Unreported News, Commentary, Resources and Discussion of Bible Prophecy
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Genesis 2:16–17
16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
Psalm 92:15
15To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Job 34:10
10“Therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do wickedness, And from the Almighty to do wrong.
(1) Did Adam have the true choice of whether or not to sin, with either option equally available?
(2) Do we have, as part of who we are being born into humanity, the true choice of whether or not to sin, with either option equally available?
Adam was destined to eat of the forbidden fruit. The "day" would come.
Adam Clarke's Commentary re: Gen. 3:20 "Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living."
A man who does not understand the original cannot possibly comprehend the reason of what is said here. What has the word Eve to do with being the mother of all living? Our translators often follow the Septuagint; it is a pity they had not done so here, as the Septuagint translation is literal and correct: “And Adam called his wife’s name Life, because she was the mother of all the living.” This is a proper and faithful representation of the Hebrew text...
Resurrection Torchlight wrote:
since God is righteous and therefore cannot be disingenuous, then I would say that Adam had a real choice to make, he could obey or he could choose not to.
RT
keithareilly wrote:(1)
Genesis 2:16-17
16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”
Adam was destined to eat of the forbidden fruit. Hence 'for in the day' instead of '[ if ] in the day'.
Everyday he did not eat of the fruit is a day he chose to not eat of the fruit.
(2)
Romans 5:14
Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.
Romans 6:8-10
8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, [a]is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
Death was master over Christ during His visitation.
Jesus did not obey the one who had mastery over Him during His visitation.
In our fear of Death, the rest of us have obeyed Death; we believers now struggle to work out our salvation and become free; we need no longer fear Death.
Abiding in His Word wrote:Let's look at Adam's sin. Scripture in Genesis 1 lists God's progress in creation and describes each consecutive design as "good." At the end of the chapter and the end of His creation, we read this:
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.
But soon afterward, we read the something was "not good."
[i]Gen 2:18 Then the LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him."
So what does God do following this observation? He begins to create animals and birds! And then He presents them to Adam to give them names! Whatever was God thinking? All of this before providing help that would be suitable for him. Why the animal interruption? Surely He knew a bird or giraffe wouldn't meet the need. What was the purpose behind watching what Adam would name them?
Because imo the name would reflect something about Adam and his perspective. I believe Adam was beginning to exhibit an undesirable attitude and the names chosen were evidence of his self-centeredness. So God (finally) forms the help that Adam needed in a visible, tangible form. Notice how Adam expresses his delight...does he even mention God's goodness? Does he thank God for that woman? No. He is only "proud?" that she was formed from his body!
Gen 2:23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man."
We do not read that God asked Adam to name the woman, but evidently Adam felt that since he had the privilege of naming the animals, he could do so with this new creature. And later calls her Eve (life.)Adam Clarke's Commentary re: Gen. 3:20 "Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living."
A man who does not understand the original cannot possibly comprehend the reason of what is said here. What has the word Eve to do with being the mother of all living? Our translators often follow the Septuagint; it is a pity they had not done so here, as the Septuagint translation is literal and correct: “And Adam called his wife’s name Life, because she was the mother of all the living.” This is a proper and faithful representation of the Hebrew text...
*******************************
My apologies for the long comment, but I think it's important to see that Adam was afforded choices or free will. And was later given the opportunity to confess his disobedience but chose to blame God and "the woman" He gave Adam for his transgression in an effort to justify himself.
Conclusion: Adam and Eve were created in the image and likeness of God. Adam disobeyed; Eve was deceived. I see this as the first intentional sin on Adam's part and the first unintentional sin on Eve's part. Later, God makes the distinction to the Levites.
Jas 1:14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
This scripture shows the progression I believe was evident in Adam when scripture says "it was not good" for him to be alone. There was already something sinful being conceived in Adam's heart.
mark s wrote: I think I look at it as a matter of God calling things good, referring to the things themselves, and then when He says, "It is not good for man to be alone", He refers to the man's situation. So the man He called good, but the man's alone-ness was not good.
H905
בַּד
bad (94c); from H909; separation,
H5826
עָזַר
‛âzar
aw-zar'
A primitive root; to surround, that is, protect or aid: - help, succour.
Total KJV occurrences: 81
mark s wrote:But as we live, we, like Adam, invariably move towards choosing evil, making the choice to commit sin.
