Posted By MSH on June 27, 2009
It caught my attention last nigth that I’ve been writing this blog for a year now (hard to believe). So, I decided to look up the stats for the year. The Naked Bible had 70,300 visits in its first year! Thanks to those who stopped by to read!
Posted By MSH on June 27, 2009
Still doesn’t seem like the time to go into what I really want to (the “where do babies go when they die?” thing). I promise that will be the next post. But for now, some mop of further replies and questions seems best. Same format as last post.
COMM: “You SEEM (I am leaving you the room for clarification) to have restricted death here in Romans 5 to physical death. This is a mistake, for the context clarifies that death is both spiritual and physical.? The death introduced by Adam is conjoined with “condemnation” (vv. 16, 18), and it is also contrasted with “eternal life” (v. 21). Thus it can hardly be restricted to physical death.?? Indeed, Paul is likely reflecting on the threat of Gen. 2:17, where Adam is warned that he will die on the very day he transgresses God’s command.?? When Adam sins, however, physical death does not immediately follow. We should not conclude from this that Adam continued to live after his sin. The account in Gen. 3 reveals that Adam died when he sinned, for upon sinning he was immediately separated from God. Adam’s hiding from God and his expulsion from the garden signal his spiritual separation from God. I am not suggesting that physical death and spiritual death can ultimately be separated, for the former is the culmination and outworking of the latter. Nonetheless, the account in Genesis indicates that death is fundamentally separation from God, and this alienation from God entered the world through Adam’s sin. It is also vital to understand that sin and death are twin powers that entered the world when Adam transgressed. That sin and death are powers is borne out in the subsequent context, where Paul speaks of sin and death as reigning, of unbelievers as being slaves to sin, and of the wages sin exacts from its subjects: “death reigned” (Rom. 5:14, 17).”
MSH: There’s a lot in here that doesn’t make sense to me, and that isn’t entirely the fault of the commentator. Let’s take the first part, about “spiritual death.” I wonder whether this idea / category has any legitimacy at all. I’ve heard many preachers define death as separation of body and soul (okay with that), and then go on to talk about “spiritual death” as separation from God. It seems an odd category. Perhaps (and this depends on one’s view of whether hell and the “second death” is eternal), there is some legitimacy for the idea due to the “second death.” People are raised to judgment, and then die the “second death”. If that death is not annihilation of the body, then an eternal death would seem legitimately definable as “separation from God.” The problem, of course, with this is that, in the very same passage, Rev. 20:14, DEATH ITSELF suffers the “second death”. So you get into the logical problem of how DEATH ITSELF can still be “living” (ongoing) when it has DIED! Put another way, how can the second death be eternal if death is put to death? Paul himself says in 1 Cor 15:26 that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” This is, as many of you will see, an argument for the END of death (annihilation). Those on the traditional side have to come up with a way for death itself to die and yet not be dead. Not easy! I’m still chewing on this one, so I can’t say I’d cast my vote anywhere. It’s a problem. At least, though, you should all know why I’m hesitant to even accept the “spiritual death” category. I’m also glad that my answer to these replies on Romans 5:12 doesn’t depend on that question. But there’s another reason to wonder about the legitimacy of “spiritual death.”
Now, the commenter would likely define “spiritual death” as ANY separation from God. I wish I had a verse for that (one that actually defined death this way). I mean that sincerely: if any of you know of a verse that actually IN THE TEXT defines death as spiritual separation from God, let me have it. It may be out there; I’m drawing a blank tonight and I don’t feel like reading through hundreds of search results just now (save me some work!). I tend to think that this idea, “death means any separation from God” actually comes from the Fall story, though. In other words, it’s made up to “explain” why Adam and Eve didn’t drop over dead. That answer is much simpler: the wording doesn’t require it. Note that the future “feel” of the verb form here (”you SHALL surely die” does not give us a time of fulfillment. Again, this is simply observing the text. If we say (and I would say this) that the point of the death sentence was that when Adam and Eve sinned, they would be driven from Eden and those things that gave them contingent immortality: God’s own direct presence and, importantly, the tree of life. Being cut off from Eden meant that they no longer had any means to live on. Their immortality was cut off at God’s judgment. They began to die as soon as they left the place. The verb form doesn’t require immediate death; it can simply mean that “sometime future” you’re doing to die - you are under that curse. And, I would add, so is every human. So death passed to all humans, just like Romans 5 says. If you want to call that “spiritual death” until they actually kicked the bucket, be my guest. The point: THAT CONDITION passed to all human from that point on. The commenter appears to have lost track of the disagreement with me at that point, since I’d affirm all that. But where does this speak to “transmission of guilt”? It doesn’t. The rest of humanity wasn’t guilty of what Adam did, but they would suffer something very serious because of it: death / loss of immortality. And, as I noted in the previous post, with the environment of Eden gone, they would be helpless to avoid sinning.
