Re: [asa] sin or Sin?

Very interesting. I'm not quite persuaded though.

First, I'm not convinced those three phrases are parallelisms. OTOH, I
don't claim any expertise in Hebrew grammar, etc. So, I need to see some
expert evidence there.

Second, I hear you echoing Paul's discussion of the Law here. But if that's
so, I think you're missing Paul's point. I don't think Paul says the Law
makes those who know it guilty of sin per se. Rather, the Law condemns
because it clearly articulates the standards people inevitably fail to
reach. As Paul makes clear in Romans, however, even those who don't have
the Law are condemned by what they know from general revelation -- i.e., by
what they can discern about natural law without revelation.

In fact, I wonder if Paul's discussion of the Mosaic Law and the natural law
undermines your very interesting word study on eyes being opened. In Paul's
view, the Mosaic Law is an instance where God opened people's eyes in a way
that was "negative" in that it revealed their inability to be holy.

I also think you need to account for Paul's understanding that sin entered
the world through Adam. Paul doesn't say Adam became aware of a law that he
couldn't keep; he says Adam introduced sin to the world. This seems to me
to strongly imply that Adam could have chosen otherwise, and that his choice
was the problem.

I guess you want to take this sort of developmental view because it seems to
comport more with human evolution? I don't really see a huge problem with
the "sin-as-choice" idea, whether "Adam" is an individual representative, or
a group of first humans with the image of God, or both. Regardless, it
seems to me that the humanity, represented in "Adam," made a culpable choice
to reject God's provision, and that we have been suffering from the
resulting loss of immediate fellowship with God ever since. It seems to me
that it's just beyond the competence of "science" to determine when
"humanity" would have been capable of making that kind of culpable choice.

On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 11:22 PM, <philtill@aol.com> wrote:

> Hi David,
>
> Here is a biblical argument we haven't discussed yet. Notice that there
> are actually three phrases used in parallel by the serpant:
>
> 1. their eyes would be opened
> 2. they would become like God
> 3. they would know good and evil
>
> The serpant wasn't lying, because the text says that all three of them did
> occur in parallel when they ate the fruit.
>
> The parallelism of these three phrases indicates that they are
> synonymous. Either they are all positive or they are all negative. We are
> discussing whether or not #3 is inherently negative, like "experiental
> knowing of sin apart from trusting God." I claim that it is not, and that
> it simply means the ability to distinguish good & evil. I think you
> admitted that #2, being like God, is not easily explained away as a negative
> thing. So let's take a look at #1, "their eyes were opened." Does that
> indicate something negative or positive?
>
> The phrase is used five times in the OT outside Genesis 3, four of which
> are in the Pentateuch:
>
> 1. Then God *opened her eyes* and she saw a well of water. So she went
> and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. (Gen.21:19)
>
> 2. Then the LORD *opened Balaam's eyes*, and he saw the angel of the LORD
> standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell
> facedown. (Num. 22:31)
>
> 3. the oracle of one who hears the words of God, who sees a vision from
> the Almighty, who falls prostrate, *and whose eyes are opened*: [then his
> prophecy from God follows] (Num.24:4)
>
> 4. the oracle of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from
> the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and
> whose *eyes are opened*: [then his prophecy from God follows] (Num. 24:16)
>
> 5. And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, *open his eyes* so he may see." Then the
> LORD *opened the servant's eyes*, and he looked and saw the hills full of
> horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:17)
>
>
> It is also used several times in the NT.
>
> In every case the figurative usage of "eyes opened" indicates that the
> person's mind has gained positive spiritual insights. It is _never_ used to
> indicate anything negative or sinful. It is never used to indicate
> "experiental knowing of sin" outside of trusting God. It is never used to
> indicate relational knowing of sin or anything other than
> intellectual apprehension and understanding of positive things.
>
> So when Genesis 3 says their eyes were opened, and that they had indeed
> become like God, and that they now indeed were knowing good & evil, then all
> three of these things must be positive changes. You can't say that "knowing
> good & evil" is a bad thing but "their eyes were opened" was a good thing
> because they are used in parallel as synonymous phrases.
>
> By the way, a phrase similar to #3 is found in Isaiah 7:14-16,
>
> "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will
> be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel. He will
> eat curds and honey at the time He *knows enough to refuse evil and choose
> good*. For before the boy will *know enough to refuse evil and choose good
> *, the land whose two kings you dread will be forsaken."
>
> The Hebrew word "know" is the identical word used in Genesis 3. It does
> not refer to something inherently evil like the relational knowing of sin,
> but rather it refers simply to the ability to distinguish good from evil in
> your mind, and is considered a positive thing since it enables correct moral
> choices in this passage in Isaiah.
>
> Indeed Adam and Eve sinned and suffered death as a result of their
> disobedience, but the death was a natural consequence of their inability to
> obey the very good law that they now could apprehend. Being unable to obey
> the law, they died. If they had remained innocent of the law, they would
> have lived. Perhaps if they ate of the Tree of Life first, then they could
> have obeyed the moral law after their eyes were opened.
>
> David, we have a new Tree of Life -- the Cross -- from which we eat. What
> we eat is Christ's body broken for us on that cross, and it is True Life
> (John 6). Can you obey the law without that life you receive in Christ,
> eaten from the New Tree of Life? Can anybody? Can angels remain holy apart
> from God's life poured into them? Can the universe exist without God
> maintaining it at every moment? Is any aspect of Life and Goodness supposed
> to exist independent of the Life & Goodness of the Creator? If you were a
> pre-human primate, could you obey the moral law without Christ's life in
> you? Were humans ever intended to be moral agents capable of obeying the
> law apart from the life of God pouring into us? Well then, Genesis
> indicates they did not eat of the Tree of Life. Since they were not eating
> from the Tree of Life, nor from the New Tree of Life (the cross), how then
> could these primates have perfectly obeyed the moral law once they came to
> the point of apprehending it? How could they do it since they had not eaten
> of the Tree of Life? Having their eyes opened apart from God's life in them
> would be the guarantee of failure, sin, and spiritual death, even though
> knowing good from evil is an attribute of God.
>
> Phil
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Received on Thu Feb 21 23:53:26 2008