You run a red light or drive too fast and a police offer pulls you over, writes you a ticket, and you must pay a fine. You steal from your employer and when it is discovered you are fired and arrested for theft. In these situations sin, wrong-doing has been punished, consequences have been imposed by a legitimate authority.
You eat too much. In the short run you suffer indigestion. In the long run you gain weight and incur the accompanying health problems. You lie. People around you begin to distrust you and you find yourself isolated and friendless. In situations like this, sin has incurred natural consequences. What you have done proves harmful and destructive to yourself even though no one has directly punished you.
As we continue in Genesis 3, looking at the Fall of humanity and its aftereffects, we come to Genesis 3:14-19 and see God pronouncing what appear to be punishments on the serpent, on the woman, and on the man. However, we might wonder if at least some of what is described are not in fact the natural consequences of what was done.
“Virtue is its own reward,” is a familiar saying, suggesting that a good character needs no external reward, but carries with it happiness as a natural consequence. In William Young’s novel, The Shack, God the Father is made to suggest the converse is true, “Sin is its own punishment,” that is, sin will produce an unhappiness, “devouring you from the inside.”
The truth, as often seems to be the case, is found somewhere in the middle, a both/and understanding of the consequences of sin. God clearly and directly adds humiliation and suffering to the experience of the serpent and Adam and Eve. There is punishment. On the other hand, the conflict and interpersonal struggle between the serpent and human offspring and between Eve and her husband seems more like the natural consequences of sin’s entry into human life. The ensuing conflict between Cain and Abel appears to follow in this way. In a disordered world, where sustenance must now be gained by hard work, disharmony naturally arises as the brothers attempt to offer their work to God.
Yet all is not punishment or unfortunate consequence in these verses. At least since Irenaeus, many Christians have seen Genesis 3:15 as the protevangelium, the first preaching of the Gospel. God’s promise that the “seed of the woman” would strike the head of the serpent, while “the seed” is struck in the heal, is seen as fulfilled in the work of Jesus Christ, who in His suffering and death and resurrection undid the serpent’s work and gave the serpent a final death blow.
This text is rich and suggestive for all sorts of conversation, including whether the situation described in verse 16, that Eve is to be “ruled over” by her husband is another consequence of that first sin, and not a God-designed natural order at all. Thus the original intention of creation was gender equality and partnership, rather than male headship, which is only a punishment or consequence of the Fall.
I’ll be thinking and praying about these things the rest of the week and welcome other thoughts and comments.