COMM: I am also perplexed that you can sustain the thesis that death is the result of Adam’s one sin, but not guilt. Don’t you see that “condemnation” is attributed to the sin of the one man? Condemnation implies guilt. Are you considering this?
MSH: Let’s try an illustration. Did David’s infant son from Bathsheba incur moral guilt for David’s sin? No. But he died as a result. He suffered the consequences without participating in the sin. So did Achan’s CATTLE (everyone likes to assume that Achan’s family must have somehow participated in his sin at Jericho, even though the text doesn’t say that - but then they must explain how his livestock sinned to make that work!). Take a good look at Romans 5:12 again. The TEXT clearly says “death passed upon all humanity.” It’s point blank. It never says “condemnation / guilt passed upon all men.” The Bible is filled with examples (corporate solidarity or otherwise) where people suffer the effects of someone else’s sin without ever being guilty of that sin. You might say, “Well Romans 5 is different.” On what basis? Not the text of Romans 5:12. The guilt has to be imported into the text. It ain’t there unless you put it there. Look at the words. All humans suffer the effect of the Fall, and they need not be guilty for what Adam did. Just like the creation suffers the effect of the Fall - did the creation sin? Where? What verse?
COMM: Remember I said that Rm. 5:12 has the ability to affirm original sin in one of my comments, but I needed my Greek text to see it.
MSH: Pardon me here, but you’re not noticing anything in the Greek text that’s new, and that I haven’t seen either.
COMM: “Here it is: When Paul says “all sinned,” he indeed means that every human being has personally sinned.”
MSH: So where is the Greek argument? You simply pick a translation and assert your view. Where is the grammatical basis? Semantic basis?
COMM: ”Nevertheless, we should not read a Pelagian interpretation from this, for the (eph ho) phrase explains why all human beings have sinned.”
MSH: So tell us how. I don’t see any grammatical-syntactical analysis here. Otherwise, all you’ve said to this point is that we have to have our theology “in place” before we look at the text and interpret it. (Don’t waste your time on the grammatical-syntactical analysis, either; the commentators have done it, and they show that the phrase is elastic; you won’t get anywhere).
COMM: As a result of Adam’s sin death entered the world and engulfed all people; all people enter the world alienated from God and spiritually dead by virtue of Adam’s sin.
MSH: What’s the Greek word for “spiritual death”? (Hint: there isn’t one). What you’ve done here is brought an interpretation from Genesis 3 about “spiritual death” - which was based upon some sort of take on the verb (Adam didn’t drop dead, so this death must be spiritual) which simply isn’t required by the future / projected semantics of the verb. In less dense English: A future verb doesn’t tell us HOW CLOSE IN THE FUTURE. It could be ANY POINT IN THE FUTURE. But you’re saying that since this death didn’t happen in the immediate future, the death must be “spiritual.” This is eisegesis. Once that interpretation is placed on Genesis 3, it is then imported into Romans 5 and then that passage is made to say more than the words that are in it. This is actually a vivid illustration of the problem with the traditional view. It is contrived to explain why Adam didn’t drop dead when the answer is as easy as affirming A future verb doesn’t tell us HOW CLOSE IN THE FUTURE. It’s so much simpler than what the traditional view does in making the passages stand on their head, as it were.
COMM: One other thing…check this out!
118 O Adam, what have you done? For though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who are your descendants.
(2 Esd 7:118-119)
I am not heralding this as proof for my position, but it is one example of how a Jew identified himself with Adam in his sin in the Garden (the fall was not yours alone, but ours also).
MSH: Good thing you don’t take this one too seriously. How could we, who didn’t exist, influence Adam to sin? The answer: we couldn’t. Beings that don’t exist don’t do ANYTHING because . . . well, they don’t exist. At best this is reflective of the unscientific thinking in Hebrews 7, which doesn’t work either since it is contrary to reality.
