Recently some friends asked why I have been silent on the whole Rob Bell saga. My answer was that there isn’t a whole lot to say about it and that my Reformed brethren’s rush to judgement about the theology of a pastor based upon the promotional material for a book due out on Tuesday (March 15, 2011) was embarrassing. But that’s what I do want to talk about, the Reformed response.

Before I talk about it, I want to make something clear. I’m not a Rob Bell fan. I’ve never really liked him. As a student of Greek I find his handling of the language to be laughable at best–and to me discredits him as an authority. I also want to say that I haven’t read all his books, watched his Nooma video series, or listen to his podcasts. I’ve only read Velvet Elvis and laughed as I put it back on the shelf.

So with that established, I want to offer a critique of the Reformed response from within camp. There are two points that I want to make. The response was premature and thus unfair. And the response was based upon presuppositions about Rob Bell before actually hearing him.

When Rob Bell released his promo material for his book Love Wins at the end of February he touched off a violent F-5 tornado from the Reformed community. Justin Taylor blogged that Rob Bell has moved farther away from orthodoxy, going so far as to label him a universalist. John Piper tweeted, “Farewell @robbell” (I’m assuming he meant @realrobbell, which is the twitter account of the author/pastor under scrutiny). The dean of Boyce College (part of Southern Seminary), Denny Burk, joined Piper and Taylor. Kenny DeYoung came to Taylor’s defense in the wake of the backlash.

As a Reformed guy, especially as one who looks up to Piper in many ways, it was sad to see this happen. I understand that Bell has some out-there ideas. I understand he has a lot in common with the “emerging church” movement (Bell has denied being part of that group and I’ll give him benefit of the doubt there).

But why rush to judgement on the promotional material? If Piper was getting ready to publish a book, made the promo controversial, and people were labeling him a heretic without having read his book, he’d be upset and rightfully so. He would want people to wait and see what he said in the book where his actual claims are being put forward and his reasons for claiming them can be examined. His supporters, like Taylor and Burk, would plead for people to read the book before coming to conclusions. They would call it rushing to judgment and premature to label Piper as a heretic.

So to label Bell as a heretic, however true it may turn out to be next week, was rushed. And because it’s rushed it’s not fair at all. Isn’t one of the great things about America, and being a Christian, supposed to be a person isn’t going to be assumed guilty without first proving that guilt? I mean DeYoung’s post grasps at straws to say Bell’s questions were more than mere questions, but didactic by nature, smuggling in truth claims through the back door. There’s no interest in being fair here at all.

Which leads me to my second point. The Reformed response seems to have read in their presuppositions about bell into the video. When I watched the promo video and read the publisher blurb, I didn’t immediately think universalism. In fact, I thought Bell raised some good questions that should be answered by myself and my Reformed brothers. I didn’t assume Bell was setting up a heresy in these questions. And because of that I didn’t feel Bell was sneaking heresy in.

But Taylor, Burk, DeYoung, and others have assumed heresy first, without reading what the book actually claims, and then viewed the promo material. They are reading Bell with presuppositions of heresy.

I remember at the Desiring God national conference on postmodernism back in 2006 (I believe it was 2006). Mark Driscoll was preaching on the church in a postmodern context. He discussed Velvet Elvis and the illustration of a brick wall the Bell used. Driscoll, giving the exact page, claims that Bell said we can throw away the virgin birth of Jesus, and that Bell doesn’t believe in it. In the book all Bell is doing is challenging the idea that doctrine should be placed together like a brick wall. Bell even states that he believes in the virgin birth. Love Wins isn’t the first time people presupposed Bell is stating heresy. But this is probably people have done so before actually reading his book.

When I look at how hard and devastating the Reformed response to Bell’s promotional video and publisher’s note, I am reminded of the F-5 tornado. The funnel cloud can be up to a mile in diameter. Winds range between 261-318 mph. These things can turn cars into missiles and take the bark off of a tree. They are the most destructive force in nature. Skyscrapers cower in fear before the F-5 tornado. And that’s what I saw from the Reformed guys like Justin Taylor and John Piper.

There was no grace. There was no waiting to see what the book said. Piper’s tweet comes awfully close to saying that Bell is dead to him. “Farewell Rob Bell.” There was no invitation for dialogue and discussion and debate. There was only casting about the label of heretic. There was only condemnation. There was only the devastation of the F-5 twister.

