Adams Sin Imputed To Eve

I think it is time to reduce his meds!
They are obviously having a psychoactive effect. :}

I have Ortlund’s chapter in CBMW’s book so marked up from the errors, that it will be impossible for me to address them all in this format. Unfortunately his elevation of male pride comes through quite loud in his writing.

The issue of “Federal headship” of Adam has major problems when one considers Eve. There is no basis in the bible for a view that Adam’s sin was put onto his wife and she died because of his sin. It becomes clear when one considers the question about what would have happened if Adam had sinned but Eve had not sinned? According to the “Federal headship” doctrine, Eve still would have died because Adam’s sin would have been charged to her. But try to find justification for this teaching in scripture and you come up with nothing at all. It is a doctrine that is forced onto scripture because it fails the test with Eve. Rather than “Federal headship” one should just accept that the bible says that all of us were “in” Adam when he sinned. Eve was not “in” Adam when he sinned.

I’m doing that ‘AFLAC duck talking to Yogi Berra’ head shake* when reading Ortlund. Let me see if I get this right. On the one hand he says that Eve really didn’t sin at all, it was Adam. On the other hand he is saying that Eve did sin by usurping Adam’s headship. How can Eve sinfully usurp Adam’s headship with the sin nature he gave her when she does it before he commits his sin? Arrrggghhh! Am I properly interpreting Ortlund’s chicken and egg paradox or have I shaken my head too much to grasp this?

*The reference is to a commercial where the AFLAC duck listens in on a conversation with Yogi Berra, who, for those who are not sports literate, has spoken some classically insane lines like “cash is as good as money”. It is a very funny commercial. For the uninformed – youtube it.

Because of Adam’s sin, we all die. No one is exempt. Right? All people after Adam and Eve die because of Adam’s sin. BUT, how does Ortlund explain that Messiah could come through a woman? He doesn’t, does he?

‘The fourth point here is that God told Adam alone that he would die. But Eve died, too. Why then did God pronounce the death sentence on Adam alone? Because, as the head goes, so goes the member. [emphasis mine]’

I think that his eyes are not on the scriptures close enough when he says ‘God told Adam alone that he would die’. Just ask Eve! LOL!

Gen 3
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”

It’s right there as ‘you’ in the Hebrew is plural. God said that they will die according to Eve’s testimony of God’s word.

Otlund needs to listen to a woman more often! lol!

STILL ROTFLOL!!!

I’m sure you’ve all seen this joke, but it’s so very true.

The husband had just finished reading a new book titled, “You Can Be the Man of Your House!” He stormed into the kitchen and walked directly up to his wife.

Pointing a finger in her face, he said sternly, “From now on, you need to know that I am the man of this house and my word is law! You will prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I’m finished eating my meal, you will serve me a sumptuous dessert. After dinner you are going to draw me a bath so I can relax. You will wash my back and towel me dry and bring me my robe. Then you will massage my feet and hands.
Then after that’s done, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?”

His wife replied, “The funeral director.”

Hey!

I am bigger than you and I can read the Bible so I get privileges!

How come some object? They are just being rebels! 🙂

Don,
Maybe they need to drop this guy’s meds, or maybe he needs to be on a new one. This panacea isn’t working for him.

Cheryl,
As I was reading this post and that passage in Genesis, it really struck me how that might have felt to be Eve in that situation. Thinking on how God was telling Eve and Adam what life was going to be like outside of the Garden, I could imagine Eve with tears in her eyes, weeping at the enormity of the consequences of her actions. Adam may have been similarly affected, and acted in a self-preservation kind of way, I don’t know, but the loss they suffered in their relationship was enormous. They aren’t mythical-type humans; they were a real husband and wife. I’m just starting to see from these studies how men and women really do respond to each other, when we’re not “one-anothering” (Eph. 5) each other.

Kathleen,
It would have been a hard thing for Eve to hear especially since God told her that her special partner and mate would turn on her and treat her very badly. She didn’t even have any lady friends to confide in so I am sure that she felt very alone.

And yet she honored God twice in statements in Gen 4!

Oh, Don, that’s beautiful. I wish I had seen that and said it. Thank you for pointing it out! Blessed be the Name of the Lord.

It is one thing to disagree strongly with someone’s interpretation of the Bible. It is another to make pejorative and ignorant comments about someone not taking his “meds.” Those who have made such comments above ought to consider what they’re doing.

Biblical interpretation aside, it might help to know that my parents (Ray Ortlund is my dad) have the healthiest, most loving marriage I have ever observed up close. I have the utmost respect and admiration for my dad.

Dane Ortlund

Dane,
Thanks for popping in! I appreciate that you agree that Christians can strongly disagree with another Christian’s interpretation of the Scriptures. I also am sure that your Dad’s interpretation of scripture may not necessarily follow through in his marriage. In fact many complementarians live in egalitarian marriages. This has been documented even through complementarian sources.

