#12 Human Rebellion–Genesis 3

Show Notes

Anthony and Cody delve into Genesis 3 to explore the theme of human rebellion and the origins of sin, revisiting the distinction between the meganarrative and metanarrative in biblical theology, and examining how sinfulness begins with Adam and unfolds throughout Scripture. Building on the last episode, which highlighted the importance of the Old Testament for understanding New Testament theology, this episode looks closely at how the ideas of original sin and rebellion carry through to our understanding of the church as a refuge from the world. By the end, we'll see how the Old Testament shapes these crucial theological concepts.

Music: Creative Technology Showreel by Pumpupthemind

Podcast TranscripT

Anthony Delgado: This light momentary affliction is preparing an eternal weight of glory for us, beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the unseen, 2 18. In a post materialistic world filled with immense spiritual noise, we're here to uncover the ancient Near Eastern context of the Bible, to recover the truly mystical faith of our spiritual forefathers.

Welcome to the biblical re enchantment podcast, where we bridge the gap between the ancient Hebrew story and modern insights. I'm Anthony Delgado, your host for this journey into the often overlooked mystical dimensions of the Bible.

Cody Urban: And I'm Cody Urban, co

Anthony Delgado: So this is episode 12. Thanks for being here with me, Cody. Uh, we're going to be talking today about human rebellion from Genesis chapter three. And in this episode, we're going to look at Genesis three, discuss the theme of human rebellion and the origins of sin. among humankind. And we'll explore again sort of this distinction between the mega narrative and the meta narrative in biblical theology.

Just something that I think is always important to remember. Um, examining how sinfulness begins in the story of Adam and continues through scripture. You'll recall that in the last episode we discussed the significance of the Old Testament for developing New Testament theology. And so that episode is really important to understanding how we're going about developing these ideas of the sin of Genesis three into, um, into our new Testament thinking, specifically when we discuss things like original sin, the nature of rebellion, and then looking at how, where we're going to end the episode today, how the church offers refuge from the world.

Um, all of those things need to touch the old Testament theology. And so we're going to develop that forward from the old Testament in this episode. So.

Cody Urban: And you mentioned meta and mega narrative, and I can't imagine a, you could possibly understand those if you don't have a healthy appreciation for the old Testament, at least at bare minimum, an appreciation of it at worst, just

Anthony Delgado: right. And we've talked so much about how, like the New Testament, uh, it's very short versus the Old Testament. Like Old Testament is predominantly narrative. It's where, you know, all these stories exist for a reason. They're not just abstract things to teach, you know, so that we have stuff to teach kids in Sunday school.

They really are. Narratives that formed and shaped the words of the prophets and then forward into the Second Temple, thinking of the Jews and into the New Testament. So yeah, so like, so like, let's jump into that and talk about biblical theology then, and this difference between mega narrative and meta narrative.

And I actually want to talk about biblical theology's relation to systematic theology a little bit as well. And I always describe this a little bit different. So maybe as we do this, Hopefully everyone's starting to kind of like centralize and under in their understanding of of the of these differences in these distinctions, but you have the the mega narrative and the mega narrative is just the left to right reading of scripture.

It's it's properly speaking biblical studies. What is the what does it say? Um, and and how are we supposed to understand the words that are on the page? It's, uh, and I think that the mega narrative should be read within the ancient Near Eastern context that sometimes we leave this thinking about the original audience until we start to actually do theology.

But really, we need to have it in the biblical studies world, because when we're just saying, What do these words mean? How should we understand these words in the English language? We need to understand them in the way that the original authors and audience understood them without like casting on it all of our, you know, all of our understanding of the language, the English language, you know, cause frankly, most people are reading the Bible in English, right?

So, or at least most English speakers are reading it in English. They're not, most people aren't. Aren't reading it in the Greek and the Hebrew. So you really need to be able to, to think like a Hebrew. If you're reading the Hebrew texts, think like a Greek, if you're reading the Greek texts,

Cody Urban: And an

Anthony Delgado: right, right.

Cody Urban: right. That, that, That sees things in the, the three tiers cosmology of, you know, heaven, earth and, and under the earth, something

Anthony Delgado: Well, that's.

Cody Urban: you know, but

Anthony Delgado: Oh, I was just gonna say that's a great example of how we do that, like how we, you know, we're gonna abandon the three tier cosmology idea because immediately we're like, Oh, no, but we know that, you know, under the earth is the core of the earth and that the cosmos is really just the, you know, it's outer space.

And we, we start to cast our scientific understanding of the universe and of the earth itself. And, you know, That's a problem. We should. We actually need to put ourselves in that space and understand it. Tell the story. Even if it sounds like we're now reading mythology, let's read it like the ancient person and let let those fantastic elements and the sort of the world that they understood.

Let that shine through. Then we get to the meta narrative. And so if that's just biblical studies, where biblical studies becomes biblical theology is when we start to look at meta, which means alongside the narrative that exists alongside the mega narrative, the grand narrative of scripture. And, and so now we're starting to ask questions about like, how, like, how does this inform the way that the Hebrew people think?

How does this inform the way that the church thinks? How does God see this story from his perspective? And that's what makes this theology is that we're, we're looking at the clues in the text and within the story, within the biblical studies portion of our exploration to say, within this framework, what can we understand about things?

And so we might come to a clue, a conclusion, you know, like I know a lot of people have read Genesis one and they come to a conclusion that God didn't actually create the, The earth and it's like, well, hang on a second. You know, um, I, I've always heard that God created all, all things, but it actually, if you parse that very carefully, and even if you want to be a literalist type of reader of scripture and insist on a strict six day creation, you'll notice that it's not until Genesis one three, that the first day begins and that there is a preexistent rock covered in water.

And so some people,

Cody Urban: Right.

Anthony Delgado: I mean, I personally don't think that means God didn't create it. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, I think, I think there's lots of other places to go in the scripture to see that, you know, actually God created that too, but so I think that's taking a leap from that observation, but people will start to teach that.

Oh, well, there was this rock and then God comes into the picture after the rock and it's like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, it also doesn't say that, you know, but we're, we're putting it, we're reading the mega narrative and then we're going to, we're going to take clues from the text. Yeah. And we're going to ask from the text, does it explain why did this rock covered in water with the Holy Spirit covering the water is like, why, why does that exist before day of one of creation and what you actually find out is that is that like the first three days of creation are bringing order to the unordered rock covered in water.

And if you're going to lump versus one and two and in with day one of creation, as most people do, then you're going to miss that observation. And so it's, it's all about God. This is something that happens later in, in, in the history of the cosmos, where God starts to bring order to this former creation.

So that's, that's metanarrative thinking.

