Sin is pervasive. It is the recurring enemy throughout the
story of Scripture. After the setting of creation is in place, the conflict of
the story bombards the reader of God’s glory story in Genesis 3–11. Sin after
sin, rebellion after rebellion, and utter wickedness and depravity are
recounted from the very first sin in the Garden of Eden to the climax of the
sin at the Tower of Babel.
Adam and Eve’s transgression is not one of simple disobedience. It is a willful refusal not to participate in God’s glory story. Rather, they prefer to make a glory story of their own. Certainly they ate from the tree God said not to eat. But there is much more going on.
God gave them more than just one task: eat from all the trees but one. He gave them the responsibilities of being kings and priests tasked with filling the earth with God’s glory (Gen. 1:28). They were to have kingly rulership over creation and animals (Gen. 1:28). They were to administrate priestly cleansing and maintenance in the Garden-Temple of God (Gen. 2:15). Instead of ruling over the animals, an animal (a serpent in this case) rules over them. Instead of guarding the presence of God in the Garden-Temple, they were replaced by cherubim. Instead of growing the borders of paradise to cover the earth, they were thrown out into the wilderness. We don’t have simple disobedience. We have willful refusal to participate in God’s glory story.
The rebellion worsens. The very next story recalls Cain, the
child of Adam and Eve, murdering his brother Abel out of jealousy and anger. Then,
a strange story appears about a man named Lamech, the 6th generation
from Cain, who has escalated Cain’s sin of murder. He murderers out of pride
and boasts about it to his 2 wives in a threatening manner. This story serves only
to demonstrate that sin is escalating at an alarming rate.
Shortly thereafter, the entire earth is said to be filled
with violence rather than the glory of God. Stories like Cain and Lamech are
all too common. And so God cleanses the earth, uncreates the world, and begins
afresh with Noah a 2nd Adam. He also promises the new generation
that this weapon of warfare (a universal uncreation) would never be used again.
God promised to put his bow down as a sign of this promise. So Noah and family
could leave the ark and not fear every subsequent rain.
Yet this flood did not defeat sin, much less eradicate it.
And so Noah, a new Adam-like figure, a man of dirt (Heb. Adamah) sins
after the manner of Adam. He sins with fruit, nakedness is the result though
unashamed in this case, and he has a son who escalates his shame and sin. Ham
sees his father’s nakedness and multiplies his father’s dishonor greatly. This
is reminiscent of the 5th command, which is the only of the commands
that promised long life in the land of promise.
But the climax of this rebellion eclipses in the east at the
Tower of Babel. Here, there is all out revolt against God’s plan for his
creation to reflect his glory and fill the earth with it. Instead, they prefer
to gather into one location and erect an image, a structure, that would make
them glorious. They decided to be their own creators and use bricks rather than
rocks. Yet in the end, God comically comes down from heaven to see this
inferior structure. And to judge them in order to force them to spread, he
confuses their language.
These passages are filled with gloom and doom. Were it not
for Genesis 12 and the calling of Abram out of the same area as Babel and
promising that through him and his family all the nations of the earth would be
blessed, we might close the book right away and wallow in our depression.
Thankfully, however, there is Genesis 12 and following. There is the story of
Abraham, Israel, Abraham’s seed and Israel’s king-pries. Thankfully, there is Jesus!
