Theological Tidbits

Throughout the Old Testament, God gradually prepared His people for Christ. God eliminated some of the effects of His people’s sins, and the gratitude of the people to God drew them closer to Him. In other words, God drew good from evil. He loved the people of the Old Testament mercifully. However, God’s promise of mercy was completely fulfilled only in the God-man, Jesus Christ. In and through Jesus Christ, God’s merciful love drew good from the evil of original sin and its effects. Original sin and its most damaging effects—i.e., darkening of the mind, weakening of the will, lack of integration in the body—were overcome only in Christ.

In order to redeem us, God “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7). Through the redemption, Christ satisfied God’s love for man, the love that was left unreturned by Adam and Eve when they sinned. Thus, through Christ, the friendship between God and man, put to death by original sin, was revived. As God, Christ was capable of responding to the divine love. In His humanity, Christ made a human response to the divine love—i.e., He committed His entire self to God. In other words, He acted as a priest. A priest is one who commits his entire self to God. As a priest—an office He possessed in His human nature, Christ loved. Christ loved the Father and the Holy Spirit as all human beings should. In other words, Christ loved the Father and the Holy Spirit as Adam and Eve should have.

God’s divine mercy as expressed throughout the Old Testament revealed some aspects of merciful love. In this way, divine providence prepared the way for Christ, the ultimate revelation of God’s mercy. Christ is the ultimate penetration of divine providence into the world—i.e., into the evil caused by the sins of all people. God’s mercy as revealed in the God-man saves us from original sin and its worst effects. As in the case of the people of the Old Testament, we are grateful to God because He saved us from sin and its worst effects. However, in and through Christ, we, unlike the people of the Old Testament, are enabled to respond properly to God’s expression of love. The Old Testament pattern of God’s mercy is followed—but it is infinitely transcended. The Church even refers to the first sin as a felix culpa, a happy fault, because God drew incalculable good from the evil of that first sin. See the “Exultet, Easter Proclamation.”

Thus, God does not abandon us. He takes care of us. He provides for us. His providence extends to becoming one of us so that He can be our friend and we can be His friends. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son” (Jn 3:16). His mercy is not in vain and His judgment that man is indeed “very good” (Gen 1:31) continues.

Beginning with creation, God continually offered His love to His people. There needed to be a human response to this divine love. However, Adam and Eve both rejected God’s love. The people of the Old Testament, afflicted with the effects of original sin, were incapable of responding to God’s love. Of course, God had the capability of responding to His own love—but God wished a human response. God found a solution: Jesus Christ, the God-man Who redeems all people. As God, Christ responds to the Father’s love. As man, Christ offers the Father a human response. In offering man’s response to the Father, Christ includes all people. God did not send His Son earlier because man was not yet ready to participate in Christ’s response to the Father.

Why had God “worked” for so long to bring the people of the Old Testament closer to Him? From man’s perspective, all the merciful acts of God throughout the Old Testament would seem to have been totally in vain because God apparently had allowed the human race to suffer original sin and its most terrible effect: the loss of grace. Without grace, the Old Testament people could not come to the ultimate closeness with God: heaven. Further, original sin caused a wounding of man’s very nature. This damage, especially the lack of integration, together with the lack of grace, made it almost impossible for human beings to act as images of God. In other words, after original sin, it was almost impossible for human beings to love God and through Him other persons. The lack of a true, loving friendship with God on earth is clearly illustrated by the differences between the way Adam and Eve spoke to God before sin and the way they spoke to Him after sin. After sin, God asked Adam where he was, and Adam replied, “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself” (Gen 3:10). Man in the beginning—in the state of original justice—spoke to the Creator with friendship and confidence. Making it almost impossible to love God, original sin had nearly destroyed any possibility for man to come close to God. All God’s merciful acts in the Old Testament could never bring man as close to God as he was created to be. They were doomed to failure because they never overcame the ultimate obstacles to man’s closeness with God: original sin and its most damaging effects. Throughout the Old Testament, God seemed to be working only on the symptoms and not on the disease. Why did God not work on the disease itself?

From God’s perspective, His merciful acts in the Old Testament did not make it entirely possible for Him to continue His initial judgment that the creation of man was “very good” (Gen 1:31). The judgment of divine providence about man rested on man’s capability to act as an image of God. It was precisely this capacity that was almost destroyed through original sin. For the most part, divine merciful acts in the Old Testament did not even touch original sin or its effects. Thus, from man’s point of view as well as God’s, it seems that the divine merciful acts in the Old Testament were not very effective. Why did God not extend His mercy towards the real problem: original sin and its most serious effects?