Cody Urban: question or thought thought on the mega meta. I know there's multiple moments in the Bible. The one that's coming to mind at front is, uh, Stephen when Stephen's, um, basically on trial and about to be stoned. Uh, he, he basically like recounts the mega narrative. Particularly of the Old Testament because, you know, the New Testament wasn't written yet, aside from the under, you know, the life and death of Jesus and such, but he, he recounts all these, the stories almost like a, a nutshell of the mega narrative and then seems to from there bleed into the meta narrative of like, why? and like a, the more big profound statements of who Jesus is and what that means for us here and now based off of this story all the way from Adam to

Anthony Delgado: Yeah, that's absolutely right where and that's not how we build an argument like in modern Christianity. We we tend to go. Here's a list of propositional facts and here's a conclusion of those property propositional facts. And that's like mindless nonsense. That's not how

Cody Urban: And then plugging in versus to

Anthony Delgado: right. As if those verses were meant to be taken out of their context and understood propositionally.

Right? And that's sort of the way that we are used to thinking theologically. Um, and there's a certain logic behind that. Like, these words mean this and this always and only. And there's a certain logic to that. Unless you Understand that those words don't always mean that and that only in every context, and that's where story comes into shape.

Story is a way of shaping that right? So we understand the story, the mega narrative. Then we begin to ask questions. Meta narrative about. About how we should think about it, which is what Stephen's doing, you know, and so if we're reading Genesis one, we're thinking like, oh, God created everything, right?

That's what we see, right? Everything that is God created that, right? And we start to see that. Um, and then we see in the New Testament, we start to get more pieces of that mega narrative or that meta narrative that, oh, it's actually Christ. He was the agent of that creation. And we see the goodness of the creation in Genesis one so that we're not.

Yeah. Like Gnostics. Um, a lot of Gnostic teaching is all about getting away from the physical and material. And Genesis one is like, no, God created the physical and he said that it was good. So how do we then balance that with the wickedness that comes out of the world that was created? And so now there there becomes questions that we need to ask to understand.

In a metanarrative sense, like what is God, what is God doing so that when we get to revelation, well, not even a revelation, but we just get to passages of the old testament that are prophesying new testament teachings where we start to see shadows of turning and, and, and, and the creation turning back to it's created order to its original goodness and all of that.

We start to get all of that and to understand like that meta narrative, that thinking that goes alongside it, where we see, you know, the dominion given to humankind being restored until all things come back to perfection in the second coming of Christ when he brings down the new heaven and the new earth.

So it, it. It's why we get to revelation and we don't say that this new heaven and new earth stuff is just metaphor because we understand, you know, it's not just metaphor that helps us to understand things spiritually. It's actually, um, it's actually the culmination of everything that was supposed to be the return of the goodness from the garden.

Right. And so the meta narrative allows us to understand that. Uh, and, and then, You know, so another example of this difference between mega narrative and meta narrative, and I'll do this quick is actually in Genesis three and the story of human rebellion when sin enters the world. So the mega narrative is just the things that we're reading.

There was a serpent. He was in the garden, eating the fruit, blah, blah, blah. The meta narrative is, and we'll get to more details on that in a minute, but like the meta narrative is what goes alongside that, where God is looking at that and he's, and, and inspiring this in the, in the writings of Moses. And I would argue inspiring that in the oral traditions long before Moses is, is, is what I think is likely, um, but anyway, we've got God inspiring this because he wants humans to know that core question that links back to Genesis one, if you created everything good, why is it so messed up now?

Oh, well, let me tell you this story. About the first man and the first woman in the garden, right? And they were in paradise and here's what happened, right? So the narrative is answering the question for you. Not a list, again, not a list of propositions. Now I'm not against lists of propositions. Let's start.

So biblical theology is letting the text speak. And letting the text speak for God, because it's God's word, right? So we'll let the text speak. We'll let it speak for God. And so then what on earth is systematic theology? If that's biblical theology, well, systematic theology, um, it's actually a good thing, I think it's important, but it should be kept in its proper place.

And in the, in the ordering that we, that once we've done. Our mega narrative work, and we're starting to develop our biblical theology out of that, our understanding of the thinking that goes alongside the meta narrative of scripture, what God is doing, you know, through all of redemptive history, then we can start to probe.

The metanarrative, you know, and this is what, what systematic theology does. It comes after biblical theology to kind of probe with questions and to ask questions of the biblical world. And these are going to be questions that don't pertain immediately to the biblical metanarrative. So this is where we come in and we start to go.

So we start, we start to go, well, if that's the story of creation, then, then what about a strict six day creation? Because I was in science class and I was taught that we've got this, you know, this record, this anthropological record and this, you know, uh, geological record and all of this and all of these studies from physics that, and astronomy that suggests that the cosmos came together in this way and the earth came together in that way.

And humankind happened this way in my biology class and all of that. And you go to the biblical theology and you ask that question, and what you're going to find out is that not that not only does the text itself not answer that question right now, that that's not like the what about this is not something that is answered in the narrative.

The narrative is very much emphasizing this worldview and asking, answering questions from the narrative, that narrative position. And that's actually my official answer to the question of, of, did God create the earth in a strict six days? My official answer is the Bible doesn't say, um, because,

Cody Urban: Okay. I'm

Anthony Delgado: well, well, because it,

Cody Urban: Argue that if somebody

Anthony Delgado: well, if someone really pressed on that, I would point them to the literary patterns in Genesis one and show them how the first three of the six days are bringing order to the, or they're bringing order to, you know, The, the rock covered in water water that is being controlled by the Holy Spirit, um, that's covering the chaos.

So, so that what's bringing order to the creation and then the purpose of the creation and days four through six. Now, I don't care if somebody wants to, wants to believe that that's also scientific, but if I, if you want to debate it, it's just not the purpose of the text. Like Moses wasn't thinking that way.

And if you could, you know, and we've said this a million times, but if you could go back and in time in your time machine and ask Moses, what's the deal with this? You know, he's gonna he's he's like, he's like, you know, did did God create in six days? He's gonna go. Well, I mean, look at this book. I wrote here.

It's right here at the beginning. See how God created in six days. And you're like, yeah, but was it like a literal like sun up to sundown six days?

Cody Urban: And he goes, well, look at day three. The sun

Anthony Delgado: Yeah,

Cody Urban: when the sun's

Anthony Delgado: I mean, it's, yeah, he, I think he would just look at you cross, you know, a little bit cross and be like, who cares? Like, what, what, why are you asking? You know, like, I don't think, you know, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a question of the text. He's like, why are you asking these, you know, inane questions?

