Hey everyone, Apart from our last episode which covered the topic of What does god Want?, you may know the last series of Critical Thinking Aloud centered around the question What is Sin?.
In that series we dove into Reformed Theology’s perspective which claims that by Gods sovereignty (defined as “absolute control over all things all things”) all sin is predestined by God Himself. In this world view all of the sin that has ever occurred comes to pass by God.
We spent a lot of time quoting primary sources from the worlds top pastors who hold this view to be true. We did this to show that we are not maligning anyone’s character but that we simply want to teach clearly what others believe to be true along side of what we hold to be true.
We feel by doing this we are giving you the proper information needed to critically think about the subject, leaving you to decide for your self which worldview you believe to be in line with Gods word.
Since we coved all this in detail in episodes past, we won’t spend a lot of time on this today. If you want to hear more in depth about what it’s is we went over in those sessions check our the series on What is Sin? here.
What is Sin? Summary
To sum up our What is Sin? series: we do not believe God has ever or will ever be responsible for anyone’s sin whether that be a spiritual or physical being. We believe that sin is a failure to be that which God has endowed us to be, his image bears.
This failure takes place not by the eternal predestined plan of God but with a decision made by the one who is committing the offense. In the end it is a rejection of the creator God and a desire of becoming god themselves. We believe that as Gods image bearers on this planet we are called to love God and other image bearers of God as we love our selves.
A failure to do these things ultimately degrades the Holy God and ends in what we call sin. This can happened in an endless amount of possibilities but the result is always the same, a failure to become what God has intended His creation to be.
Shifting our focus
Today we are shifting our focus from what is sin?, to the question of Why is the world in the state that it is today?
I will say that this is a bit of a trick question. Our goal here is to try not answer this question with the modern evangelical response that we would get from a 21st century average church goer. We seek to answer this question in light of the bibles Ancient Middle Eastern Context, with the 2nd Temple period Jewish community’s mindset, and first century Church’s worldview.
Lets get started
When we are asked this question today in our church’s we typically get one response which is Genesis 3, The fall. This is not a horrible answer by any means, it is actually correct in a lot of ways. The biggest problem with this answer lays not in any wayward teaching but in the fact that it is only a partial answer, and incomplete teaching if you may.
The Ancient Middle Eastern biblical authors answer to this question is not a one part response but a three. The biblical narrative gives its readers a three part response to the question of why is the world the way it is?
In the Ancient Middle Eastern biblical authors world view the answer lies in three spiritual and human rebellions taking place simultaneously spanning the length of the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis.
Today let’s look at the first part of these three rebellions, as stated above the most well known and now a days sole answer to the question of why is the world the way it is?.
The Fall
Last time in our Thinking Aloud session we looked extensively at the context of this first sin. Please check it out here if you haven’t watched that teaching yet as we won’t be re-hashing all that material.
In short we talked about how God created The Devil who was good and loyal in the beginning, as an anointed Guardian Cherub and placed in a position above all other created things. God wants a big blended family of Spiritual and Physical beings that he can share his authority with. This Cherub is the pinnacle of the spiritual creative order.
In the same way God created humans as the pinnacle of the physical creative order and placed him in a garden with his sufficient helpmate which came from his own flesh. Together using the authority God gave to them they were to spread Gods kingdom over all the earth while living in relationship with their creator. Everything was provided and the situation was perfect for unimpeded unity within the family of God.
“God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Genesis 1:28
The Mountain of God
One import fact that we must remember is that when we are talking about the Garden of God we are not talking about a garden in our sense of the word. To the biblical authors this garden was the mountain of God.
“You were in Eden, the garden of God… You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.”
Ezekiel 28:13-14
In the Middle East the Climate is hot and the land is arid. Mountains are lush with an abundance of water supplying trees that give fruit and plenty of shade as protection from the Sun. Not to mention the change in temperature that occurs with elevation.
The common belief of the biblical authors as well as their immediate audience is that the gods lived on mountain tops and high places. This is the thought behind people building places to worship their idols up on high places within the biblical narrative.
Gods command center
I have said before that when you think of this mountain it is best to compare it to The White House or Buckingham Palace, either will sufice. In both of these places rulers reside. It is in a very real sence a sort of command center. This is the picture we should have in our minds when we think about the Garden of God.
On Gods mountain He has other spiritual beings who He is sharing His authority with and ruling over the world alongside His council. He does not need this, He wants it.
An important fact about this mountain/ council of God is that once you have rebelled you will not be able to comeback on staff nor inhabit the Holy Mountain again, your fired!
Pride before the fall
This brings us back to Genesis 3. Here we not only have the first rebellion of humans and their fall from grace, we have the ultimate spiritual rebellion all unfolding in this tragic story. The right hand man of God tries to usurp the throne by eliciting the humans to become gods themselves “knowing good from evil” in an attempt to over throw Gods good plan for His creation.
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:4-5
As a result not only was our relationship with each other as image bearing family members severed but also the were barred from living on the mountain of God and continues community with Him. Humans were thrown off the mountain, along side this super powerful cherub with all creation being now marred by this rebellion.
The Devil is destined to wander the earth and has subsequently become the god of the dead. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to see that the consequences from these wayward family members are going to have adverse effects for all future generations.
The first of Three
This first account of what happened on the mountain of God tells us of how sin initially entered the world and what happed as a result of the first rebellion. However this is not the end of the story nor the full answer to our question of why is the world the way it is?. We must continue farther along into the narrative of Genesis to get the full picture.
In the same way as the first insurrection in Gods family took place as a dual rebellion with both Spiritual and Physical beings against their creator, the next two seditions in the early chapters of Genesis will follow the same pattern.
Until next time check out these helpful short videos on this subject by our friends over at The Bible Project
Check out this short video series on Spiritual beings by our friends over at The Bible Project by clicking here. They are amazing and super helpful to better grasp what we will be covering in this series.