I have no clue what Rob Bell is going to say. I prefer my heresy to come from N. T. Wright. When it comes to the doctrines of heaven and hell Rob Bell may believe that love wins, whatever that may mean. But when it came tommy brothers’ response to his promo stuff, Bell was devastatingly wrong. Love did not win.

Romans 6:8-10 presents Paul’s argument of how God has liberated and rescued the believers from the grave and death in Jesus, namely Jesus’ resurrection. Paul says,

8 If we have died with Christ, we believe that we will live with him. 9 We know that Christ was raised from the dead, never to die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. And the life he lives, he lives to God (author’s translation).

Not only have believers died with Jesus, they also participate in his resurrection. Jesus’ resurrection has broken the “mastery” (κυριεύει) of death over humanity. Now that he has gone through the resurrection he is no longer subject to death and therefore cannot die anymore. He cannot go to the grave and death can no longer claim him. Thus his death has for all time ended sin’s claim on those who are in Jesus because his death broke its power, his death is “once for all time” (ἐφάπαξ). He was raised up as the firstborn and king of God’s kingdom, the new heavens and new earth (Romans 1:3-4; Colossians 1:18; 1 Corinthians 15:20-28).

The picture that Paul has here is the Passover and the Exodus. The passover lamb broke the power of the final plague over the firstborn because the firstborn had already died. Jesus breaks the power of sin, namely death, because he died. Sin can no longer enslave those who are in Jesus. And as the Pharaoh was defeated in the Exodus from Egypt via crossing the Red Sea, so death was destroyed in Jesus being raised from the grave. We cross through death in Jesus’ death and into life in Jesus’ resurrection.

Therefore, as Paul concludes in Romans 6:11, “So also consider (λογίζεσθε) yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ.” Through our union with Jesus we are considered, reckoned, to be dead through his death and alive to God through his resurrection. Thus sin and death are no longer our masters, so why do we obey sin and live in sin and death if we now live to God and “are slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:18)?

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (emphasis mine).

Paul’s answer in Romans 6:2-4 is a resounding, “No.” Paul uses a favorite phrase to give voice to his negative answer, μὴ γένοιτο, or, “May it never be!” Instead, Paul sees something in a believer’s union with Jesus through faith in Jesus that kills the sinner and raises that person up from the dead to walk in new life. Romans 6:5-7 explains how Paul can say in Romans 6:2, “We who died to sin, how can we still yet live in sin?”

Paul says in Romans 6:5 that “we have been buried with him in the likeness of his death.” Paul uses the perfect tense for “we have been buried with him.” Thus at a point in time in our union with Christ, namely when we first believed and were first united to Jesus, we were considered to have died and been buried. And the results of that death carries through with us. To put it another way, Jesus’ own death and burial counts for us in such a way that Paul believes that we ourselves have died and been buried as well in that tomb with Jesus. We share, via our union-through-faith, in Jesus’ death and burial.

And what happens is, as Paul says in Romans 6:6, “Our old person was crucified with him.” So the person who existed at conversion and was united to Jesus, with all the sin and hatred towards God, and his death killed that person. That person is said to have been crucified. And the purpose of this crucifying the believer is “so that the sinful person might be destroyed, which we will never be slaves to sin.” We, as slaves to sin and obedient to its very whims, have been destroyed by faith in Jesus. Sin’s mastery over us has been broken.

As Paul says in Romans 6:7, “For the one who has died to sin has been justified from sin.” By participating in Jesus’ crucifixion, we as sinners are killed and no longer subjected to sin’s rule. There is liberation from sin, freedom from sin, and righteousness awaiting us in that death. As one can see in Romans 5:18, Jesus’ act of righteousness in dying on the cross brings about justification of life. Jesus’ has liberated us from sin’s hold by killing us through his own death. But what hope does the believer have if he or she is dead? Sin no longer holds mastery over them but the grave still does. What can be done? Romans 6:7 and Romans 5:18 point to something yet to happen in Jesus’ work with which we are united. Section C. unpacks that finished work of Jesus that Romans 6:7 anticipates while it concludes Paul’s discussion of Jesus’ death.

There is a saying in hermeneutics, “A text without a context is a pretext for a proof-text.” The point of the saying is that one must take any passage that is being read, whether Scripture or not, must be read in light of the larger literary unit in which it stands. Think if the Senate hearing in Iron Man 2 and Rhodey having his report on the Iron Man. The senator leading the hearing wanted Rhodey to read certain portions of his report. The lines in question seem to indicate a negative attitude towards the Iron Man. But the larger report says otherwise.

