Did Adam have Eternal Life Pre-Fall?

[GenemZ]

Saul was saved, that is news to me. When I read it how can one be saved when God departed from Him.

1 Sam. 28:16 ff
Then Samuel said: “Why then do you ask me, seeing the LORD has departed from you and has become your enemy?

That spoke of the anointing God provided for kings....

 

[GenemZ]

I've been giving your post some thought and it made me realise there is another reason Adam could not have had eternal life. Bear with my thinking here for I am still processing but ....

The Church is to be the Bride of Christ. In giving us eternal life, God the Son has effectively pledged His life to us as a Husband and to withdraw that life would be to effectively hand us a notice of divorce.

We know God allowed for divorce but His reasoning was because we are stubborn and a recalcitrant mob, in other words because we are sinners. For anyone to say God would withdraw eternal life is to effectively say He is hardhearted.

Matthew 19:8
He said to them, “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

God does not save those whom He knows can not be saved.
That would be called "inept omniscience." "Dumb God."
That would be an oxymoron if there ever was one!

grace and peace!

 

[Cassian]

Ac 15:18 - "Known to the Lord for ages is his work." (divine foreknowledge)

Divine foreknowledge is God knowing in advance what he is going to do, because from before the foundations of the world, he has decreed that he shall do it.

Quite the contrary. God foreknows what will happen thus He does not need to predestine.

For those whom God foreknew from before the foundations of the world; i.e., those whom God has decreed shall be glorified (Ro 8:29-30), he therefore predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son" (Ro 8:29), etc., etc. . .to glorification.

He predestined people to be conformed to His Image, doing the same thing as Adam was doing before he sinned. But before any of these features take place people must believe and join His Kingdom/Church/the Elect.

Predestination is about the pre-(determined) destination of particular persons whom he foreknew; i.e., the particular persons whose destiny he has decreed from before the foundations of the world, based on nothing but his sovereign pleasure, choice and decree,
just as it was with Jacob (Ro 9:11-12), and just as it is in the new birth, where the sovereign action of the Holy Spirit is an unaccountable as the wind (Jn 3:7-8).

There was election of Jacob over Esau, The new birth can be determined very easily. It happens a baptism and Chrismation, It is joining the Kingdom and recieving the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

(And if that don't light yer fire, then yer wood's wet!)

Predestination is not about a group which meets certain specifications, thereby qualifying them for predestination because of those qualifications.

You are exactly correct. It has nothing to do with people being predestined, It has to do with the things that the Holy Spirit is going to do with a believer.

 

[Cassian]

That would take up too many posts to do it justice but if you Google "things we receive at the moment of salvation" you will see what we have been given. Different pastors vary the number and of course some things weren't necessary pre-fall but even so, Adam still was not given things we have post-fall. Some examples are ....
1. The mind of Christ
2. Baptism of the Holy Spirit
3. Indwelling Spirit
4. Eternal life
5. to rule with Christ (distinct from being ruled over by Christ)

... and many other assets.

Adam didn't need these things because pre-fall, He had a direct relationship with God. He was required to work with God to become His likeness, same thing we need to do.
Our problem is that we need help since we exist in a fallen world, with a fallen human nature. We have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit because the OT way was not effective where the Holy Spirit worked externally upon individuals. Adam also had eternal life. He lost it when he sinned. We lost the ability to achieve immortality working with God. Since man cannot do this post-fall, this is what Christ accomplished for us by His Incarnation and in the last day we shall all be made incorruptible, which Adam was in pre-fall, and by grace immortal.
And yet man quenches the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so evident to Paul that he warns against it. I Thess 5:19.

 

[Clare73]

1 Samuel 28:19
Moreover the Lord will also deliver Israel with you into the hand of the Philistines. And tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. The Lord will also deliver the army of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.”

I believe Samuel was residing on the Paradise side of Sheol at the time.

So that puts Saul in Sheol. . .in Hades, not Paradise.

I guess there's just no accounting for the grace and mercy of the Lord God.

Are you sure about that in this case?

v. 15 - "God has turned away from me. He no longer answers me, either by prophets or by dreams. So I have called on you."
That's despair. . .Instead of admitting the justice of God in turning away from Saul, as does the repentant, Saul calls God unkind and abandons God, seeking advice elsewhere, which from a witch can only be Satan, for witches cannot compel the deceased righteous from Paradise, likewise seen in the despairing words to Saul, "the Lord has turned away from you and become your enemy."

