Imago Dei Part 2

Posted by Hank on October 29th, 2009 filed in Biblical Interpretation, Ecclesiology, Sin

In Genesis 1, Elohim gave humanity in Adam the responsibility to subdue the earth and to take dominion over it, filling it with the image of Elohim through procreation. Humanity’s great position in the universe is to reign as Yahweh’s vice-regents and to represent his presence upon the earth. However as we look around the world around us, we can clearly see something happened because the image of God, humanity, is busy rejecting the very God who created them to rule and have dominion over the earth. The created order is at war with the imago dei with violent storms and earthquakes and the animal kingdom fixed an a circle that is deadly to humans. Humanity itself is so concerned with itself that it will kill itself. The question is, what happened?

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.