The only one who seems to be ignoring this verse is you, in spite of quoting it for yourself. It has become incumbent on you to document this law that you alone allege existed before Moses, that contained the commandment that Adam transgressed. Where, oh where is that law? Are you having trouble finding support for your own thesis?
Lets start at Romans 5:13 "For until the law, sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed where there is no law."
Lets us some logic here.
Why not use the Bible instead?
Sin was in the world! Also given, sin is not imputed (charged) where there is no law. We know that sin entered through Adam (verse 12, same chapter), being imputed (charged) to Adam. This sin, which was a transgression of the law (1 jn 3:4) brought about death.
1 John 3:4 is not applicable to Adam, as
the law didn't exist in Adam's time. Moreover, Adam's transgression was of a specific commandment found in Genesis 2:17: "
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat". As everyone can see from my own quote above, it was your task to find this commandment contained in
the law. You have not done so.
If sin is not imputed were there is no law and the law (all of it) came at Mt. Sinai, then it should be clear from this logic that Adam did not sin.
Your "logic" is contrary to Scripture, as Romans 5:14 clearly states "
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam". Adam transgressed a commandment not contained in the law, and he sinned by that transgression. That was long before the law existed.
However, we know that not to be true!, for sin, a transgression of the law, entered by this man.
Adam's sin was not by a transgression of the law, but rather the commandment documented in Genesis 2:17.
Paul continues in verse 14: "Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses. Why did death reign? Because of sin!,(it being charged), and could have only come from a transgression of some law that existed, prior to Moses.
And yet you haven't found any law that contains the commandment containing Genesis 2:17.
(Interjection of thought) Paul does not use verse 13 as to mean that there was no law prior to Mt. Sinai, in fact, the latter part of the same verse and the first part of v14 prove otherwise. "But sin is not imputed (charged) when there is not law. Nevertheless, death (the penalty of sin) reigned from Adam to Moses." He does not say, "until the law there was no law" he states "until the law (speaking of a specific law at a specific time, the one given at Sinai), sin (the transgression of the law) was in the world."
You admit that the reference to "
the law" is referring to a specific covenant given through Moses when Paul uses it,
and yet you don't perceive that it is the same specific "the law" that John uses in 1 John 3:4. Sin was not imputed by a transgression of the law, or any legal package, but rather a specific commandment documented in Genesis 2:17, which you can't locate in
the law or any other "law".
The latter part, "sin was in the world" should immediately tell the reader that sin was imputed or charged! Read and consider carefully.
No one had sin imputed to them outside of Adam. That is a premise you invented divorced from Scripture.
Paul also speaks of this law (Rom 5:13) at Mt. Sinai, in Gal 3:17 "...the law, which was four hundred thirty years after...added because of transgressions." They were already transgressing something, and that had to be of a law! So a law already existed that the prior to Moses and man was breaking or transgressing it!You can not violate or transgress something that does not exist!
Ignoring verbal tenses that demonstrate that there were transgressions to
the law prior to
the law existing leaves you insisting that there had to be a law before
the law existed. Yet your own argument denies that these transgressions would transgress
the law, because you allege that they transgressed another legal body - a legal body you can't document the existence of.
Now notice that it was added but when? It came four hundred and thirty years after who? Abraham, that's right! This law, being spoken of here in 3:17 and Rom 5:13, was added four hundred and thirty years after Abraham. It was added to laws that already existed!
What law? There was no law before the law was ordained.
Had it been meant from the beginning it would have been added after Adam, yet Adam sinned! How did Adam sin, he broke the law! a law that existed in his time.
Adam didn't break the law, and that is clearly documented in the Genesis record.
Someone stated to the effect that Abraham only had the law of circumcision. Blessings were bestowed and promises made because "Abraham obeyed my voice, kept my charge, my commandments, my statues and my laws." Gen 26:5 Notice that commandments, statues and laws are plural, Abraham had a set of commandments, statues and laws in which he had to live by. Whom did they belong to? The Lord! He says, they are my commandments, my statues and my laws.
