The Holy Spirit was poured upon all Christians since the Pentecost event. Before that, only the prophets and chosen witnesses can be with the Holy Spirit. Jesus called Abel a prophet, it means the work of the Spirit already started early on. More likely Enoch is another chosen witness of God, and with the Holy Spirit on him. Noah and Job are also apparently direct witnesses of God, the Holy Spirit was with them.
In a nutshell, in OT Holy Spirit is given to the chosen prophets and chosen witnesses while in NT the Holy Spirit is poured upon all Christians since the Pentecost event.
Yes, agreed. I originally decided to post this question because I heard someone express once the following line of thinking: "that the godly before the law were able to do what is right without the aide of the Holy Spirit because man was created upright (see Ecclesiastes 7:29 for reference) and therefore it was more or less natural to him". Now while I consent that moral degradation did in fact follow with time - this necessarily hurting their ability to follow good; the major problem with this thinking, however, is that man was able through the "wisdom" gained from the forbidden fruit, to actually choose the good over the evil, thus seemingly justifying man's desire to be "gods" and to know how to work good for themselves. So I was curios to see if anyone here may have reasoned similarly, which it does not appear anyone does.
Knowing "good and evil" is something else. Law is written in our heart since the very beginning, such that we can be judged after we die. No Law then no Judgment.
When you say "No law then no Judgment", what exactly do you mean mean by that, since you say the law is written in our heart since the beginning,
such that we can be judged after we die? How will God judge them than in the last day of the Final Judgement? I take it for this reason you bring the example of Christ preaching to the disobedient in the days of Noah, however, I did want some clarification as you did say after all, "Law is written in our heart since the very beginning,
such that we can be judged after we die."
The formal covenant, based on which humans are judged, however started with Noah's covenant of rainbow. The Bible didn't say clearly about how humans shall be judged before Noah.
I do not see how the introduction of the Covenant with Noah could serve as a means by which people could now be responsibly judged, besides murder and eating animals with their blood. Even with murder however, people must of known that this is sin, as seen from Cain's curse and Lamech's words; so that is seems to be more of an introduction of the death penalty, and how high a cost man's blood is with God. He also permitted them to eat all animals, but this not very significant in regards to the moral law.
To me, the hint is Jesus spent His 3 days to preach the gospel to people at Noah's days. This could mean that somehow humans before Noah could possibly subject to our New Covenant in a way which we may not know as it doesn't concern us and our salvation.
I didn't quite get what you exactly you meant by "could possibly subject to our New Covenant", but I'm guessing you meant that they had the chance to receive Christ's preaching and thus be saved - basically getting a second chance that no one else does for their reason of being without law and Noahic Covenant. I see quite a bit of issues with this view, but even without getting into all the implications of what this difficult passage of Apostle Peter's may lead to (depending on its interpretation), we still have a lot of peoples and nations that would not have been under the law for long periods of time, until finally the times when Jewish diaspora and proselytism reached a large enough extend to where the nations could no longer claim to have "never heard". What chance were these than given, that were largely in the same state of being without law as those under Noah's time? I'm guessing you'll mention the Noahic Covenant was sufficient for them, but would you be able to elaborate a bit, since it cannot be taught reasonable that the Noahic Covenant could of reveal anywhere near enough of the moral law to hold those under it accountable for judgement, while those before it as not?
It seems to me that the Jewish covenants are built up bit by bit, started with Abraham. Circumcision signifies a switch from a gentile covenant (of Noah) to a Jewish covenant which is faith-based at the end as unlike the gentiles the Jews are considered know of God or heard of God for their faith to show. Mosaic Law is a set of Law subject to the Mosaic Covenant, it requires the Jews to observe a set of laws conveyed in both written form and oral form. Even so, the top most commandment is still about loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength which is all about faith.
Yes, I agree that the first and second commandment, as Jesus said, are to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, & strength, and our neighbor as ourselves - which are out of the Mosaic Law.
I'd just like to state here plainly, that it is wholly reasonable that God will still judge those before the law (and Noahic Covenant) based of the things that they did know of Him, and those things taught by those who walked with Him, Whom (the Lord) they also decided to forsake. This would be their greatest downfall and cause of condemnation: their forsaking of Him and relying on themselves; but even than, they would have sufficiently known that God is a Just, Holy, Merciful, and Righteous God, and their conscience would also bear them witness that they in fact "knew good and evil". They would surely be more excusable than those who had the law, but still not excusable as to not be held accountable for working evil.
