Adam and Eve before the fall

He does not want his criticism of the "teachers of the law" (v. 7) to be misconstrued as a depreciation of the "law" itself.
This is irrelevant to this thread.
The law was not made for a righteous man.You have stated that man was put under the law, and at the same time that he was righteous. Thus you contradict the fact that the law was not made for a righteous man.


Good. Gr. kalos, "excellent." The "law" is "good" in the sense that it meets well the purpose for which it was designed.
Yes: to show that man was a sinner. You defeat yourself here with your own evidence.

armothe,

Take away the serpent. Would Adam and Eve have sinned?
Sure would have. For Jesus did not say that it was man who savoured the things of Satan, but that it was Satan who savoured the things of man (Mt 16:23).

In line with this, James tells us that "every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed".
You see then that Satan was simply using what he knew was already there in mankind.

Isibhod,

A sinner is who someone is, not what they do. Sinners sin by nature. Adam was not like this.
Yes he was: he sinned.
If he WERE in fact a sinner by nature, how would the result have been any different? Are you saying that he sinned while being righteous? What then is the advantage in being righteous?



Your argument, by the way, could be used against Christians as well. "If you sinned yesterday, how is that any different than if you were a sinner? If you were a sinner, you would have sinned, and you, a 'Christian,' sinned. So you must not really have the righteousness of God
The Christian is not the whole human being, but the new man within, and he never sins. It is the old man who sins. You need to understand Romans 7:20.



I did not get my ideas from the commentary I mentioned .. but rather from multiple Bible teachers who were sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
Do you understand why this statement is redundant?



If you want to figure out something where the majority of Christianity has been wrong,
Ez 28 is concerned with Satan and that is that.
Ezekiel: "I will cast thee to the ground"
Jesus: "I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven".
And the fact that you have avoided my point that man is never described as a Cherub, has been noted.

armothe,

But was James referring to the state of man before the fall, or after the fall?
Generically - it matters not when. The priniciple is the same: WHENEVER a man is tempted, it is when he is drawn aside by his own lust (note Eve: "when she saw it was desireable to make one wise": lust.)


And note that James' point is not that "every man is tempted", but rather he is explaining the definition of tempted. That is to say being tempted = enticed by his own lust.
Which again, is what occured in Eden. And which is why I am using his verse as amplification.


Why does the serpent exist in Genesis? Why did Satan exist? Assuming the inevitabilty of sinning without their provocation.
Temptation was needed, as you have unwittingly implied above.
But this is not the issue. The issue is not whether or not they would have sinned without such and such, but that they did sin, and that such reflected their separation from God, rather than caused it.

TSIBHOD,

Look, Adam was neither righteous nor a sinner.
This is not possible: there is no middle ground except in your imagination.
All of scripture elucidates only two states: righteousness, and evil. You can't be righteously evil, or evily righteous, or pure and non-righteous, or righteous and non-pure, or any other combination.


He was just pure and innocent.
At what point did this purity become impure? Define the exact moment. Good luck.

A righteous man has good works. An unrighteous man has evil works. Adam had neither good works nor evil works.
I have addressed this earlier. A murderer is not always murdering; a thief not always stealing. There is a time-lag.
I have told you that, just because Adam did not hit the ground running toward sin, did not mean he was pure. Even Adolph Hitler would be delayed and distracted from sinning when presented with the task of naming all the animals in the world.
What you must understand is that only God is pure, and that there is no glory to Him in a message that states otherwise. The message I am presenting is one which glorifies God and God only. It states that nothing is worthy of any merit, except God. This is the test of all teaching as to whether it be error or not.
On the other hand, you tell us that Adam was pure. What you must understand is that purity, and the power to remain so, are inseparable. But with Adam it was not so, and therefore it is error to maintain he was pure, and error to maintain that purity can be separated from righteousness.


Here's what I'd like to know: how is it that you think Adam can be a sinless sinner?
You don't read my posts accurately. I said he was in the state of unratified sin. The same with a marriage: until there has been sexual oneness, the marriage is unconsumated. Adam was a sinner-elect: all that was required was the act to ratify his state. This occured most readily, and without effort.
But here's what I'd like to know: how is it you think Adam can be a pure sinner?


