God is the Father of Adam, making Him Father of all who come from Adam.
God is the
Creator of Adam, but that doesn't automatically make Him Adam's Father. When a potter makes a pot, is he the pot's father, or merely its creator? It seems obvious to me that making a pot does not necessarily entail any parental bonds to it. So, too, with God and Adam. God made Adam but that by itself does not make Adam His child. God also made dinosaurs, and insects, and fish. Are they, too, children of God? I don't think so.
It changed whether he could call upon the authorities and responsibilities of sonship. Before we came to our senses, we were the prodigal.
If you mean by "come to our senses" that we were unsaved and come to realize it, then I don't agree. Not being saved is not parallel to being a prodigal son. The Prodigal Son is not a picture of the non-believer. As you say, there was a relationship of father to son in the parable that pre-existed the prodigal's choice to live independently of his father. No matter how awfully the son lived, he was
always his father's son. Can the unbeliever say the same? I don't think so. Consider the following verses:
Romans 8:9-15
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
12 Therefore, brethren, we are debtors--not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father."
Galatians 4:4-7
4 But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
5 to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
6 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!"
7 Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Ephesians 1:4-6
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved.
All of these passages clearly indicate two states in which a person may exist: An adopted state, or an un-adopted one. A person has either been redeemed, and adopted by God, and indwelt by His Spirit, or they have not. Not all people that live, then, are adopted into God's family. And those that aren't are not His children and have no part in His kingdom.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites,
10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Again, two states of the human person are described: An unrighteous state outside of God's kingdom, or a washed, sanctified and justified state inside of God's kingdom. It seems pretty plain to me that the Bible does not teach a universal family of God.
Doesn't make our sin infinite. Without God ADDING to our sin that which we could never add, there is no infinite nature to our sin. Our sins have distinct beginnings and ends. God does not.
You make my case for me here. It is because our sin is against an infinite God that our unconfessed and unrepented-of sin never ceases to be a violation of His will. So long as God exists our sin against Him continues to exist.
The other eternal problem with our sin is that we can't, in and of ourselves, make perfect restitution for it, which is the only kind of restitution that will fully expunge our sin. We must atone for our sin until the atonement is fully and perfectly made. But we are flawed, sin-corrupted creatures incapable of such atonement. This is why Jesus, the
perfect, sinless Lamb of God, was sent to "take away the sin of the world." If we do not avail ourselves of his gift of salvation, then we must atone for our sin ourselves, which, because of our own imperfection, results in an endless process of restitution.
How does finite beget infinite? It doesn't.
Quite right. But you stipulated in your last post to me that "infinite begets infinite" and "finite begets finite." As I pointed out, this is obviously not the case. The Infinite has begotten the finite.
Sure, God is the judge of my sin, but if my sin were infinite, then it would be equal to God.
Let me clarify terms, then: instead of
infinite, which describes something without beginning or end, without boundaries, our sin is
eternal, which means that it may have had a beginning a finite time in the past but goes on from that point without end. For the reasons I have outlined above, our sin is better described as
eternal in its consequences than
infinite.
Considering that I have a miniature pharmacy in my bedroom with enough drowsy drugs to knock most people out for a week that I have to take every day, on top of the lesions of psoriasis and stricture in my colon combined with bleeding in my intestines, I'm pretty well accustomed to pain. I used to be able to lift a good 40 pound weight in hammers and curls, but now I'm struggling doing twenty reps with a five pound weight.
I'm very sorry to hear it! I have my own physical problems, too. I'll keep praying for you.
Pain that is borne out of love is not truly pain. Not in the same way as the pain of torture.
You've skirted the point I made about pain. Whether or not it is related to our love of a thing, pain is necessary. Without it - as leprosy horribly illustrates - deformity and death result. Pain protects us. It warns us of our limits and provokes us to change our behaviour when it is pain-producing. Enduring a modicum of pain is also necessary to high achievement. Not all pain, then, is bad.
In any case, the pain of Hell is not supposed to be anything but penal suffering. It is not intended to be the same sort of pain our love for something may produce.
If it is caused by God, then God is nothing more than a sadistic torturer, and I could not bring myself to compliment, much less worship, such a being.
The eternal torment of Hell does not make God a "sadistic torturer" but a holy and just punisher of the unrepentant wicked. As I have said, you make too little of your sin and too little of God's purity and justness and that is why you describe the Maker of Hell as you do.
Selah.