I'm trying to teach you here that, that the gods of the nations, you know, didn't create this world, you know, it was created by Yahweh, the supreme, the almighty, you know, he's like, I'm trying to teach you that. But then again, there are systematic theology questions. So that question of strict, strict six day, that's a question that belongs to systematic theology.

And so now you need to go outside the Bible to answer that question, because, because the Bible is not going to answer that, that question for you. So now if you want to believe in a strict sixth day, you need to create a philosophy around what, or a hermeneutical philosophy around why you're going to interpret the scripture that way, which will now be interpreting the scripture, not according to the ancient Near Eastern reading.

So why are you going to diverge from what you should be doing and how everybody has always read that? Or you need to say, That text is not even remotely about a six day creation. And here's what I believe about creation according to science and history and philosophy. And so that's kind of what you have to do, or you can take my position, which is that I think that the pattern of mythology in the ancient world is that all mythology is actually mytho historical, meaning that it's sprinkled with historical elements and answering questions that were pertinent to history.

And so

Cody Urban: And using

Anthony Delgado: means.

Cody Urban: like wording and ideas and concepts to express

Anthony Delgado: Right, right. So we always think mythology means not true, but I actually think all misto, all mythology, whether it's biblical mythologies or otherwise, all mythologies are true. The question is, in what sense are they true? And I don't think any of them are probably true in every word from a historical or a scientific perspective.

But we know that a lot of the Greek mythologies emerged at times that they were appropriate according to Greek history. You know, and my, my, my example is the, the alignment of the, the rising of the Greek pantheon with Zeus at the same time that the, that the Greeks start to organize and come together into an empire, that, that you're getting the hierarchy and the spiritual and the physical coming together, you know, coming alongside each other in history and in the literary record.

So like that, that's what I mean, that we then can, could do a historical reading of the Greek mythology. And it's true in that sense. Not in the, not necessarily in the sense that, you know, Zeus floats around on a cloud and throws lightning bolts. Although I think the Bible allows us to believe that in a sense he does.

That's, that's another conversation. So systematic theology should probe should allow us to probe questions, but you can see why if we haven't done a good job at biblical studies and biblical theology, probing these questions can be dangerous. Because if you don't actually know what the text is supposed to teach, you're not going to be able to answer those questions accurately when you probe it with external influences.

Um, now there are places that we can probe the Genesis account. Um, if you want to ask, you know, ask about the bio biological realities of male and female, if you have properly understood, uh, God's creation of male and female, both in the image of God and their purpose to have dominion over the earth, Now, I think there are places that you can go in Genesis 1 through 3, mind you, and maybe even into Chapter 4 a little bit, um, where you can learn some things about what it means to be Uh, both biologically male and female and, and what it means to have a gender expression of male and female that coincides with that biology, but not if you don't understand those narratives.

And maybe that's another podcast episode. Cause I see your eyes lighting up, you know, sorry to those listening,

Cody Urban: Well, it just makes me,

Anthony Delgado: right? Well, and as

Cody Urban: me think of many conversations that I've had with uh, other folks and yeah, but that's the rabbit hole

Anthony Delgado: modernists, we, we tend to live in propositional data. And so if you abandon the biblical theology, you've abandoned the, not just the mega narrative because, well, that's a bunch of mythological nonsense that we don't understand that way, and you live in the meta narrative, you don't, you know, you don't even live in the meta narrative, how God sees the biblical studies material, but you're just living in the systematic theology world where you're taking lists of proposition and trying to systematize them and make these propositional truth, supposed truths fit together.

You can see now how, um, you can, you can start to manipulate the data and, and become confused about the ordering of things and why male and female and what the purpose of being a male versus a female is and, and, and to what degree God determines male and female, you can start to become confused about these things.

And we're a lot of Christians and, uh, and a lot of, That we would, we would just call them liberal Christians at this point, you know, have started to compromise either gender roles or the significance of gender expression, biblical gender expression, that is, or, or sexuality because they're living in this world of systematic theology, just trying to balance balance and, and, and, and argue for pet propositional ideas.

Instead of living in the biblical theology and only visiting systematic questions to probe the biblical theology. And so that, so it becomes very dangerous. And that's why I'm always going back to this idea of, but what's the narrative and how do we think about this narrative and how did the people live according to this narrative?

So we, we're not going to actually talk about gender and, uh, gender and sexuality today. We're going to Genesis three to talk about human rebellion, because the problem of human sinfulness begins there. And, and his ultimate resolved in Revelation 21 and 22, uh, when, when all things are ultimately made right.

But, but like, I want to have a discussion here before we start talking about things like the doctrine, I mean, it's the systematic idea of original sin, but let, let's first, you know, discuss like sort of some of the front matter, like in your understanding of the world and your experience with people who are and are not Christians.

What do you think about this first question? Do people want to be evil?

Cody Urban: I would say no, I don't, I believe most people do not want to be evil and most individuals see themselves as the protagonist of their story. Right? The hero. If, I mean, I would say even the worst individuals probably saw themselves as the hero of their story and rest of society and history judges them as some of the most evil individuals.

Anthony Delgado: Yeah, I've heard that a lot of like sociopaths, like, uh, like that they would tell you they were doing good things, you know, when they're like murdering and just, you know, whatever masses of people and

Cody Urban: The easy, obvious one. I think everyone always refers to his Hitler, right? In, in recent ish history. I mean, out of the grand scheme of human history, Hitler is one of the most recent, uh, of such history. and atrocity and injustice.

Anthony Delgado: he's become his own trope,

Cody Urban: list goes on. Oh yeah, absolutely has, you know?

And, and so it's now the easy thing to compare somebody that you want to consider as evil as well. They're like Hitler, right? Uh, I've seen that happen with numerous, uh, politicians when you don't agree with them, somebody else accusing them of being like Hitler. And it's like, that's honestly a huge step, but that's beside the

Anthony Delgado: regardless of your candidate.

Cody Urban: I mean, they're not doing gas chambers. Okay. And it's like, they're

Anthony Delgado: Yeah,

Cody Urban: Uh, but, but okay. So you don't

Anthony Delgado: yeah, yet, yet, yet, though, you know, yeah,

Cody Urban: but even Hitler, I believe, I'm not sure. I have no idea. I'd never met the man. So I don't know what his consciousness was like, but just knowing understanding of just human nature. That even the worst things that he did, he probably justified to himself as doing something for the greater good because he's the hero of his own story.

Anthony Delgado: and that's exactly right. That they're, they're, they're things that are justified. I love that you say it that way, that like, we're the heroes of our own story because that is sort of like. That is sort of the gospel that we are, and we've talked about this so many times on the podcast, but this idea of abandoning your own self sovereignty in order to follow Jesus as king to let him be the sovereign of the universe that he is naturally.

