Saving the Story

Part 2, The Primordial Curse

But the Deuteronomic curses were not the only curses that needed to be dealt with.

Jesus substituting himself for Israel, becoming the Suffering Servant, saves Israel’s story and rescues her vocation. But the primordial curse remains.

One of the curious things in the theology of Paul is the attention he pays to Adam. After the early chapters of Genesis, Adam doesn’t feature much at all in the narrative of the Old Testament. All of Israel’s failures are deemed to be due to her own rebellion and idolatry. No prophet points the finger at Adam for being the root cause of Israel’s sin.

For Paul, however, Adam becomes the primary explanation for sin. And not just sin, death as well. This focus on Adam is a theological shift in the Biblical narrative. The highlighted role of Adam in Paul’s teaching would have been surprising to his Jewish audience. Romans 5.12-21:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—for sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam, who is a pattern of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. But law came in, so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so grace might also reign through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I have written extensively about this focus on Adam in the theology of Paul. For Paul, Adam explains Israel’s covenantal catastrophe, how her story got stuck. Zeal for God’s law, Paul’s pre-conversion motivation, had led to the crucifixion of Israel’s Messiah. According to Paul, the reason zeal could not produce covenantal faithfulness was due to the power of sin and death over human flesh. The sin of Adam had incapacitated our ability to obey and follow God’s law. As Paul puts it in Romans 8: “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

In short, there were two sets of curses Jesus had to overcome. There were the Deuteronomic curses and the primordial Adamic curses. To overcome the Deuteronomic curses, Jesus, as Israel’s representative, had to perfectly fulfill the law and undergo the punishment, as the Suffering Servant, for Israel unfaithfulness. This Jesus does. But Jesus also had to undo the Adamic curses of sin and death, sin being that power which “reigns over” human flesh making us “unable” to submit to God’s law. Christ overcomes this curse through his resurrection and the empowering gift of the Spirit.

This is way too simplistic, but a sketch of how Jesus deals with all these curses would be:

Resolving the Deuteronomic Curses: Covenantal Fidelity and Infidelity

1. Fulfilling the Law as a perfect covenantal partner

2. Suffering the curse, as the Suffering Servant, for Israel’s unfaithfulness

Resolving the Adamic Curses: The Reign of Sin and Death

1. Resurrection overcoming death

2. The gift of the Spirit to overcome sin

Summarizing, to save Israel’s story, wholly and comprehensively, deeper work was needed. To rescue Israel’s vocation Christ has to resolve the primordial curse that had undermined Israel’s calling. And having done this work, Jesus cleansed Israel’s life and made it a “curse free zone.” In the next post I want to focus on this curse free zone to share some reflections about the wrath of God in gospel proclamation.