So what is the context of our passage under examination? What prompts Paul’s dialogue partner to raise the question, “What will we say then, ‘We will continue in sin so that grace may increase even more’?” Romans 5:18-21 Paul concludes his argument of the work of Jesus in terms of a new humanity and the Adam-Christ typology. In Romans 5:18-19 Paul says that because of the the one man’s sin death came to all men. Because of Jesus’ one righteous act and obedience on the cross, all men are given the justification of life, namely God will raise those up who are part of Christ’s new humanity through participation in him. In 5:20 the law came to increase the trespass and thus when the sin increased grace increased even more. Hence, as in 5:21, just as sin reigned in death so also grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life in Jesus Messiah.

And it’s the statement that the law increases sin which increases grace even more that prompts the dialogue partner to voice Romans 6:1. Romans 6:2-4 is the answer to the dialogue partner. Paul’s answer is that because we have died to sin we cannot live in it any longer. The union with Jesus that is created by faith and demonstrated by baptism is a union with Jesus’ own death on the cross? Thus if one has been buried with Jesus and has died with him, that person will also walk in new life as Jesus walks in new life.

In other words, we have been united to both Jesus’ death and resurrection. Both events in Jesus’ work count as ours and declare something to be ours. And that is that we have died to sin on the cross and have been given new life in Jesus’ resurrection. Therefore in some way the believer must renounce sin because of his or her dying in Jesus. In regards to sin that person has died. And just as Christ is living a new life, so too the believer walks a new life that is untainted by sin.

What does Paul mean by this answer to the question is for the next two posts. First comes union with Jesus’ death and then union with Jesus resurrection.

In the previous post, I tried to figure out just who are “his people” in Matthew 1:21. In summary, I believe that it is those Jews and Gentiles who are convinced that Jesus is the Messianic Davidide Shepherd-King who has come to restore Israel and give up their lives to follow their king. They seek his kingdom first and their lives reflect that of the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5-7, as either Jew or Gentile. In this post, I want to understand what Matthew has in mind for his readers when he says Jesus “will save his people from their sins?”

There are several factors that I think play into understanding “their sins” in Matthew 1:21. I look back at the context of the verse, both before and after, and see that one theme keeps coming up again and again is that God is going to end Israel’s and Judah’s exile.

Remember the genealogy and how Matthew ends it. Matthew moves from Abraham to King David in Matthew 1:2-6. Then from David to exile in Matthew 1:6-11. He concludes the genealogy by moving from exile in Babylon to Jesus the Messiah in Matthew 1:12-16. The image that is painted in the genealogical record of Jesus is that while in exile succession to David’s throne has not been broken. But Israel and Judah are still in exile until Jesus arrives on the scene. So it seems to me, initially, that saving his people from their sins is linked to the sin that put Israel and Judah in exile.

This hypothesis is further strengthened by the observation that with the exception of Isaiah 7:14, the fulfillment texts of Matthew’s narrative that leads into Jesus’ Galilean ministry all point to Jesus coming to end Israel’s exile. Micah 5:2 (cf. Matthew 2:6); Hosea 11:1 (cf. Matthew 2:15); Jeremiah 31:15 (cf. Matthew 2:18); Isaiah 40:3 (cf. Matthew 3:3); Isaiah 8:23-9:2 (cf. Matthew 4:15-16) all deal with God sending a new Davidide to end Israel’s exile.

When one looks into the context of Isaiah 7-8 and the Immanuel child, the issue that boils to the surface is one of faithlessness on the part of God’s people. They do not trust in Yahweh, there is no faith there. There is no loyalty to their covenant God and reliance upon him to protect them and bless them. Rather they look to other nations and their gods for protection. And this unbelief and faithlessness disqualified them from participating in God’s redemptive purposes for the world and functioning as God’s kingdom under the Davidic monarchy. Both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were disqualified and as consequence, spelled out in Torah (cf. Deuteronomy 28), were sent into exile by God through Assyria and Babylon.

Therefore “their sins” from which Jesus will save his people” is their faithlessness that has exiled them from the Creator and covenant God of Israel. For Israel it is the faithless nationalism, trusting not in God but in their status as God’s people–much like in Jeremiah 7–to keep them from Rome while the leadership utilizes the Torah to oppress the people and live selfishly. They have turned God into a deity which accomplishes their own personal gain. They seek for Roman rule to be thrown off not to bring God’s redemption to the world but so that the Gentiles will be destroyed and they can continue to fleece the flock that is God’s people.