It would also be helpful for you to know that some take a bad interpretation seriously and the comments may reflect some of that. I try very hard not to moderate the comments here as that would come across as overly controlling. However I still appreciate your comments and thank you for your admiration of your Dad. I am sure that he has the same respect for you too.

Blessings,
Cheryl

Everything makes sense here, Love the Topic. I have a few questons:

We know Adam is going to act out his sin nature by ruling over Eve.The bigger picking on the smaller.

But Eve sinned (Was Tricked), thus Sin & Death from eating from the tree of evil fell on “herself” “alone” and she too has a sin nature, right? She can’t pass the sin nature on is that correct, that comes from Adam? In other words Her Sin was just on Her, it affected Just Herself, where as Adam’s Sin affected himself and any Children (Us) that may come from him. Is this correct?

Michael,

It is correct that Eve does not pass on the sin nature. The sin nature comes from rebellion and deliberate sin and Eve did not have that. The consequences of her actions were what God told both of them – that they would die. But God further added to the consequences by pronouncing a curse on the earth because of Adam’s deliberate, willful, rebellious and treacherous act. No curse was placed on anything because of Eve having been deceived and so her seed will inherit no rebellion that is in all of us who are descendants of Adam.

You answered this before but I can’t find my comment or your reply on my question, so here it is again, about eating from the Tree…

Why didn’t her eyes open up first when she ate the fruit, was it because thay ate just seconds apart..then they both opened…please explain. Thanks Cheryl

Michael,
Just as poison that is eaten takes a while to get into our system passing through our systems, so too the forbidden fruit was to become an ingested poison and once it started to break down in their bodies, the results from eating the fruit were seen. I do not think that it was an instant thing just as eating poison isn’t usually an instant “death” either. Does this make sense?

It makes sense thanks Cheryl. They ate just seconds apart from one another so they would both feel the effects together so to speak or as scripture states..Then the eyes of BOTH became open…..

What is baffling to me, having read John Murray’s book The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, is how federal headship has stopped being a theory for how sin passes from one generation to another after Adam and Eve sinned (and correspodingly why Christ’s birth is unique) to a theology addressed with hiearchies in earthly relationships. Federal headship simply means that Adam as the first man made a decision that effected and affected the future of humanity. Since his wife sinned with him arguing that only Adam’s sin is imputed to future generations is splitting hairs. Even Murray assumed that a federal or representative imputation still worked through natural imputation. In other words, even if Adam’s status as representative meant his sin was imputed to future generations he still had to have children with Eve before that was going to happen.

The usual explanation for the woman’s usurping role is in “because you have listened to your wife”. I find this argument dubious simply because the emphasis is not on Eve usurping her role but Adam heeding the voice of his wife rather than God’s warning. Both Adam and Eve attempt to pin the blame for their actions on another yet both are finally held responsible for their disobedience in eating the fruit. A lot of speculation about precisely how the man or woman sinned that expounds on gender roles seems wasteful to me because it finally is locating sin in some place other than ignoring God’s warning about eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Now I have heard men try to argue that the sin nature is not passed through the woman and in response to that I proposed the following scenario: human cloning is successfully obtained and a clone of a woman is developed who then undergoes a sex change. Does this man then have grounds to claim he was born without a sin nature? Would anyone buy that or would that seem like special pleading? Since Luke tells us Jesus was born of a virgin hamartology was concerned with explaining how and why it was necessary beyond the mystery of the incarnation (i.e. why for our sake it was necessary).

I think federal headship is being conscripted by complementarians to solve a social and political problem the doctrine was never even designed to address. If the doctrine helps you understand why salvation is through Christ alone then you’re understanding the doctrine properly. If you employ the doctrine to establish a social or political agenda in the here and now then it smells like a bad kind of special pleading.

Sorry if this is too long but the application of imputation in theology has been a hobby of mine and I have been disappointed by how doctrines related to it have been appropriated to deal with things it wasn’t designed to deal with.

Hi Jeremiah,
Welcome to my blog!

You said:

Both Adam and Eve attempt to pin the blame for their actions on another yet both are finally held responsible for their disobedience in eating the fruit. A lot of speculation about precisely how the man or woman sinned that expounds on gender roles seems wasteful to me because it finally is locating sin in some place other than ignoring God’s warning about eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

While it is true that both Adam and Eve are ultimately responsible for the sin of eating the fruit, and both of them will die from eating that fruit, they are not held equally responsible. Only the man’s actions brings a curse. Eve’s does not.

Paul picks up on this and deals with the issue around the intent of one’s heart. Eve was “led astray”:

2 Cor 11:3 But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

..while Adam’s action was treacherous (Hosea 6:7)

Paul said that he received mercy, not because he did his bad deeds in full knowledge of what he was doing, but he received mercy because he did his actions ignorantly and in unbelief. This goes beyond merely locating sin by the action. It also takes into consideration also the condition of the heart. Of course only God is capable of this kind of judging as He alone is God who sees the heart.

1 Tim 1:13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief;