself true? But besides that, I remember from Bible classes as well as personal study other things that point to the Bible’s veracity: fulfilled prophecy, agreement of several different authors over several hundred years, things like verses about the earth “hanging on nothing” long before that was univerally thought to be true, etc. Books have been written on those kinds of evidences.
On top of that, and more subjective, is the effect it has on people’s lives, my own included.
February 15th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
Many people do hold that both the fall and the crucifixion are metaphorical. See my Options B and C in my earlier post. I’m not making an argument either way. But, I’m saying that you can’t have it both ways; the Bible can’t be literal except when its not convenient and then its metaphorical, except of course when its not. If you hold to Option A - the Bible is the Word of God, then you have an issue. If you hold to B - it contains the World of God, then you pick and choose. If C - its a myth/legend/story/whatever, then its all literary criticism and it doesn’t matter.
These are the issues one must resolve (or spend one’s life studying, thinking about and trying to resolving) if one rejects the advice in an earlier post (not one of your mother’s - LOL) that you just shut up and drink the Koolaid.
February 16th, 2005 at 10:56 am
Barbara, I appreciate what you’re saying - I used to believe that, too. But all of your arguments can be used in support of the Koran, too. Also, the Bible seems to indicate in places that the earth is flat. You can’t just cherry pick somethings which appear to support science and ignore those which don’t. The whole six-day account of creation isn’t supported by science at all. In fact, it’s categorically contradicted.
February 17th, 2005 at 11:57 pm
God gave man a free will to choose what he will believe. Without FAITH it is impossible to please God. I CHOOSE to believe that the Bible is God’s word and everywhere I look, that FAITH is intellectually supported. When I look at prophesy in the scripture it is fulfilled. Archeology confirms scripture. Scientific study confirms scripture. My own conscience confirms scripture. The work and Word of God in my own experience confirms scripture. The Bible itself witnesses about itself (even if circularly!) that it is scripture. Even beyond my own human experience, I have a more sure word of prophesy…the Bible. (And it is ok to examine that faith which the Bible itself admonishes you to do.)
I can choose the Koran if I want to, but I choose not to because I’ve already found the geniune article. I can choose to disbelieve the Bible and can accuse it of error. I can suggest that when the Bible talks about the sun rising the human author obviously thought that the sun revolved around the flat earth (four corners of the earth)… or I can understand that WE talk TODAY about the rising sun and talk about the four corners (compass directions) of the earth all the while knowing that these are descriptive expressions and understanding that the earth revolves around the sun and the earth isn’t flat. I choose not to believe in the evolutionary model (or evolutionary religion) because it has no basis in data. When I intellectually compare the world I see, the fossil record, etc. to an evolutionary model and to a creation model, the creation model requires far less of a leap of faith (but it is still faith).
There will always be the gainsayers, the heathen will rage, but God’s Word is settled forever in Heaven and He will have them in derision.
So blogjones, it is a choice isn’t it?
March 13th, 2005 at 8:57 pm
Jeremy,
I was reading “Secret Origins of the Bible” this past week by Tim Callahan and this passage reminded me of this discussion.
I’m cutting out here and there - its a long passage. He tips his hand when he uses the word myth, but I think he has an interesting point.
He’s talking about the progression in the Old Testament from a fertility based religion to one based on ethics;
“It is unfortunate that the trade off for the development of an ethics-based religion, at least in the West, was that God had to be all good. Hence gaining wisdom with the unavoidable loss of Edenic childhood, rather than being seen as an inevitable part of growing up, was turned into a grievous sin. No longer could Yahweh be seen as denying human beings eternal life out of jealousy and fear for his position; since he was perfect it had to be the fault of Adam and Eve. Ultimately, since if it were only their sin the rest of us should logically have our chance at Eden as well, the theology had to be developed that we are all tainted with their sin from our birth. Now we were all damned and in need of God to save us. Thus, it is not surprising that a religion based on a savior gave us the concept of Original Sin. …….. In the original myth humanity lost immortality and an earthly paradise as a legacy of Adam and Eve’s sin, much as one might grow up in poverty because his parents squandered the family fortune. But, since Jesus has triumphed over the death that is Adam’s legacy for all of us, that means that sin, the source of the legacy, is also erased. This is a nice option but with a deadly catch: just as everyone got the legacy of death they also became sinners, even if they were not the ones doing the sinning. In our metaphor it would be as if the son not only inherited his parent’s debts, but found himself accused and condemned of a murder his father had committed? Even in Romans, Paul shows some understanding of the myth that God set up things up in such a way that Adam would fall (Rom 11:32): “For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy on us all.” So God has, according to Paul, deliberately shut us up in our unbelief or disobedience just so he can later forgive us? Here is an irony indeed. Had we kept the original myth, we would not be agonizing over how a perfect god could create imperfection. We would know better than to think that God was perfect in the first place! We also would not have to believe that it was our fault (because of our imperfections) that the originally perfect world was made imperfect by human sin, even though we are the product of a perfect God. And, since God is perfect and is in charge, he is the one making us continue in our sinful ways, but it is still our fault. In short, because of the new myth of God’s perfection, we must indulge in the paradox of being depraved in order to keep God holy.”
Well - these are important questions - you raised them but not to the extend of Callahan. A Bible Doctrines class that’s worth the time must wrestle the hard questions - not spend the limited time forcing students to regurgitate perfectly memorized proof texts.
There are people who insist that Pauline Christianity is immoral. Is it?
March 15th, 2005 at 9:07 am
I see a lot of problems here, First of all:
Huh:?: Fertility based? Does that come from the admonition to be fruitful and mulitply? I would hardly call that a fertility based religion.
Would anyone really want a God who is not good?
As you said, the author tips his hand when speaking of this all as a myth. This is creating gods in one’s own image — which is a waste of time. If people are just sitting around making up stories, then of course, anything goes. Every man does, and believes, that which is “right” in his own eyes. But they can’t all be right.
But, believeing there is an objective standard of truth, we adapt ourselves to it, not vice versa.
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