Now something for the commenters. I’m glad we went down these trails, since I think careful readers will see all the more how the traditional view is contrived and based on assumptions and ideas brought into Genesis 3 to explain why Adam didn’t die on the spot, and then how that bogus answer is injected into Romans 5 to create a doctrine. It’s a thing of beauty, in an icky sort of way. But you still haven’t shown me a single verse that actually SAYS (with words right in the verse) that Adam’s guilt was transmitted to teh rest of humanity. You’ve shown me that death was transmitted (which is what I said from the beginning), and then extrapolated to “well, death must be because of guilt.” All you need to overturn that is one example of where someone innocent died through no fault of their own. How about Naboth in addition to the ones I’ve already given? The point is that there is no logical, exegetical, or theological NECESSARY CONNECTION between death and guilt.
On another front, you still haven’t answered how Jesus gets off the hook if the traditional view is correct. What are you waiting for? Let’s have that answer. Be warned. If you tackle this, it’ll be even more difficult (read: impossible), now that the Augustinian view of Hebrews 7:8-10 has been blown to bits. Good luck. This impasse is what really prompted me to reconsider Romans 5:12.
Posted By MSH on June 26, 2009
I’ve decided to respond to replies first before plowing ahead with the next installment of Romans 5:12. What follows are comments drawn from replies (COMM) and my response (MSH) or clarification. I’m only sticking to the germane material. That is, a lot of the comment I’m referencing misunderstands the idea of contingent immortality (it skips the contingency part), and it’s a peripheral issue anyway. I’ll bring it up again in the subsequent post on “where do babies go,” so I can pick up those parts of the reply then. I want to camp on the real subject at hand here - the idea of Adam’s guilt being transmitted to humanity.
Let me reiterate as I begin that my position includes most of the traditional ideas, though with one important difference. I believe that humanity’s need for grace stems from Adam’s fall. What happened at the Fall did indeed effect every human being, rendering every human in need of a Savior, who is Christ. In other words, I affirm that Adam’s sin put all humankind in the position where they could only share eternity with the true God by virtue of a redemptive act on the part of the true God. This act was, of course, the work of Jesus on the cross and his subsequent bodily resurrection. You may wonder at this point how that relates to what I’ve said about those who are unable to believe (babies, aborted, a fetus, the fertilized egg, the severely retarded, the infant, etc.) and who, in my view, have not incurred guilt before God. That will be the subject of a subsequent post. Where I differ-and what I’m asking readers to think about-is JUST HOW was all humanity affected so that all need a Savior? I got us into the discussion by noting some serious problems with the traditional view-namely, how does Jesus, as a full son of Adam, get away with not inheriting Adam’s guilt? I don’t believe that Adam’s fall affected all humanity by transmitting Adam’s guilt to all humans. I believe Adam’s fall affected all humanity by depriving all humans forever more of the conditions under which they could abide with God in a state of non-sinfulness. Adam and Eve were the only humans to ever live in that condition. After the Fall humans were destined to die, and not only that, they were “on their own” when it came to living in righteousness, a pre-condition for living with God. Adam and Eve met that condition before the fall; they did not need redemption until they sinned. They would live on indefinitely at God’s pleasure. His presence maintained this state, and they were in his presence. I think I would be on safe ground in saying that evangelical theologians across the board, rightly wanting God to get credit for Adam and Eve’s sinless state before the Fall, chalk it up (at least in part) to God’s superintending influence and presence in Eden. God was the chief reason they remained in pre-fall sinlessness. Once humans were removed from that, forget it. After the fall, human beings were left to their own efforts and in a hostile environment-the earth outside Eden. They would inevitably and invariably fail and be unable to save themselves.
Now, on to the comments:
COMM: First, you are saying that babies are born innocent…this is explicitly against Scripture. There is NONE righteous…not even the infant.