Is that a correct understanding?
Hi Keith,
I'm sorry, but I don't really understand your answer to my questions. Is the first one "Yes", that Adam had no choice but to sin?
mark s wrote:In an academic sense, would it be possible that a person could live their life without any sins?
Does the un-born-again person have the potential to always make the right choice in such manner so as to avoid all sins? Regardless of whether they do or not, could they?
mark s wrote:In an academic sense, would it be possible that a person could live their life without any sins?
Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
mark s wrote:I have 2 questions, I'll let you know what I think, I'd like to know what you think. I'd like to ask for specific yes/no, with whatever Scriptures and reasoning have led to your view.
(1) Did Adam have the true choice of whether or not to sin, with either option equally available?
(2) Do we have, as part of who we are being born into humanity, the true choice of whether or not to sin, with either option equally available?
So it is interesting that God’s command to Adam was not to eat of the tree—an essential survival need of the flesh and one pleasurable to the senses.
Anyway, the Holy Spirit later revealed to Paul that the Genesis scenario in the garden was an essential part of God’s plan to in the course of time reveal His mercy to all men. So yes, this was a divine set up.
Abiding in His Word wrote:Hi sonbeam,
Just a couple points about your comment above.So it is interesting that God’s command to Adam was not to eat of the tree—an essential survival need of the flesh and one pleasurable to the senses.
God's words of warning were directed to Adam referencing one tree only. That was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. All other trees were available to him for "essential survival." Interestingly, we are not told Adam partook of the tree of life. So only one tree was prohibited and God explained the consequences of eating from that tree to Adam.
Anyway, the Holy Spirit later revealed to Paul that the Genesis scenario in the garden was an essential part of God’s plan to in the course of time reveal His mercy to all men. So yes, this was a divine set up.
Would you please expound on that comment? Are you saying that God, in essence, intentionally designed a trap for Adam? If not, what do you mean by "divine set up?" I found that confusing.
Thanks!
Sonbeam wrote:Yes I agree that God placed a prohibition on one tree only. I assumed everybody knew I was referencing the tree of knowledge. However, it is still true that the prohibition was in regards to a survival function of the flesh.
I disagree that God explained to Adam the consequences of eating from the tree. There is no scripture showing that God explained to him what "death" (spiritual at that) meant. Not that it would have made any difference anyway without Adam having the knowledge of what was good and what was evil until AFTER he ate.
I suppose that many would find the idea offensive that God destined/created Adam to fail and break His law.
But as I mentioned before the Holy Spirit revealed to Paul that this was a necessary step in the process of salvation.
Rom 11:32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
I also explained or gave several reasons that I believe certainly confirm the above scripture.
keithareilly wrote:Mark s wroteHi Keith,
I'm sorry, but I don't really understand your answer to my questions. Is the first one "Yes", that Adam had no choice but to sin?
The answer to both questions is both Yes and No.
Who hardened Pharaoh's heart, Pharaoh or God?
Does a penny have a heads side or a tails side?
Sometimes a question is just "or" instead of "either or".
When asking questions about opposing concepts, consider that both might be true as almost all concepts come in pairs, concept and anti concept. if one concept is true, generally, so is the other concept.
For example:
up, down
left, right,
inside, outside,
freedom, predestination,
1whowaits wrote:Mark, i believe that in an academic sense a person could live a life without sin, the bigger problem being not the living of the life but the choosing to live such a life.
At its core sin is any and all rebellion against God, against His commands, His will, His desire. Sin is rebellion against God in fulfillment of one's own will and desires, the will of the self or self-will. To beings who have a will, self-will is intoxicating, it is like a highly addictive drug such as heroin. Heroin addicts experience physical and emotional addiction, they do not want to stop, even if the drug destroys them, they do not want to give up what they experience.
And so it is with self-will, men will never choose to give it up, even if it ends in their destruction. Men will never choose on their own to give up self-will and receive God's will, the problem is the choosing. God makes the plan, provides the atonement, the cure, the opportunity to make the choice is given, but man will still refuse to choose God.
So God must go further, God must 'draw' men- 'No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him..' John 6. Apparently in the 'drawing' God suppresses the self-will to the point where man can choose God's will and not his own.
