Why must the Fall be literal?Faith then writes:
So that the redemption would be literal, so that there is a real human condition from which we are to be literally really redeemed. Otherwise "redemption" loses its meaning.
There is a real human condition from which we are to be literally really redeemed. It's called our selfish nature.
I don't see how you make the logical connection you do here. Please explain more clearly why the fact that we literally sin means that there must have literally been a guy that literally brought that sin into the world.
My point has been that there is a consistency to the Bible as an entirety that depends on a literal reading of the Creation story. The New Testament references to Jesus as the "second Adam" and the first of the "New Creation" have meaning in relation to Adam's literal reality that they wouldn't otherwise. Jesus also fulfills a literal prophecy God gave them at the time, of a Savior who would "crush the head of the serpent" who had deceived them. So its reality ties together the promise of redemption that God gave to Adam and Eve at the time of the Fall (Eve already anticipated the Redeemer with the birth of her first son).
{EDIT: The word REDEMPTION also suggests a prior loss or debt that is to be restored:
Definition
Redeem - definition of redeem by The Free Dictionary:
1. To
recover ownership of by paying a specified sum.
2. To pay off (a promissory note, for example). [debt incurred at some point]
3. To turn in (coupons, for example) and receive something in exchange.
4. To fulfill (a pledge, for example). [God did promise]
5. To convert into cash: redeem stocks.
6. To
set free; rescue or ransom. [Implies event of captivity]
7. To save from a state of sinfulness and its consequences. See Synonyms at save1.
8. To make up for: The low price of the clothes dryer redeems its lack of special features.
9. To
restore the honor, worth, or reputation of: You botched the last job but can redeem yourself on this one. [implies loss of honor, worth etc.]}
A few scripture references:
Gal 4:5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Tts 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Eph 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Eph 1:14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
Mar 10:45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
1Ti 2:6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
Of course the meaning of redemption is clear enough in a sense without the certainty of a historical prior loss, but the prior loss gives it a particularity that ties the whole Bible together, and also ties the denouement of the devil at the time of the end back to his original seduction of the human race. If you don't have a specific beginning of sin, of the loss of innocence, you don't have a complete understanding of Jesus' work of redemption.
Also, if it were merely our NATURE to be selfish as you put it (which is an OK rough rendering of original sin), rather than a change in our nature from innocence to sin, from immortality to mortality, from life to death, the New Testament reference to a RESTORATION of a former perfection wouldn't make sense:
Acts 3:21 [Jesus] Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.
Commentators:
JF&B: The restitution of all things--comprehending, probably, the rectification of all the disorders of the fall.
Matthew Henry: The restitution of all things (v. 21); the new heavens, and the new earth, which will be the product of the dissolution of all things (Rev. 21:1), the renovation of the whole creation, which is that which it grieves after, as its present burden under the sin of man is that which it groans under.
Also, what part of Christ's sacrifice is less effective if the Fall is not literal history?
To be accurate, the idea is not so much that it is "less effective" as that it is better understood as the completing of a specific plan from the beginning, and that if it is metaphorically understood the Bible doesn't hang together as the perfect whole it is. My point has been that a literal reading gives a perfect consistency to the meaning of the Bible that doesn't exist with a metaphorical reading. And it does give a greater understanding of Jesus' sacrifice as it was God's plan from the beginning to reverse the effects of the Fall and original sin. Yes, I guess you can just understand vaguely that He died because of sin, but without the entire record the reality of it is less clear and complete. The complete history with a literal Genesis that Jesus fulfills is perfect and brilliant and worthy of the mind of God.
Faith writes: POint is he (Adam) wouldn't have died at all if he hadn't eaten the fruit and death is the reason for Jesus' sacrifice so that way it all hangs together. Of course if you want to deny any part of Christian theology then it doesn't hang together, it just falls into a heap of meaningless nothing.
I thought the sacrifice of Christ was to cover our sins and thus reconcile us with God the Father. That way we could be in heaven instead of Hell.
Yes, but notice that the term "reconcile" itself shows that there was a Fall, a previous communion with God which came to an end, which Jesus' sacrifice restores. Hell became the fate of sinners with the Fall.