MSH: Correct, I am saying babies are born with no moral guilt before God. If they are born, and if they live, they will inevitably and invariably sin and incur moral guilt before God. It is incorrect that this is unscriptural. The ONLY argument from Scripture that babies are born with moral guilt before God is the traditional view of Romans 5:12. When Paul (drawing on Ecclesiastes) says that there are none righteous, he is of course correct. But his point is not “all are under moral guilt.” I would approach Romans 3 in its context. First, Paul is NOT targeting a fetus or zygote; he is targeting all adult Jews and Gentiles to make his point that all of them are under sin. And I would agree. No one “cannot not sin.” How can I be sure this is the way to take Paul here? Let me quote Paul by adding some verses that the responder omitted after citing Romans 3:11: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Note that in verse 12 Paul defines and clarifies verse 11. He is targeting all those who “have turned aside” (a term that denotes rebellion and disobedience), and who “have become worthless” (they had to DO something - i.e., COMMIT A SIN to get into that condition). Regarding the “no one does good,” it is a bit peripheral, but relevant. Augustine had the odd notion that an unbeliever could never ever please God since he/she was an unbeliever. Nothing an unbeliever could do would please God. I think this is silly, since the OT has examples where pagans do God’s will (e.g., Cyrus) - so, was God not happy with his will being done? Makes no sense. At any rate, I bring this up to get to Paul’s point in the phrasing. He isn’t saying “no one ever does anything good.” That isn’t true, and all we need to discuss there is the concept of common grace and examples like that of Cyrus above who fulfilled God’s will as He wanted it done. Rather, Paul’s point is that no one ALWAYS does good - i.e., no one is perfect (and thus deserving of salvation). No one has the righteousness needed to go to heaven. No one gets eternal life by merit, period.
The responder omitted other verses that make the same point: Paul is targeting those who COMMIT SINS OR ACTS OF EVIL: (v. 13 - “they use their tongues to deceive”; v. 14 - “their mouth is full of curses and bitterness”; v. 15 - “their feet are swift to shed blood”), etc. Notice what he doesn’t say: “they have descended from Adam and his guilt is transferred to them.”
If anyone can show me how the fertilized egg of the human conceptus fits these descriptions (DOING evil and COMMITTING sins), then I’ll change my view.
COMM: “You simply cannot escape the Pelagian results of this unless you have not pondered this very hard by reading some of those divines that have gone before you and thought on this harder than you.”
MSH: So now the issue is that I’m not quoting a divinity author or theologian? And how would anyone know how much I’ve though about this? Those sorts of objections are obviously not important. The more important is the Pelagian charge. Let me quote a “divine” for those who may not be familiar with Pelagianism:
The “deepest cleft” separating people calling themselves Christians, Warfield claimed, is that which distinguishes the “naturalistic” conception of salvation held by some from the “supernaturalistic” conception held by others.?? The naturalistic vision, which he designates “autosoterism” (”self-salvation”) and which the church has designated “Pelagianism,” after Pelagius, a late-fourth/early-fifth-century British monk, who proposed it, contends that men can save themselves, that is to say, that their native powers are such that men are capable of doing everything that God requires of them for salvation.1
I think the last post was clear on this, as is the above prefatory commentary to this post. But let me repeat it again threefold: no one saves themselves; no one merits salvation in ANY way; no one gets to heaven apart from the work of Christ. This is the antithesis of Pelagianism! Here the commenter has jumped the gun, presuming what I’ll say in the next post. The reply is incorrect. Stay tuned on that part.
COMM: “Of course, it is infants who do not sin willfully like Adam-there sin and guilt before God is inherited. Paul says that death still reigns over them because they are still sinners and need Christ.”
MSH: I *think* the commenter here presumes that “those who don’t sin like Adam” = babies (and everyone else in my caveat category). Let me quote Paul again in Romans 5:14 (boldfacing mine): “Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not ?like the transgression of Adam, ?who was a type of ?the one who was to come.” Note that while Paul says these “others” who didn’t sin like Adam did nevertheless SIN. The word here (”sinning”) is an accusative aorist participle of hamartano, the normal verb for “to sin.” So Paul’s point is NOT that “Adam sinned a certain way” and others “inherited Adam’s guilt.” The text defies this interpretation. Paul says “Adam sinned a certain way” and “others SINNED some other way.” Again, show me how the aborted fetus commits a sin, and I’ll change my view. I’m just sticking with the text for what it says, and not inserting anything it doesn’t say.
COMM: “Paul says by ONE MAN’S DISOBEDIENCE many were made SINNERS (vs. 19). How can Adam’s sin make other people sinners?”
MSH: Simple. See the above prefatory remarks. Adam’s sin placed humanity outside the conditions that Adam and Eve enjoyed in the garden. As I noted above, God’s superintending influence and presence in Eden was the primary agent or force that kept Adam and Eve sinless. Once humans were removed from that, they had no hope of not sinning (and notice in Genesis 3 that Eve is not in the presence of God when she is deceived, and Adam is also not with God when he sins; the writer is making a point). So how did Adam’s sin cause others to sin? That’s how.
COMM: “I am pondering, what is the difference between innocence and righteousness. You claim that babies are born innocent, but you deny that they are righteous? What is an unrighteous innocence? Was Adam righteously innocent or unrighteously innocent?”
MSH: This is a good question. I’ll likely hit on it in the next post, but a few thoughts here. I believe the responder is using “innocent” as an equation to my “not morally guilty,” so I’ll go with innocent under that assumption. By “innocent” I do mean that the baby, fetus, etc. has not committed any sin, and so is not morally guilty before God. They have committed no violation worthy of the wrath of God. So, does this = “righteous”? Not exactly. Since in my next post I will explain the baby issue in light of this weird category Scripture has called “the second death” (which those without Christ suffer), it isn’t an exact equation. I will be arguing that innocents go to heaven because they are raised with Christ (as is everyone) at the last day. The innocents are redeemed by the resurrection, and so it is wholly of Christ. Innocents really don’t go to heaven because they are righteous; they go there because Jesus rose from the dead as the firstfruits of the resurrection from the dead. Those who sinned (not in the innocent category), had to be “made righteous” through faith in Christ. That is why they go to heaven when they are raised (salvation = transfer of Christ’s righteous for their sin + resurrection; TWO elements here, as opposed to the ONE for the innocent; only Christ has the righteousness for salvation, but innocents don’t need the transaction - they just rise with Christ, and so he is the lone source of their salvation AND the salvation of those that sin; it is ALL of Christ). Those who sinned and were not made righteous suffer a SECOND death (see. Rev.20:14; 21:8).
COMM: “Do you believe that these innocent babies are born with a sin nature?”
MSH: no
COMM: “If yes, then how can you have a sin nature without being a sinner?”
MSH: question is irrelevant because of my no answer.
COMM: ”If not, then do you have to sin to be a sinner? Or do you merely have to BE sin?”
MSH: yes, you have to sin to be a sinner, and everyone will who is allowed to live.
COMM: ”This is my point. If we take Romans 3:23 as a definition of a sinner-someone who falls short of the glory of God-then you do not have to sin to be a sinner-you merely have to miss the mark of God’s glory.”
MSH: This is convoluted logic that presumes what it is seeking to prove. Just what IS the glory of God in this verse? I’d say (and bring a boatload of theologians with me) that it refers to the moral perfection of God; that is, positive and negative. God is without sin and he is completely righteous. Humans need to meet BOTH conditions to “measure up” and be with God in heaven. Innocents do not have sin; they also will not “be like Christ” in righteousness until they are resurrected. They fall short. Sinners of course fall short in that they are not innocent. And thought they have had Christ’s righteousness transferred to them in salvation, we both/all know that this is an “already/not yet” thing. Sinners will only be truly righteous (”like HIM”) upon glorification (just like the innocent). Either way all humans fall short of the perfection of God and are only in God’s eternal family by his grace. And Christ is the lone mechanism for all this.
[Don't you just love this?! Everywhere you look it's Jesus.]
COMM: ”Now a bone to pick. Regarding Augustine’s seminal headship view, Dr. Heiser, you contend that Persons cannot literally exist pre-birth within their ancestors as it defies logic, philosophy and natural science. All well and good, but what to make of Hebrews 7:8-10?”
MSH: Good question. And a frequent response.
COMM: ”Here the author seems to be revealing under inspiration that Levi indeed existed in the loins of his ancestor Abraham and thus gave a tithe to Melchizedek (while in Abraham) thus proving that Melchizekek’s priesthood is of a higher order than the Levitical one. Is this just figurative? (And if it is, I don’t see how this could then be used as a strong argument by the author to render that priesthood obsolete and thus exalt Christ’s.) Could Augustine’s view be upheld in light of this scripture? (I’ve also seen this same scripture be used to defend the Federal Headship view that Abraham stood as the father of the Hebrew line so Levi was represented. What do you make of these verses?
MSH: This hearkens back to our inspiration discussion - the stuff about how biblical writers can make inerrant theological points even thought using flawed, pre-scientific thinking. This is a classic example. We need to start with showing the pre(un)-scientific nature of the writers for this one. And it’s easy. Just THINK about these ideas and verses below - we read right over them all the time and never think about what we’re reading.