Right? Um, and so, yeah, that's, that is, that is a huge part of this is that when you are the sovereign, you now get to determine what's right from wrong. And there are sort of moral norms. Right. Like everybody knows, like, it's good to be kind to people and they know when people are not being kind to them.

Right. Um, and so even though, like just with something as simple as kindness, like, even though we always justify, like if we're unkind to someone, well, you don't know what they did, you know, that sort of thing happens all the time. But like, um, but it's so interesting because like, they still know. They're having to go through the process of justifying their unkindness.

Like there's just a certain sense and like, like we want to be the good people in the world. Um, people do see themselves as fundamentally good. And I think when we come up against questions like the doctrine of original sin, and maybe some of the systematic probings of that question, uh, of scripture and like bringing together a lot of the propositional data, for example, in Romans three, you know, um, It be, it becomes something that maybe was not originally intended if you don't have access to that biblical data.

So, for example, Romans three, like, what are some of the things in Romans three? So all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, that's obvious. Like, that's a big one that we say all the time. Like, uh, and that, and again, just to remind listeners that word glory means kingship, right? Falls short of Christ's glory.

The height of his crown, his glory, his kingship. Right. And so like, because all of sin, we fall short and therefore, you know, all of that front matter leading up to Romans three 23, it's like, nobody seeks God. They've all turned aside. They've all rebelled, you know, they're there, you know, there's, they say wicked things, they do wicked deeds, you know, all of that type of stuff.

But the question we should really be asking is, If we're going to put ourselves in the mind of Paul and go, Paul, why are you saying these things? What would I mean? What would his answer be?

Cody Urban: Well, go read, uh, the

Anthony Delgado: That's right.

Cody Urban: Like it's like every person from Adam and Eve on. Is falling short to the glory of, of Yahweh. They're continuously sinning and yeah, sure. Some more than others, but that's some of the beauty of the Bible. I always say is that it's, it's not written by the, the hero or the, the victor, right?

I'm trying, I'm mixing metaphors here, but you know, like, like they say that, that the history was written by the victors and usually they write the history or they promote the historical record as if they were the victors. You know, bringing civilization to an uncivilized people or whatnot. Right. And so the idea is that if, you know, we're the victors and so we're the good guys, we're doing all this for the, for the best and well, it feels like the Bible is a minority report in that it's, well, it doesn't seem like it was written by the winners. all the, the kings and the, the leaders and the heroes, you know, David himself, man, after God's own heart, his sin is just put out there like dirty laundry on a public display for the, for the world to see throughout time. And so, yeah, Paul's definitely pulling from that. Like even the, the best of the best still fell short to the glory of God.

So

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. And literally every one of those statements like in any good Bible is going to have footnotes that point you back to the references and most of them are the Psalms. A couple are Isaiah, but all of those things that he's saying they go back to a context and you're absolutely right to bring up David because David is the author of most of the Psalms that are quoted.

And pretty undisputed author of most of the Psalms that are quoted. And, and, and what is David always saying in the Psalms? He's always saying, look how bad my sin is. But look, but, but look how I take refuge in, in Yahweh, you know what I mean? And he's always, he's always looking back to Yahweh, always looking back to that redemption.

And that's why really we say, you know, we would quote Romans 3 23 and we leave out the rest of the passage, all of sin and fall short of the glory of God. Right. And then Paul goes to unpack this, like redemption that we have in Christ. It's this idea that like, Paul's not saying that so that we can create a doctrine of human, you know, if I, if I can step on toes, a doctrine of human depravity, he's not saying now take these propositional statements that Paul said, yank them out of the context of the Hebrew Bible and understand them in this way.

So that, well, no, Paul said no one does good. And it's like, okay, well, in verse 24, he says that all are redeemed. So you want to go there, you know what I mean? Like read, please read your, yeah. You want to pull that one out of context too and become a universalist. Like, or do you want to actually read the Bible in context?

Do you want to take those and put them in the context of the Old Testament narrative and understand Paul's heart and why he says these things, you know? And so, yeah, like I'm going to agree with you that even on a biblical level. You know, Paul's words don't even make sense if he's talking to people who want to be evil, right?

So this is, I'm going back to our question, our discussion question, do people want to be evil? His questions don't even make sense to say to people who want to be evil. They're like, yes, that's exactly who I am. That's exactly who I want to be. I've designed my life around those principles. Thank you for the, thank you for the concise list, the apostle Paul, you know what I mean?

No, that's not what people were saying that he's, he's saying it to people who think they're good, who want to be good so that they can go. Well, I mean, I don't want to be Hitler or Dahmer, but I'm not that bad, you know, like, you know, it's sort of that's what Paul's doing. Not that Hitler or Dahmer would have been contemporary references for Paul's audience, but like, that's what they're thinking, you know, um, so that, so that, so that they can kind of come to this, uh, Understanding that, Hey, wait, I think I am maybe not the good person that I thought I was, you know, so that even a pious Jew, you know, who, you know, like the, the, you know,

Cody Urban: like the

Anthony Delgado: well, yeah.

Cody Urban: or, or go ahead.

Anthony Delgado: Or the, or the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and is like, Hey, I, you know, what must I do to be saved? And he's like, Oh, you've kept it, you know, keeps it, you've heard it said, right. And he goes through all the laws and he's like, you know, He's like, yeah, I've done all those. I'm, I'm good. I'm golden. And he's like, Oh, well, there's one thing you lack.

What's Jesus doing? He's doing the same thing as Paul. He's trying to show that rebellion that exists in the heart of the rich young ruler. Yeah. And so, and so that's what we're getting in the, in the Genesis three narrative is the beginning of what I would call a theme in strict in the scripture. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but this theme of rebellion.

And it begins in Genesis three. And it's a, it's a theme. It's not just a theme of rebellion. It's a theme of rebellion and refuge that exists in the scripture where we have, um, rebellion, uh, entering into humankind where, where, where Adam and Eve, they rebel against God, they choose their own personal pathway, their own sovereignty over God's sovereignty.

So they're rebelling against the kingdom of God to form the kingdom of man. And, uh, and they're cast out. Of God's paradise, you know, I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to leave my kingdom, my temple, they're sent outside into the world where they begin to form the nations of the world. Uh, and, and they find out that it's a hard place that outside the paradise, there's, there's problems and, you know, and then you get to tracing that narrative and we start to find out that there's refuge.

That God's like, yeah, this world is really bad. And he's calling the, the re the rebels to come home and to find refuge and in the kingdom of God, he's essentially calling Adam back into Eden, right? That's, that's what refuge is. And so that's a theme and we'll talk about that more, but that's a theme that goes kind of runs through scripture.

