the original sin
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12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.....
I feel like Evangelical Christians don't add in the 13th verse and what do you do with;
James 4:17
17 Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
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The claim that sex is a result of the fall as already been answered. Gen 1 says “be fruitful and multiply.”
But I’d like to respond to the concern about people as filthy rags.
This is a bit hard because different theological traditions have different approaches to original sin. I’m Reformed, so I’ll cite Calvin. He denies that we inherit guilt from Adam’s actual sin. If he’s right, babies aren’t born guilty of any specific sins. What he maintains is that with the Fall, we lost the ability to follow God’s will through our own choice (i.e. without God regenerating us).
In Calvin’s view, that still alienates us from God. So even though infants aren’t guilty of specific acts, they are still in some sense God’s enemies. On the other hand, God still sees his handiwork in them (and us), and loves us. So he sets about to redeem us.
I think it’s important not to talk about original sin without also talking about God's commitment to redemption.
Are we all filthy rags? Well, it’s not unreasonable to say that we are filthy. But God does love us and think we’re worth dying for, so I’d avoid images that make it looks like people are worthless. God certainly didn’t think so, or he wouldn’t have sent Christ.
But I’d like to respond to the concern about people as filthy rags.
This is a bit hard because different theological traditions have different approaches to original sin. I’m Reformed, so I’ll cite Calvin. He denies that we inherit guilt from Adam’s actual sin. If he’s right, babies aren’t born guilty of any specific sins. What he maintains is that with the Fall, we lost the ability to follow God’s will through our own choice (i.e. without God regenerating us).
In Calvin’s view, that still alienates us from God. So even though infants aren’t guilty of specific acts, they are still in some sense God’s enemies. On the other hand, God still sees his handiwork in them (and us), and loves us. So he sets about to redeem us.
I think it’s important not to talk about original sin without also talking about God's commitment to redemption.
Are we all filthy rags? Well, it’s not unreasonable to say that we are filthy. But God does love us and think we’re worth dying for, so I’d avoid images that make it looks like people are worthless. God certainly didn’t think so, or he wouldn’t have sent Christ.
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- Jan 2, 2015
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The consequences of Adam's sin fell on all of mankind.
Have you had a child? Did it hurt (a lot)?
Has work not been toil?
Do thorns and weeds not grow where you live?
Do you know anyone who has not died?
Do you know of a dead body that has not eventually turned to dust?
Below are the curses God gave us all because of Adam's sin. Ask yourself if the world is free from these curses. Next, understand that Jesus is the second Adam. He lived a sinless and perfect life of obedience on our behalf. He lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died. Through Adam's sin I am cursed, and through Christ's life and death I am blessed. Death was imputed to me through Adam, but life was imputed to me through Christ.
6 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
Have you had a child? Did it hurt (a lot)?
Has work not been toil?
Do thorns and weeds not grow where you live?
Do you know anyone who has not died?
Do you know of a dead body that has not eventually turned to dust?
Below are the curses God gave us all because of Adam's sin. Ask yourself if the world is free from these curses. Next, understand that Jesus is the second Adam. He lived a sinless and perfect life of obedience on our behalf. He lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died. Through Adam's sin I am cursed, and through Christ's life and death I am blessed. Death was imputed to me through Adam, but life was imputed to me through Christ.
6 To the woman he said,
“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”
17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”
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Thank you for your thoughtful answer.
hedrick; What he maintains is that with the Fall, we lost the ability to follow God’s will through our own choice (i.e. without God regenerating us).
Matthew 26:41
41 Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
James 3-4
"If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body....But the tongue can no man tame....Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
.......Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up."
Can't do it ourselves, there is a power in the grace and with the help of the Holy Spirit we can achieve the perfect man. For most of us it won't happen during this earth life, we've got the Millennium reign to learn to bridle the whole body.
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Adam & Eve were mature, married adults.
They didn't have s_x, they made love.
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Hedrick; The claim that sex is a result of the fall as already been answered. Gen 1 says “be fruitful and multiply.”
Yeah God told them to but he didn’t tell them how to.
Jesus “…was foreordained before the foundation of the world,” 1Peter 1
So the fall was preplanned, he didn’t set the fall in motion without having a plan to save us.
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oo good point
But they were children not knowing the differences between good and evil. And it doesn’t say “Adam knew Eve his wife” until after they were out of the Garden. It was after they partook of the fruit that she was told she would conceive.
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I'm going to disagree with that on the grounds that:
- Adam was full-grown: probably 20 or 30 years old.
- Adam was given a job: tend the Garden.
- Adam was given a task: name the animals.
- Adam was given a wife: Eve.
- After the Fall, Adam & Eve were punished as adults.
That one is a toughy, and I don't know what all it entails.withwonderingawe said:
All I know is that Adam & Eve had one proscription: don't eat of the tree of knowledge.
And they violated that proscription and were punished accordingly.
That's true.withwonderingawe said:
But that doesn't mean Eve was a virgin at the time of the Fall.
In Genesis 1, we read:
Genesis 1:28a And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
This prescription came before the Fall, and I can only assume they were obedient to it.
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There is no evidence that they were children. You are starting with a false assumption which makes everything that follows incorrect.
Since God told them straight away to be fruitful and multiply, we can assume that their bodies were post pubescent. Also, Adam was given a job, he was wasn't playing in a sandbox. Work is for adults, and play for children.
Adam knew good and evil. That's not what the tree was about exactly.
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I think these sorts of questions can be, effectively, impossible to respond to. It's important when reading these stories to read them for what they're saying.
Personally, I don't believe Adam and Eve were literal, historical figures. But the story is nevertheless true, because of what it's telling us about the fallen-ness of man, the breech between God and man, and man's toil in the world in his sin and mortality. This view isn't unique to me or to modern Christians, but has antecedent right down to the earliest centuries of the Church:
"Now who is there, pray, possessed of understanding, that will regard the statement as appropriate, that the first day, and the second, and the third, in which also both evening and morning are mentioned, existed without sun, and moon, and stars— the first day even without a sky? And who is found so ignorant as to suppose that God, as if He had been a husbandman, planted trees in paradise, in Eden towards the east, and a tree of life in it, i.e., a visible and palpable tree of wood, so that anyone eating of it with bodily teeth should obtain life, and, eating again of another tree, should come to the knowledge of good and evil? No one, I think, can doubt that the statement that God walked in the afternoon in paradise, and that Adam lay hid under a tree, is related figuratively in Scripture, that some mystical meaning may be indicated by it." - De Principiis, Book IV, 16
Of course for Origen his view was that the story should be read as an allegory, I wouldn't argue necessarily for an allegorical reading; I merely bring this up to demonstrate that the non-literal reading is not a modern innovation, but ancient (St. Augustine likewise reads the Creation story as allegorical and figurative).
The point of the story is the deep wrongness in the world, and the place of the human creature in the world as an intrinsic part of the wrongness--it is therefore the redemptive work of God to restore and heal the wound in creation, and that means the salvation of mankind from sin and death, i.e. the Gospel, Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead, His ascension, and His coming again in glory at the End to judge the living and the dead and make new all things.
-CryptoLutheran
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