The Bible documents the human struggle with sin. It begins with Cain, who was forgiven for slaying his brother, and ends with Jesus, who forgave those that placed him on the cross. In between, we have a number of object lessons in failure. Each intermediate step serves the divine purpose in preparing human nature for the manifestation of Christ, but each step hits a dead end.

Each of these stages presents sin in terms that reflected the mechanisms used to control its expression. Prior to Noah, sin was a violation of intimacy with God – a choosing to seek our own path in the world, and thus to allow external influences (the serpent or the presence “crouching at the door”) into the sacred relationship. With Moses, sin took on a legalistic tone: only a chosen few were allowed into the divine presence, and forgiveness was something bought by sacrifice. With…