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As we come to Genesis 3, we come to one of the most distinctive and controversial teachings of the Bible: namely, sin. It is surprising how deeply our society misunderstands and/or rejects the doctrine of sin. Surprising because we see sin all around us. I would like to say I hope you enjoy this episode, but the necessity of sin is not enjoyable, even though the Bible speaks of it’s fleeting pleasures.

Yours,

Phillip

Phillip: Hello and welcome to Two Ways News. I'm Phillip Jensen, here with Peter Jensen, and before our topic today, we have some feedback to respond to.

Peter: We appreciate it; it's interesting.

Phillip: Jim has written to us saying, “Can ‘the image of God’ be translated ‘the image from God’?” That’s an interesting question to posit, and I’ve got to admit, I’ve never thought about it before. New translations can be discomforting. You think, ‘That can't be right!’ That might be the knee-jerk reaction, especially to a phrase as well known as ‘the image of God.’ But just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean we should reject it out of hand. Just because you don't see it in any of your Bible translations doesn't mean you should reject it either.

So, I looked it up, checking the Hebrew and the Greek. The Hebrew preposition can be used in all kinds of ways, so it's possible. But there are also discussions of this in different commentaries and books: for example, the book, In the Beginning by Henry Blocher,1 which is very helpful. The commentary in the Word Biblical Commentary series also sets out three problems with this phrase that have been discussed over the centuries, and one of the problems is the actual translation of it. But it points out that the parallelism between ‘in the image’ and ‘in the likeness’ is too strong to ignore the meanings thereof. Also, the meaning of a particular preposition is not as important as the context and the words themselves; the very words ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ must imply something else. It's not 'from the image': you'd still have to say, 'the image of what?' These words require an ‘of what’ at the end of it. You've got to say, ‘The image of God’ comes from God, because God is the one who creates us. This made me think of the Nicene Creed about Jesus, who is God from God. It must be the image of something, so you go to the Greek New Testament, and the same thing is there: for example, the coin which has the image of Caesar.

So we thank Jim for the question, but I can't see whether that's a good translation, and he didn’t give any evidence for the translation; he just asked the question. So, if you've got particular reasons for thinking it is a good translation, please tell us. The other thing is, I don't know the consequences of it. If we did change it to ‘the image from God,’ how does that help us in our understanding? Accuracy is important, but I'll stay with the old translation, and thank you, Jim, because it made me read my Bible again.

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I want us to talk now about a bigger issue, that is, the subject of sin and judgement. We're on chapter 3 of Genesis, and sin and judgement continue in our world. Rutger Bregman has written a book titled Humankind.2

Humankind argues for the goodness of humanity, and I agree you do need to see that humans do good things. Bregman is saying that humankind is like that, and he contrasts Rousseau and Hobbes: Rousseau the optimist, Hobbes the pessimist. Rousseau argues that the world is made up of good people, but the institutions are corrupted, while Hobbes says that people are corrupted and wicked in their nature. Bregman argues for the optimistic perspective of Rousseau. For those who don't like philosophy or names of people from the past, the illustration he gives very strongly is that of Lord of the Flies.3 Peter, what’s the story?

Peter: In Lord of the Flies, a group of young lads are cast away on an island. It reveals that these boys become corrupt, and their behaviour towards each other is terrible. They have brought sin with them, in other words.

Phillip: It’s a great novel of sin. They are English schoolboys, let it be said. But what Mr. Bregman says is that in the 1960s, something like this really happened. So, we've got an experiment. Rather than a fictional novel, a group of castaways: Tongan boys who borrowed a boat, went out to sea, and were on an island for 18 months. When they were found on the island, they were living in harmony and civilization, being kind to each other, and working together well. Bregman argues that, while you may think that people are sinful, these real boys were not sinful.

However, they were not English boys; they were Tongans who knew how to live on an island. When they arrived, they held a prayer meeting, and they organised prayer each day because they were Christian boys. The parallel fails at a couple of very critical points. Firstly, they knew how to live on an island, which the English boys didn't. Secondly, unlike English schoolboys, they believed in Christ because they were Tongans raised in a Christian culture. But what about sin?

Do we believe Rousseau or Hobbes?

Peter: I find it hard to imagine that people believe Rousseau was correct. That’s probably a majority view, but given the experience of humankind, we repeatedly fail each other. We do it spontaneously. I'm a pessimist, so I am with Hobbes, but this is what makes the Bible such a great book. It looks straight at humankind, at human weakness; it sees human sin, and it names it. Sin is one of the greatest themes of the Bible. What would you say is the essence of sin?

Phillip: Well, let's turn to Genesis 3:1-7

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

The essence of sin is rebellion against God. It's very specific that it's not just the tree of knowledge; it's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that if you eat it, you will know good and evil like God knows good and evil. It's the one thing God said not to do: to become those who are the moral arbitrators of good and evil. That's God's prerogative, which he has retained for himself for our good, because if we can determine good and evil, well, the first thing Adam and Eve see is that they're naked. The first thing they have to do is hide and cover themselves, so it's the revolt against God. It's the pride of becoming like God. They were created in the image of God, but now they become like God in a way that is not God.

I did a philosophy course at New South Wales University, and a lecturer there very proudly declared that he could solve the problem of sin in the world today. He said, “It's simple: get rid of God and you'll get rid of sin.” He understood that sin is not just breaking rules; sin is rebelling against God. The class all cheered and laughed, but I still don't think they understood sin. He did, but they didn't. Sin has to do with rebelling against God by becoming God. It's more about being a lawmaker than a lawbreaker.

Peter: You used the word ‘pride’: what's the distinction between the word ‘pride’ and the word ‘conceit’? Can you be proud and yet not conceited?

Phillip: It will always point to self-centeredness. When I'm proud, I'm not proud of you. I'm proud of myself. It's always about the self. That’s part of why sin is pride, because it's about self. Autonomy is a wonderful word to describe it. ‘Auto’ means ‘self,’ and ‘nomos’ means ‘law.’ It means, ‘I am the boss of me.’ That is the nature of it.

Peter: I would have thought conceited may be regarded as a product of pride. ‘Conceit’ is a word we often use of people who are proud of themselves and strut around, showing off. However, you may not do that, but you may still be deeply proud; that is, you may refuse to trust God. That's pride.

Phillip: It is pride, and it's fascinating that in the 21st century being proud of yourself is positive, whereas in previous centuries pride was seen as negative, and being humble was positive. But any number of articles, courses, and programmes teach you pride. There are other words like it, though: hubris a