For Gentiles the unbelief and faithlessness is the wholesale rejection of their creator to worship the creation. It is fashioning idols and false gods and goddesses to worship from their own imaginations. They take the true God and reshape him into an image that they can worship. Then they will seek to oppress their fellow human beings in order to take selfish power and live in pride.

And in living in such faithlessness that does not seek to bring God’s beauty and honor into the world which redeems and restores and blesses the creation, God will bring his wrath and judgment upon the unbelief and those who exercise unbelief. The exile that God places humanity under in Genesis 3, as well as the exile of all twelve tribes of Israel, picture the full judgment that God will unleash when he brings forth his wrath, permanent exile from God and his glorious presence, an eschatological exile into the fires of hell. And it is from this exile that all of humanity needs to be ultimately “saved” from.

But what is that salvation? And what does it have to do with Jesus coming, dying, and being resurrected? That is for the next post to answer.

Well, I lied. I can’t really start out with what the sin is until I understand who it is that needs to be saved. So actually I’m starting in the middle. But, no harm no foul, right? So okay, who is the “his people” that Jesus will save from their sins?

In the previous context, we see that Matthew connects Israel’s exile into Babylon with the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:17). And then without mentioning the return under the Medo-Persian king, Cyrus, Matthew begins to talk about Jesus’ birth, which includes Matthew saying that the events of Jesus’ infancy fulfills two texts (Hosea 11:1 and Jeremiah 31:15) that speak of Israel being in exile. And then when Jesus begins his ministry in Matthew 4:12-17, Matthew relates this ministry as fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy (Isaiah 9:1-2) where a light will go to the people in the land of Naphtali and Zebulon who are in the darkness of exile. When Matthew concludes Jesus’ first major discourse (Matthew 5-7) and miracle narrative (Matthew 8-9) with a statement about how the people are like lost sheep and when he sends out his twelve disciples, he sends them only to Israel and not to Samaritans or Gentiles. It seems likely that Jesus’ people are Israelites.

But I don’t think that neither Jesus nor Matthew are defining “his people” of Matthew 1:21 as ethnic Israel for a couple of reasons. First, as Joel Willitts argues, Jesus’ Galilean ministry was Jesus going to national-political Israel, remnant of the ten-tribe kingdom in the north that broke off from Judah and David’s house, and calling them back into the twelve tribe league under his rule and reign. Yes he and his twelve emissaries preached to the disenfranchised Jews of the former kingdom of Israel. But Jesus sent them to the lost sheep of the house of Israel only, not to the Jews in Diaspora or in Judah to the south, to the Samaritans who lived between Judah and Galilee, and not to the Gentiles who live east of Galilee.

But when one surveys Matthew’s text and Jesus’ interaction with Gentiles, we see that for Matthew the kingdom is not limited to an ethnic group. Follow Matthew’s narrative. Matthew 2:1-12 the Magi from Parthia come and worship infant Jesus.

In Matthew 8:5-13, a Roman officer asked Jesus to heal his servant. He demonstrated an amazing faith by saying that Jesus need not come to the centurion’s house to heal the servant, Jesus need only to speak the command to be healed and the servant would be healed–much like an officer gives a command in his unit and it is done, all upon his authority to give that command. When Jesus sees this faith, he not only grants the centurion’s wish for the servant to be healed, he says to those following him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” This man’s faith will grant him a seat at the great banquet of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; while those who are supposed to have a seat there will be cast into darkness.

In Matthew 15:21-28, a Canaanite woman (Note that Matthew calls her a Canaanite instead of a Gentile to highlight that she is not part of ethnic Israel, but an enemy of Israel!) asks Jesus to heal her daughter. When Jesus tells her that he has been “sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24 NIV) and that, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” (Matthew 15:27 NIV) she acknowledges her position before him. She says, “No I do not get to sit at the table as a child, but even as a dog I am entitled to the food that is appropriate for me.” She acknowledges Israel as the people of God and Jesus as their Messianic Shepherd-King, calling him “Lord” 3 times and kneeling before him. She agrees with Jesus’ Israel-centric mission and her place in Israel as a Gentile to be entitled to the Messianic Age. This faith in Jesus to grant her his blessing as a Gentile is what motivated Jesus to grant her request. Jesus is granting the life of the Messianic Age to both Jews and Gentiles

Then in Matthew 21, Jesus begins to confront the religious leadership of Israel and Judah. He tells two parables. In the first parable (Matthew 21:28-32), a father asks his two sons to work in his vineyard. One son said he would not go, but then later changed his mind. The other son said he would go, but never did. Jesus equated the “sinners and tax collectors” to the first son and the Jewish religious leadership to the second son and to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you” (Matthew 21:31 NIV).