Which part of Christian theology am I denying by not taking the Fall literally as it is described in Genesis? Do all or the majority of Christian denominations ascribe to this part that I am denying?
Majority I don't know, I would hope so. The Westminster Confession, Presbyterian but used by many Protestant churches, says this:
The Westminster Confession of Faith of 1646
Chap 6, Of the fall of man, of sin, and of the punishment thereof.
1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptation of Satan, sinned, in eating the forbidden fruit... . 2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion, with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body. 3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. 4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. 5. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified; yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin.
Chap 8, Of Christ the Mediator
5. The Lord Jesus, by His perfect obedience, and sacrifice of Himself, which He through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of His Father; and purchased ...reconciliation.... 6. ...the work of redemption ...wherein He was revealed, and signified to be the seed of the woman which should bruise the serpent's head ....
The Assemblies of God also have a statement affirming the Fall as the entrance of physical death:
Faith writes:
This (God saying Adam would die the day he ate of the tree) has been discussed to death elsewhere. The spirit died that day and actually so did the body begin to die but the death of the entire body did not occur for another 900 years or so.
I already said it meant the spirit died. You say that physical death was brought into the world that day but God didn't mean that Adam would physically die that day. How do we know what God meant? What part of Genesis states that Adam was physically immortal before he ate the fruit?
It is an inference from the fact that God said he would die and the fact that he did ultimately die. And if Genesis itself isn't clear enough, the New Testament makes it clearer:
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
That's a pretty specific real-time reference to a historical event that makes little sense if Adam and Eve are metaphorical fiction.
Why metaphorize what is better understood as literal? It simply reduces the impact. It has a lot less meaning if He died for a mere metaphor of a Fall, and to be the second Adam based on a mere metaphor of a first Adam as opposed to a reality.
It is not better understood as literal. A number of questions arise. These are off topic so don't respond to them unless answering them supports your position on reading the Bible "literally".
1. If Adam had never seen death, what meaning did God's proclaimation that Adam would die if he ate the fruit, have for Adam?
He knew God had breathed life into him. Death being the loss of that life would have to mean something to him whether he could perfectly understand it or not, and perhaps he COULD understand it because he had a spiritual communion with God that *we* can't really understand.
2. If death was not part of the world, what did Adam eat that would not die if you ate it? Tapeworms?
3. If Adam didn't know good from evil, how could he know his disobeying God was the wrong thing to do?
To name a few.
Adam most likely didn't eat animals and the death of plants isn't thought of as death. And again, no doubt by being in intimate communion with God he had some sense of the disaster that losing that communion would be. However, whether we are able to answer these things or not, my point stands that a literal Adam and a literal Fall and a literal promise of redemption, all of which are reported in Genesis, give a consistency to the overall Biblical history and a historical real-time fulfillment to specific New Testament statements about the role of Jesus as the second Adam, about the New Creation, about the crushing of the serpent's head and so on, about the meaning of sacrifice of Christ that a metaphorical reading blurs and confuses.
LA writes:
Where does Christ ever say it was literal or historical fact?
Faith writes:
Many things are not said but are logical inferences from other parts of the Bible or in context.
Suppose I am not very familiar with the Bible. Could you string together those logical inferences for me? I'd like to see how this all fits together. Verses with explanations on how they tie into the whole conclusion you have drawn should be enough. I may want to ask follow-on questions, though.
But I have been laying these out all along. We infer the literalness of Genesis from many New Testament references such as Christ as the second Adam, the Seed of the Woman, His inauguration of the New Creation, His fulfilling the promise of the Savior who would crush the head of the serpent (and this promise of a Savior is repeated throughout the Old Testament in many prophecies), His REDEEMING us which implies a specific loss or debt, His RESTORING all things which implies their prior loss.
{EDIT: Some other New Testament references to a literal Genesis:
1Cr 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Cr 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam [was made] a quickening spirit.
2Cr 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
1Ti 2:13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.
1Ti 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
Jud 1:14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
This message has been edited by Faith, 07-03-2005 02:33 AM
This message has been edited by Faith, 07-03-2005 05:41 AM
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