What Happened to Us in Eden? - Psychology of the FallSample

THE NECESSARY INTERCESSION

If Adam was present—I can’t say for sure—I notice the absence of mutual care, the kind they later had to learn the hard way in their own family through Cain and Abel. More than any kind of “authority-style” leadership, what was missing was the role of being each other’s keeper. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

I don’t see in the Eden couple the practice expected of us: to be guardians of one another. Cain was not explicitly commanded to be his brother’s keeper either, it seems—but it was implied, as God’s later conversation with him makes clear. That is why he was held accountable afterward.

By neglecting this function and task, both the woman and the man were guilty—only they carried it out in different ways:

• She did not guard him, since she stepped away from the team and went on her own—a fatal decision—and then offered him the fruit to “finish the job.”
• He did not guard her either—whether by silently observing the scene if he was present, or by failing to be shocked at her disobedience if he wasn’t.

What I miss is an act of intercession—whether expressed as care or as leadership—on Adam’s part. Something like what Moses did for the people, or what Job did for his children. But above all, we have the ultimate example in Christ.

Luke records His words, leaving no doubt:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

And not only those words. Our memory goes, if you are like me, to the prophet Isaiah describing the Suffering Servant:
“Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

God the Father and Jesus the Son show us a better example of what man was always meant to be—and, of course, they also guide the conduct of women.

We are not in the mind of God, nor do we fully know His heart, but I believe this idea gives us, at the very least, plenty to think about.