“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. | 1 Corinthians 10:23–24
This Sunday, we prepared to study through Leviticus by taking a quick theological tour from Eden to Sinai (Genesis and Exodus). While all of it is remarkable, I find the first 3 chapters of Genesis to be especially helpful in how we understand who we are in this world. While much of the conversation of early Genesis drifts into whether or not it is intended as literal or allegorical and how to match the creation narrative with modern science, the Bible has a lot to say if we simply read what is there. The beginning of Genesis lays out a picture of the human condition that makes sense of why this world is the way it is.
It begins with God creating all things good, and making human beings in His image: to have relationship with and to worship Him. Human beings are given the cultural mandate (Gen. 1.28), and are set in a garden to accomplish this shared endeavor. Adam and Eve do not like their part in this plan: as creations of the Creator. They seek to free themselves from the confines of submission to God and exercise this freedom through the act of disobedience.
What this does is introduces evil to the world. It breaks the relationship between humans and God (they hide from Him), humans with one another (they blame each other), humans with themselves (they experiences shame). When God comes in to explain the curse that they have unleashed, He makes it clear that the very creation is now at war with them. The cultural mandate, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, was now going to be a battle. The very act of procreation will now be filled with pain (Gen. 3.16), the partnership between husband and wife is now marred, and subduing the earth will be filled with toil and pain (Gen. 3.17-19). Genesis 3 reveals that the good creation has been broken.
This sets us up for the story or redemption: how God is going to act to save human beings from the justified consequence of their sin and reverse the effects of the curse. God restores relationship with Himself, through Jesus, by paying our debt and sharing His righteousness with us (Rom. 3.23-25). He restores our relationship with ourselves by giving us a new identity (Eph. 1.11-14). He restores the relationship that we have with others by making us ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5.16-21). He promises that the whole world will be remade in glory, to be the perfect backdrop of worship it was created to be (Rev. 20-21).
With all of this, the first 3 chapters of Genesis also give us a picture of the mess that we are in. As human beings, we try to do good things, we attempt to fill the earth and subdue it, but every action is laced with sin. We are good, but we are broken. Richard Niebuhr, in his classic work Christ and Culture (which we will be studying in our next EQUIP series) describes our predicament this way:
The result of man’s defection from God, moreover, all occurs on man’s side, not God’s. The word that must be used here to designate the consequences of the fall is ‘corruption.’ Man’s good nature has become corrupted; it is not bad, as something that ought not to exist, but warped, twisted, and misdirected. He loves with the love that is given him in his creation, but loves beings wrongly, in the wrong order; he desires good with the desire given him by his Maker, but aims at goods that are not good for him and misses his true good; he produces fruit, but it is misshapen and bitter; he organizes society with the aid of his practical reason, but works against the grain of things in self-willed forcing of his reason into irrational paths, and thus disorganizes things in his very acts of organization. Hence {God’s] culture is all corrupted order rather than order for corruption, as it is for the dualists. It is a perverted good, not evil; or it is evil as perversion, and not as badness of being.
The underlying nature of creation did not change at the Fall. Good is still good and evil is still evil. Every thing that God created still has good, but every thing has also been perverted. This is very important as we seek to subdue the earth in partnership with the rest of humanity.
Some people approach this effort with the assumption that people are good. The answers to the problems of this world, then, are education, ingenuity, and unity. If we can simply tap into the resource of human good, we can come up with a plan to solve the world’s problems. This also carries with it an optimism that heaven on earth can be achieved. People who approach the world this way have a low view of sin and how badly it has corrupted all human efforts.
Other people approach the world as if everything is evil. The answers to the problems of this world are abstinence, counter-cultural, and monastic living. If we can avoid the evil out there and survive this evil world, then we can get to heaven. This often carries with it a pessimism on any good that can be accomplished in the world. People who approach the world this way have a low view of the good in creation and God’s common grace.
The solution is a Genesis 1-3 view of a good world, that has been broken. To view the world through this lens reminds us that the cultural mandate still stands, no matter how hard it has become. It encourages us to be humble, remembering the sin that infects us. It drives us to collaborate and trust, recognizing that God has placed His good in all people, even those very different from us. It keeps us from becoming too confident in human ability, but also motivates us to keep going, even when it seems that our efforts are in vain. Most of all, adopting this perspective assures us that as we work to heal the broken relationships that sin has destroyed, we are participating in the plan that God will complete; we are a small part of His universal plan of redemption. Our efforts in this life hold and push back against the results of the Fall. Sir Francis Bacon put it this way:
Man by the Fall fell at the same time from the state of innocence and from his dominion over creation.
Sir Francis Bacon
Both of these losses, however, can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences.
For creation was not by the curse made altogether and forever a rebel, but in virtue of that covenant ‘In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread’ it is now by various labors at length, and in some measure subdued to the supplying of man with bread; that is to the uses of human life.
The world we live in is good, but broken. To view it this way gives purpose to our work (even baking bread!), but it also focuses our aim. Our lives should be aimed at finding and pursuing the good, wherever it may be.