"It is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me." Problem is, there was no sin in the world, anywhere, until Adam and Eve sinned. "Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin" (Rom. 5:12 NET).
Sin entered the world through Adam's act of sin: yes. This is because sin is defined recursively: it is the knowledge of itself. Until it has knowledge (awareness) of itself, it is dormant, and therefore I have called it "unratified". Such knowledge was missing until aquired in Eden. Once ratified, it could be said that "sin [had] entered the world".
That sin did occur, is proof of the state of the doer: a sinner. For you cannot have a righteous man transform himself to unrighteousness (1 Jo 3:9). That which is unrighteous, can only proceed from him who is unrighteous. Which is why Jesus said that a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. Adam brought forth bad fruit. The message? Only God is good. Which is why the word "good" exists: it is a derivative of the word "God".

You seem to like passages which you imagine to be speaking of Adam. Well instead of your Ez 28, here's one that does in no uncertain terms speak through the mouth of Adam:
"For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died". Rom 7:9.
Now in order for sin to be said to have revived, does this not tell us that it was already there, only dormant?
Let us read on to Eve's part: For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." Rom 7:11



And the scriptures certainly tell us nowhere that Adam was sinful in nature before he sinned.
So he sinned without a nature that wanted to sin? Sort of a righteous sinner? Or a pure sinner? Or put another way, how is it that you consider man in general now has a sinful nature except through the fact that he sins, and yet at the same time exempt Adam from such criterion? Does not his having sinned bear witness to his nature, as you agree it does with any other man?



(Concerning your quoting of people sensitive to the God's leading)
Do you understand why this statement is redundant?
Do you understand that I am talking about people who really know their stuff?
Obviously you don't understand why your statement is redundant.



If Satan was No indeed once anointed, he would stay anointed no matter what,
Satan was no king, so your comparison to Saul does not hold. Satan lives in the eternal realm; Saul lived in the temporal, and represented God. As such his annointing was to remain until death, for such was the institution of kings.
And pray tell where Adam was annointed by God? And while you are at it, tells us how such annointing (according to your own definition of annointing) remains now upon him (man).



So Adam probably had the work of a cherub, and was thus called one.
He wasn't called one, and it is inapproprite to describe him who was "made a little lower than the angels", not only as an angel, but as one of the chief angelic beings: a cherub.
Further, if he was so called, why is it we had to wait until Ezekiel to find out?Why not spill the beans in Genesis?

No rather, you must acknowledge that a cherub, being an angelic being, is far more applicable to Satan, than to man. Esp since we know that Satan did in fact fall to the ground. Tell me where it says that Adam was cast to the ground when he fell? Was he not already there? Was he not formed from the ground? Did not God behave graciously to both him and Eve, making clothes for them?
Ez 28 speaks of Satan, and that is that.


Post script: In saying that Adam had a sinful nature from the beginning, I do not mean to state he was knowledgeable of such. I have repeatedly stated that he was in a state of unratified sin: that which precludes knowledge of itself, until ratified. I have chosen to agree to this being called a "sinful nature" because of the thrust of this thread: to identify his separateness from God.
In no way, however, do I intend to say that he was aware of his sin as we are. For he had not yet eaten of the tree.
The thrust of this thread is intended to correct the standardly accepted line that Adam was in a state of "mutable righteousness" (Pink), to the more appropriate "unratified sin". For righteousness is immutable, being that which pertains only to God.
And the intent of this thread is to extract the intended utility to us from the story of Eden: not a useless account of a nice guy who fell, but that which reveals, along with the entire NT, that only that which is wrought in God can stand.

Bizzel,

I'm not declared a law-breaker until I break the law.
Very good analogies. People often miss that fact. Adam and Eve were quite sinless until they sinned, not before.
Rather, what is more missed, is that sin exists in the heart, before it transpires.
"For I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died". (Adam's testimony through Paul).

Or more to the point of this thread, anything which is not born of God, is by definition in a state of sin, and is therefore destined to manifest such state. This is why it says sin revived. In order to revive, it must have been there in the beginning, only sleeping.
God knew this, the garden tennants didn't.
So God said: "might as well flush them out, and show the little darlins what it's all about (not running around playing Tarzan, but Christ and Him crucified). Let's give em a commandment, and invoke their natural disobedience. Then we can get the real show on the road, and I can be glorified in my Son".

Praise God for Adam's disobedience, for without it, we would have never known Jesus.
"All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to his purpose"

Kel32,

I'm interested in hearing your 'understanding' of Romans 7:20
Already stated: the Christian is set apart from the old man; he is the New Man extant in the human being. Accordingly, being the New Man, he is Christ in the human being.

More particularly, in the human exists the New Man and the Old Man. The Christian is hidden inside the New Man (hidden in Christ) inside the human being. As such, he cannot sin, for, as 1 Jo 3:9 tells us, "His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin". So then, that which is commited by the old man, is not remembered, nor even seen, by God. For God only sees Jesus. Grace.