Um, so let's go, let's actually go to Genesis three and, and I'll let you tell the story, uh, kind of what happens. So we've got creation chapter one, chapter two. Adam and Eve in paradise, dominion mandate, which we've talked about before. And then what happens?

Cody Urban: Yeah. And then, uh, is by a snake who, or a serpent and really twists things You know, did God really say you can't eat of any of the trees in this garden? And he's like, no, that's, that's like the opposite of what he said. He actually said, we can eat of all of them except for this one. You know, if you do, uh, you know, the serpent tells her yet you, uh, well, she says that you would die or God says that you would die if you do.

And he's, oh, you're not going to die. You're actually going to become like Elohim. You're going to become. And so it's funny when you were talking about that, about how like, uh, She and Adam kind of think of themselves as like their own, uh, king and queen in a way. Uh, something like that. That feels kind of metanarrative, right?

Doesn't it? Sort of like you're, you're almost like, Oh, I'm making sense of just the Texas. Then, you know, she grabs the fruit and gives it to her husband and they, they both eat and their eyes are open and they realize they're naked and they have all this shame and such.

Anthony Delgado: Well, if you want to, if you want to, if you want to tease that out a little bit, sorry to interject in the story, but since you brought it up, if we look at Adam and Eve as the queen, king and queen of the garden, um, uh, it is setting up a pattern that we see throughout scripture. And I don't want to draw unnatural conclusions for this, but this is why Solomon was not supposed to have an have, have all these wives that came from the nations, because that's, that's what.

That's what they do is they bring, they bring the forbidden fruit to the king, you know, and so it's not an issue of, it's not, you know, and that's why I think that within the narrative, Eve is the one who brings the fruit to Adam, that Adam doesn't find it first. It's not because we're saying something about how stupid women are.

I'm sure Adam was plenty dumb enough to eat the fruit on his own. It's a matter of how the story is told and why we are supposed to remain faithful to Yahweh and the, and the wisdom that's built within that. And that's why Eve brings the fruit to Adam. So, because she's the queen who's tempting the King away from faithfulness to Yahweh.

Anyway, so I'll let you go back.

Cody Urban: I mean, honestly, it feels like a whole thing that, you know, I've known many men who've, uh, struggled in sin with. right? The, the, the, uh, seductive, even if it's not sexually seductive, but the seductive charms of women that can sway a man to do things that they know not

Anthony Delgado: Yeah.

Cody Urban: So this case, I mean, it doesn't say that Eve did that or use feminine wiles or whatnot, but for whatever reason, Adam knew God told him not to do this.

And well, now my wife says too, so I'm going to go for it. And are open, realize they're naked and they have

Anthony Delgado: Mm hmm.

Cody Urban: You know, in front of each other and we actually, I mean, I don't think there's a way of knowing how long they've been in the garden from this point on, you know, between Genesis two and three and yeah, that's, I don't think the Bible is going to answer that, but it, it could be that they've had a, a, you know, a good long time together.

I

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. I always say, I doubt they made it three days, but that's just me being cynical.

Cody Urban: Well, I mean, you would be leaning on the olive fallen short to the glory of God. The fact that the, well, the narrative does say that all, all, all of us have a propensity to, to fail and, and there, there we go. They, they just failed. They just sinned. They just, uh, broke the one rule that they were given of not eating from that tree.

And now they have shame in front of each other when a husband and wife shouldn't. You know, have shame in front of each other and

Anthony Delgado: I would, I would actually say that the Megan narrative was don't eat the fruit, but the meta narrative is be faithful to Yahweh. Remember how, remember how in the, we have the, we have the, the basic narrative. That's just what's happening in the storyline. That's the biblical studies portion. When we begin to think about that from God's perspective, that's the meta narrative.

And so, you know, they're both the story. But one's how we think about, you know, one's introducing the way that God sees what's happening. And God didn't just have some random rule, like don't pick yellow flowers, you know, that's meaningless. Um, it actually has to do with who's the, you know, in this relationship between God and man, who's, who's the sovereign.

Cody Urban: And, uh, so I would say mega narrative would be, uh, after that, that God actually close Adam and Eve, but the meta narrative would be, I think, would touch back on what you're talking about with refuge. Yeah, I, I always see that as such a moment of, of compassion that God's still going to drive them in out of the garden. Uh, they still are having consequences of that sin, but in those consequences, God still clothes them. well, where did he get these clothes? You know, did this looks like the first animal sacrifice unless, unless it's. Leaves or something, but, um, but, but still it's, uh, to me, I would say the, the meta narrative that shows to me is that, that sense of refuge that even in this first sin, God still is fathering his children. And as a good parent, not letting them just get away with doing poor, doing bad. Doing evil, but also still there to give them that referee refuge as well.

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. And I, yeah, I completely agree with that. And I think that within the framework, that's exactly how we're supposed to read it. That like, There's all of these shadows, what we call the curse. Even we see another shadow, the Proto Evangelion, this idea that the seed of the woman is going to crush the seed of the serpent, you know, the offspring of the serpent.

And, but, but I do want to discuss now, like, why do people talk about original sin being inherited from Adam? And what does this really mean? Because people will look at this narrative and, and now. Remember, if we're doing biblical studies that leads to questions of biblical theology, that then leads to questions of systematic theology, right, questions that exist outside the text.

Now, we need to ask. Is this first sin or original sin you might call it, right?

Cody Urban: Yeah. Real quick when I've heard this term for years and is it saying origin of sin essentially because you see origin is like a root in original or is this when I think of original like, um, like that's an original soda.

Anthony Delgado: Oh, like unique.

Cody Urban: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and maybe that's just my personal context here.

Now, English vernacular. But, um, if it is literally just saying that this is pinpointing the origin of sin in the universe. Yeah. come they don't just call it the origin of sin or why did

Anthony Delgado: So that's a really great question. So the usage when you're like, that's an original soda. Um, and we use that to mean like unique, the, the, that's a sort of a figurative usage of the word of original. Um, what you're kind of saying is this is the first of its kind, right? It's original in the sense that this is a first of its kind.

Oh, we've never had a soda like that before. Right. Um, because when, you know, you've got a Coke and a Pepsi and then somebody comes out with like another Cola and it could be better, but you're not going to call that an original beverage. Right. Um, no, cause it's just like Coke and Pepsi, even if it is better, which it's probably not, but you know, so like, that's, that's why we call it, that's why we use original that way.

But when we, um, when, you know, You're right, though, to see, so if we're reading the biblical theology, we should see this as the origin of sin, because, because that's, that's actually what happens in the narrative. So let's think about the curse for a quick minute. So, um, I'll just point to two spots. So Adam is told that now.

