According to the Genesis account of creation, after God created man, He placed in a garden that was watered by four rivers and told him he could eat from every tree in the garden but one — the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. One of the trees that man was permitted to eat from was the Tree of Life, but he never ate from that one. If he had done that, his body would have become immortal. Man did eat from the forbidden tree and as a result of doing so brought death upon himself and his posterity.
According to this account, it was man's wife who first ate from the forbidden tree. She did so after listening to the lies of Satan who had assumed the form of a snake.
In the Wisdom of Solomon, it says:
Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. (Wisdom 2:24)
Another sin that the fallen angel Lucifer committed is that of envy. He became jealous of man who had been newly created by God in the divine image and likeness and because of his jealousy, he wanted to destroy this new creature of God. He tempted the man's wife to eat from the forbidden tree and she in turn got her husband to eat from it. In Ecclesiasticus, it says:
Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. (Ecclesiasticus 25:24)
St. Paul said:
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (I Tim. 2:14)
In the Scriptures, the first man is called Adam and his wife is called Eve. Some have said that the first sin committed by humans was gluttony. It may have very well have been covetousness as well. It says in Genesis:
And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes to look upon and beautiful to contemplate, and having taken of its fruit she ate, and she gave to her husband also with her, and they ate. (Gen. 3:7, LXX)
The man and his wife coveted the fruit from the forbidden tree before they ate. Their sin of covetousness led to the commission of the sin of disobedience which resulted in them bringing death upon themselves and on their posterity.
In St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the apostle wrote:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that (Greek, eph hoi, on account of which) all have sinned. (Rom. 5:12)*
The words translated "for that" in this verse are the Greek words, eph hoi. Eph is another form of the Greek preposition, epi. Hoi is a relative pronoun that can refer to only a masculine or a neuter noun. There are three possible words that hoi can refer to: death (thanatos), world (kosmos), or Adam. The Orthodox Church follows the interpretation of St. John Chrysostom and interprets hoi to refer to death. So then, it is on account of death that all have sinned.**
Later in Romans, St. Paul said:
But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. (Rom. 5:15)
In St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, he says:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor. 15:22)
In Job it says:
For I know that death will destroy me: for the earth is the house appointed for every mortal. (Job 30:23, LXX)
and in Ecclesiasticus it says:
All flesh waxeth old as a garment: for the covenant from the beginning is, Thou shalt die the death. (Ecclesiasticus 14:17)
In St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, he said:
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. (Heb. 9:27)
So, death has passed on to all men. Everyone inherits death from his parents and ultimately from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Death is transmitted by the woman as well as by the man. (Ecclesiasticus 25:24; I Cor. 15:22)
After our first parents sinned, they transmitted mortality to all of their posterity. Because of their sin, we all die. Photo courtesy freefoto.com.
No one is guilty of any of the sins committed by our first parents.*** In Ezekiel, it says:
But the soul that sins shall die: and the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the iniquity of the transgressor shall be upon him. (Ezek. 18:20, LXX)
We are conceived in sins.
For, behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 50:5, LXX)
Those sins are not sins that belong to others. Those are sins that we ourselves possess. Everyone has a tendency to commit sins, but no one is guilty of someone else's sins. It is on account of death that we sin. Our mortal nature has a tendency to sin. In the Wisdom of Solomon, it says:
For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things. (Wisdom 9:15)
St. Paul said:
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:18-24)
It is because of our mortality that we sin.
Adam sinned and then he died when he was 930 years old. (Gen. 5:5) We inherit death from Adam and because we die, we sin.
There are three kinds of death spoke of in the Scriptures: physical death, spiritual death, and the second death. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. In the Epistle of James it says:
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:26)
The body dies when the immaterial part of the person (namely, the spirit and soul) leaves the body. This is physical death. Physical death, in the Orthodox view, is seen a remedy for sin and not a punishment for sin. God has to take us apart at death and put us back together again in the general resurrection in order to repair the damage that has been done to us by sin. There are, of course, things that we must be doing in this life to promote the spiritual healing process before we die. If we do not do these things, we will not be resurrected with incorruptible, deified bodies. I will talk more about the things we must be doing for our spiritual health is some future blogs.
Another kind of death is spiritual death. St. Paul spoke of this kind of death in his Epistle to the Ephesians:
And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. (Eph. 2:1)
Spiritual death is spiritual separation from God. We separate ourselves from God in our souls and in our wills when we sin. God never physically separates Himself from us. He is in all places at all times.
The knowledge of Thee is too wonderful for me; it is very difficult, I cannot attain to it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? And whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I should go up to Heaven, Thou art there: if I should go down to Hell, Thou art present. If I should spread my wings to fly straight forward, and sojourn at the extremity of the sea, it would be vain, for even there Thy hand would guide me, and Thy right hand would hold me. When I said, Surely the darkness will cover me; even the night was light in my luxury. For darkness will not be darkness with Thee; but night will be light as day: as its darkness, so shall its light be to Thee. (Psalm 138:6-12, LXX)
One of the things that has been lost as a result of the Fall of Man is the likeness of God. We still have a free will, but it becomes weakened by sin. Our sins diminish our humanity. Sin, in the Orthodox Christian view, is unnatural.