While Satan speaks only of terror. . .God at the same time also opens a door of hope if one repents. Satan never gives hope. His response is deliberately intended to drive Saul to despair and suicide. Had it been truly Samuel, he would have told Saul to repent and make peace with God, to call David back from banishment so that he might find mercy with God.
Satan could foretell his death because God had turned Saul over to Satan for destruction, as in 1 Kgs 22:20-22.

1 Chr 10:13-14: "Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance and did not inquire of the Lord. So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse."

 

[Cassian]

Ugh!!! no-one "attains" eternal life, it is a gift, freely given.

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

If you are a believer you are in Christ and have eternal life period. Where Christians fail is working that life out in their experience but God never rescinds His gift of eternal life.

The irony in working out ones salvation is to not work but to rest in the work of Christ and allow Him to transfer what He attained to us.

Nice philosophy but hardly scriptural. It is a gift but we are expected to use that gift, not ignore it, not hide it, nor quench it.
There is no text in scripture that says you have it finitely no matter what you do as a believer. In the parable of the talents, the talents are gifts, but that poor soul who hid it suffered the consequences - tell me, is weeping, gnashing of teeth something that will happen in heaven?

We have free will. God created us with an independent will, separate from His. Love cannot be forced. Man is free to choose how he will live his life. The consequences are clearly given in scripture. By His own Sovereign Will God cannot, will not coerce man to either believe or to remain. God would not be a God of love, but a tyrant, manipulating his subjects as objects Not as man created in His Image. to be able to return His love freely. Also, the example of the branch and tree. What happened to those branches that did not bear fruit, same as the 1 talent guy, Cut off and burned John 15:1-6.

 

[Cassian]

That spoke of the anointing God provided for kings....

I Sam 28:16 has nothing to do with anointing. It has to do with Saul in fear of the Philistines and he comes to Samuel to get advice. Samuel says God is not with Him and won't be because he forsook Him.

 

[Clare73]

Yes, suicide. But, Samuel would say you are misinformed.......
That is.. unless Samuel was not saved, and Saul was going to be with him the next day not in Abraham's side...

God is justice. God is love. God can not change to appease human emotions. What God declares righteous in salvation, remains.

They were in Sheol, Samuel in Paradise, Saul in Hades.

 

[Clare73]

Quite the contrary. God foreknows what will happen thus He does not need to predestine.

Seems you don't have a full grasp of the terms.

The reason he knows it is because he has predestined it to be so.

He predestined people to be conformed to His Image, doing the same thing as Adam was doing before he sinned. But before any of these features take place people must believe and join His Kingdom/Church/the Elect.
There was election of Jacob over Esau, The new birth can be determined very easily. It happens a baptism and Chrismation, It is joining the Kingdom and recieving the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

As I stated, it seems you do not have a full grasp of the terms.

 

[Clare73]

Suits me just don't start up again when I repeat the scripture that says "Spirit gives birth to spirit" actually means the Spirit gives birth to spirit and doesn't mean being given a gift.

In the Jn 3:5-6 context of birthing: flesh gives birth to fleshly life (human life within the natural body), and
the Spirit gives birth to spiritual life (God's eternal divine life imparted within the immortal human spirit; i.e., indwelling Holy Spirit).

 

[Mark Quayle]

There is a lot that is not predestined. One thing for sure has never been predestined is who will believe. Your use of "first cause" and Calvin's other words such as immediate and secondary causes is a philosophical way he tries to make his predestination theory viable.
Which is one of the reasons the Church has declared Calvinism heretical back in 1672.

So, you can't show it logically.

The rest of what you say there is only assertion.

Funny, you would say "the Church" has declared Calvinism heretical. Are not all the redeemed, The Church? or just EO?

A believer becomes an elect by faith. A believer is a chosen one that as an elect God (the Holy Spirit) will work with one to attain the conforming. None of this happens until one is IN CHRIST.

Nor can you show this. It is only a construction, based on self-determination.

 

[GenemZ]

They were in Sheol, Samuel in Paradise, Saul in Hades.

If Saul were an unbeliever? Why would God have been with him at one point?

As a king? King David had the same kind of problem when he fell into deep sin.....

"Do not cast me from your presence​

or take your Holy Spirit from me." Psalm 51:11​

There is much to learn and to know.

For some?

There is much to learn and to "no."

Be my guest if that is what you wish.

The Word explains itself when given the chance of allowing oneself to be corrected.

grace and peace ...................

 

[GenemZ]

I Sam 28:16 has nothing to do with anointing. It has to do with Saul in fear of the Philistines and he comes to Samuel to get advice. Samuel says God is not with Him and won't be because he forsook Him.

