Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Major Minor]

Shouldn't the sacrifice of Christ "cancel out" Eve's punishment?

So we all know how Jesus died for our sins.

And the punishment for Eve and all women to come was because Eve sinned when eating the one fruit she wasn't supposed to taste. And that's the origins of labor pains, right?

So I have been trying to understand why labor still exists, if Jesus already died for our sins.

[jimwalton]

The sacrifice of Christ cancels out the root of what Eve did—sin—but it doesn't cancel out her punishment. The sin of Adam and Eve brought a disorder to the cosmos that extends to all people of all time (Rom. 8.22). It will only go away when God reconciles all things to Himself (Col. 1.20).

And, by the way, her punishment was not the origin of labor pains, but only the worsening of them. Even if we took away her punishment, labor pains would still exist.

[Sea Bass]

> The sin of Adam and Eve brought a disorder to the cosmos that extends to all people of all time (Rom. 8.22).

How?

[jimwalton]

In the biblical world, the most important aspect of creation was that God brought order from disorder, and the order that was brought forth from chaos had to be maintained day by day, moment by moment. That's what Genesis 1 is about.

Regarding the humans' sin in Genesis 3, John Walton writes,

"Genesis 3 is more about the encroachment of disorder (brought about by sin) into a world that was in the process of being ordered than it is about the first sin. It is about how humanity lost access to the presence of God when its representatives tragically declared their independence from their Creator. It is more focused literarily and theologically on how corporate humanity is distanced from God—alienation—than on the sinful state of each human being (with no intention of diminishing the latter fact).

"The world before the fall was a combination of order and nonorder combined with a strategy to continue bringing order. This progress toward order, however, was set back by the entrance of disorder. The serpent, as a chaos creature, was part of the non-ordered world. Its interference, however, launched disorder when humanity decided to make itself the source and center of wisdom and order. Furthermore, the consequence of humanity’s role as the source and center of wisdom was not true order centered on them but disorder in which sin reigned because people are incapable of establishing order on their own with themselves at the center. The disorder this introduced extended to all people of all time, as well as to the cosmos. Moreover, life in God’s presence was forfeited.

"Therefore, first of all, in the OT people understood that they lived in a world characterized in part by nonorder because the world remained in the process of being ordered. This process, of course, was hampered by the fall because humans have not fulfilled the role for which they were created. This nonorder continues to be reflected in natural disasters, disease, and pain, among many other things. Sin is not the cause of all of the aspects of the situation, but these elements of nonorder demonstrate the human inability to enforce order within creation.

"Second, the people of the OT understood the world as characterized by order because creation established order. Humans have brought the benefits of order throughout history through discovery, invention, technology, and industry. These very same human advances that brought order, however, frequently also brought disorder. Too often we follow the guide of our own selfish ends (ourselves at the center of order) rather than recognizing that we are stewards of sacred space.

"Consequently, and third, the Israelites also recognized that they lived in a world characterized by disorder. This disorder is found in the ways we harm one another as well as harm ourselves (and the environment). Disorder is the result of sin, and it continues to reflect our inability to be as good as we were designed to be. We are but a caricature of what God intended."

[Sea Bass]

That's a lot of reading between the lines. I don't know how one can propose to know that, for example, "The world before the fall was a combination of order and nonorder combined with a strategy to continue bringing order." It also doesn't address how this disorder spreads to all people and the cosmos as a whole - it just reasserts the idea.

[jimwalton]

It comes from knowing the ancient culture. Their concerns and their worldview were totally immersed in order, disorder, and non-order. It was the prominent paradigm of their culture. It is NOT the paradigm of ours, so we don't even think that way. The ancients couldn't help but think that way. The other parallel creation epics—Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis epic—are all about order, disorder, and non-order. Genesis also. Many haven't learned Genesis that way because they've been taught to think about it through their modern eyes (hence interpretations like young earth, that it's a creation text [material manufacture], and that it has to do with creation chronology). Instead, we need to read Genesis through ancient eyes.

For instance, in Genesis 3.17, the word used for cursed indicates that something is removed from God’s protection or provision. In the garden their food had been provided for them. Now the ground will not show the same favor of God’s special provision.

> It also doesn't address how this disorder spreads to all people and the cosmos as a whole - it just reasserts the idea.

We are not to think that the universe was substantially changed by Adam's sin. It's not like biology and physics somehow became different, that the cosmos was somehow attacked and lost. Instead, the biblical implication is that creation, with humans at its head, so to speak, is unable to attain the purpose for which it was created. Now humanity is more characterized by sin than goodness. We are in a decaying situation, separated from God and pursuing false ends. We are polluters. We introduce epidemic and pandemic diseases. We have created uncontrolled urbanization, poverty, and climate change—all factors that can be traced back to human abuse.