We are about halfway through the book, and we have discovered some interesting things along the way. Thanks for the many encouragements to continue through this series.
In the last paper, I noted that I disagreed with the “covenant of works” model, or that I even saw a “covenant” at work “in the beginning.” I didn’t hear much fuss about this, though I did suggest that if a “covenant” is to be seen in Genesis, it would be in chapter 3, when God “cuts” open the animals and applies their flesh to the bodies of Adam and Eve. It’s not just Adam he covered. He covered the man and the woman. Man is made in the image of God, and the woman is in the glory of the man, and their children are in the image of their father, Adam. This is no demoralized role to Eve. She was held accountable for her sin and cursed as well. Welcome to the club, ladies. In some sense, we must see the connection of Adam being made in the image of God, with the woman being made in the glory of Adam, but not in such a way as dimenishing Eve’s being as a full, human, “living being” – if a woman was married, the same moral imperative found in Genesis 9.6 applies: anyone who shed her blood, by the hand of a man would their blood be shed, for God made man in his image.
I. Adam, the First Man
In the current debates with certain forms of Preterism, this question has become a topic of interest. Let it be said that Clark affirms that Adam was (and is) the first, created human being. It would appear from the text of Genesis 1,2 that such a view is plain and clear. In fact, it appears to be case so much that the burden of proof would be on those wanting to establish the idea that Adam was merely plucked out of already existing and plentious nations. Thus, he was not the first human being (and Eve’s creation was not a creation of the woman, but a highly symbolic account only), but the first covenant man. But, this would mean that Eve, too, was pucked out of already existing nations, for if the issue of believing Adam to be the first man sounds contrary to modern science, then we must have Eve as being plucked out, too – that is, if they even existed at all.
In one book Historical Genesis: From Adam to Abraham, Richard James Fischer is quite blunt and honest about rejecting Adam as the “first man.” This traditional view is “fraught with contradictions”. Why? “Remains of early humans and their precursors have been found dating beyond millions of years” (3). Simple. Don’t be an idiot. Listen to the “facts.”
Of course, I reject such an appeal to “science”. John Walton apparently realizes the problem of dismissing Adam as the first human being (The Lost World of Genesis One, 132-140, particularly 138-140). There, Walton rightly insists that this is no easy issue for those who take “science” seriously. For those of us radicals who don’t see science as having this ability to “discover” knowledge about origins and cosmogenies, this is no problem at all. And, Walton, on page 140, leaves this option open, too.
As stated, the burden of proof rests with those wanting to deny Adam’s historical priority. They would have to account for Adam’s sin as somehow being made to apply to all others (from whom he was taken). That is, God, some billions or whatever years ago, theistically “evolved” the ooze until it became man-like. Then, once these tribes had mated for some time, God “covenantally” creates this garden somewhere in modern day Iraq. He takes Adam from the “whatchamaycallit” tribe, and this Adam becomes the “representative” and “corporate head” of the human race. Now, of course, none of this is taught in the Bible. It’s inferred. The problem is, how does Adam, who in the Bible is called “the son of God”, become the representative of “all”? “All have fallen short” may just be only those in Adam’s family tree. The rest of mankind may be truly off the hook. Who could say?
Would it be fair to say that Adam was taken from already existing “sinners”? Now we are really getting into speculation. But, “where there is no law, there is not sin.” But, maybe laws already existed prior to Adam. Who knows? Anyway, this Adam fellow is taken to represent his whole line in some sense. His sin becomes imputed to “all mankind.” Where is the justice in that? One could see justice if, in fact, what he did came to all mankind by way of cause and effect. Adam’s sin (cause) came to bring about a situation in life that applied to every single human being (effect). Christ Jesus and the cross only serves in the purpose of reconciliation. First, there must be alienation. Were the real first human beings alienated already from God in that God would have to set up some sort of Garden/Temple covenant “in the beginning”? It would seem that this would have to be the case. But, this would make Adam as alienated already, since he was taken from an already alienated human race. When were they alienated?