You know, he's already a gardener, but now outside the garden, there's going to be weeds and thorns and thistles, and now by the sweat of your brow, within the storyline, were those weeds and thorns and thistles out already outside the garden, or are we supposed to understand it that way, or did God create thorns and thistles?

When he set them out within the storyline, how are we supposed to understand that? So,

Cody Urban: I've always read it as if outside of Eden, that's where there

Anthony Delgado: so the text answers that question. The weeds are already out there. They're part of the unordered chaos of the wilderness. But I have heard preachers say. That, and now the ground is going to give forth, forth thorns and thistles. Right. But no, that was already, the chaos was already always out there in the wilderness, outside the garden.

It was always unordered. And the, if you read the narrative critically, part of the dominion mandate is to multiply and fill the earth. With the garden, it's really to expand the garden to develop the unordered wilderness into the garden paradise. And so really nothing is, it's not exactly a curse. The only curse is that they have to leave the presence of God, the temple of God, the garden, the paradise, right?

That's the only actual curse happening here. Adam and Eve and then you go, no, no, no, because Eve, you know, it has going to have increased pain and childbearing. She, you know, it didn't hurt for her to have children before and now it's going to, that's a curse. And actually what's interesting is that's a very modern insight that has to do with how the, The early English translations of the Bible, um, I would say most notably for us, although it's not solely the issue of the King James, but that was the King James tradition and the King James being like this prolific.

There's the first Bible in everyone's homes. You know what I mean? That became the tradition and how we read that passage. But really what's being said in there is something more like there will be suffering and child rearing.

Cody Urban: That's it. I remember hearing that and it

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. And it makes sense of the, and it makes sense of the meta narrative. Right. So if you look at, or at the Megan of narrative at the very least. So if you look at the story, the very first thing that happens after the curse, right, that whatever, or whatever, after God's observation about what will happen now is really what we're talking about is they have two sons and one of them kills the other one.

Cody Urban: I couldn't imagine a worse pain for a parent at all. There's going to be great pain in that child rearing that you just loved Abel and now Cain

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. And that's, that's exactly it. So like, Yeah, that, and that's the, and I do think that where that's obviously heartbreaking to a father, I think that, I think that that becomes a special, you know, when you consider the role that women take in the home and the scriptures. You know, she's raised these, these, these babies into boys and to men.

Cody Urban: of her. part

Anthony Delgado: Yeah.

Cody Urban: and, and feeding off of her, her life, you know, her sustenance and inside and outside of the womb through, you

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. And there is something,

Cody Urban: thing. So I, yeah, we're guys, but I couldn't, I couldn't imagine it.

Anthony Delgado: there is something there. Sorry about the barking dog, everyone. I'm not going to edit this. There is something there about the, the, the, how do I want to say this? There is something there about gender and sexuality and gender expression. And dare I use the term gender roles. That's playing out there in, in the biblical theology.

And so like, if you like, so like, don't let your systematic theology change. That would be my, my exhortation to the listeners, right? That you can probe it with questions to, to gain further insights, but don't let your systematic theology overstep your biblical theology. And that's, that's what the problem of what, what can happen here.

So let's get back to the idea of death of original sin. Here's a definition from the Lexham survey of theology. It says that original sin is the doctrine that as a result of Adam's fall, all mankind are sinners by nature, having a propensity to sin that underlies every actual sin. And so the main point of that, and this is by the way, a very, very carefully worded definition, um, that is supposed to be a good working definition for every sort of Orthodox Christian, some doctrines, definitions of original sin, like get into some utter nonsense about, you know, like biological changes to Adam and things like that,

Cody Urban: Okay. Yeah. I've heard it. Some of

Anthony Delgado: the key part of this is having a propensity to sin that underlies every actual sin because of Adam.

And so that's my real question here is does our texts teach that because of Adams fall, which I don't like that word. I'm going to say because of Adam's rebellion. Adam did fall, though, by the way. Um, it is the fall, but it's not what we're talking about. When we say the fall, we mean sin. When we say the fall, the fall that took place is that Adam isn't king of the garden anymore.

It's a hierarchical fall is a hierarchical term. That means that he has been demoted. And so, yeah, so, so that's the fall. So that's why I want to call this human rebellion, not the human, not the fall of humankind. So Adams rebellion somehow results in everybody Romans three having a propensity to sin. And how does that work?

Right? And so, um, I don't know. I just, as you read this definition, do you have any images that that are promoted by this idea? Like images might not even be the right word there, but just like any, like, does it invoke in you some sort of, like, really? That's what people believe type of thinking.

Cody Urban: Uh, yeah, I guess it's, uh, sounds like. Like a family curse that we're all of the family from Adam is the great patriarch and that, uh, um, almost like, uh, you know, what, like, uh, genetics almost, right? You just pass, you pass on, know, if you've got blue eyes and your wife has blue eyes, your kids are going to have blue eyes, you know, and you pass it on.

I guess that's an image that I get from that is that, that is almost like, as if Adam's sin rebellion is now passed on

Anthony Delgado: Yeah.

Cody Urban: Yeah. Throughout the rest of humankind,

Anthony Delgado: And that's, that's exactly what I've heard is that there's like, and I, at its worst, I've heard things like that. There's a sin gene that was introduced into Adam, right? And that sin gene now means that humans will die and that humans have no choice but to sin and things like that, that it's rewritten our biology so that our brains don't work right now.

And we don't, and we do what we do, what we shouldn't do. Even though we want to do good, we still do evil and stuff like that. And I think that's at its worst that we start to read in, um, you know, scientific discoveries of modernity. Um, and I, I don't mind laughing at that. Hopefully nobody listening is terribly offended.

I think they're like, Oh, I always, I always thought there was a, you know, I'm sorry, you know? Yeah. Did they, yeah. Like, let me know if they find it. Yeah. Cause I'd, I'd be interested, but, um, I might skim read the article. Um, but I think that within the meta narrative or even the mega narrative, actually, there's a better explanation that if we that if we look at it, you know, it's not that something, you know, biologically changed about Adam that makes him sin.

There were metaphysical changes. I think we tend to believe that, uh, based on some of the wording in the Hebrew and things that are said about the fall, the rebellion of Adam. In hindsight, we tend to believe that he had the Holy Spirit in the garden and that the Holy Spirit was taken from him when he was evicted from the garden.

So there's a metaphysical change that definitely takes place. But does not having the Holy Spirit insist that you sin? I don't think so. So there has to be something that changes. And I don't think it's a biological change. What I think it is is actually, I don't know, maybe we would call this a social change.

