What Does a Breaking World Sound Like?
Written by Mitchell L. Chase |
Sunday, June 4, 2023
If we will spend time thinking about the intricacies of Genesis 3 and the interconnections across Scripture, we will see how pivotal this chapter is in the biblical storyline, and we will recognize the many notions that grow out of the garden ground. If we situate the fall in Scripture’s storyline effectively, an exploration of Genesis 3 will result in greater joy in the good news about Jesus. By tuning our ears to creation’s groanings, our hope will be stirred along the way.
When a floating shelf fell from our living room wall, we heard multiple sounds at the same time. The small clay pot cracked, the frame with the picture crashed, the shelf itself was especially loud, the candleholder clattered, and a short rectangular wooden sign whacked the floor. Sitting in the living room as this happened, my wife and I jumped up to intervene and deal with the mess. It turns out that one of our sons had been on the other side of the wall and banged it at the right—or wrong—spot, causing the shelf to shift and collapse under the weight of its contents.
Not every fall is the same. But the more items involved and the greater their weight, the louder the crash and more numerous the sounds.
What would a breaking world sound like? And how long would the sounds of such a fall last?
Genesis 3 gives Bible readers the explanation of what happened between Genesis 2 and 4. The middle chapter ushers us into different conditions. In Genesis 2, the man and woman are together and without shame and in covenant with each other. The garden has plentiful food, there is a commission to multiply and subdue, and there is a benevolent Creator, whose words of wisdom will be life and peace for his image bearers. Then in Genesis 4, an older brother murders his younger brother, and this tragedy happens after the elder’s sacrifice is rejected while the younger’s is accepted.
What explains the transition from peace to tragedy? What accounts for the rise of wickedness? The content of Genesis 3. It’s the scene that changes everything for everyone. It’s the part of the movie that has such explanatory power, you’re just confused if you return after leaving the room for a few minutes.
During a series of talks addressing temptation, D. A. Carson once said:
What’s the importance of Genesis 3 to our thinking? The primary importance is that it sets the stage for the entire Bible storyline. Problems and solutions must match. If you want to understand what the Gospel is about, what Jesus is about, what the cross achieves, then you must understand the nature of the problem they address.1
There are different ways to conceive of the Bible’s storyline. You can think of the Old Testament as what anticipates Jesus and the New Testament as what announces his arrival. You can view Scripture as the epic of God’s redemptive story where he promises, advances, and then fulfills his plan to raise up a Savior for sinners. You can notice how the Bible begins with the story of creation and ends with the hope of new creation.
One helpful and popular way to conceive of the Bible’s storyline is with four words: creation, fall, redemption, consummation. What would consummation mean without our understanding of what was reaching a culmination?
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The Opposite of Sexual Sin
Anyone who’s experienced being enslaved by a life-dominating sin knows how easy it is to let that struggle become the lens through which you see all of life. You know how deadly the sin is. You know the power it possesses, and how powerless you feel to resist it.
Many people wrestling with addiction see their entire moral responsibility resting on a single prohibition: Thou shalt not..
They start to measure the strength of their relationship with God based on whether they looked at pornography that day. It doesn’t matter what else happened, good or bad—refraining from sexual sin becomes the sole gauge of spiritual health.
Living with Blinders
There are two pitfalls with this type of thinking. First, you become uninterested in any other area of sanctification in your life. Lying, stealing, idolatry, and unrighteous anger don’t even register as areas of needed growth because sexual sin has given you tunnel vision to any other problems. Your day may have been filled with selfish and self-indulgent pursuits, but, in your mind, it was a great day because you didn’t look at porn.
The second pitfall is just as soul-damaging. Letting your entire day rest upon your ability to perfectly resist sexual temptation also blinds you to the good work God may be doing in your life in other areas. Sexual sin is usually the fruition of many other, deeper heart issues that God is slowly and surgically redeeming. There may be much groundwork being done in your life even while you continue to lose many battles against temptation. Blindness to this good work that God is doing can co-opt a trajectory of growth through discouragement and despair.
Take off the Blinders
It’s time to take off the blinders. It’s time to embrace the full panorama of God’s redemptive purposes for your life. On the day of judgment, God is not only interested in what sins you refrained from. He’s equally interested in what good fruit your life produced. This is why theologians have developed two categories for sin: sins of commission and sins of omission. Sins of commission are the sins we commit. We lust, we steal, we lie, we covet. We focus most of our repentant energy on sins of commission. And that’s understandable. The Ten Commandments are largely addressing sins we commit. That is why eight out of the ten are stated in the negative: Thou shalt not. . .
But it was paradigm-shifting for me to read the Westminster Larger Catechism and realize that with every prohibitive commandment is an implied command to do its opposite instead. Not taking the Lord’s name in vain implies the command to revere his name in honor. Not killing implies the command to actively preserve and promote life in others. Not lying implies the command to speak the truth in love to build up your neighbor. Failure to do the opposite of these prohibitions is also sin. Sins of omission are the failure to do the good which God commands. Sin is not just what we have done, but also what we have left undone. -
Got the Lot?
The marvel of the Gospel is how we come to share such hope! Just like the lost, we, like the rest, deserve to incinerate. “There go I, but for the grace of God!”It is by Sovereign Grace alone, and the Cross of Christ, where fanned-up wrath of the Father’s fire and brimstone scorched, that we, in the end, might, gaze on the bright sight of glory in His face.
When fidelity, honesty, society, morality and true biblical spirituality are turned on their head, and life turns upside down, most stresses and voices yield a counsel of despair.
Yet in David’s day, about 1000 BC, with His Kingdom perched on the brink, and about to slide off the cliff, this “bird in the cage” was not about to concede ground to the impulse of “flight or fight” – instead the Old Testament Christ is resolute in trust.
1 In the LORD I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, “Flee like a bird to your mountain, 2 for behold, the wicked bend the bow; they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart; 3 if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” – Psalm 11:1-3
It is the believing visualization of evil’s ultimate lot that brings sanity to the mind, confidence to the heart and endurance of such trials, if we are tempted to give up.
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The Unity of Isaiah
Apart from the fact that (1) this view begs the question (cf. Micah 4), it must also be asked (2) why redactors felt encouraged to add these passages to Isaiah if the original form of the prophecy was so uniformly negative. Why not to Amos or Micah or Jeremiah? For that theory to be accepted, the original form of the book will have had to have contained the Judgment/Hope motif in more than a germinal way.
Lots of modern interpreters read Isaiah 29:17-24 as if it was written after the exile by a redactor, hundreds of years after Isaiah, and inserted into a (mostly) pre-exilic prophecy. (Similar things are argued of Isaiah 40-66, and various other sections of chapters 1-39.) Here is John Oswalt’s careful response, which I have formatted for clarity:
The chief reasons for this are theological, for it is argued that the glowing predictions of salvation to come are not to be found in preexilic prophecy. Apart from the fact that (1) this view begs the question (cf. Micah 4), it must also be asked (2) why redactors felt encouraged to add these passages to Isaiah if the original form of the prophecy was so uniformly negative. Why not to Amos or Micah or Jeremiah?
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