Why is Adam Responsible for Mankinds Sin

If our author’s contention is correct that "before the Fall there was full equality with no headship-submission in the relationship between Adam and Eve (Gen 2:24)," then why didn’t God summon Adam and Eve to account together for their transgression? After all, Eve had played the leading role. Why did God call out only to Adam, "Where are you" (Gen 3:9)? Why does Genesis 3:7 say that it was only after Adam ate of the forbidden fruit that the eyes of both were opened? Why does Paul hold Adam responsible for the entrance of sin into this world when he writes, "Sin came into the world through one man" (Rom 5:12)? Why didn’t he say "sin came into the world through one woman" or "through the first couple"? Why is Christ portrayed as the second Adam and not the second Eve? The answer to these questions is simple: God had appointed Adam to serve in a headship role. He bore primary responsibility for failing to exercise his spiritual leadership at the time of the temptation. Consequently, as the head of Eve and of the human family, his transgression brought sin and death to fallen humanity.

In both Genesis 2 and 3, Adam is addressed as the one to whom God had entrusted the responsibility of spiritual leadership. Adam received the divine instructions not to eat of the tree of knowledge (Gen 2:16-17); consequently, he was in a special way responsible for instructing Eve so that neither of them would transgress God’s command. The great fault of Adam in the Fall was his failure to exercise his role of spiritual leadership. Instead of leading his wife into obedience to God’s command, he allowed his wife to lead him into disobedience.

The leadership position that God assigned to Adam made him especially responsible for the transgression of the divine commandment. Werner Neuer rightly observes that "the leadership position of the man intended by God in Genesis 2 precludes ascribing to Eve the chief guilt for the Fall, as has happened time and again in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. His seduction by Eve offers no excuse for Adam, for he was pledged on the basis of his spiritual responsibility to correct his wife and to prevent the disobedience initiated by her from turning into joint rebellion against God." Because of his failure to exercise his spiritual headship role at the time of Eve’s temptation, Adam is fittingly viewed in the Bible as the head of fallen humanity. If this interpretation is correct, as the text strongly suggests, then Women in Ministry’s contention that male headship is a post-Fall phenomenon is clearly incorrect.

The Curse on the Serpent. After interrogating the first human couple, God states the consequences of their actions to the serpent, the woman, and the man. These consequences have been generally referred to as "curses." The curse upon the serpent affects not only the serpent as an animal (Gen 3:14) but also the relation between Satan and mankind, characterized by an "enmity" and hostility which will eventually end at the destruction of Satan himself (Gen 3:15). God’s merciful promise to defeat our enemy through the victorious Offspring of the woman is our only hope for a glorious destiny.

The Judgment Upon the Woman. The divine judgment upon the woman is of central concern for our study, because it deals directly with the impact of the Fall upon the husband-wife relationship. The judgment upon the woman has two aspects. The first relates to her role as a mother and the second to her role as a wife. As a mother she will still be able to bear children, but God decrees that she will suffer in childbirth: "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children" (Gen 3:16). Childbearing, which was part of the pre-Fall divine design for the filling of the earth (Gen 1:28), will now become a painful process.

As a wife, the woman will suffer in relation to her husband. "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen 3:16). This divine judgment represents a measure-for-measure response to Eve’s attempt to usurp her husband’s headship. The meaning of the first phrase appears to be, as Leupold puts it, "She who sought to strive apart from man and to act independently from him in the temptation, [now] finds a continual attraction for him to be her unavoidable lot." Feminists may try to banish a woman’s attraction for man, but it is there to stay. This is not necessarily a punitive element. The meaning of the word "desire" (Hebrew teshuqah) is illuminated by its occurrence in Song of Solomon, where the Shulamite bride joyfully exclaims, "I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me" (Song 7:10).

The second phrase, "he shall rule over you," has been the subject of numerous interpretations. Our Women in Ministry chapter acknowledges that the "word mashal [to rule] in this form in verse 16d means ‘to rule’ (and not ‘to be like’) and definitely implies subjection." The meaning appears to be that as the woman sought to rule man by taking control in her own hands and leading him into temptation, now her penalty is that she will be ruled by her husband. This does not mean that God gives a license to man to exercise despotic rulership. The author rightly points out that the Hebrew word for "to rule," mashal, is used in many passages "in the sense of servant leadership, to ‘comfort, protect, care for, love.’" The Old Testament uses mashal in a positive sense to describe God’s rulership (Is 40:10; Ps 22:28) and the future rulership of the Messiah (Mic 5:2).

When a man rules in the spirit of Christ, such rule is not harsh or domineering and "may be regarded as a blessing in preserving the harmony and union of the relationship." But where sin prevails, then such a husband’s rulership may become a miserable domination. God ordained that man should exercise godly headship, not ungodly domination.

The phrase, "he shall rule over you," represents God’s rejection of the woman’s attempt to take on the leadership role at the time of the Fall and His summons to the woman to return to her creation submission to man. The story of the Fall shows how the woman endangered herself and her husband by her bid to dominate. God’s judgments upon the woman represent the divine remedy to maintain the intended order of the sexes as it appears in Genesis 2. The divinely intended submission of women has nothing to do with male domination and oppression of women. It is a beneficial arrangement designed to protect men and women from the destructive powers of evil.

Not all the elements of the divine judgment are punitive. God’s declaration that the woman will bear children is not punitive; only the pains of birth are punishments for the Fall. Similarly, her desire for a man is not necessarily punitive, because the same is said about man before the Fall: the man leaves his parents in order to cleave to his wife (Gen 2:24). The punitive aspects of Genesis 3:16 do not imply that all aspects of subordination must be seen as punishment.

Summing up, we can say that the wording of Genesis 3:16 does not warrant our author’s conclusion that the relationship between man and woman has been fundamentally altered by the Fall. George W. Knight cogently points out that "Genesis 3 presumes the reality of childbearing (Gen 1:28), in which the woman will now experience the effects of the Fall and sin (Gen 3:16). It presumes the reality of work (Gen 1:28; 2:15), in which the man will now experience the effect of the Fall and sin (Gen 3:17ff.). And it presumes the reality of the role relationship between wife and husband established by God’s creation order in Genesis 2:18ff., a relationship that will now experience the effects of the Fall and sin (Gen 3:16). ‘He shall rule over you’ expresses the effect of sin corrupting the relationship of husband (the head) and wife. Just as childbearing and work were established before the Fall and were corrupted by it, so this relationship existed before the Fall and was corrupted by it. Neither childbearing, nor work, nor the role relationship of wife and husband is being introduced in Genesis 3; all are previously existing realities that have been affected by the Fall."