The Slavery of Death: Part 6, Ancestral Sin

Having talked a great deal about the interrelationship between sin and death I'd like to start sharing some thoughts about the Greek Orthodox view of Genesis 3.



To recap, across these posts I've been talking about the insight we gain if we switch the directionality of relationship between sin and death as typically understood in Western Christianity. The traditional understanding is this:

Sin causing Death



Biblical articulation: "The wages of sin is death." (Rom. 6.23)

The model I'm exploring aligns more with an Eastern understanding:

Death causing Sin



Biblical articulation: "The sting of death is sin." (1 Cor. 15.56)

Obviously, what we find in the biblical text is a bidirectional relationship. I think this is best imagined as the causal loop I sketched in my last post.



Still, the whole cycle had to get kickstarted. And in the beginning it does seem that a Primal Sin introduces death into the world. So in that sense, sin caused death.



However, I'd like to nuance that simplistic vision.



To start, there are those who argue that the real issue at the heart of Genesis 3--the biblical story of "the Fall"--isn't to establish a causal model about the relationship between sin and death. The issue, rather, is a story about the etiology of death and about who is to blame for introducing death into the world. In this, Genesis 3 is more about theodicy ("Where did death come from?") than soteriology (a story about "original sin").



Historically and theologically speaking, I doubt the ancient Hebrews wrote Genesis 3 to provide Christians with an account of "Original Sin." So what were the writers of Genesis trying to explain? Well, they looked around, like we all do, and noted how death is the great scourge of humanity. We all, the Genesis 3 writers and ourselves, resonate with the teacher of Ecclesiastes:

Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

So the question is asked: Why is there death in the world? And was death a part of God's plan?



The answer Genesis 3 gives is no, death wasn't a part of God's plan. Death wasn't created by God. As it says in Wisdom 1.13, "God did not make death." So how did death get here? Wisdom points out two different causes. The first is the Devil:

Wisdom 2.23-24a (NRSV)

[F]or God created us for incorruption, and made us in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil's envy death entered the world...

This jibes well with Genesis 3. The serpent is there at the start tempting Eve into eating the apple which ultimately leads to the introduction of death into the world.



But the Devil needed willing participants. Thus, Wisdom also puts a lot of the blame upon humanity.

Wisdom 1.12-16a (NRSV)

Do not invite death by the error of your life,

or bring on destruction by the works of your hands;

because God did not make death,

and does not delight in the death of the living.

For he created all things so that they might exist;

the generative forces of the world are wholesome,

and there is no destructive poison in them,

and the dominion of Hades is not on earth.

For righteousness is immortal.

But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death;

considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with him...

In the first passage we have the "envy of the devil" as the cause of death in the world. Here in this second passage we have the "ungodly" who by their words and deeds "summoned" death. We can understand this last as both historical and ongoing. Adam and Eve summoned death and we, in word and deed, continue to summon death. We live life controlled by a "covenant with death." In the language of Hebrews 2.15 we are "slaves to the fear of death."



Note, again, the continued close association between death and the Devil. Prior to the onset of death the "dominion of Hades" was not on earth. But now, with the onset of death, the "dominion of Hades" rules our world (cf. Matt. 4.8; Eph. 6.12). More, it's unclear who the "him" is referring to in this text. In the phrase "But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death" the word "death" is actually "him." Literally, Verse 16 should read:

But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned him;

considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with him.

So who is the "him"? The NRSV guesses that the him is "death" giving the reading above. But if you look at the context, right before Verse 16 we have the mention of the dominion of Hades. Thus, it seems reasonable to have the text read like this:

But the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned the devil;

considering him a friend, they pined away and made a covenant with him.

Nothing much is riding on this point, but it continues to show the close associations between sin, death, and the devil in both the Old and New Testaments. Wisdom 1 is a parallel text to Hebrew 2.14 where we read of "the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil."



Sin, Death, the Devil. It's the unholy Trinity.



Returning to Genesis 3, we see how humanity is also blamed for the onset of death. But in all this what Genesis is giving us is less a description of a "fall from moral perfection" than a story about the etiology of death. Yes, human disobedience is a part of this story. But it's only a part. Narratively speaking, the devil/serpent is the true source of death. And here we are back to our Christus Victor themes. That Jesus came to earth less to solve our "sin problem" than to "undo the work of the devil" (1 John 3.8).



Summarizing, Genesis 3 is less interested in giving us a story about the origins of sin than it is about giving us a story about the origins of death. Phrased another way, Genesis 3 is less interested in explaining why humans are "depraved" than it is in explaining why we die.



This is one reason why the Greek Orthodox talk about "Ancestral Sin" rather than St. Augustine's "Original Sin." According to St. Augustine and everyone in Latin Christianity who followed him (which is just about everybody), the story in Genesis 3 is a story about how a spiritual taint or flaw was passed on from Adam and Eve to the entire human race. How exactly this "flaw" is passed on from person to person and what it consists of is notoriously unclear. (Is it genetic? Is it spiritual? No one really knows. It's a theological chimera.)



The Orthodox, however, and much to their credit in my opinion, didn't go along with St. Augustine. To be sure, we do inherit a predicament from the Primal Couple. But what we inherit isn't a moral stain. Rather, we inherit the world they left us. We are exiles from Eden. Which is just a fancy way of saying we die. Created for incorruption we are now corruptible.



We don't inherit a stain from Adam and Eve. We inherit a situation. The mortal situation.



That's the simple take home point of Genesis 3. It's just trying to explain the view out your window. "Look around you," says Genesis 3, "this isn't Eden." Death wasn't a part of God's plan for us. But now that death reigns, brought on by the devil and human disobedience, we find ourselves enslaved. We, and all of Creation, cry out for rescue.

Romans 8.22-23

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.