Are infants guilty because of Adam's sin?

Clare73 said:

Your previous response, post #36, presents no Biblical demonstration of my error in post #35.

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You're completely missing my point! I never said the doctrine of imputation of sin was in error. I'm merely asking questions that require an exegesis in explaining, because I'm skeptical. What I object to is that your reasoning is circular. You keep asserting that Rom. 5 is talking about imputation of sin, and then cite it with the same assertion. Your activity is eisegesis, not exegesis. Do you understand the difference?

Clare73 said:

Both physical death and spiritual death are literal realities.
Pauls' statement regarding his spiritual death was a literal statement, not a metaphorical statement referring to something else..

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Again, you contradict yourself (although avoiding the issue), so I'll ask you again: when Paul said in 7:9 "I was alive once", does he mean he was spiritually alive? If you claim, no, he only thought he was alive, then you are not interpreting it literally.

Clare73 said:

Your previous response (post #36) does not refute the idea in my post #38, following:

I. Death is the wages of sin (Ro 6:23),
sin is trangression of the law (1 Jn 3:4),
where there is no law, there is no transgresion/sin (Ro 4:15) and, therefore no death.

There was no law between Adam and Moses and, therefore, no transgression/sin to cause their deaths.
Then what caused the deaths of all those between Adam and Moses, including infants, when they did not sin against the law?
Their deaths, including of infants, were caused by the imputed sin of Adam (Ro 5:17, 18-19) to all mankind when there was no law to transgress and cause death.

as well as:

II. Ro 5:17 states, ". . .by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man,"

Ro 5:18-19 - "the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men. . .through the disobedience of one man, the many were made sinners.

The many were made sinners by God charging/accounting/imputing Adam's sin to them (Ro 5:17, above).

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It looks like you didn't even read what I wrote. I completely refuted your idea that there was no law, no transgression and therefore no cause for their death before Moses. I think you should go back and read what I wrote. I'm saying that Paul had to mean something different than what you claim, because there was clearly law and transgression before Moses.

johansen said:

paul in my opinion mixes up "law" and "knowledge of transgression" and "law of moses" with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. and over the last half dozen years in various forums i point this out.. usually no one replies to argue he doesn't mix this up.

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Can you give examples of what you are talking about, with your explanation?

johansen said:

I think peter made the same mistake but it is not overt and to my knowledge, no one seems to be interested in arguing about peter and potentially James' positions, they would rather argue paul is correct.

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What positions are you referring to?

johansen said:

So when Peter stands up at Pentecost and declares to the masses "God in former times over looked such matters but now commands everyone everywhere to repent"

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Actually, this statement is in Acts 17 by Paul in Athens (17:30). "All men everywhere" is referring to Gentiles, since only the Jews in OT times were called to repentance. So by this statement, Paul is including everyone in this general call to faith in Christ and a holy life.

johansen said:

well... God has always been commanding everyone everywhere to repent, and i seem to be the only person on the entire internet who has ever pointed this out (yes seriously, if you can find someone who has written some article to the effect that peter was wrong in declaring this, please link it to me) . its just a matter of.. repent to which law? the gentiles were not under the torah, but the ten commandments has always been.. pretty much self evident.

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"on the entire internet"? Are you talking about 2 different issues here? The term "repent" in the OT is Heb "naham" and is mostly translated "comfort." The first one in the OT asked to repent is God Himself. There is no specific command from God for man to repent; however, the first man written about to specifically repent is Job (42:6). Yet, the idea of repentance does permeate the OT from Cain on, and is a definite flavor of the 10 Commandments. Repentance has to do with moral behavior. Paul explains this in Rom. 2.

I'm not sure what your point is in reference to the OP.

Clare73 said:

"Literally" refers to the concepts: "spritually alive," "physically alive"--both of which are realities (literal) and not metaphors.
Whether or not Paul was actually "spiritually alive" does not alter the literal reality of the concept itself.

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It looks to me like you're arguing semantics here, so I think this part is done.

Clare73 said:

You'll have to demonstrate, rather than just assert, how your post #38 or #39 refutes my idea in my post (#37) #40, following:

That is precisely what Ro 5:17 states, ". . .by the trespass of one man, death reigned through that one man,"

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Physical death reigned in mankind through the one, because he was cast out of Eden, being denied access to the Tree of Life. Spiritual death reigned in mankind through the one, because we inherited the sin nature. There is nothing in here but presumption to say that Adam's sin was imputed.

Clare73 said:

as does Ro 5:18-19 - "the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men. . .through the disobedience of one man, the many were made sinners."

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Condemnation came to all men because the sin nature was transmitted to Adam's progeny. The context of this has to do with people who have sinned, not infants who haven't sinned. Again, there is nothing in here but presumption to say that Adam's sin was imputed.

Clare73 said:

That is precisely what Ro 5:12-14 demonstrates. . .in
that they all died between Adam and Moses when there was no law to transgress/sin against to cause their death (Ro 5:14),
therefore, their death was caused by the imputation of Adam's sin (Ro 5:17), and
which was the pattern (Ro 5:14) for the imputation of Christ's righteousness (Ro 5:18-19).

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In regard to Rom. 5:12-14, here was my response that refutes your idea:
You are interpreting Paul's statement as "there was no law between Adam and Moses, therefore no transgression." But Paul has to mean something different than that, because there was certainly law, albeit not the law of Moses. Examples: Cain most certainly knew he had violated an unwritten (or unspoken) law "you shall not commit murder." If he thought he was innocent, he would not have lied to God saying he didn't know where Abel was. But he did lie, because he wanted to escape the impending judgment in violation of that moral principle. This is how we know there was law prior to Moses. Another example is when God said to Noah if a man sheds another man's blood (murder), his blood shall be shed (capital punishment). This is most certainly law before Moses. A 3rd example is God rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah because their sins stunk to high heaven. In this we can see there was most certainly law and transgression prior to Moses. Therefore Paul had to mean something different than what you claim.