| 1 Corinthians 15:56, "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law," is both puzzling and neglected. It is puzzling since there appears to be no precursor in 1 Corinthians to the law-critical statement. It is neglected because of its diminutiveness. Nevertheless, the embryonic verse offers the opportunity to analyze Paul's law-sin notion in a rudimentary state, and the absence of a polemical setting allows scholars to examine a law-critical statement issued during a nomistic lull.;The present study weighs attempts to explain the presence of 15:56 in the epistle and argues that the law-critical epigram contained there is contextually associated with the Adamic allusions in 15:21-22, 45-49, immediately stimulated by the Adamic nexus of sin and death in 15:56a, and thematically related to the edenic contexts of Romans 5 and 7. Such links, along with the axiomatic nature of the verse itself, suggest that the Genesis Fall narrative provides the theological substructure to Paul's truism regarding divine law and sin. An examination of the Genesis account, where the commandment aroused the serpent and became the means by which the serpent seduced Eve, appears to confirm the presence of a catalytic operation of the law in the Eden story.;If 1 Cor 15:56 contains an axiom drawn from edenic soil, not only would the verse's referent be identified, but a primordial source of Paul's law problematic would be located. By locating a problematic in Eden, Paul would be reaching the historical high water mark of his polemic against the salvific efficacy of the law. Furthermore, an edenically informed axiom would suggest that Paul's fundamental concern with the law was intrinsic rather than ethnic, and its seminal nature would account for the old realm relationship between law and sin in the logic of Romans 6-7.;While reading the Fall narrative from over Paul's shoulder opens up important theological applications, biblical theologies of law have, nevertheless, tended to bypass Eden. In spite of this neglect, it is the contention of this study that a biblical theology of law must take Eden into account and perhaps even begin there. |
