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The UK Bible Students Website
Christian Biblical Studies
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THREE CURSES
Part Three
By A. Prentice
Scripture references are to the New International Version, UK (1984 edition).
The first instalment of this subject dealt with the curse on Satan for his instigating Eve and Adam’s disobedience. It looked at his motivation and his diabolical effort to control human destiny. The second instalment considered Eve’s transgression and the implications for herself and women in general. This third, and final, article concentrates on the curse as it affected Adam and his offspring. As he was father of the human race, the eponymous term, ‘Adamic curse’ reflects his primary role in bequeathing the sentence of death to all humanity, and considers the solution to the problem.
The Third Cursed: Adam
Genesis 3
17 To Adam [the LORD God] said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat of it,” Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.’
The sentence on Adam is what we might term the umbrella curse – that is, it affects the entire human family, who from then on laboured under hardship, in a regime of toil, fatigue, disease and disaster. Ever since father Adam’s teeth were ‘set on edge’, the children have had toothache (Ezekiel 18: 2).
The Scriptures say nothing about Adam’s state of mind, or that of his wife, as the appalling gravity of his offence sunk in, but we can surmise that he lived with bitter regret for his sin, especially after the tragic murder of his younger son, Abel, by the older, Cain. Paradise was well and truly lost, and the memory of it has lodged in the collective human mind ever since.
Stuck At Square One
The death sentence was the choking off of the human race before it even got started. Or it would have been, had not the finality of death itself been protracted in the process of dying. Henceforth, every human being would live his or her life in the certainty that they would one day cease to exist an inevitability which has both tempered mankind’s confidence and simultaneously introduced an element of recklessness.
Some have been stimulated by their recognition of the shortness of life to spend such time as they have in the service of others. Others, the minority, use their allotted portion in extracting as much pleasure from it as they can their theme, ‘Before my numbers up, I’m gonna fill my cup, I’m gonna live, live, live, live, live until I die!’ [Lyrics by Al Hoffman (1902-1960)]
Because of the long history of the curse, the spectrum of accumulated human experience is vast. And contrary to what one might have expected, the curse has both retarded and stimulated the progress of mankind, assisted by Providential interference at strategic points, for God always rules in the affairs of Man. History is nothing less than the playing out of the Adamic curse. Its wars, tragedies and triumphs can all be traced back to the fall of Man in Eden.*
Ransom
to the Rescue
One could imagine that God might simply have obliterated the species and started again. But out of the Fall of Man, the Creator fashioned a recovery. Indeed, the Scriptures refer to Jesus as a sacrificial lamb ‘chosen before the creation of the world’ (1 Peter 1: 20). That is, the plan for redemption was already laid down, so to speak, even before the race got into difficulty.
The link between the fallen man, Adam, and his deliverer Jesus, is unique. The Scriptures reveal many similarities between them. A discussion of Jesus as Ransomer generally splits along two lines:
1. Those who believe that Jesus is a Person in the Trinity
(Father, Son, Holy Spirit), and therefore eternally Divine; and
2. Those who hold that Jesus was a human being, separate from the Father.
Within these two viewpoints there is a range of interpretation. Those who hold that Man has evolved from other forms of life will find this subject irrelevant and absurd. Nonetheless, the analogy of Adam and Jesus cannot hold up within a framework of human evolution. Indeed, the doctrine of human evolution nullifies the theology of salvation which runs through the entire Biblical text. But that fact is, if there’s no Adam, there’s no Jesus.
As progenitor of the entire human race, Adam stands in for humanity. And Jesus, the one who purchases the human race from death, stands in as the representative of the future restored humanity. Adam bestows death on mankind; Jesus bestows life on mankind, as enunciated in 1 Corinthians 15: 22:
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
And Romans 5: 18-19:
18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
The
Cross of Christ the Antidote to the Curse of Adam
The parallel illuminates the necessity of the Cross. Jesus surrendered His life (Himself) as an equivalent offset to the life of Adam, who had forfeited his by disobedience. In this life-for-life transaction Jesus technically buys Adam and Adam’s condemned race: ‘[Jesus] gave himself as a ransom for all men’ (1 Timothy 2: 6). ‘Ransom’ is here the translation of the Greek antilutron, and carries the thought of a legal payment for something; that is, a price equivalent to the thing purchased.
JESUS = ADAM
The first part of the parallel: Adam was directly created by God and thus was morally and technically perfect.
The second part of the parallel: Jesus was the direct, only-begotten son of God, with no contamination from Adam’s stock, and was morally and technically perfect.
In this way, all of Adam’s race is purchased by the payment of the ransom.
The Apostle Paul amplifies the philosophy of the ransom in Romans 3: 25-26, in which he sets forth the rationale of ‘justification’:
25. God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished 26 . he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
From
Death in Adam to Life In Jesus
What of the intervening period between Adam and Jesus? From Adam’s fall onward, all people were regarded by God as having no right to life, and therefore as dead (Luke 9: 60: ‘Let the dead bury their own dead . . .’). Not one of Adam’s race could be a ‘second’ Adam because no one was a perfect being. Jesus did not inherit Adam’s stock (sin, imperfection), but He was human through His mother, Mary. That it was necessary for Jesus to be the equivalent of Adam demonstrates that Jesus was wholly a mortal man not a God-man.
In light of all the New Testament texts which speak of Jesus exhibiting human qualities (tears, tiredness, pain, suffering), and His numerous statements that show He was not God, most Christians feel obliged to adjust the doctrine of the Trinity and indulge in word-play, in order to blunt the contradictions. Thus they assert that though Jesus was ‘100 percent God’ He was also ‘100 percent Man’. And, they claim, since no Person in the Trinity could die, only the Man side of Jesus could have been crucified.
However, in order for Jesus to redeem Adam’s race, it was necessary that Jesus be the equivalent in nature of Adam – not more and not less. Had Jesus been an ordinary man, imperfect, and thus less than Adam, He could not have paid the equivalent price for Adam. Likewise, had Jesus been a deity, a God-man, and thus more than Adam, He could not have paid the ransom.
Satan,
Eve, Adam
It is not likely that any of the trio who were cursed at the beginning of history grasped the long-term import of the penalties levied against them. The world is geared to the law of experimentation or experience, of cause and effect, actions and consequences. Within the human family, understanding and wisdom are won only through suffering. Why it must be this way is not explained to us. But since God sees the future, and we do not, faith must assume that it is the best method.
We can be sure that from chaos, order and discipline and righteousness will come about. The Kingdom of God, established on the (literal) earth, will gradually unwind the nasty aspects of the Adamic curse, returning the race to perfection. The unhappiness of Man’s history will be forgotten, the lessons of sin learned. The blessings to come will be greater than our imagination can foresee (1 Corinthians 2: 9):
No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him.
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* A few words on the animal creation: although in existence long before the influence of mankind appeared on the scene, the animals nonetheless became subject to a system gone awry, and have often suffered at the hands of man. But they do not come under the Gospel message of redemption and their fate is not pertinent to this article. As to the environment in general, we have already noted that Man was intended to have beneficial mastery over it to subdue it, not to abuse it.
The complications and disorganisation of human life, which came about as consequences of the Adamic curse, disrupted mankind’s symbiotic relationship with the natural order, and nature has been exploited and ravaged in countless ways. The contemporary preoccupation with climate change and global warming is, in a way, a rebalancing of concern for the health of the planet, though its origins owe more to the doctrine of Evolution than to the biblical mandate.
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Copyright November 2012 ukbiblestudents.co.uk
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