Perhaps we could say that they were not alienated – but, then, what were they? Accepted? You see, Adam’s sin is viewed as something in the Bible that tripped up everything. Of course, God planned this trip – He in fact ordained it (we can get into that later). In my opinion one has to answer these questions before they set off demanding that Adam was merely the “first covenant man.” If these questions cannot be answered, then they offer no compelling reason to “demand” such a view without equal toleration of other more detailed alternatives.
So, for this, I will stick with Clark, and the great deal of church fathers and theologians who also see this point. In the Full Preterist paradigm, there is nothing that would contradict us in taking this position. There is no major problem that arises in taking a Full Preterist position and some sort of young earth, Adam-is-the-first-human-being position. That remains to be demonstrated.
Clark, of course, like others, moves immediately into the exposition of Romans 5. Paul is clearly drawing a parallel between Christ and Adam. In fact, he calls Adam a “tupos” (“type”) of Messiah. Now, we believe, as Full Preterists, that Paulos the Hebrew scholar of Meshiach, “taught not one thing that is not written in the Law and the prophets….” I believe that in several places, Paul is simply exegeting the Scripture (the OT), and giving the clear meaning of those passages he is expounding upon: the meaning that was there IN the passages all along. Paul uses the grammatico-historical method of interpreting the Bible. He is not being given new information, nor is he reinterpreting, reinventing, adding to, taking away, or restructuring the OT so as to “fit” the Christian enterprise. Paul’s (and the Apostles’) hermeneutic is, “this is that.”
If such a thought were not the truth, how can Jesus condemn his opponents in many places with, “you do err, in that you do not know the Scripures”? Think about this. “Well, Jesus, not everything you teach is in the OT – I mean, you are adding material to it that is not there at all! How can we be in error, and not know the Scriptures, when, in fact, you are adding new revelations to them that we could not have possibly known!” The force of my argument here logically means that Jesus and his Apostles did not do this. The Scriptures spoke on their own authority. The NT is the divinely inspired (in each and every word – I affirm the verbal, plenary inspiration of Scripture, as it teaches about its own self-authenticating authority) commentary on the OT. The NT teaches us HOW to read the OT by illuminating for us WHAT the OT says – what it has said all along.
Allow me, then, to apply this. Paul, in Romans 5, says that Adam is a “tupos” of Christ. A “type.” Where did he get this? In fact, where did he even get the notion of the comparison between Christ and Adam? Why would he even do this? Consider the text of Genesis. Do you see “Christ” there, anywhere? Well, do you? He’s there. He is called the “seed.”
Taking the whole history of the OT up to the time of Paul’s day – and reflecting back on those texts with the events of Jesus of Nazareth – Paul sees the dilemma of all mankind. All mankind came from the loins of Adam and Eve. God, in the beginning, created a “son.” In fact, Genesis 6.1 calls them “sons of God.” The Bible calls Israel “sons of God.” The chonology of I Chronicles, coupled with Luke’s account, Adam is called “a” son of God. He is called, “the son of God” (Luke 3.37). Adam is made in the “image of God” by God himself. Adam has no “father or mother”. Adam is uniquely made by the Spirit of God. Adam is a one of kind creation. The first of his kind. Now, compare this to the Messiah. He is God’s “son”, too. He is made of a virgin, by the Spirit. He is a unique creation. One of the kind. In fact, he is also the “first” of his kind: the “first” born. He is “the son of God”, too. Unlike Adam, he would come through the “seed” of the woman – so in this way, he would actually be the “son of God, Wonderful Counsellor, Father” AND “son of Man – son of Adam.” From the biblical material alone, then, Paul could have easily seen Adam as a “type” of the Seed, the Son of God and the Son of Man who redeem Man by creating a New Race of Men in a New Heavens and a New Earth – a Spiritual Race of Men in a Spiritual Realm – redeeming Man from a naturally, earthy generated Race by transferring them to a heavenly kingdom through the Invisible attributes of God the Father, maker of heavens and earth, and the new heavens and the new earth.