The second death is eternal death. It is a deathless death. Body and soul are rejoined together in the general resurrection of the dead and the person experiencing this kind of death experiences eternal suffering and torment in body and soul. He can never physically die, however. This kind of death is spoken of in Revelation.
And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the Earth and the Heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. (Rev. 20:11-15)
Jesus said:
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell (that is, Gehenna). (St. Matt. 10:28)
Everyone must die a physical death. That is the kind of death we inherit from Adam. Everyone sins.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23)
Therefore, everyone experiences spiritual death. Not everyone has to experience the second death, though. There is hope. God has provided us a way to avoid this kind of death. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we can avoid the eternal damnation of the second death and live forever in eternal bliss in God's kingdom. I will write more about how we can have eternal life through Jesus Christ in future blogs.
Steve
* Hoi is the dative singular masculine and dative singular neuter form of the relative pronoun hos. That means that epi in the phrase, eph hoi, has a dative case pronoun as its object. Whenever epi has a dative case object, it can be translated "on account of." (See epi, definition B. 2. d. on p. 233 of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, translated, revised, and enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer.)
** As the best physicians always take great pains to discover the source of diseases, and go to the very fountain of the mischief, so doth the blessed Paul also. Hence after having said that we were justified, and having shown it from the Patriarch, and from the Spirit, and from the dying of Christ (for He would not have died unless He intended to justify), he next confirms from other sources also what he had at such length demonstrated. And he confirms his proposition from things opposite, that is, from death and sin. How, and in what way? He enquires whence death came in, and how it prevailed. How then did death come in and prevail? “Through the sin of one.” But what means, “for that all have sinned?” (Rom. 5:12) This; he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the tree did from him, all of them, become mortal. (Homilies on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, by St. John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D., vol. 11, p. 401, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series)
*** For that one man should be punished on account of another does not seem to be much in accordance with reason. But for one to be saved on account of another is at once more suitable and more reasonable. (Homilies on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, by St. John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D., vol. 11, p. 402, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series)
Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., volumes 1-10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. & Henry Wace, D.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Complete and Unabridged, translated, revised, and enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan
According to this account, it was man's wife who first ate from the forbidden tree. She did so after listening to the lies of Satan who had assumed the form of a snake.
In the Wisdom of Solomon, it says:
Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. (Wisdom 2:24)
God expelled Adam and Eve from the
Garden of Eden after they had sinned.
Garden of Eden after they had sinned.
Another sin that the fallen angel Lucifer committed is that of envy. He became jealous of man who had been newly created by God in the divine image and likeness and because of his jealousy, he wanted to destroy this new creature of God. He tempted the man's wife to eat from the forbidden tree and she in turn got her husband to eat from it. In Ecclesiasticus, it says:
Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die. (Ecclesiasticus 25:24)
St. Paul said:
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (I Tim. 2:14)
In the Scriptures, the first man is called Adam and his wife is called Eve. Some have said that the first sin committed by humans was gluttony. It may have very well have been covetousness as well. It says in Genesis:
And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes to look upon and beautiful to contemplate, and having taken of its fruit she ate, and she gave to her husband also with her, and they ate. (Gen. 3:7, LXX)
The man and his wife coveted the fruit from the forbidden tree before they ate. Their sin of covetousness led to the commission of the sin of disobedience which resulted in them bringing death upon themselves and on their posterity.
In St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the apostle wrote:
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that (Greek, eph hoi, on account of which) all have sinned. (Rom. 5:12)*
The words translated "for that" in this verse are the Greek words, eph hoi. Eph is another form of the Greek preposition, epi. Hoi is a relative pronoun that can refer to only a masculine or a neuter noun. There are three possible words that hoi can refer to: death (thanatos), world (kosmos), or Adam. The Orthodox Church follows the interpretation of St. John Chrysostom and interprets hoi to refer to death. So then, it is on account of death that all have sinned.**
Later in Romans, St. Paul said:
But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. (Rom. 5:15)
In St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, he says:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Cor. 15:22)
In Job it says:
For I know that death will destroy me: for the earth is the house appointed for every mortal. (Job 30:23, LXX)
and in Ecclesiasticus it says:
All flesh waxeth old as a garment: for the covenant from the beginning is, Thou shalt die the death. (Ecclesiasticus 14:17)
In St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, he said:
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment. (Heb. 9:27)
So, death has passed on to all men. Everyone inherits death from his parents and ultimately from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Death is transmitted by the woman as well as by the man. (Ecclesiasticus 25:24; I Cor. 15:22)
After our first parents sinned, they transmitted mortality to all of their posterity. Because of their sin, we all die. Photo courtesy freefoto.com.
