Cheryl

So sorry, Kerryn I hadn’t realized that I didn’t get to your questions.

You said:

“Once we start ‘judging’ sin into different categories i think we can get ourselves into trouble. Are you saying that if Adam had NOT eaten the apple, we would still be in the Garden?”

I think we can only say what God says. God defines Adam’s sin as more serious than Eve’s sin since he sinned willfully and with knowledge. In the Old Testament there was an offering for unintentional sin:

Lev 4:22 ‘When a leader sins and unintentionally does any one of all the things which the LORD his God has commanded not to be done, and he becomes guilty,
Lev 4:23 if his sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a male without defect.

But if one sinned defiantly against God, his sin was on his own head.

Num 15:30 ‘But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people.
Num 15:31 ‘Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt will be on him.'”

This is called the sin literally with a “high hand”. It is a deliberate defiant sin like shaking one’s fist in God’s face. God has judged the attitude of this sin as being different than the attitude of one who sins unintentionally. Eve sinned unintentionally – she was completely and wholly deceived. Adam on the other hand was not deceived and God has judged him as an intentional sinner.

Hos 6:7 But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; There they have dealt treacherously against Me.

The one who sins with knowledge and in a defiant and treacherous way, God deals much differently with that person.

If it was possible that Adam had not sinned by eating the fruit, then both of them would have been in the garden waiting for the Messiah to be born from the woman in order for her seed to die for her sin. But we know that this is not the way that it happened because Adam was the one who sinned with knowledge and brought sin into the world.

One dictionary describes the presumptuous sin this way-

presumptuously: Heb. with an high hand, That is, bold, daring, deliberate acts of transgression against the fullest evidence, and in despite of the Divine authority. Such conduct “reproacheth the Lord,” as if his commands were needless, unreasonable, and inimical to the happiness of man; his favour were not desirable, or his wrath not to be feared. In short, as if it were more advantageous to rebel against him than to serve him. Such acts admitted of no atonement. The person was condemned to bear his own iniquity, and to be cut off.

Gill says:

Num 15:30 – But the soul that doeth ought presumptuously,…. Or with “an high hand” (t), or through pride, as the Targum of Jonathan; in an haughty, insolent, bold and daring manner; in an obstinate, stubborn, self-willed way, with purpose and design, openly and publicly, neither fearing God nor regarding man.

Is there sin that God judges differently? You bet!

You said:

Interestingly, Adam on the other hand showed no repentence or admission of fault, but rather looked to palm the blame off on the one who he used to see as ‘bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh” (Gen 2:23)

You are exactly right and this shows that his sin was purposeful and defiant. There was no repentance at all or admission of his fault. You also bring out a great point that in 1 Timothy 2:11, 12 the only imperative in these two verses is the command to let the woman learn.

You also said:

He is our representative because he was the one ‘through’ which all human life ultimately came. Could this not be the reason why transgression is laid at ‘his’ feet, rather than his sin being ‘greater’ than Eve’s?

No, it could not be the fact that through Adam all human life ultimately came otherwise Adam’s sin would also have been imputed to Eve since she is part of the humanity that came from him. However Adam’s sin was not imputed to Eve rather she was called into account for her own sin and Adam did not represent Eve to God. Adam was definitely NOT Eve’s representative in any way to God nor does God say Adam’s sin was imputed to Eve. Does that make sense? Instead of Adam being a representative of humanity before sin and then after sin, we see that Adam did not represent Eve and this exception rules out Adam’s place as the representative of the human race. Rather we should take God at his word that Adam’s sin was different than Eve’s. Nowhere does God state that Eve’s sin was done intentionally. Instead Eve was deceived. If we have a difference in the intention of sin, then we can understand why sin came through the man and not the woman.

I hope that helps!