We know, as moderns, that children are actually made as the result of the union of a male’s sperm + the female egg. That is, the child is NOT “whole” (it’s not the child) inside the male. No whole biological human being IS EVER OR HAS EVER BEEN IN THE MALE FATHER. My children were never “in” me. When my wife and I had sex, my sperm fertilized an egg inside her and our children were conceived. At that point, a person was inside my wife (and, again, a whole person can NEVER be inside a man). This is biology 101. All that is in the male is sperm. This is absolute, invariable scientific fact. We prove it every time there is an in vitro fertilization procedure. It’s absolute truth. And yet the biblical writers had no clue of it (and how could they). The biblical writers had the common ancient view that a man deposited a child into a woman’s womb, where it would grow to adulthood. Just like planting a seed (this is part of the biblical garden imagery for sex, by the way; it’s also the reason for the need for offerings when blood or semen was lost - it has to do with restoring “loss of life”). This is why in both Greek and Hebrew the word for “seed” in each language describes offspring and plant seeds. They had no idea of the biology behind it all. The reason more modern cultures and languages use “seed” the same way is twofold: (1) we inherit it from the Bible, and (2) biological science didn’t discover how kids were really made until the modern period.
Here are some examples. The OT uses zera` (with ayin - my fonts aren’t going to work) for plant seeds (Gen 1:12; Gen 47:19), offspring (Gen 3:15; Gen 7:3; Gen 9:9), and semen (Gen 38:9; Lev. 15:16-18).
But, to the point. Even if you don’t want to believe that the biblical writers didn’t know about the correct biology, the statement of Hebrews 7:8-10 is scientifically untrue, and even impossible according to our God-given biology. WHOLE human beings (persons) are NEVER in a single parent until AFTER CONCEPTION OCCURS. That is how God made us. Taking Hebrews 7:8-10 the way Augustine would want it (and he didn’t know the biology either, so we’ll give him a pass) is absolutely disallowed by the truth of creation.
So what does Hebrews 7:8-10 mean? I think the Word Biblical Commentary has a nice summation (I’ve omitted the Greek letters because Wordpress garbles them and substituted crude transliteration - boldfacing mine):
The basis of Melchizedek’s superiority to the Levitical priests in this second contrast is the “eternity” of Melchizedek predicated in v 3b, which has in view the perpetuation of his priestly office. The importance of this aspect of the argument will become clear in vv 15-16, where it is applied to the messianic priest. So far as the record of Scripture is concerned, Melchizedek has no end of life and his unique priesthood has no successor. But what is true of Melchizedek in a limited and literary sense is true absolutely of the one who serves his people as high priest in the presence of God (F. F. Bruce, 141-42).
9-10 The climax of the argument is reached in v 9 and qualified in v 10. It specifies the implication of the first contrast between Melchizedek and the Levitical priests (vv 5-6a) by deducing the deeper significance of the fact that Abraham allotted a tithe to Melchizedek (Cockerill, Melchizedek Christology, 23-24, 78). The literary phrase hos epos eipen, “one might almost say,” was frequently used when a writer broke off the train of his thought and, not wishing to treat his theme more fully, would summarize as succinctly as possible what he had to say. Here it indicates the writer clearly recognized his statement that Levi had paid a tithe to Melchizedek was not literally true, because at the moment in primal history when Abraham met Melchizedek Levi was as yet unborn. Nevertheless, the statement that Levi had himself paid the tithe was true in an important sense, indicated by the expression di’ Abraam, “through Abraham,” which immediately follows. The corporate solidarity that bound Israel to the patriarch implied that Levi was fully represented in Abraham’s action. Therefore, Levi’s status relative to Melchizedek was affected by Abraham’s relationship to that personage. Consequently, the superiority of Melchizedek over the Levitical priesthood is not merely theoretical but has a basis in history (cf. Riggenbach, 190-91; Williamson, Philo, 107-9; Cockerill, Melchizedek Christology, 78-80).
The assertion in v 9 is justified and explained in v 10, as shown by the explanatory conjunction gar, “because.” Although Levi was as yet unborn when Melchizedek met Abraham, the tithe Abraham gave to Melchizedek was a gesture that anticipated the subordination of Levi and the Levitical priesthood to the priesthood like Melchizedek’s that would be inaugurated at God’s appointed time.2
That last sentence is the theological point (which is not in error), though the writer uses unscientific language to make it.
One last comment:
COMM: “I think you are so anti-tradition because you do not spend any time conversant with those men who have thought on these doctrines much harder than you. You need to read some of the older divines to temper your zeal for the new and innovative.”