Why was God with Saul to begin with?

God gives his Spirit to unbelievers?????????

 

[sawdust]

Adam didn't need these things because pre-fall, He had a direct relationship with God. He was required to work with God to become His likeness, same thing we need to do.
Our problem is that we need help since we exist in a fallen world, with a fallen human nature. We have an indwelling of the Holy Spirit because the OT way was not effective where the Holy Spirit worked externally upon individuals. Adam also had eternal life. He lost it when he sinned. We lost the ability to achieve immortality working with God. Since man cannot do this post-fall, this is what Christ accomplished for us by His Incarnation and in the last day we shall all be made incorruptible, which Adam was in pre-fall, and by grace immortal.
And yet man quenches the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so evident to Paul that he warns against it. I Thess 5:19.

I disagree with everything you have said here and I don't want our conversation to turn into a back and forth "game of table tennis" (so to speak). You have a nice day.

 

[sawdust]

So that puts Saul in Sheol. . .in Hades, not Paradise.

Says the shonky real estate lady.

 

[sawdust]

In the Jn 3:5-6 context of birthing: flesh gives birth to fleshly life (human life within the natural body), and
the Spirit gives birth to spiritual life (God's eternal divine life imparted within the immortal human spirit; i.e., indwelling of the Holy Spirit).

So you think you got your spirit, soul and body from your parents do you?

You've equated the indwelling Holy Spirit as the imparting of eternal life. The Holy Spirit indwells the body. Eternal life is imparted to the spirit.

 

[GenemZ]

In the Jn 3:5-6 context of birthing: flesh gives birth to fleshly life (human life within the natural body), and
the Spirit gives birth to spiritual life (God's eternal divine life imparted within the immortal human spirit; i.e., indwelling of the Holy Spirit).

... Jesus told Nicodemus that he needed to be born again before the Holy Spirit was to be forgiven when we believe.

Jews did not receive the indwelling Holy Spirit at that time. Jesus was telling a Jew that he needed to be born again.
To make him become body, soul, and human spirit.

Please note the following:

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ​

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as ​

Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he ​

meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to ​

that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified." John 7:37-39​

grace and peace ............

 

[The Righterzpen]

This issue was raised in another thread that I didn't get a chance to respond to as I went on holidays and it was off topic so thought I would deal with it here and see what you all have to say for yourselves.
I say he didn't as eternal life is imputed to our spirit and if Adam had eternal life he could not have died spiritually. It's also the reason we don't die even though we sin. You can't perish (spiritually) and have eternal life at the same time.

John 3:15
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

What say you?

First thing (which may sound "weird") is to define "eternal life".

Is the "lack of death" really defined as "eternal life"?

"Eternal life" has the definition of being "from everlasting to everlasting"; and since Adam and Eve had a beginning, they did not possess "eternal life", at least not in the redemptive sense; though they did possess the "lack of death" prior to the fall.

Now (you want another "mind bender" here); the state of existence that caused them to be potentially subject to corruption, was the fact that they weren't eternal. They were created as temporal beings; which essentially is what made the fall inevitable. This is why those born of the Spirit of God have "eternal" life because God is eternal. And on the flip side of this; those who will face God's wrath for their sin; will never escape that condemnation because they are not eternal. Everything God created has "a beginning"; thus nothing in this cosmos (except God Himself) is eternal.

Does that make sense?

 

[Cassian]

Seems you don't have a full grasp of the terms.

The reason he knows it is because he has predestined it to be so.

As I stated, it seems you do not have a full grasp of the terms.

I have a grasp of scriptural terms. I don't have a grasp of Calvinistic terms and definitions. The only theology that holds your view are those holding to all or some of Calvinism. That came in the 16th century. That makes it 15 hundred years the church never held such a view which is why it has been condemned since.

 

[Clare73]

If Saul were an unbeliever? Why would God have been with him at one point?

Does God not use the unredeemed to accomplish his purposes?

As a king? King David had the same kind of problem when he fell into deep sin.....

"Do not cast me from your presence​

or take your Holy Spirit from me." Psalm 51:11​

There is much to learn and to know.
For some?
There is much to learn and to "no."

And on what authoritative basis have you decided which you are?

Be my guest if that is what you wish.
The Word explains itself when given the chance of allowing oneself to be corrected.

Agreed. . .see post #125.

David repented. . .Saul did not. And when God did not respond to Saul, he left God and went to Satan (in the witch).