The comparison, in these more cosmic, universal dimensions, would also mean that Paul derived his concept of the “body of Christ” straight from the Genesis narrative. Adam was Federal Head (Christ is called the Head, in the same sense). That means, what happened to Adam, happened to all those who would come “from Adam”. Paul could easily infer that “all those in Adam” have fallen short of the glory of God; which would mean, Jews as well as Gentiles, since the biblical record shows that both “the nations” and “Israel” came from the loins of Adam. If Israel came from the loins of Abraham, by creating a “new nation from OUT OF all the nations” – then this does not set aside the fact that they came from ADAM, too. Thus, we can now see where, in Romans 5, Paul sees something: From Adam to the Time of Moses. In Romans 4 he has already dealt with Abraham. In Romans 3 he deals with Moses. In Romans 5 he goes to Adam. Here we enter into the real issue for Romans. Why was the Law (torah) added? If those from “Adam to Moses” were already “under the sin and the death” of Adam – then why add “the law” of Moses? To increase the Sin of Adam. To show forth what the Sin of “one man” did to “all men”. The Law brought out with FORCE by increasing the sinfulness of Israel – to where they heaped it up to the uttermost – so that ALL MEN could see the “exceedingly sinful sinfulness” of Adam’s sin – THE SIN. In other words: if Israel, who saw the divine attributes, were given the prophets and the promises, and who saw and entered into covenant with this God by divine power and guidance, FAILED – then what does that say to ALL MANKIND under SIN and DEATH? Paul: “ALL have fallen…..” Why? Because, “all were in Adam.”
I am going to stop here…..let’s see if anyone else wants to talk out these implications.
Sam,
Really enjoyed this article.
1) For a while now, I’ve held to the idea that Paul only taught the Law and Prophets because of Acts 26:22. But, I never really noticed that Christ in various places (e.g. Matt 22:29) also says the same thing. Wonderful!
2) Describing how Paul relates Christ to Adam from the OT was interesting. I never realized that Adam was called a son of God.
3) Then there is the main topic. How could Adam be the federal head of the human race, with regard to the effect of sin, if he were just picked from a crowd? And if he is just the head of his descendents, what state are the others in if they are not affected by Adam’s sin? Many questions to be answered.
For me, the attractiveness of the Full Preterist paradigm is that it solves a host of disconnects in the scripture created by the futurist paradigm, e.g. the delay of an imminent Parousia. Also, physical types paired with spiritual anti-types are taught everywhere in scripture, so it seems right that the Parousia itself would be spiritual not physical as futurists teach. Covenant creationists claim that they are taking this full preterist paradigm to its logical extent, but I don’t see the “disconnects” in scripture that they are trying to solve. In fact, it seems to me that they are instead creating more disconnects with their view of Adam.
** Full disclosure: I have not read BCS and, for whatever reason, the whole idea of it just doesn’t appeal to me. Perhaps when I have exhausted my current list of research topics that interest me, I will pick up a copy to see what the fuss is all about.
Thanks,
martin
Sam,
Really enjoyed this article.
1) For a while now, I’ve held to the idea that Paul only taught the Law and Prophets because of Acts 26:22. But, I never really noticed that Christ in various places (e.g. Matt 22:29) also says the same thing. Wonderful!
2) Describing how Paul relates Christ to Adam from the OT was interesting. I never realized that Adam was called a son of God.
3) Then there is the main topic. How could Adam be the federal head of the human race, with regard to the effect of sin, if he were just picked from a crowd? And if he is just the head of his descendents, what state are the others in if they are not affected by Adam’s sin? Many questions to be answered.
For me, the attractiveness of the Full Preterist paradigm is that it solves a host of disconnects in the scripture created by the futurist paradigm, e.g. the delay of an imminent Parousia. Also, physical types paired with spiritual anti-types are taught everywhere in scripture, so it seems right that the Parousia itself would be spiritual not physical as futurists teach. Covenant creationists claim that they are taking this full preterist paradigm to its logical extent, but I don’t see the “disconnects” in scripture that they are trying to solve. In fact, it seems to me that they are instead creating more disconnects with their view of Adam.
** Full disclosure: I have not read BCS and, for whatever reason, the whole idea of it just doesn’t appeal to me. Perhaps when I have exhausted my current list of research topics that interest me, I will pick up a copy to see what the fuss is all about.
Thanks,
martin