MSH: I’m not anti-tradition. I’m indifferent to it. There’s a difference. Tradition should serve the text, not the other way around. My loyalties are to the text only, and to the Lord of the text, not to tradition. Tradition with respect to the church fathers has major problems (like Augustine not knowing Greek or Hebrew - pardon me, but THAT is a problem). The Westminster divines, as capable as they were, did nearly all their work without the decipherment of tens of thousands of lines of ancient Near Eastern texts that contextualize the entire Bible. Sorry, THAT is a problem. But they are still useful - but limited.
I also have no penchant for the innovative. If you haven’t discovered my secret yet, here it is loud and clear: I just affirm the text. I say what it says, contextualized by its ancient culture and by other Scripture texts that comment on the same subjects, and that’s it. I put nothing in it that isn’t there. It’s the Naked Bible. It is what it is; it says what it says; and it doesn’t say what isn’t in it. No secret, and not profound.
(After this you’ll be wondering what the “sin nature” is in my view — yeah, we’ll get to that. And guess what - I’m just going to let Paul says what he says and let the chips fall.)
Posted By MSH on June 25, 2009
Here’s a very nice 131 page bibliography on Jewish magical practices (all eras - biblical, the ANE background to the biblical, and later Judaism). Just came up on the ABZU blog.
You say you’ve never heard of “Jewish magic”? Well, that’s what the bibliography is for. “Magic” (in ancient terms — not David Copperfield) is broadly defined is the idea of soliciting a deity through various ritual means to get the deity to do or not do something, or to get knowledge from the deity. The most obvious biblical example are the Urim and Thummim. Another is the water ritual in Numbers 5 — an example of “sympathetic magic.”
Posted By MSH on June 23, 2009
Well, time to get back to Romans 5:12 and the “imputation” or “transmission” of Adam’s guilt to the human race. If you missed the previous post, I deny that Romans 5:12 teaches that Adam’s guilt was what was transmitted to humanity as a result of his sin. But, on the other hand, I affirm that no one can get to heaven by any human merit, that all humans need a Savior (who is Jesus), that there is no other way of salvation, and that humans “cannot not sin.” So how does this work?
Let’s start with the traditional view by way of summary.
The traditional view teaches that Adam sinned, became guilty before God, and his GUILT was transmitted to all humans thereafter. This is the “representative” view (Adam represented all humanity and his guilt is transferred to all humans). It is also known as the “federal headship” view. The big problem with this, of course, is that Jesus was a son of Adam, and fully human - so how does he get off the hook without denying his full humanity? As the previous post noted, theologians invent answers to this that are blissfully free of the bondage of Scripture. In short, the answers have no scriptural merit - they are reasoned out because of the NEED to get Jesus off the hook.
Augustine saw this problem very clearly. In response, he came up with a different view, which theologians call “seminal headship.” This was the idea that all humans were actually present in Adam “in Adam’s loins” so to speak, and so we all “sinned in Adam” when he sinned. We participated in his sin in a real sense (an act of our will) and became guilty before we were born. This view has three enemies: (1) logic (it makes little sense), (2) it requires that persons pre-exist before they are born - an idea that is not reincarnation but which is a component of a reincarnation worldview, and (3) science (it is simply not true that PERSONS are resident in one’s ancestors). Persons are not genetic traits. On this I would recommend a terrific little book that argues for personhood (and hence pro-life) purely on the basis of science and philosophical logic: Embryo. The authors lay out the science of what happens from the moment of fertilization (and even before). The idea that all of humanity as persons were present in Adam is absolutely false, and so Augustine’s view gets us nowhere, though he astutely saw the problem with the federal view.
Now let’s take a look at the verse. I ask you: are you going to base your theology on what the text actually says, or what you’ve been told to see in it? What does the Scripture say?
“therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man”
“and death through sin”
“and so death spread to all men”
“because / so that all sinned”
Here’s my take.
1. I believe Romans 5:12 teaches that Adam sinned, and HE became guilty before God. His guilt was his own, not ours. It wasn’t his guilt that was transferred to all humans. It was something else. I believe Scripture is clear that Adam sinned, and that something happened to the rest of humanity born from that point on, but that something is NOT the transmission of guilt before God. If it was, then Jesus was guilty before God since he is fully human and in Adam’s line.
