Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
 
I have hesitated in getting too deep into a lot of the theology of the Old Testament, mainly because it gets pretty deep in the understanding of scriptures as a whole. The sticking point is the different versions and who wrote the scriptures, that is the point of view they were writing from. There are two main forms, the Priestly and the Yahwist.
 
The Priestly accounts of scripture come from the point of view in priestly matters. They were concerned with the ritual laws, the origins of shrines and rituals, and of genealogies, all written in a repetitive style of writing.
 
The Yahwist style is focused on the human traits, both the physical and the mental. They had a focus on the traditions of Judah and have three re occurring themes: the relationship between the human and the soil, separation of the human from God and the progressive nature of human corruption.
 
When you read Genesis, you can see two stories of creation, and you might be asking yourself, “which one is correct?” Well, the answer is both, it just depends on the focus from your traditions. Today we hear what is called the second creation story of man, but it is actually the older of the two versions. The first version in Genesis is the Priestly view, where the creation of man is written in a repetitive style. We hear God creating the heavens and the earth day by day and looking back on His creation each day saying, “it was good.”
 
In the second creation story, we actually miss the very first part of the account where the earth already exists, bur there is no water for crops to grow and now human to till the soil. It is basically a desert and uninhabitable.
 
If you think of a farmer and what needs they have to till the soil and produce crops, then you can see this version is clearly that of the Yawhist.
 
God creates man from the clay of the soil and breaths life into to him. This breath is the life-giving breath that comes from the Holy Spirit. While we think of this of the man named Adam, this is really Adám, which is translated from Hebrew as earth, man or soil, which represents all of humanity as a whole. It is not until the Lord take a rib from the man to create woman, his help mate, do the individual people receive their names.
 
We skip a few verses and move straight to the downfall of the human with the story of the serpent enticing the woman to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The Lord planted a garden for them and gave them everything except the tree in the middle of the garden. The serpent lies to the woman about the fruit of the tree and she succumbs to the temptation and eats its fruit. They then understand the evil they had done and try to hide themselves from the Lord.
 
Paul is starting to set the stage for the Romans and for us, to see the one who is to come, the Lord in the person of Jesus Christ. He uses several literary forms, that of the Greeks and that of Judaism, as he prepares his arguments. He makes the assumption that the people understand the sin of Adam and of the salvation through Jesus through His death and resurrection on the cross.
 
In scripture, when the term “type” is used, it is referencing someone or some event that comes first, followed by another person or event. The second event or man, is always depicted as being greater that the first.
 
Here Paul is talking about Adam as the sinful man and Jesus as the savior. Both figures have far reaching effects on the human race. Adam brings death, but Jesus brings life.
 
As we remember that Matthew has written his gospel for his Jewish followers, he writes to remind them that all of the prophecies from the Old Testament are being fulfilled in the New Testament through Jesus.  They knew and understood the Torah and the promises made to the people over time by the Lord. Now, Matthew is pointing them out to the people showing how they have been fulfilled.
 
Todays gospel of Jesus being tempted by the devil after He went out to the desert to pray shows us His humanity and how He resisted the evil one. This forty days of prayer in the desert is to remind the people of the forty years the people spent wandering around in an attempt to go to the promise land.
 
This tempting by the evil one is the same as the Lord testing the people in the desert to se if they would follow him and all of his commands.
 
I think the third temptation is very significant here where the devil takes Jesus to a high mountain to show Jesus what He would rule over if He would follow the devil. The very end of Matthews gospel is the commissioning of the disciples after they gathered, on the mountain like Jesus had instructed them, so He could give them the understanding of what He had taught them and to send them out to teach and to baptize.
 
Our baptism and our confirmation are the commissioning we need to go forth and preach the Good News to the whole world.