6.28.2008

The law in the Garden and the law given on Sinai

This is a comment I wrote under a post somebody wrote about how the law God made in the Garden with Adam is the same law God gave to Moses on Sinai:

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It's also just straight Federal Theology. The parallel of the two Adams demands that the law given on Sinai be the same as that given to Adam in the Garden.

Jesus came to fulfill what Adam failed to fulfill.

Where some stumble at all this is to wonder what the Sinai law has to do vis-a-vis the nation of Israel, and that is simple: Israel was a type for the Messiah. Jesus' life mirrors the history of national Israel. In the fulness of time Israel was to bring the Messiah, the pure bloodline from David, into the world.

In God's plan of redemption, as well, it has to be seen that Adam and national Israel are unique players. Neither pre-fall Adam nor national Israel can be compared to fallen man. National Israel had a role to play (just as Adam in the Garden did) that was unique in God's plan. Individually each Israelite (or foreigner among them) was saved by faith in the coming Messiah, just as we are saved by faith in the already-come Messiah, but National Israel itself plays a role in the plan of redemption that makes it unique and non-correlative to fallen mankind in general.

This is why Paul struggles in the language he uses to explain the unique position of his people in Romans. He wants to say they are unique in God's plan (they are) yet they are also individually under the curse of the law as any other, but because they are unique in God's plan let God judge them and so on.

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