That because I live in Southern California and Southern California is so close to South America and so many South Americans also live in, uh, Southern California. I eat a lot of tacos and a lot of beans and rice and, and I have

Cody Urban: Yeah

Anthony Delgado: complaints about any of that.

Cody Urban: Totally sure him.

Anthony Delgado: circumstantial, right.

Because of where I happen to live. And, um, if you were, I remember taking anthropology in junior college and just like, you know, learning about like, uh, the Inuit in North America and some of the practices that I don't think are, are common today, but just things that they had to do because they lived in ice houses and extremely cold weather and, you know, Practices of food distribution and things like that, that if you then moved from there to, you know, the United States, you would probably struggle to leave some of those practices behind, um, even though some of them are not necessarily culturally acceptable.

So, for example, the, the strongest and oldest adult male would eat first. Right. And that's completely counter counterintuitive, but they needed their strength to go out and hunt. So everybody else could eat. So when they sat down for a meal, that person would eat first until they got enough so that they could then go hunt.

And if they did it the opposite, and they fed the babies first and then the elderly, and then, you know, dad eats last. Everybody could end up dying. And so if you bring that that into our culture today, where food is prolific, you just look like a jerk. You know what I mean? So you're like, I know you guys are hungry.

Hang on, kids. You know, give me an hour. I'm gonna I'm gonna work this out and then you can have whatever's left. You know, you just look like a jerk. And it's really just a cultural difference that grew out of necessity. And so that's, what's happening here is that there is a social cultural difference, uh, that grows out of the necessity of living in the wilderness that born outside the goodness of God's presence in the garden, in God's paradise, that now living in the world, that is, they live in the unordered chaos in the wilderness, and they're now supposed to build a city.

They're supposed to build their own, own paradise out here in the wilderness. They don't have the means or the resources. Adam's going to do that by the sweat of his brow. God says like, he he's going to, he's going to kill himself trying to build the city out here and it's never going to stand. It's never going to look like the garden.

It's never going to be right. And that's the, that's the biblical theology. And so, because people are born outside the kingdom of God and born into the kingdoms of the world or the kingdom of the world, which is the nations of the world, right? Um, as children of Adam, they are going to live as children of Adam live in the wilderness.

And so it's really just a circumstantial observation that humans have a propensity to sin because we do not live. In the presence of God, we are not create, that's not our natural abode and that becomes the precedent for the doctrine of adoption that shows up later when you start looking at the familial motif of scripture.

God is father and humans as son as potential sons of God or a strange sons of God. That's part of what's happening here is an estrangement where you're just not growing up in God's house. And so you're living like the world does in the wilderness. Um, and so Mm hmm.

Cody Urban: leads to who I was learning today actually that, uh, the word that we get paradise from, and sometimes it's translated as paradise, right? Like when he's on the cross today, you'll be with me in paradise. That one seems pretty consistent, but there's a few others that seem like they might plug in heaven or something like that. Um, throughout the New Testament. But in that Greek, that word paradise is what they would use in the subdugent for Eden. least that's what I was learning today. And it's just interesting because that can reframe sort of what you're saying about, need to fully understand the mega narrative. We need to do that work and learn that, that the work of Jesus bringing us back to toward paradise.

And, So, so that's, we can get the Holy Spirit through, through the work of Christ, get the Holy Spirit to be back more like Adam in Eden and live a life in the kingdom of God. Even if we are, you know, in that tension of I'm in the kingdom, but I'm also in the world type of thing. But it, that's where I think what you were saying. Really was sounding inspiring to me about understanding the mega narrative, meta narrative of, uh, of, you know, just that even what it is like to have that sin nature because we're born

Anthony Delgado: Yeah,

Cody Urban: and the work of the cross

Anthony Delgado: to bring us back in. That's exactly right. And so, I mean, I'm not 100 percent sure about, I haven't looked too much into the subdugent user usage of Paradisos and it's literally Paradisos, like in the Greek, like you can clearly see it as paradise. It's a transliteration into English. And, um, But so I haven't looked into that too much, but you're absolutely right.

I mean, even the, the thief on the cross, right. Or the criminals on the crosses, I like to call them, you know, truly today you will be with me in paradise. And incidentally, that word paradise is also means garden. And that would be true in the Hebrew as in the Greek that, uh, that Hey, you'll be back with me in the garden, right?

We're going back into the garden is really what Jesus was saying. So are people sinners by nature? You know, that's the, that's the idea of, of original sin as are people sinners by nature. And this becomes very muddy if we understand it, according to the biblical theology, to be honest with you, because we want to look at our own kids and say, our children are born.

In original sin, and we want to treat them that way. And you can think ecclesiologically how some of this affects the way that churches do things like baptism and the Lord's Supper, other sacraments, you know what I mean? Like, how do we, how do we perceive of our Children? Do we perceive of them? Do we treat them as Children of God?

Or do we treat them as Children of Adam? And it starts to touch Some important, really important questions, um, because if we're supposed to see, I'm going to be honest about the way that evangelicals tend to think about this. If you take the doctrine of original sin, you're going to look at your newborn baby, or you ought to.

If you take it on face value, you're going to look at your newborn baby as the enemy,

Cody Urban: Yeah. I, I remember a young mother who felt so offended. Um, I'm not sure if she came back to a church, but she was saying that she was listening to a preacher that was saying that that your baby is evil. And she's just as any mother would absolutely in love with her baby and it's the most precious thing in her eyes. And so I would, would say this conversation is helping me, I think, give a better response. I don't remember the response I gave to her, but I don't think it was a great one because I was really surprised and she was already very emotional. But feel like this conversation has helped me sort of frame that, you know, Look, our, our children are born in the same mess we were born in. And by the conditions of where we were born, they are gonna,

Anthony Delgado: right?

Cody Urban: going to

Anthony Delgado: And we can't help that our children are born into the kingdom of the world, but as much as they are by birth children of Adam, they are also your children. And you are a child of God. And so the, there is some funniness, some funniness to how, as this motif plays forward into the new Testament, like your children don't immediately become God's grandchildren, the way that genealogy works.

Right. Um,

Cody Urban: right.

Anthony Delgado: we should hold intention, this idea that they're children of the world. And we see our kids as we raise them, uh, to, to whatever degree we try to raise them in our own homes in as children of God, they are yet exposed to the world and being trained by the kingdom of the world. And so I guess I do want to say to parents, be very careful to train your kids as children of God.

Um, and I believe to tell them that they are Children of God, like, I think there's something to that, you know, to assume your Children's Christian value and not to treat them like outsiders in your own home. Uh, you assume their faith, you, you won't, you know, and now I'm sounding a little bit like Presbyterian reform, you know, classical reform and stuff like that.