The second parable (Matthew 21:33-46) is about a landowner who builds a vineyard. He hires some people to care for the vineyard. When he sends some servants to collect his share of the fruit at harvest time, the workers beat and humiliate the servants of the owner. After repeatedly sending his servants, the owner sends his own son thinking they would respect his son. But instead the kill the son, thinking they would be able to keep the vineyard for themselves. Both Jesus and the religious leadership agreed that when the owner comes to collect, he will not only take his rightful due from the harvest but also destroy the hired workers who killed his sons and beat his servants. Then he will hire other servants who will give him his share of the harvest. In conclusion, Jesus tells the leadership that they are the servants and that the kingdom of God is being taken away from them and given to a people who will bear its fruit (Matthew 21:43).

So what can we conclude from this very brief survey of Matthew’s narrative (There is so much more that can be drawn from Matthew 6 and Matthew 16 and Matthew 20) about who it is that Matthew 1:21 is referring to when it says that Jesus will save “his people?” I think that it is those Jews and Gentiles who recognize and believe that Jesus is the Messianic Davidide Sheperd-King come to restore Israel, like the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman. They are those people who then abandon their own lives for the sake of entering into his kingdom, seeking it instead of their own worries (Matthew 6:33). They take up their cross and follow Jesus, not seeking to preserve their own lives but losing it for Jesus’ sake (cf. Matthew 16:24-27). They are what Jesus called tax collectors, sinners, and prostitutes. The disenfranchised of Israel who are poor, oppressed, suffering from disease and injury and disabilities. Those are “his people.” He ate with them (Matthew 9:9-13). He identified with them.

So what then are the sins from which Jesus will save them from? That will be the topic taken up in the next post.

I want to focus upon why Yahweh’s messenger tells Joseph to name the baby that is born of Mary Jesus in Matthew 1:21, “And you will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” What does Matthew intend for his readers to understand when they read this statement? How does Matthew believe that Jesus saved his people from their sins?

Before getting into the text I want to make some observations from the context of Matthew. First, we, the readers, must understand who Matthew has already asserted Jesus is: the Davidic King and the true son of Abraham. This is the main point of the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17. And so to understand “he will save…from their sins,” must be understood in the context of Jesus as the son of David and the true Israelite, the true son of Abraham.

Second, with the coming of Jesus as the promised son of David, the breaking in of God’s saving reign has come. Jesus ministry, from his deeds and teaching to his death and resurrection, is the invasion of God’s reign into this creation to conquer Israel’s, God’s people, enemies. When we look at Jesus’ ministry, he doesn’t target the Roman occupation or Herod, but rather he goes after disease and demons and broken bodies and poverty. He forgives sin, and that seems to be Israel’s enemy more than Rome or Herod.

Along that line, Jesus radically redefines who and what Israel is. To be a child of Abraham is changed to be located in himself. He recapitulates the journey of Israel from Egypt into the land, except where Israel failed Jesus was faithful. Jesus establishes his church with twelve disciples, the same number of tribes in Israel. Israel was God’s channel through which his blessing was to come to creation. Israel failed to be that vessel and so Jesus, the son of Abraham, becomes that vessel. Thus those who are physically children of Abraham are not part of the true family of Abraham until they become members of the Israel established in Jesus.

Third, we must understand this “he will save…from their sins” in the light of both Jesus’ death and resurrection. Whenever Jesus predicts his own death, it is never occurs apart from him being raised up on the third day. Too often I see “he will save…from their sins” in light of Jesus’ death without the resurrection of Jesus being included in his actual saving his people. It is said to be the sign that Jesus’ death is effective and accepted by God. But Jesus connects his resurrection to his cross work, they cannot be separated. Thus the giving of his life in Matthew 20:28 cannot be reduced down to just Jesus’ death. Nor can his words at the Last Supper about his broken body and shed blood be understood apart from his resurrection because his words anticipate the return of the resurrected Jesus in his Father’s kingdom.

