Original Sin

[KJVisTruth]

But still.....he did choose to disobey God

Thats okay by me.

God bless

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Implying that God orchestrated Adam and Eve's sin makes God culpable in the commission of that sin. Since God cannot be guilty of sin, we cannot make this claim.

God was responsible, not culpable. He also orchestrated the persecution of Israel by the Pharaoh by hardening his heart. Responsible but not culpable.

 

[Benedicta00]

God was responsible, not culpable. He also orchestrated the persecution of Israel by the Pharaoh by hardening his heart. Responsible but not culpable.

and the difference would be?

No, that's not true. That's Calvisnism 101.

 

[Gal328]

I'm new to this site and I hope I'm posting on the right board.

My question is about Adam's original sin. The thought ends up being about bodily resurrection, but starts really with Adam. What I'd like to ask is, was Adam changed by his sin, and was this change passed on to his children?

Yes, it was.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

and the difference would be?

No, that's not true. That's Calvisnism 101.

Responsibility doesn't imply wrongdoing, culpability does. God is responsible for causing many harmful events to happen, but is not guilty of wrongdoing.

 

[Kol]

But i don't think this was a sexual sin...as God told them to multiply.

No...there's...there's something to this. I can't quite see it, but...

It's almost like a trap. Like you open the latch on a safe-deposit box, to feel a tiny pinprick and look down to see a drop of blood on your finger. You've been injected with some type of poison.

Not trying to say procreation is in/of itself sinful. But it seems to open you up to something within Adam's nature, which is *now* overrun with sin. It gives you access to another part of our earthly nature, and that part has been corrupted.

Kol, I agree with you somewhat on the "flat, dead, physical perspective."

Yes, this is how it seems to me.

When this experience happened to me, it opened me up to *both* worlds; I was in a type of Nexus. I believe that because I paid attention at that time, I can now see in someone's eyes which world they are looking through. (Sometimes it is both.) This ties in to the verse where it is said that the unbeliever finds the message of the Cross foolish-they can't understand it, because these things are spiritually discerned. "Eyes" must refer to a mindset, an ability to perceive.

They died spiritually, knowing good and evil;

Did they die spiritually, is knowing good and evil dying spiritually, or was it they die because the tree of life was not allowed to them?

Is it that we cannot handle knowing good and evil and staying good?

Do I think Adam died spiritually? I don't know what Adam's eternal fate is.

I believe Adam came to "know" evil in the same sense that he "knew" his wife. He knew evil intimately, on a very personal level.

Best way to explain this: If you've ever worked in an office where you suspect two people are messing around, you can sometimes tell by the way they look at each other. There's a type of "knowledge" in their eyes. This is how Adam looked at "evil." This is a calculating look, because he knows what he can get out of it.

...

We know evil along with good and we are disordered now.

Yes, exactly! Because we cannot serve two masters.

Like Paul said, our nature is now a matter of us doing the evil we don't want and not doing the good we do want to do.

Because we are dual-natured: our slumbering spirits, and our corrupted flesh.

I believe Adam died (or more correctly, began to die) the moment he disobeyed God. The point you step off the path is the point of impact; your death scene. The Tree of Eternal Life may have been a physical tree representing a spiritual truth(our Lord Jesus), just as Adam's physical/pre-fallen self may have represented something else.

I attest here from personal experience that a dead spirit is not necessarily a non-active one. So I personally do not believe that spiritual death means eternal judgement, *just yet*.

 

[holyrokker]

The only way sin can be passed down from Adam to us is if sin is somehow a physical problem (genetic).

But sin is a moral problem.

If sin is genetic, Jesus died in vain.

 

[Kol]

The only way sin can be passed down from Adam to us is if sin is somehow a physical problem (genetic).

Yes, I believe it means a corrupted version of what should have been a human.

But sin is a moral problem.

Absolutely. And Adam *was* a son of God. He became something he was not by making a moral choice, one that cost him his flesh life. It may/may not have cost him his spiritual life (depending on how you view it), but it certainly cost him his physical one.

If sin is genetic, Jesus died in vain.

