To Pedrito;
The answers to apparently difficult questions can often be found by simply looking at what the Bible states, in the absence of the normal filters which we are taught to apply to it. With the aim of providing some possibly helpful background regarding the title of this thread, I tender the following questions for careful consideration.
Which I will try my best to do now.
1. To what Scriptures was Paul referring in 2 Timothy 3:15 as being able to make people wise unto salvation? I.e. what were the Scriptures available in his day, those to which Timothy understood his mentor to be referring?
They had the Old Testament, the Septuagent, the Greek translation of the Old testament, was commonly used and quoted most often by Christ and the Apostles. The Scriptures that they had were sufficient to show, as evidenced by the many things that the Lord said, that He was to come and die as the Redeemer. He opened the understanding of the men on the road to Emmaus to see that the whole of the Old Testament spoke of Him as it still does.
2. What did God tell Adam would happen to him if he disobeyed God's command?
That in the day that he sinned he would die. It can be legitimately and as when you sin, because you are going to, you will die. Adam lived a physical life for hundreds of years more after the Fall but God did not lie to him. Adam died spiritually in the very moment he sinned. Paul tells us that Adam was not deceived, 1Tim. 2:14. That means that Adam knew exactly what he was doing when he ate of the fruit. He knew that the woman must die and he desired the woman more than he desired God. He determined to die with her. Oh what a picture of the love and grace of Christ for His people. Adam gave himself for the one whom had ravished his heart just as Christ gave Himself for the bride, His church, who has ravished His heart, SOS 4:9.
Adam was the Federal head of all who would come by him and represented all those born from His lions. When he sinned we all sinned. Here is a message that I preached on this very subject:
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?sermonid=1071432681
3. What did Adam understand that to mean (and how did he)?
As I said above Adam died spiritually. How much he knew at that point is conjecture. We do know that Adam was created a brilliant man. God gave him dominion over all His creation and he named every creature that was created. He wasn’t created an imbecile or even a babe but a man with the full capacity to obey God and enjoy communion with Him. He walked with God in the cool of the evening.
I am amazed at how those who think that they can sustain themselves, though they are sinners by nature, when Adam, who was created upright and in the image of God, couldn’t.
Yes he did as I explained above.
Yes he did as I explained above.
6. What did God reveal in the inspired Hebrew Scriptures (the Tanach, the so-called Old Testament), regarding the mechanism by which He would restore people from being dead? I.e. what did God reveal they could look forward to?
Well we have the first promise of the Gospel in Gen 3:15. Christ is the promised seed of the woman. Moreover just six verses later God shed the first blood of a substitute on the Earth. He clothed our first parents with the skin of the sacrifice picturing the atonement of Christ and the imputation of His righteousness to us in justification.
Adam apparently understood this as he taught his sons as evidenced in Gen. 4 when they brought sacrifices to the Lord. Shed blood, brought by Abel, was accepted but the work of Cain’s labor was not.
Moreover the oldest book of the Bible reveals that the redeeming sacrifice of Christ was looked forward to and expected. Job 19:25-27
7. What did Paul (Saul of Tarsus) declare was his great hope?
Christ in him the hope of glory. Col. 1:27
8. What does Acts 3:21 actually state? (Can it really mean, as we are told by many, that the whole world will become righteous prior to Jesus' return [even though Satan will not yet be bound]?)
That Christ will return at the appointed time.
9. What does God declare, in those very same inspired Hebrew Scriptures mentioned above, will be the future of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does that clarify the intended meaning of Acts 3:21 (among other things)?
Not sure what you are getting at here. The Lord clearly said that it will more tolerable for them than for those cities He spoke against in Matt. 11 which saw and heard Him but received Him not. This question makes me [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] my head and wonder what you are trying to get at.
I would suggest that honestly finding and accepting the precise answers to the above questions will lead, at least part-way, to the unequivocal answer to the title question of this thread will lead to the definitive Yes or No first, and then lead definitively to the related question, Why?.
If such thoughts have already been expressed in this thread or elsewhere, please forgive me.
The definitive answer is no He doesn’t but these questions seem to have nothing to do with that answer as far as I can tell.
I am not sure what yiu are getting at. It is difficult to tell whether you are espousing that He does want All men to be saved or that He doesn’t. But there are many clear Scriptures, not to mention the teaching of the Scriptures as a whole, that make it obvious that He doesn’t. he said to Moses in Ex. 33:18-19 that His mercy is sovereign mercy and that He would have mercy on whom He would have mercy. Paul quotes that passage in Rom. 9:15-16.
