Friday, December 1, 2017

Fourteen Points of Correspondence Between Romans 1 and the Account of the Creation and Fall

A couple of decades ago, I noticed that there were specific points of correspondence between Romans 1 and the account of the Creation and Fall in Genesis. I theorized that Paul had details of the account in mind when structuring his famous explanation for why humanity deserves God's wrath. I am sure commentators have brought these points of similarity out, but I have never encountered them (which may have to do with a lack of research on my part). In recent years I noticed that Robert Gagnon has pointed out many of these correspondences in various places with some fantastic thematic and structural explanations, but I have not seen that he has pointed out all I had in mind (which again might be due to a lack of research on my part--he is nothing if not thorough). So I thought I would add mine here.  

I speculate that Paul intends for the passage to be read as both a recounting of the original Fall as well as a macrocosmic portrayal of the ravages of sin upon the creation (and the human creature) through time. I do not now have the words to fully explain this relationship between the two passages, but I do think it deserves more thought. I kinda want to say that the observable depravity in history is more about God's having "given up"  humanity on the occasion of the Fall than about some later declension into greater sin after which God "gave them up."  In other words, everything we see in human depravity--the full range, including the most unnatural aspects--are the result of the reprobation following the Fall, not some later act of reprobation that only occurred after things got really bad. This reprobation was species wide and not just for those who engage in unnatural sexual behavior.  Reprobation did not occur after humanity (or certain humans) got bad enough. The reprobation happened to all at the Fall.  The rest of Genesis is a case in point. See Gonzales, Where Sin Abounds where he traces rhetorical purpose of Genesis to show the spread of sin (reprobation?) throughout humanity immediately following the Fall.



Romans 1
Point of Correspondence
Genesis
20, 25
Creation, Creator
1:1-2:3
25
Creature
1:21, 24; 2:7,19
18, 23
Humanity
1:26-27;   
21, 32
Direct knowledge of God
3:8
23
Image, likeness
1:26-27
23
Birds, animals, creeping things
1:30
18
Suppressing the Truth
3:1-6, 8-13
21
The Fall; Darkened hearts
3:7
24, 26, 28
God gave them up
3:16-24
26-27
Male, female
1:27-28; 2:18-24
26-27
Complementarity; Procreative purpose
1:28; 2:18-24
27
Penalty
2:16
29-30
The Spread of sin
Ch. 4-50
32
Death
2:16; 3:19

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