I guess within the Protestant world anyway, um, but you can see how that kind of thinking happens where if you're the child of a, of a, of believers, then you're assumed first to be a believer, even from birth. And that's where that type of, you know, pedo baptism comes from now. I'm a Baptist. And so I want to hold this intention and say that.

When a child express has the ability to express their faith personally. Um, that's truly when we can be confident that they are children of God, but we want to make sure, and this is back to my warning to parents, we want to make sure that our house is a place where to the degree that we are saying sanctified enough to carry it out, where, where we are more and more pursuing the kingdom of God in our homes so that our kids are.

More influenced by that than they are by the world. And, uh, I don't think I've ever said this on the podcast, but I've said it publicly lots of times. This is why I'm very anti public school. I'm not going to send my kids for seven hours to let, you know, somebody who has no biblical worldview train my children in what they believe is good and right, according to their experience of the world.

And so, um, you know, I don't know if that hurts anybody who's listening, but that's, that's my, that's, you know, if you have to public school for whatever reason, then that needs to be offset in certain ways. Um, but I, but I would, I would just plead with any parent to do everything they can, uh, to, you know, whether it's chartering or, you know, whatever to get more involved in the teaching of their children, because you can't shape a child in their understanding of, The physical world without shaping their worldview.

And so it's, it's just very difficult. And so the deeper you can get your hands in that, the more you can protect your, your children as they are being raised, that they are not being raised as much in the kingdom of Adam as in the kingdom of God. So that when it becomes time for them to make that decision, uh, that they are going to be followers of Christ and not followers of.

You know, to use John's words, their father, the devil, right? So like, we don't want that for our kids. And so we want to protect them and nurture that. And so that's what refuge is, right? That refuge means coming into the kingdom to find refuge from the world, to escape it and to become, and we get that in life when we come to Christ so that we begin to be trained by the kingdom of God, by kingdom of God thinking instead of kingdom of world thinking.

And the earlier you can expose your kids to that, just the better. So, and I think there's other implications, right? I mean, what do you think about this last, uh, discussion point before we wrap up? I think there's important implications for the way we see not just the family, which we're going to talk about more in a few weeks, but in the church and Christian community, like, what do you think?

Cody Urban: The church has felt like a refuge to me for sure. Many times, um, moments where I'm, just be transparent. You and I've had this conversation. I've wrestled with anxieties, um, that just felt pretty crippling and sort of pulled me toward like a depression spiral. And. a place that I have felt refuge and not just, not just like, Oh, cool.

I've got, I've got a place that's a safe space. It really felt like I'm in a church environments where I am surrounded by other believers. And being in their presence, I felt more in the presence of God, because we were focused on that. We're focused on, on a life of Following Jesus as our king, um, and having that fellowship together with him that it felt like it really has felt like a refuge. from the ways of the world that are trying to, I don't know, the list there would go on, but it's a world of darkness. And in that refuge I found light.

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. And there's a lot of ways that we find that. Like find that light within Christian community. We find it in tangible ways. Um, you know, like encouragements, the prayers of the saints that, you know, that you're not, you're not the only one, you know, that other people are escapings the same or similar types of situations or even completely different escape situations, but they're finding encouragement in the body of Christ being to experience that.

I think that maybe, you know, You know, so those are the benefits of the Christian community. Maybe just very briefly. I think there's so much more sometimes it's physical needs, right? Sometimes, you know, I think we have commands in the new testament that, um, as much as the church is about like, about like feeding the poor and caring for needs in the community, the greater community out in the world as a means of bringing people to Christ.

I think the, the real charge of scripture is, is, is first and foremost that we care for each other, that our love before for each other within the Christian community is so great that that would become evangelistic, that the world would go, wow, those guys over there are followers of Jesus. Right. And, um, maybe I want a piece of that.

Right. And I want to know what it means that Jesus is king or whatever. I also think, uh, that there are, That this pattern gets reflected and trained, this pattern of taking refuge, leaving the world and taking refuge in Christ gets patterned and trained in the liturgy of the church, or it should, um, you know, in this idea that we want to remember who we were so that we can remember who we become.

Right. That we're, we're emphasizing, we're remembering the old man, the, that we were in Adam so that we can glory in the new man that has taken refuge in Christ, the second Adam to use, you know, Paul's analogy. And so, yeah, it's always that it's, it's always that, that idea that, and the church has always done this by the way.

And it's only in really the modern day that a lot of churches want to downplay The significance of human sin. And some will say, Oh, we preach a kingdom gospel. Um, that is, that is really a refuge from the world, but it's really just a social agenda. It's like, Oh, but we look how healthy our interactions are.

Right. And not

Cody Urban: I was trying to qualify what I was saying earlier, that it was more than something like that, that it's not just the club, you know, or a

Anthony Delgado: Completely.

Cody Urban: something like that, that it,

Anthony Delgado: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't accusing you of saying that for sure. Um,

Cody Urban: Oh, I know. I'm

Anthony Delgado: yeah, you're actually, yeah, but you're right. You could see it though. You can see it though. Sort of the, the emergent village movement that was really like, um, let's just be good Christians together and not dealing theologically with some of these core foundational realities.

I mean, Genesis three doesn't just frame our thinking as the church today it's framed, you know, Uh, the Israelites thinking about why they had the sacrificial system. It's framed second temple Jewish theology about why they needed a coming Messiah. It's framed the understanding of the New Testament authors and, and, and into today.

So we, we, you know, it's a, it's a really important motif that, where I will be a little bit critical about the way that Systematic theology has dealt with the doctrine of original sin. I do think we need to really think about this pattern of, uh, of, of remembering who we were in the world and thinking about the church as the refuge of God.

And then. In our liturgy rehearsing that so that we're never going, Oh, we don't talk about sin here. We're the people of God now. No, we always want to remember that because the second you forget that you're going to dive back into it without probably even knowing what you're doing. So that those old habits of the, you know, those old habits are going to come back.

And so, yeah, we need to definitely be careful about that. So, yeah. So, um, unless you've got any other thoughts, I think that's a good place to stop. I've been been a long episode, but I think we could probably talk for five more hours about Genesis three and how it, Those images bleed forward on next week.

We're going to talk about, uh, divine rebellion. So this was human rebellion. We're going to talk about divine rebellion next week. And then we are actually going to spend some more time, I think, talking about, uh, this idea of, uh, This idea of refuge and refuge. Yeah. Rebellion and refuge. I just said refuge and refuge, rebellion and refuge.

And, uh, and teasing out maybe some specific passages of scripture where we see that, um, in the old Testament and how the new Testament authors thought about that. So that should be a lot of fun.

Cody Urban: awesome.