2. That something *produced* the conditions by which all humans will become guilty before God *on their own* and in need of Savior.
3. What passed to all of humanity as a result of Adam’s sin was mortality / death. That is what the text says. This means that humanity lost immortality. It also means, going back to the Genesis story, that humans were driven from the presence of God in an ideal “heaven meets earth” environment. They were on their own. Left to their own, as non-divine mortals, the result is that all humans, born from that point on, were born into those conditions. If they are allowed to live a normal life span, this means that all humans will sin and incur guilt before God. No human “cannot not sin.” Sin would be universal and inevitable for all humans who get to live some measure of a lifespan where they can choose to rebel against God (i.e., sin).
4. In other words, mortality = the universal propensity and inevitability of sin. All humans need Christ and his work for salvation.
5. This in turn is the answer to the Jesus dilemma. YES, Jesus inherited Adam’s fall - because all that means is that he inherited MORTALITY. And of course Jesus was mortal in the incarnation. He COULD and obviously DID die - like any other human, barring divine intervention (like Elijah and Enoch). Jesus didn’t inherit guilt from Adam because that isn’t the point of Romans 5:12. There is no dilemma.
But if Jesus was mortal in the incarnation, and mortality = the unavoidable propensity to sin and inevitability of sin, did Jesus ever sin?
Well, Jesus was completely mortal. 100 %. But that wasn’t all he was. He was also 100% God, and so he never sinned. The divine nature overruled the weakness of human mortality. His temptations were certainly real, though, and he felt them like we do. But he was God and never incurred moral guilt before the Father. He was sinless - but still a full son of Adam.
All this has some important ramifications. It means there are humans who never sin and who never become guilty before God, though mortal. Who am I talking about with the plural? Aborted babies, still born babies, spontaneously aborted humans after conception, the severely retarded, etc. They never incur guilt before God. One needs to actually sin, and sin involves the will (it is different than OT profanation of sacred space, defilement by another, and the need for RITUAL cleanness in the wake of unintentional defilement). We tend to wrap all those things into one because we don’t live in a ritual culture, or practice religious cult, with its notion of sacred space and holiness of inanimate objects (etc.) like Israelites did. It’s foreign to us. There’s a difference between violation of ritual space, like in the OT, and moral guilt — deliberate violation of divinely-given morality / rules of conduct, and even theology. (And this last element (theology) has more to do with worshipping another deity and rejection of the nature and character of the true God than getting every doctrinal principle right). Both are “sin” (i.e., transgression), but they are characterized differently. As Paul noted, Eve was deceived, but Adam sinned willfully — and so it is HIS violation that triggers the advent of death upon all humanity. For our purposes, then, people go to hell because they (1) incur moral guilty before God and (2) that moral guilt is never removed through the work of Christ. If you are never guilty before God, you don’t have that problem - but you still don’t have what it takes for heaven. The basis for eternal life is still (and can only be) Christ and his work. (More on that next time - see the last paragraph below).
Pastorally, this is quite significant for dealing with death of infants. If infants do not incur guilt before God, we don’t have to wish them into heaven on the basis of a contrived doctrine of election (linked to baptism of all unscriptural things). And on that note, if baptism and circumcision are counterparts (and I’ve never seen a reformed theology or a catholic theology or pedobaptist theology that denied that), then what one says about baptism must also be said about circumcision. Did circumcision guarantee salvation? I think the fact that most of the circumcised nation was punished with exile answers that one. (I can’t wait to get to infant baptism on the blog).
If you aren’t reformed, you’ve no doubt heard other ways that have been invented to get babies into heaven. There’s the emotional argument (God’s love), there’s the exception argument (they’re just there because God makes an exception for them - meaning of course heaven is filled with people whose Adamic guilt was never wiped away by faith in the gospel or anything since babies can’t believe; oh well). There’s the especially cruel “even if they’re in hell, God will wipe away all tears and you won’t think of them any more” view. How comforting. All this nonsense derives from a flawed view of Romans 5:12.
So WHY are babies (and others in the above “no guilt before God” category)?
I’ll unpack that next time - and it’s pretty cool. I want everyone to realize that you really CAN look a grieving parent in the eye and not theologically BS them about their tragedy. The aborted, the stillborn, the infant - anyone who CANNOT believe - will be in glory, not because of their earthly fate, or even their non-guilt. The answer is in Romans 5, and it’s Jesus. They are their because of Christ. Period. Stay tuned.