Fourth, I feel like the exile plays a pivotal role in what it means to be saved from sin. Matthew ends the genealogy linking the exile into Babylon to the birth of Jesus and then enters right into the birth narrative of Jesus. Furthermore, Matthew says that Jesus going into Egypt fulfills the prophecy of Hosea 11:1, a text that speaks of God sending Israel and calling her back out of Assyrian exile, as typified by her time in Egypt. The slaughter of the children of Bethlehem being a fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15 is also a reference to the Judah’s exile coming to an end and the people being restored under king David and a new covenant that forgives sin. When Jesus goes to begin his proclamation of the kingdom of God, he fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy about Naphtali and Zebulon in darkness seeing light. When he commissions his twelve disciples in Matthew 10, Jesus tells them not to go to Samaria or to the Gentiles but only to Israel and preach the gospel. Only upon his resurrection does Jesus send his followers to the Samaritans and Gentiles as well as Israel. I feel like Matthew wants us to understand that the promised King from David’s line that was to end Israel’s exile via new exodus has come.

So what does “You will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sin” mean? What is the salvation that the angel is speaking of? Who is it that Jesus will save? What is the sin from which Jesus is to save? And how does Jesus’ death and resurrection play into Matthew’s understanding of these questions? These are the questions that I want to take up in the following series of posts.

Genesis 3 is where the answer to this question lies. It is here that humanity will find out why the world around them is so broken, ravaged by disease and death.

The passage should begin for the reader in Genesis 2:25 as a subtle pun starts as well as an important motif. Genesis 2:25 (ESV) reads, “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” The motif that starts here and runs through Genesis 3 is that of nakedness. As we see this kind of nakedness takes on the meaning of innocence or integrity. There is no fear of exploitation and there is no vulnerability. They were not ashamed.

In Genesis 3:1 the narrative introduces the reader to the serpent, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.” Now it is here that we can see a pun beginning to take shape in the narrative. In 2:25 the man and woman are said to be naked, עֲרוְּמִּים. In 3:1 the serpent is said to be shrewd, עָרוְּם. There is a play on the Hebrew so that shrewd and naked sound the same.

The serpent was created to be shrewd. And this creature begins its rebellion against Yahweh by approaching the woman and questioning the command of Yahweh, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen 3:1). When Eve responds, she alters the way Elohim commanded her, although she has not introduced a new command. She removes the emphatic infinitives that are found in the text in Genesis 2:16-17. Thus it becomes, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” In fact she adds, “neither shall you touch it,” making a law unto herself.

Pressing his assault, “The serpent said to the woman, ‘Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil’” (Gen 3:4-5 NET). One should note that “you” and “your” is plural. The serpent isn’t speaking to just one person, Eve, but to Adam and Eve. The serpent seems to be aiming to get the humans to believe that God doesn’t want them to be divine like Himself. He is protecting that which makes him greater than his creation.

And the serpent’s argument worked, “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate” (Gen 3:6). Note how quickly the actions moves. There are three verbs that describes her observing the fruit, noting its delightfulness, and it is desirable for insight and prudence. Then boom! She takes the fruit and eats it. She’s standing there looking at it and then in one quick motion she takes the fruit and eats it. She gives some to Adam and he eats it too.

What we see here is the imago dei failing to subdue the creation. They have failed to take dominion over the created order and rule over it. Instead humanity chose to surrender to the serpent. They have surrendered their authority to his shrewdness and craftiness.

And so the reader sees the completion of the pun found in the text, “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Gen 3:7). They did not become wise and crafty like the serpent and divine beings. They who were nude wanted to be shrewd, but in the end they were still nude. But now shame had come upon them and they covered themselves with loincloths made from fig leaves.

Now, agreeing with Jeffery Niehaus, I think that Gen 3:8 should be rendered something like, “Then the man and his wife heard the thunderous voice of Yahweh God as he was going back and forth in the garden in the wind of the storm and they hid from Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.” Hence making Yahweh’s presence to be that of judgment, not just happening to be walking in the garden, in keeping with how the rest of the narrative plays out. And thus they hide from Yahweh.