But even after one chooses to submit to God's will with God's 'drawing', the 'old man' still exists, the tendency toward self-will still exists, making sin still possible. Even after choosing God, men can still gravitate to choosing self-will, the battle of choosing which will is in control can go on.
So academically, one could live a life without sin, if one chose to do so, which they would never do.
Sonbeam wrote:mark s wrote:I have 2 questions, I'll let you know what I think, I'd like to know what you think. I'd like to ask for specific yes/no, with whatever Scriptures and reasoning have led to your view.
(1) Did Adam have the true choice of whether or not to sin, with either option equally available?
Yes. However, several things were stacked up against Adam from the very beginning that automatically gave him a propensity, leaning, etc., to choose his own way (to sin) rather than God’s:
1. God created Adam with a body of flesh.
The physical body is not inherently evil. It is “very good” for the purpose God designed it. But the Creator gave the flesh a powerful built in instinct for survival and five senses with innate needs to be satisfied.
This is why in Gal 5:17 Paul writes:
For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.
So it is interesting that God’s command to Adam was not to eat of the tree—an essential survival need of the flesh and one pleasurable to the senses.
2. God gave Adam the ability to choose though Adam did not have the knowledge of good and evil, and obviously no knowledge of what “death” meant since he had no fear until AFTER he broke the law. Therefore, he had no moral compass, no conscience prior to when he ate of the tree to help him make the decision not to eat.
Though eventually, even with a conscience, Adam and his children were destined to choose to follow their own way, as we all know from personal experience.
3. Oh and let's not forget that God allowed the devil/serpent "more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made" to tempt Adam's offspring first.
Anyway, the Holy Spirit later revealed to Paul that the Genesis scenario in the garden was an essential part of God’s plan to in the course of time reveal His mercy to all men. So yes, this was a divine set up.
Rom 11:32 For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
(2) Do we have, as part of who we are being born into humanity, the true choice of whether or not to sin, with either option equally available?
Yes. But while we might be able to choose not to sin on occasion, we cannot do so 100 percent of the time. We cannot keep the law perfectly to try to obtain righteousness (acceptance from God). The object lesson God gave us through the Sinai Covenant confirmed this time and again.
Christ’s emphatic answer to His disciples after His interaction with the rich young ruler in Matt. 19, further left no doubt on this:
Matt 19:
25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?”
26 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
sonbeam
Abiding in His Word wrote:God doesn't normally speak in riddles to keep His people guessing what He meant otherwise they would not be accountable.
sacredcowbasher wrote: The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 6:5-14, For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin..
Abiding in His Word wrote:mark s wrote: I think I look at it as a matter of God calling things good, referring to the things themselves, and then when He says, "It is not good for man to be alone", He refers to the man's situation. So the man He called good, but the man's alone-ness was not good.
Hi Mark,
In verse Gen. 31 when God has completed His creation process and states that everything was very good, the meaning of "good" is rather vague but it's root (H2895) is found @512 times in the OT and seems to imply something similar to our understanding today of the word.
But when we come to Gen. 2:18, the word includes a negative..."not." Also of interest is the word "alone" with a different Hebrew meaning than we interpret as "lonely" for companionship. Here is both Strong's and NAS commentaries primary meaning of H905:H905
בַּד
bad (94c); from H909; separation,
Who was Adam separated from if we use that primary meaning? If we see the narative of Gen. 1,2, and 3 in context, it seems Adam was indeed developing an attitude or behavior that God saw as detrimental. That makes sense as well when we see God's prophetic (warning?) words to Eve in 3:16 that "turning" to Adam will result in his desire to exert rule over her. That truth has been verified and evidence throughout the history of 7,000 yrs.
It's obvious (for me, at least) that the desire for power and control has been the downfall of God's people until Jesus comes to say "it shall not be so with you" and that He humbles Himself and takes on a servant attitude and washes the feet of the disciples as an example of "one another" love.
The formation of Eve is a visible, strong aid designed (in my opinion) to reduce? his self-centerdness. Here is the root word for Eve as a "help/aid" which is used only 21 times in the OT and mostly of God's help.H5826
עָזַר
‛âzar
aw-zar'
A primitive root; to surround, that is, protect or aid: - help, succour.
