Ploutos
Puritan Board Sophomore
In my latest perusal of the New Testament, one thing that has stood out to me quite prominently is the theme of the law as a means of inciting sin in us. I noticed it in John 15:22-25, and of course most extensively in Romans 3-7, and this morning in Galatians 3. I notice now, more clearly than before, Scripture's emphasis on the way in which the law brings awareness of sin and incites our sinful hearts to ever greater rebellion. It seems as if, in a sense, the law's presence apart from Christ activates sin.
Has anyone drawn a connection between this theme and what happened in the Garden of Eden? Specifically, I'm thinking of two possibilities.
First, that God's command to not eat of the tree is sort of a "proto-law" coming before the first declaration of the "proto-gospel" at the end of Genesis 3: that his command not to eat incited the hearts of Adam and Eve to rebellion, and made sin come alive in their hearts.
Second, that the giving of the law was part of the promised curse - that as Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so the giving of the law imparted that knowledge of good and evil and, without Christ, could only bring death in its wake as through this knowledge sin came alive in them and they died.
It's not something I've ever heard from anyone else nor have I come across it in any commentaries, so I am ready to dismiss the thought if it has no merit.
Has anyone drawn a connection between this theme and what happened in the Garden of Eden? Specifically, I'm thinking of two possibilities.
First, that God's command to not eat of the tree is sort of a "proto-law" coming before the first declaration of the "proto-gospel" at the end of Genesis 3: that his command not to eat incited the hearts of Adam and Eve to rebellion, and made sin come alive in their hearts.
Second, that the giving of the law was part of the promised curse - that as Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so the giving of the law imparted that knowledge of good and evil and, without Christ, could only bring death in its wake as through this knowledge sin came alive in them and they died.
It's not something I've ever heard from anyone else nor have I come across it in any commentaries, so I am ready to dismiss the thought if it has no merit.