No one is guilty of any of the sins committed by our first parents.*** In Ezekiel, it says:
But the soul that sins shall die: and the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, nor shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the iniquity of the transgressor shall be upon him. (Ezek. 18:20, LXX)
We are conceived in sins.
For, behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother conceive me. (Psalm 50:5, LXX)
Those sins are not sins that belong to others. Those are sins that we ourselves possess. Everyone has a tendency to commit sins, but no one is guilty of someone else's sins. It is on account of death that we sin. Our mortal nature has a tendency to sin. In the Wisdom of Solomon, it says:
For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthy tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things. (Wisdom 9:15)
St. Paul said:
For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:18-24)
It is because of our mortality that we sin.
Adam sinned and then he died when he was 930 years old. (Gen. 5:5) We inherit death from Adam and because we die, we sin.
There are three kinds of death spoke of in the Scriptures: physical death, spiritual death, and the second death. Physical death is the separation of the soul from the body. In the Epistle of James it says:
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:26)
The body dies when the immaterial part of the person (namely, the spirit and soul) leaves the body. This is physical death. Physical death, in the Orthodox view, is seen a remedy for sin and not a punishment for sin. God has to take us apart at death and put us back together again in the general resurrection in order to repair the damage that has been done to us by sin. There are, of course, things that we must be doing in this life to promote the spiritual healing process before we die. If we do not do these things, we will not be resurrected with incorruptible, deified bodies. I will talk more about the things we must be doing for our spiritual health is some future blogs.
Another kind of death is spiritual death. St. Paul spoke of this kind of death in his Epistle to the Ephesians:
And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. (Eph. 2:1)
Spiritual death is spiritual separation from God. We separate ourselves from God in our souls and in our wills when we sin. God never physically separates Himself from us. He is in all places at all times.
The knowledge of Thee is too wonderful for me; it is very difficult, I cannot attain to it. Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? And whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I should go up to Heaven, Thou art there: if I should go down to Hell, Thou art present. If I should spread my wings to fly straight forward, and sojourn at the extremity of the sea, it would be vain, for even there Thy hand would guide me, and Thy right hand would hold me. When I said, Surely the darkness will cover me; even the night was light in my luxury. For darkness will not be darkness with Thee; but night will be light as day: as its darkness, so shall its light be to Thee. (Psalm 138:6-12, LXX)
One of the things that has been lost as a result of the Fall of Man is the likeness of God. We still have a free will, but it becomes weakened by sin. Our sins diminish our humanity. Sin, in the Orthodox Christian view, is unnatural.
The second death is eternal death. It is a deathless death. Body and soul are rejoined together in the general resurrection of the dead and the person experiencing this kind of death experiences eternal suffering and torment in body and soul. He can never physically die, however. This kind of death is spoken of in Revelation.
And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the Earth and the Heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and Hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. (Rev. 20:11-15)
Jesus said:
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell (that is, Gehenna). (St. Matt. 10:28)
Everyone must die a physical death. That is the kind of death we inherit from Adam. Everyone sins.
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23)
Therefore, everyone experiences spiritual death. Not everyone has to experience the second death, though. There is hope. God has provided us a way to avoid this kind of death. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we can avoid the eternal damnation of the second death and live forever in eternal bliss in God's kingdom. I will write more about how we can have eternal life through Jesus Christ in future blogs.
Steve
* Hoi is the dative singular masculine and dative singular neuter form of the relative pronoun hos. That means that epi in the phrase, eph hoi, has a dative case pronoun as its object. Whenever epi has a dative case object, it can be translated "on account of." (See epi, definition B. 2. d. on p. 233 of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, translated, revised, and enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer.)
** As the best physicians always take great pains to discover the source of diseases, and go to the very fountain of the mischief, so doth the blessed Paul also. Hence after having said that we were justified, and having shown it from the Patriarch, and from the Spirit, and from the dying of Christ (for He would not have died unless He intended to justify), he next confirms from other sources also what he had at such length demonstrated. And he confirms his proposition from things opposite, that is, from death and sin. How, and in what way? He enquires whence death came in, and how it prevailed. How then did death come in and prevail? “Through the sin of one.” But what means, “for that all have sinned?” (Rom. 5:12) This; he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the tree did from him, all of them, become mortal. (Homilies on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, by St. John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D., vol. 11, p. 401, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series)
*** For that one man should be punished on account of another does not seem to be much in accordance with reason. But for one to be saved on account of another is at once more suitable and more reasonable. (Homilies on St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, by St. John Chrysostom, 347-407 A.D., vol. 11, p. 402, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series)
Bibliography
Ante-Nicene Fathers, edited by Alexander Roberts, D.D. & James Donaldson, LL.D., volumes 1-10, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, edited by Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D. & Henry Wace, D.D., volumes 1-14, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Complete and Unabridged, translated, revised, and enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer, Regency Reference Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan
No comments:
Post a Comment