My point exactly. If sin is genetic, then Jesus's flesh couldn't have atoned for spiritual sins; therefore, his spirit would had to have died for our spiritual sins, and the flesh sins continue on, giving us their wages: death.

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[holyrokker]

The only way sin can be passed down from Adam to us is if sin is somehow a physical problem (genetic).

Yes, I believe it means a corrupted version of what should have been a human.

But sin is a moral problem.

Absolutely. And Adam *was* a son of God. He became something he was not by making a moral choice, one that cost him his flesh life. It may/may not have cost him his spiritual life (depending on how you view it), but it certainly cost him his physical one.

If sin is genetic, Jesus died in vain.

My point exactly. If sin is genetic, then Jesus's flesh couldn't have atoned for spiritual sins; therefore, his spirit would had to have died for our spiritual sins, and the flesh sins continue on, giving us their wages: death.

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My point is that Jesus didn't need to die if sin is a physical problem.

His physical death on the cross, however, is sufficient to cover our sin. Since He himself never sinned, His death was unjustified. That's why He didn't remain dead: death had no authority over him.

He died a physical death as a substitution for our eternal death.

He didn't die the exact death that was due to each individual sinner. In that case He would have needed to die eternally billions of times over and over again.

That's what an atonement is - a sufficient substitute, not a full payment of the penalty.

 

[ScottBot]

My point is that Jesus didn't need to die if sin is a physical problem.

His physical death on the cross, however, is sufficient to cover our sin. Since He himself never sinned, His death was unjustified. That's why He didn't remain dead: death had no authority over him.

He died a physical death as a substitution for our eternal death.

He didn't die the exact death that was due to each individual sinner. In that case He would have needed to die eternally billions of times over and over again.

That's what an atonement is - a sufficient substitute, not a full payment of the penalty.

Sin is a spritual problem that has physical effects.

 

[ScottBot]

Responsibility doesn't imply wrongdoing, culpability does. God is responsible for causing many harmful events to happen, but is not guilty of wrongdoing.

I see your reasoning and agree.

its like the CO of a ship. He is responsible for everything that happens on his ship, even if he is not personally culpable for anything that goes wrong. Got it.

Although I have to caviat this by saying that He is not responsible for CAUSING bed things to happen, but rather ALLOWING bad things to happen. If he CAUSED them, He would ideed be culpable, for He would be complicit is evil, which He cannot be.

 

[Benedicta00]

Responsibility doesn't imply wrongdoing, culpability does. God is responsible for causing many harmful events to happen, but is not guilty of wrongdoing.

Oh my, HyperCalvinism 101.

How about he allowed evil to happen in order to bring a greater good from it? That sounds a lot more consistent with the gospel message.

 

[Kol]

My point is that Jesus didn't need to die if sin is a physical problem.

I think there are sins to the spirit and sins to the flesh. Spiritual sins harm your spirit; physical sins harm your flesh body. I think the flesh bodies have been written off as a loss, and is symbolized by, say, Ishmael ("the slave woman will never inherit..."). Our spiritual sins are atoned for by a perfect spirit (our Lord), and are born of faith-and are a new creation.

Since I've come to submit to the Lord, I feel cleansed spiritually, but my flesh/adamic thoughts I still have to defend against. The flesh is dying and corrupting, but "inwardly, we are being renewed." This is exactly how I feel.

Since He himself never sinned, His death was unjustified. That's why He didn't remain dead: death had no authority over him.

"He himself never sinned." But that's my point: if he was descended from Adam, he *inherited* sin. He's already been tagged. Dying physically allowed him entry to a common fate: death. He has redeemed the family, only in an unseeable way. Being spiritually unaffected by death, he had the power to destroy the "ruler" of death, our adversary.

That's what an atonement is - a sufficient substitute, not a full payment of the penalty.

It seems to me that he didn't just atone, he broke the power of death. Thus, those who have faith in him may die and die and die again, but death doesn't matter-it's irrelevent. Didn't Paul say he "died everyday"?

I still feel dead, but alive in the Lord. It's as if my body's unable to make my own blood-but the Lord's blood keeps me alive. He is my life.

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