Good stuff from my friend Rob: We could spend a long time discussing the nature of sin and the Fall, but that’s not the angle I want to take here. (If you’re interested in exploring that angle, I wrote a short series of posts on it earlier this year, the first part of which is here.) Instead, I want us to think for a moment about what actually, objectively changed as a result of the Fall narrative. I would submit that the answer, in fact, is nothing: objectively speaking, nothing changed at the Fall. God continued to seek fellowship with Adam and Eve in the Garden. And note, in particular, what the author does not say: we are not told that God was angry or offended, or that he demanded sacrifice or even apology from Adam and Eve. What are we to conclude, then, about the state of separateness – between humans themselves and between humans and God – that clearly established itself from that point forward? I would contend that this separateness was and is a subjective state rather than an objective reality. The truth is that God was just as close to Adam and Eve after the Fall as he had been before it. But something had changed; a fundamental shift had taken place in their hearts. The reality was still the same; what had changed was their perception of it. And so began the myth of humanity’s separation from God. What we have from then on, I think, is the story of a race that believed itself to be at enmity with God. But let me reiterate again that this enmity was not an objective reality; it was the product of ashamed, fear-filled hearts. Let’s put it another way: to the extent that humans became enemies of God, it was because they now saw themselves as his enemies. In truth, he was never their enemy. But how could God convince us of this? What could he do to demonstrate that he was still one of us, that he still desired unbroken fellowship with us? The answer is what we celebrate at Christmas: the Incarnation, when the eternal God stepped into human flesh. I used to believe, like many Christians, that the Incarnation was when God stepped out of his separateness from humanity and bridged the gap between heaven and earth. I don’t really see it that way any more. Or at least, if I do, I think the gap he bridged was imagined rather than real. For me, the Incarnation was when God demonstrated in unmistakeable fashion what had always been true: that no matter how separate we felt we had become from him, no matter how far we thought we had drifted, there never was a time when he was not among us and with us. That’s what Immanuel means: not that the God who was not with us now is; but that the God who had always been with us has now decisively and unambiguously stepped into history to remove any doubt as to his supposed absence and to shatter the myth of humanity’s separateness from God.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 18:44:27 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015