Thus in Genesis 3:9-13, Adam has not successfully hidden himself from God or that God did not know who gave Adam and Eve the fruit. Rather Yahweh is calling Adam and Eve to give account for the crime that has been committed. And so not only have Adam and Eve failed to take dominion over creation in being deceived by the serpent, they have also failed to obey God’s command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in their greed. Now their failure compounds in that they fail to own up to their sin and point the finger away, hoping to get out of their predicament, Adam pointing to Eve who in turn points to the serpent.

In Genesis 3:14-19 Yahweh renders his judgment. To the serpent, he must slither on the ground and eat of the dust. The offspring of the woman will come and crush the head of the serpent and the serpent will crush the heel of the woman’s offspring. In rendering judgment upon his own enemy, Yahweh offers hope to his creation. For the woman she is to bear children in pain and is now at war with her husband, instead of uniting as one flesh to be the singular imago dei. For Adam, he is now at war with the creation and he must now take dominion by the sweat of his brow. The earth will produce thorns and thistles and he must work the earth to produce vegetation.

Thus the imago dei was not lost, but corrupted. Instead of taking dominion over creation the imago dei was subdued by creation in the serpent. So now the process of subduing the earth has been placed under a curse so that the one-flesh union of man and woman is now corrupted, procreation is now that of pain, and subduing the earth is now done by the sweat of the brow. The image of God that humanity had been has been corrupted and polluted.

And this enmity that now exists between God’s vice-regents and the rest of God’s creation started here. Now earthquakes and violent storms run wild across this earth. Drought and famine and floods as well as bad crops being harvested create hardship for man to take dominion over the earth. Miscarriages and death now keep man from spreading the image of God into all of the earth. God’s promise of death does come true. The next post will look at the further subjugation of humanity to sin and the serpent and the curse taking a further effect.

The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.

I just finished reading Denny Burk’s blog this afternoon where he noted something that is quite sad,

What concerns me most about Piper’s “evangelical” critics is that the direction of their outrage indicates that something is askew in their priorities. There appears to be little concern about the fact that an entire denomination has just taken a public stand against the Bible and 2,000 years of unanimous Christian teaching. There is scarcely a cross word about the fact that the Lutherans are walking away from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, the critics are offended by Piper. Moreover, the offended have responded with what amounts to a lot of ugly mud-slinging—the very kind of stumbling-block to unbelievers that Emergents say they wish to avoid.

I thought Piper lovingly and humbly called sin for what it was: sin. I thought Piper’s words were wise and pleaded with everyone to stop approving of sin. But Burk is right. I read Tony Jones’ response and Greg Boyd’s response as well (Here is the Heidelblog’s similar response). They are more concerned about attacking Piper (Boyd was more polite about it than Jones) and not once did they call the ELCA to vote for homosexuality to disqualify a person from being a pastor. Not once, and that was Piper’s point! They did not engage Piper and what his post was about. They were more interested in putting Piper down than engaging him in a meaningful way. Most of the counter-exegesis offered by Boyd, as Jones did not offer any, was unconvincing and did not get the whole point of what Jesus was doing and what was being said.

For example, Mark 4:41 the disciples said after Jesus rebuked a storm, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Boyd says of this text, “What’s interesting to me is that the disciples make this remark in response to Jesus having just rebuked a threatening storm. If Jesus was already controlling all storms, as John claims, why on earth would he need to rebuke this one?” The answer is that Jesus was demonstrating this control to his disciples. They did not know that he had authority over the storms. The gap between how Boyd and Piper conceptualize the Triune God’s authority and sovereignty is so vast that only an open-theist like Boyd would (or a Piper hater) buy it. No one who shares Piper’s belief in a sovereign God and Christ could buy into what he says without first having it out on the sovereignty issue.

I have no problems with people thinking Piper should not read into storms like he did, which was very humble and did not single out the ELCA but anyone and everyone who would read that post. I do have a problem when fellow Christians will not call the ELCA to repent of the sin they were considering adopting and to return to the Gospel and to the Scripture. I do have a problem when people are so bent on disproving anything Piper says that they will fail to actually read what he says and try to get his point, instead of just reading to find something to refute.

I really appreciated what Piper said in a rejoinder. He said the same thing about his cancer that he had three years ago as he said about the ELCA Tornado, the calamity and blessings are God’s warnings to sinners, even sanctified sinners, to repent of their sin. Piper concludes,

My tornado was a call to repentance. Yours will be too. But that is not Satan’s design. Only God’s. Satan’s design is that you approve your sin. God’s is that you let him forgive it and overcome it.