Add leaving Ur of the Chaldees, and God's commandments to Abraham immediately become plural. This doesn't help you document a law that you allege existed before it did.
Joseph said, "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" Gen 39v9 Joseph, apparently knows, that he can sin (sin is not imputed where there is no law Rom 5:13) against God, in this account hundreds of years before Sinai. If there be no law, how can Joseph sin against God? Logic tells us he can't! But Joseph tells us here, he CAN sin against God! This can only be true if law exist.
Joseph realized he was able to sin against a specific individual by his own admission. Even if he had, the lack of sin imputed to him by the law made forgiveness available without making atonement to satisfy the law's recipe for reconciliation.
It is the same set of commandments, statues and laws which his grandfather, Abraham kept!, which God lays claim too! Gen 26:5
Please document Joseph receiving a commandment to leave Ur of the Chaldees.
What laws would Joseph had broken? Thou shalt not commit adultery! The very laws which God lays claim too in Gen 26:5, even by writing it with his own hand at Mt. Sinai on tablets of stone. The Ten Commandments!
Joseph did not commit adultery, and there was no law containing a prohibition against adultery. That Joseph knew that adultery was a sin without the law is to his credit, and to the credit of those living today who know that adultery is a sin in the absence of the law's jurisdiction.
What about the warning in the account of Cain? Gen 4:6 "And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If you do well, shalt you not be accepted? and if you doest not well, sin (a transgression of law) lies at the door?" Cain did sin, he committed murder and a mark was set upon his head. He sinned, breaking the commandments of God, "Thou shalt not kill."
Please document this alleged commandment given by God, "thou shalt not kill". No such commandment existed during Cain's lifetime, and Cain's sin was not imputed to him by transgression to a law that didn't exist. We know that the law has an entirely different penalty for murder than what Cain received, showing there was no law that had jurisdiction over Cain.
So what sin or transgression of the law was Adam charged? Adam failed in that he followed after Satan, "thou shall have no other gods before Me'.
False. Adam was never recorded acknowledging any other god or gods.
Adam failed in that he did not honor his father, "thou shalt honor your father and mother."
False, and Adam didn't have a father or mother anyway.
By this "sin entered into the world and death by sin" Romans 5:12
False. The specific commandment Adam transgressed was documented in Genesis 2:17.
Was sin imputed to Adam after he had sinned? Most definitely! "...for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die." Gen 2.17 The day Adam ate of the tree, sin entered into the world, and the penalty of death was incurred on all of man.
And that was the
only transgression Adam was guilty of!
Make no mistake! God clearly instructed man from the beginning, who He was, and His way of life! But he allowed man to make a choice for himself, Would he follow God? or Would he follow Satan? From there we know the rest of the story.
I hope you consider carefully and think on what was said here. I hope you think on it so hard and long and even lose sleep over it. I don't want a reply per this post. It is here for others, that it might help, to read and meditate and to use sound logic and of course, the scriptures.
Thank you
Oh, of course we will use the Scriptures! Here is a claim you made at the beginning of your post:
Okay, let me spell it out more clearly. Even our readers will understand. I am not going to state your position for space is needed for the truth.
Sam, we're still waiting for you to provide the truth - this post was abject obfuscation of patchwork "logic" assembled in the manner Isaiah 28:13 warns us against:
But the word of the LORD was to them,
Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, Line upon line, line upon line, Here a little, there a little, That they might go and fall backward, and be broken And snared and caught.
You have been caught in the snare of lines assembled with dissimilar lines to arrive at a narrative that is contained nowhere in the entire Bible. I had asked you to document where
the law contained a prohibition against eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. You were also supposed to figure out how that law was applicable to Adam long before it existed. You failed to provide the documentation that would have established credibility to your theological pablum.
And now you want us to believe that tenets of the ten commandments were given to the patriarchs without any documentation, in clear contradiction to the testimony Moses gave in Deuteronomy 5 that the ten commandments was the covenant no one prior to his own generation ever received?
What you call "logic" is a pathetic fairy tale we don't have time to entertain.
Thank you.
So anyone that marries but live with his parents are sinning?
