You're going to have to help me understand this one. From my perspective, which admittedly may be faulty, I see Paul asserting multiple times that sin entered through one man. From Paul's perspective, he had no reason to think it was any other way though.
But, you see, I don't believe Paul is speaking merely from "his perspective." He is a divinely-inspired writer of the word of God, not someone just offering his personal views on things religious. So, when Paul makes the explanations he does about Adam and Christ and the origin of sin, he is communicating divine truth to me. Am I free, then, to dismiss Paul's words as simply the ignorant speculations of someone far removed from the events he is speaking to? As Paul would say, "God forbid!"
If Paul says that sin entered through Adam into the world, and he is speaking under the inspiration of God when he does, then I cannot alter, or correct his statements, or dismiss them. If what he is writing originates with the Almighty Creator of Everything, then it is crucially important for me to accept his words.
I'm not seeing the significance of it being one man that sin entered the world through. It's significant that one person redeemed us from sin, but a non-literal Genesis has nothing to do with changing that. And since it is multiple people that are redeemed by one man, I don't see the significance yet of sin entering through one man.
If what Paul says is
true, is it not important for that reason alone? I think so. In speaking of Adam's sin, Paul explains why Christ had to atone for our sins. The Fall of Man in Eden is the reason, the context, for Christ's Redemption of humanity. If death is actually a normal part of Creation, then Christ conquering it, as Paul asserts Christ did through his atonement for us on the cross, makes little sense. Why "conquer" what God intended should be part of His "good" Creation? Why is death held up in the New Testament as the great evil afflicting humanity? Treating the Genesis account of the Fall as allegory only magnifies and multiplies these sorts of questions and makes the account impotent in providing satisfactory answers.
On a side note, that may or may not be related, didn't sin enter the world through two people? Or is this about the fact that Adam willfully sinned, and Eve was deceived?
Correct.
When they are told that they will die that day, but they don't physically die until much, much later, but they do become separated from God that day, I see the threat of dying on that day only referring to a spiritual death.
Yes, I understand. You made this point in your last post to me. It seems very evident to me that, since Adam and Eve didn't die the instant they ate of the Forbidden Fruit, that we must read God's promise of death as a process of decay leading to death that began when Adam and Eve sinned.
Well we know that eating from the Tree of Life granted eternal life. So what you seem to be saying is that even though there was no such thing as physical death for any creature, animal or man, God put a tree, aptly named the Tree of Life in the Garden, that would cure people of physically dying, even though there was never any intention of anyone or any creature ever physically dying.
I simply don't know how, exactly, to perfectly reconcile what Paul says about death coming through Adam with the presence of the Tree of Life in Eden. Why was such a tree in Eden in the first place? Did God need such a tree in order to confer immortality upon his creatures? That seems very unlikely. Were there other such peculiar trees of power in Eden? Why was the Tree of Life not forbidden to Adam and Eve but the Tree of Knowledge was? The Genesis account offers no answers. What it
does make clear - as other passages in Scripture do - is that death - physical as well as spiritual - entered Creation through the sin of Adam. I can speculate, I suppose, on what the presence of the Tree of Life might mean, but not at the expense of the clear, explicit declaration of Scripture.
Well now we're getting into the territory of you saying what must be good in God's eyes and what must be bad.
I don't think its a stretch to say God does not think death and pain are good. These are the things He promises to His children will be
absent in the afterlife. (
Rev. 21:4)
Death is an enemy to be conquered (
1Cor. 15: 53- 57; Rev. 20:14) not a good friend to be embraced.
Consider His answer to Job about why He would allow suffering. God is sovereign.
Yes, He is. But this is not to suggest that God thinks death is good. Saying, "I am the Boss," is not the same as saying, "Death is good." Clearly, Satan thought death was an evil thing, for it was one of the means whereby he hoped to make Job sin. And God seems to recognize this since He allows Satan to use death as a test of Job's commitment to God.
If He thinks natural, physical death for animals is a good part of the system He designed, it isn't up to you or me to decide it is or isn't.
I don't see anywhere in Scripture any basis for what you've written here.
Remember, that from a theistic evolutionists perspective, we didn't become humans until God put a soul in us, so it was only animals that died up to that point.
Well, I don't give any credence to the theistic evolutionist's perspective.
I'm talking about Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness in
Matthew 4. That is a literal story, I assume, and not merely a vision Jesus had. In the story Satan takes Jesus up to an extremely tall mountain so that He can see every kingdom on Earth. That only works with a flat Earth.
Luke 4:5 adds an interesting - and clarifying - phrase to the story:
Luke 4:5
5 And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Sounds like whatever happened, it was supernatural in character, an event not constrained by the physical laws under which you and I labor. I don't think, then, that the story indicates a flat Earth at all.
How did God reveal the story to Moses?
The general consensus is that most of what Moses wrote down was from oral tradition (except, of course, those events involving him directly) rather than a vision, or some such thing.
By telling him word for word what to say, or via a vision Moses had that, no matter which way it went down (literal or figurative) was going to be confusing to him either way.
God is not the Author of confusion, the apostle Paul wrote. Surely, the Almighty God of the Universe would have no problem at all making Himself perfectly clear to Moses.
That doesn't mean he got everything exactly right, and I see no reason for God to nitpick the things that don't matter if Moses got them wrong.
It isn't God doing the nit-picking but liberal "Christians" and atheists. I believe God superintended the writing of both the Old and New Testaments, ensuring that what was recorded was accurate in those things He meant to express. So, I don't believe Moses got anything wrong in what he wrote.
And if Genesis is merely the best job that Moses could do to explain something vastly, vastly over his head (you know, all of creation and thousands of years of human history) delivered through who-knows-what kind of medium (a vision, a dream?) then I don't consider that to be a genuine falsehood or error at all.
None of this addresses my point. If the word of a perfect God is false or in error in any way, then it cannot be the word of God.
God is not so small, so weak, as to be incapable of overcoming the ignorance and failings of those He chose to pen holy Scripture.
Selah.
