Integrating Missionally

In this short video, I look at Genesis 3:1-7, the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve. In it I show how the story is a loss of innocence and is destructive of community. I also compare the temptation of the first Adam to the second Adam -- Jesus Christ.

10 minutes long…

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From the foundation of the world, God had a plan in place to see that we could journey back to that wholeness that humanity found in the Garden. Christianity calls this the Gospel. Embracing the gospel—the person and message of Jesus—allows for the journey towards wholeness. If sin has produced brokenness in our lives, the restoration that occurs from embracing the totality of the Gospel would enable a journey towards wholeness, towards the Garden where God met every need, our relationship with God was in perfect order and sin would no longer impact our lives.

Unfortunately, some people today preach an overly simplistic gospel: Jesus died for the sins of humanity, and if we place our faith and trust in Christ, we get to stay out of hell and live in heaven when we die.[i] However, the gospel is bigger than that. It transforms the whole life, not just one aspect. The word for salvation in the New Testament, sodzo, which is associated with the gospel, is the same word for healing – total physical, emotional and spiritual healing. It other words…wholeness.[ii] The Gospel is more about experiencing a sense of God’s shalom – wholeness and wellness[iii] – than escaping the clutches of hell. The gospel also announces a life lived under the reign of God as depicted in Isaiah.[iv] Thus, our desire to be God will no longer be necessary.

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The sin of the one, namely Adam, introduced sin into the heart of us all, what is termed original sin.[i] In the Old Testament, the most often used word for heart is leb, which meant the seat of one’s intellectual and spiritual life.[ii] It is also the seat of a person’s emotional life and is the origination point of the will.[iii]  Therefore the word heart encompasses multiple, interrelated aspects.[iv] It is the person with all of his or her urges. The overarching meaning is that of the totality of the person. It is “a comprehensive term for the personality as a whole, its inner life, its character.”[v]

In the New Testament, the word kardia is used to refer to the heart. Kardia frequently describes the place of intellectual and spiritual life.[vi] However, a striking feature of the word is its interconnectedness to the word nous, or mind. These two terms can be used in parallel (2 Cor. 3:14ff) or even synonymously, depending on what aspect of the meaning the author is trying to emphasize.[vii] “The element of knowledge is more heavily emphasized with nous than with kardia, where the stress lies more on the emotions and the will. Thus [the heart] is the person, the thinking, feeling, willing, ego of man, with particular regard to his responsibility to God.”[viii]

The heart, then is the totality of the person. It includes the emotional, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of a person. Based on this, we could deduce that the injection of sin into the heart of humanity has introduced brokenness into the totality of humanity. With the mind, will, and emotions of human beings laid bare from the ruinous impact of sin, the now-destructive nature of mankind would lead them to choose to sin, thus producing broken and hurting people who long for wholeness and hope.

Sin introduced brokenness into the emotional, cognitive, and physical aspects of humanity. As fallen beings, humanity, therefore, has an identity crisis.  Humanity’s relationship with God is broken, and it does not understand who it is.[ix] Emotional brokenness deprives a person of emotional health, which affects how he makes decisions, reacts to experiences, and lives in relationship with others.[x] It also creates unhealthy and destructive behaviors that can wreck relationships as well as the human experience.[xi] It can lead a person to damage and destroy his or her body physically through addictions to food, sex, and legal and illegal drugs. These behaviors are an attempt to bring comfort resulting from a lack of emotional health.[xii] It also damages the person’s relationship with God, the One who created humanity for relationship and in whom true identity and wholeness is found.

So what’s a God to do?

NOTES:

[i] Tatha Wiley, Original Sin: Origins, Developments, Contemporary Meanings (New York: Paulist Press, 2002) , 5.

[ii]  Colin Brown and David Townsley, New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (4 Volume Set). (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Regency Reference Library, 1986)., 2:181.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Brown and Townsley, 2:182.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Anthony Hoekema, Created in God’s Image. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1986), 104.

[x] Leslie S. Greenberg and Sandra C. Paivio, Working with Emotions in Psychotherapy (The Practicing Professional). (New York: Guilford Press, 1997), 14.

[xi] Daniel Goleman, EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. (New York: Bantam Books, 1995), 9, 14.

[xii] Greenberg and Paivio, 15-17.