The answer is clear: God had to prepare the way for the Redeemer Who would forgive sin, heal the wounds of original sin, and restore grace.

God’s response to the sin of Adam and Eve is very interesting. First, He announces the effects of sin on the serpent. Thus, God acknowledges the greater responsibility of the devil in the sin of Adam and Eve. Second, He announces the effects of sin on Adam and Eve (Gen 3:14-19). It is important to note that God is not punishing Adam and Eve. Rather, He is announcing what they have done to themselves. Original sin weakened Adam and Eve. They were no longer able to “orchestrate” their own bodily fears and desires, nor were they able to exercise the proper dominion over the world. The effect of sin mentioned by God to Eve—“I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing” (Gen 3:16)—indicates that her body is no longer integrated. Most of the effects announced to Adam show that man could no longer exercise a dominion over the things of the world (Gen 3:17-19). Lacking this dominion, Adam and Eve were no longer in paradise because paradise was precisely the dominion of man over the elements. God had not thrown them out of paradise. Rather, their sin had wounded them and made paradise an impossibility. Third, “the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them” (Gen 3:21). Adam and Eve needed clothes to hide themselves from each other because their sin caused them to feel shame. Further, they needed clothes to protect themselves from the elements because their sin caused them to lose their dominion over things. Even though their need for clothing was the direct result of their sin, God did not let them suffer the full effects of their sin. They had hurt themselves. They had brought the need for clothing on themselves—but He fulfills the need. He does not eliminate the sin or all of its effects—but He does overcome some of the effects. The clothing provided by God for Adam and Eve is a sign of His continuing care for the human race. Might it be suggested that God’s care of the physical necessities is a sign of His care of the spiritual necessities? It is also obvious that Adam and Eve would have been grateful for God’s gift to them. God’s love—divine mercy—saves our first parents from some effects of their sin and encourages them to respond to Him in love.

Many of the events recorded in the Old Testament clearly demonstrate the tendency towards sin inherent in man after original sin. We see the effects of the lack of grace and the spark of sin within Adam and Eve immediately following their eating the fruit of the tree. When God asks if they have eaten the forbidden fruit, Adam replies, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate” (Gen 3:12). While there is some truth in this statement—Eve did bring the fruit to Adam, the implication that Adam was forced by Eve to eat the fruit is a lie. Adam is unable to control his own fear of how God would respond to his sin. Fearful of God’s wrath, Adam tries to deflect the evil from himself. He tries to pretend that he did not eat the fruit through his own free will. Of course, he was not forced by Eve. Rather, he made a free choice to accept Eve’s offer of the fruit. His attempt to elude the responsibility for his evil act is a lie, a further sin. It stems from a lack of grace and his own inability to “orchestrate” his own passions—spark of sin. Taking a cue from Adam, Eve also refuses to take responsibility. She blames the serpent for her sin as though she had no part in it, as though the serpent had deprived her of her freedom (Gen 3:13). Again, there is some truth in what she says, but, nevertheless, she had a choice to accept or not to accept the devil’s lies. She freely chose to accept the lies—i.e., she sinned. She blamed the serpent, ducking responsibility, because she, like Adam, feared her sin’s results. Lacking grace and integration, she lied. The effects of original sin afflicted her as well as Adam.

As God permitted the sin of Adam and Eve, so He permits their descendants to sin. For the most part, the people of the Old Testament sinned because they had a tendency towards sin, a lack of grace and a spark of sin. This spark of sin is a lack of integration, one of the effects of original sin. As God allowed Adam and Eve—and through them their descendants—to experience some of the effects of original sin, so He allows the descendants of Adam and Eve to experience some of the effects of their own personal sins. In other words, as God allowed Adam and Eve to suffer the destructive force of original sin, so He allowed their descendants to suffer the self-inflicted wounds of their own sins. As a good parent, God taught the ancient Israelites to take responsibility for their actions by allowing them to experience the effects of their sinful actions.

Although God permitted the people of the Old Testament to sin and to experience some consequences of their sins, He saved them from some of their sins and, more often, from the effects of their sins. Experiencing God’s love for them, the people of the Old Testament were often grateful to God—i.e., they often loved Him more. In other words, God was drawing good from the evil of sin. He was allowing the Old Testament people to experience merciful love. Thus, God was gradually preparing them to receive the promised Redeemer, the ultimate expression of God’s merciful love.