Total KJV occurrences: 81
Tragically, many have diminished Eve's purpose and continued the desire for power (which God warned about). Going a bit further, I believe this desired curtailing of Adam's self-centeredness is brought about in that it is the man who must leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife (in her tribe?) That makes sense if you see that God follows this design when He leaves His heavenly Father and comes to the home of His bride where eventually He will dwell with His bride forever according to Rev. 21:3.
keithareilly wrote:If I am on an air plane that is climbing in altitude and fall down while walking to the men's rooms, did I fall up or down?
Freedom of choice and predestination are attributes ascribed to the same event when viewed from different frames of reference.
Philipians 2:12 (partial)
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
2 Tim 1:12 (partial)
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Shall I trust God to keep that which I have committed or should I work out my salvation in fear and trembling? Both.
1 Corinthinas 7:22
For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord's freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ's slave.
Am I free or am I a slave? Both.
Statistically speaking, because All men have sinned, there is no chance (chance is a statistical term) that Adam was free to not sin and that you and I are free to not sin. Not possible, the math does not add up. If it were possible for men to not sin, there would be a statistical representation of those who did not sin.
On the other hand ...
Christ was born under Sin but did not sin. He is our high priest who has been tempted in every way as we have but did not sin. Christ was born into our circumstances, as flesh enslaved to sin; but, He did not sin. Consequently, we know for certain that each of us are free to not sin should we choose. Christ showed us that truth by his life.
So again, the answers to your questions are both "Yes" and "No" at the same time.
Abiding in His Word wrote:mark s wrote:In an academic sense, would it be possible that a person could live their life without any sins?
Does the un-born-again person have the potential to always make the right choice in such manner so as to avoid all sins? Regardless of whether they do or not, could they?
I find the subject of sin a fascinating topic. Here's why...
keithareilly wrote:He was born every bit enslaved to sin's power as all men since Adam were born.
mark s wrote:keithareilly wrote:He was born every bit enslaved to sin's power as all men since Adam were born.
Hi Keith,
Well, I don't think we could be further apart on this point.
But I know we're together in Christ!
Love in Him,
Mark
1whowaits wrote:We are slaves to sin in the sense of a bond-slave, we choose to make sin our master, because we like it. I use the term self-will as the motivation behind sin, we wish to fulfill our will over God's will, we choose our will over God's will.
By Adam's sin the concept of self will is introduced to us, we have a choice, we can defy God's will, a concept that Adam may not have had prior to the fall. Once that concept exists, that we can do what we will, we choose to be a slave to that concept, because we become like God, we take God's place and exert our will over His.
We can become bond-slaves to righteousness if we choose to do so, but only with God's help, His 'drawing'. Even after we become bond-slaves to righteousness, the old nature still is in the background, as Paul stated- wretched man that I am, what i want to do, I do not do and what I don't want to do, I do.
The choice between good and evil is not an illusion, it is a real choice, we are not forced by some outside power to sin. But because of our desire to choose our own will over any other, we will always choose sin (free will), on our own we will always be in opposition to God's will over our own.
But if God 'draw's us, if He intervenes (predestination), we can choose God's will over our own, but only with God's help.
keithareilly wrote:
Readers, here is some scripture backing up Mark s view.
Luke 10:
17The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” 18And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19“Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. 20“Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
If Jesus can grant power over the enemy, then he cannot be subject to the enemy's power.
Keith
Hi Keith,
Now you've got me thinking on a new line . . .
There's another passage this reminds me of, Hebrews 2:14-15 (NASB)
14Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, 15and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
Jesus said, no one takes it (that is, His life) from Me, I lay it down of My Own accord.
So no one had the power of death over Jesus. So this is a difference between Jesus and the rest of humanity.
Love in Christ,
Mark
mark s wrote:sacredcowbasher wrote: The apostle Paul tells us in Romans 6:5-14, For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin..
Hi sacredcowbasher,
Why does the body of sin need to be destroyed? (or more literally, made powerless?)
Love in Christ,
Mark
keithareilly wrote:John 8:32
31So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Before we can be free, we must continue in the word. Without continuing in the word we cannot be free.
Enslavement to sin describes our situation prior to our belief and prior to Christian maturity.
It should not describe our situation once we know the truth.
If it still describes out situation, then we do not yet know the truth.
we want to test the limits of the rules
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
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