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In many communities of Christ followers, there is the belief in the innate desire for a relationship with God. It was that way in the beginning.  The second chapter of the book of Genesis describes the relationship between the Creator and the created. Man and woman walked in the garden together in complete love and in an unbroken relationship with God.[i] There was intimacy and peace, love and acceptance. It is the story of “the fatherly God who is near.”[ii] It was a place where all their needs were met.[iii] They were whole.

When Adam and Eve sinned by choosing to disobey God, that relationship with God was distorted. The eikon, the image of God in which humanity was created,[iv] was cracked. The perfect reflection of God was now a broken mirror and a separation of their relationship occurred.[v] The image of God was still present, but this distortion resulted in humanity no longer living as those made in the image of God,[vi] or reflecting his true nature and character. Humanity, once living in perfect happiness and union with God, finds itself helpless, afraid and hiding from God.

Pascal, in his Pensees X.148 states,

What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace?  This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.[vii]

Humanity’s broken relationship with God results in the brokenness and helplessness of humankind.[viii] Consequently, we struggle to do the right things. Instead of doing what is right, we often do the destructive actions we do not want to do. We distort the facts at work, we tear people down with our words and we hurt people with how we express our anger. As people who long to follow Christ, we do not want to be dishonest and hurtful, but it always seems to be a struggle to do what we should and not do what we should not do. There are times we just cannot stop ourselves. There is an inner conflict; there is a desire to live righteous lives but an inability to do so because of the brokenness that results from sin.

Not only do we cause harm others, but we also live with the impact other people’s brokenness has upon us. Through no fault of our own, we often experience the wrath of others. People have their homes and possessions stolen from them because another person “needs” to support his drug habit. A co-worker berates you in the office because her husband beat her last night. A group of people so obsessed by a social or cultural injustice, perceived or real, force you to give away rights and freedoms so that those disadvantaged can have their fair share. No one is immune from the brokenness humanity has brought upon itself.

Sin, from the Greek hamartia, means to miss the mark.[ix] In Aristotle’s Poetics, the word is usually translated “tragic flaw” or “tragic mistake.”[x] Richard Rohr, expanding on the idea of “missing the mark,” states, “Sins are fixations that prevent the energy of life, God’s love, from flowing freely.”[xi]  He views sin as self-erected barriers that cut people off from God and from their own authentic potential. Ron Martoia notes:

[W]hen we look at human sin, most of it swirls around our efforts to produce Garden [of Eden] type benefits and satisfactions that just can’t be duplicated outside that context. We could say that sin is a fundamental effort to experience something the Garden had for us in its original setting, but through brokenness we attempt to experience it in inappropriate ways. When we end up alienated from God and need restoration, we are seeking a return to the Garden that is available only when we are in relationship with the God of the Garden. We are in exile, seeking a return to our homeland.[xii]

In my opinion, sin is humanity trying to be like God. We are attempting to find wholeness, meaning, and life within themselves rather than looking to and being that perfect reflection of God. Sin is a result of us being at odds with God, competing for control and authority. Yet, we also have that inner longing for a restoration of that garden environment ever since the Fall occurred.[xiii] That inner yearning puts us at odds with God, and often times even at odds with ourselves.

NOTES

[i] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John W. De Gruchy, and Douglas S. Bax, Creation and Fall a Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997), 84.

[ii] Ibid., 72.

[iii] Tatha Wiley, Original Sin: Origins, Developments, Contemporary Meanings (New York: Paulist Press, 2002). 35.

[iv] Stanley Grenz, The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei. (Louisville, KY.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 204.

[v] Charles Sherlock, The Doctrine of Humanity (Contours of Christian Theology) (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996). 42.

[vi] Ibid.

[vii] Blaise Pascal and A. J. Krailsheimer, Pensees (Penguin Classics) (London New York: Penguin Books; Penguin Books USA, 1995), 45.

[viii] Ron Martoia, Static: Static: Tune out the “Christian Noise” and Experience the Real Message of Jesus (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007). 170.

[ix] Ibid., 160.

[x] Ibid.

[xi] Richard Rohr, Andreas Ebert, and Peter Heinegg, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective (New York: Crossroad Pub., 2001), 34.

[xii] Martoia, 170.

[xiii] Bonhoeffer, 113. See also Ron Martoia, Static: Tune out the “Christian Noise” and Experience the Real Message of Jesus (Carol Stream, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers, 2007). 118.

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