Genesis 3 and Paul: From Misalignment to Restoration
Genesis 3 and Paul: From Misalignment to Restoration
A Technical Companion on Image, Taxis, and Energies
Purpose of this companion
This essay makes explicit a structural pattern that is assumed but not foregrounded in the baseline articles. Scripture consistently describes human life as ordered across multiple levels, and it portrays both distortion and restoration as occurring through those same levels, but in opposite directions.
Genesis 3 narrates the collapse of alignment with reality.
Paul’s letters describe its restoration in Christ.
They are structurally parallel.
1. The Layered Structure of Human Life
Scripture does not describe human life as a flat moral field. It assumes a layered structure, in which action flows from deeper realities. These layers are descriptive of how human life actually functions before God.
For clarity, the layers can be named as follows:
- Image (Identity)
This names what is objectively real. Human beings exist as creatures made by God within a given reality. Image is not constructed or chosen; it is received. At this level, identity is ontological, not psychological. - Taxis (Position)
This names how relations are given within that reality. Taxis describes order, direction, and relational placement without implying domination or inequality. Position refers to one’s location within a given order, not social rank or authority. - Taxis Applied (Posture)
This names how a person stands toward that given reality and order. Posture describes receptivity or resistance, trust or suspicion. It is not yet action, but it decisively shapes action. - Energies (Actions)
This names what a person does within the world. Actions are expressive: they manifest posture toward reality and order. Scripture never treats action as self-originating.
These layers are distinct but inseparable.
Actions express posture.
Posture responds to order.
Order presupposes reality as given.
2. Genesis 3: Collapse from the Top Down
Genesis 3 traces a reverse movement through these same layers.
a. Image questioned (identity destabilised)
The serpent does not deny God’s existence. He reframes God’s word. Reality is no longer received as given but evaluated as suspect. What God has said is treated as something to be assessed rather than trusted.
This is not moral failure first, but a distortion in how reality is perceived and trusted.
b. Taxis mistrusted (position reframed)
God’s command is recast as restriction. What was given for life is now perceived as deprivation. Order is no longer trusted as good but suspected as limiting.
The relational structure of creation remains, but its meaning is inverted.
c. Taxis applied distorted (posture misaligned)
Trust gives way to suspicion. Receptivity gives way to assertion. The human posture toward reality and order shifts before any action occurs.
What changes first is not behaviour, but posture toward the given order.
d. Energies misdirected (action follows)
Only after the internal collapse does the outward act occur. Disobedience is not the cause of disorder; it is its expression. Action flows naturally from a posture already misaligned with reality.
Summary
Genesis 3 shows that sin is not merely doing the wrong thing, but living in misalignment with reality itself. The collapse moves from image to order to posture to action.
3. Paul’s Letters: Restoration from the Top Down
Paul traces restoration through the same layers, now healed in Christ.
a. Image clarified (identity restored)
Christ is named as the image of God. All things are through him, and creation coheres in him. Reality itself is re-centred and made intelligible again.
b. Taxis reaffirmed (position healed)
Creation remains ordered. Relation is not erased but clarified “in the Lord.” The church exists as body under a head. Order is not imposed; it is revealed.
c. Taxis applied restored (posture reformed)
Paul’s exhortations focus on how believers stand toward reality: walking in the Spirit, being subject, receiving rather than rivaling. Posture toward the given order is healed before action is commanded.
d. Energies renewed (actions rightly ordered)
Love, reverence, faithfulness, and obedience emerge as energies that express restored alignment. These actions are not strategies to achieve order; they are expressions of it.
4. Why Paul Never Moralises First
This structural correspondence explains why Paul does not begin with behaviour. Behaviour is never primary. Genesis 3 already demonstrated that wrong action is downstream from distorted posture toward reality.
Paul therefore restores reality first, posture next, and action last.
5. Romans 1 as Diagnostic Confirmation
Romans 1 universalises the Genesis 3 pattern. Truth is known, but it is suppressed. Reality is exchanged for unreality. The sequence is the same: distortion of what is known, misalignment of posture, and misdirected action.
Romans 1 is Genesis 3 at scale.
This diagnostic pattern is explored further in Romans 1: Suppressing Reality.
6. Romans 8 and Resurrection: Restoration Completed
Romans 8 and 1 Corinthians 15 show restoration reaching its completion. Creation is no longer resisted, posture is no longer contested, and action is no longer frustrated.
Order does not disappear.
It reaches its telos.
7. Why This Matters
This framework explains why moralism fails, why identity-first psychologies collapse, and why rebellion often masquerades as freedom. Scripture consistently teaches that freedom comes not from inventing reality, but from living within it.
8. Relation to the Baseline Articles
This companion does not replace the baseline arc. It explains how that arc holds together.
- Genesis 3 names distortion
- Paul names restoration
- Christ is the hinge
Readers do not need this essay to understand the baseline articles. But those who ask why the baseline works will find the answer here.
9. Relation to Acts 17
Paul applies this Genesis 3 pattern not only within his letters, but also in public proclamation, as seen in his Athenian speech, where idolatry is diagnosed as misrecognition of the created order (see Acts 17 at Athens: Misrecognition and the Call to Reorientation).
Relation to 1 Timothy 2
This Genesis 3 pattern of bypassed order and distorted mediation also governs Paul’s regulation of prayer and teaching within the gathered church (see 1 Timothy 2: Prayer, Order, and the Restoration of Ecclesial Witness).