Importance of Original Sin

Assuming of course that the student has an ear to hear what is being taught......

Nonsense. The Bible is talking about Adam's temptation to be independent from God. That is why he disobeyed God's command, to obtain something which would render it unnecessary to depend upon God.You're trying to read something totally different into the account.And if Adam was so eager to "take responsibility for his own life" WHY did he seek to immediately shift the blame to everyone else ? "And the man said, The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." (Gen. 3:12) So much from your noble "take responsibility for his own life". In the case of Adam, he was lied to that God was an arbitrary despot from whom Adam would do better to ignore and seek another way to live.That is the story. In THIS case it was definitely "forsaking God." And before Cain faced his temptation of jealousy, anger, and murder Adam had already years before failed to obey God directly.Adam failed to obey God's direct command.
Cain failed to obey his human conscience.
Both actions can be counted as a forsaking of God. Adam in the account made a bad choice. To disobey God was a bad choice.If you argue that Adam made a good choice it only reveals to me how damaged the thinking of Adam's descendents can get (of which you and I are descendents).You are twisting the account on its head for some sociological reason which you think contains more wisdom than the word of God.If you wanted to sing the praises of personal responsibility over against religious scapegoating, I could think of much better portions of the Scripture to make that point. Torturing Genesis chapter 3 as you are isn't impressive or necessary. That is right. And that is why Jesus said ABIDE ... ABIDE in Me. And Jesus is the divine life. "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." (John 15:4) Sure, the regenerated man is to "walk by the Spirit" (Gal.6:16) And we do not have to go that far. All the positive patriarchs after Adam were frankly men who daily and eventually even moment by moment turned to God for guidance and supply.I plan latter to show that though the tree of life was closed off to man, God was still sought AND was faithful to meet, help, guide, support, and lead those who realized that they needed God. This in fact is much of the story of the remainder of the Bible. I have no major argument with that. It is certainly the case that after the expulsion from Eden's garden, God would not give man up and sought man as some men also sought their God.In fact after the tragic fall God immediately promised a Savior and a salvation and a dealing forever with the Devil. His purpose cannot be thwarted. And He would not give up His eternal purpose.But I agree completely that God wants all of us to choose Him daily. Here is the problem section which causes this kind of thought: "And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil ..." (Gen. 3:22) Sure, it says that Adam has become LIKE God knowing good and evil.
We can say that Adam's conscience has awakened.But this is what you do not seem to grasp.
Though he now KNEW of good and evil he was not able to always DO the good that he knew or RESIST the evil that he knew.But he did have the knowledge and in that regard God Himself said that he had become like "one of Us." And he was now going to die.We may regard positively that Adam's conscience was awakened. And we may regard that the human conscience is a kind of breaking system which CAN restrict man from being too downgraded into immorality. It is good to have a internal breaking system to limit the downward slide.But it remains a fact that humanity continued down the pattern of moral degradation from the possession of this knowledge of good and evil, until the flood of Noah. Individuals walked with God as best they could. Society as a whole got worse and worse until the righteous God had to wipe out the world except for eight people, and start again. "And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jehovah repented that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart." (Gen. 6:5) This was a time of Anarchy. And I mean in the positive sense. Every man was only answerable to his own conscience. It is as if God said "Let's see how good they will do if they just all go by their newly awakened conscience."The END of that era was the degradation that culminated in the judgment of the flood.God was striving with man. The Spirit of God was striving upon man and his conscience - "And Jehovah said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he is flesh; so his days will be one hundred twenty years." (6:3) And we have the deep, deep occult going on as well (ie. the Nephilim (v.2,4) ).This downward decline in Anarchy reached its " END " in world wide corruption (whatever constituted the whole world at that time). "And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.

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And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them ..." (vs.11-13) As much as you would like it to read that the earth was filled with noble and good people all who had the knowledge of good and evil, that was NOT the result of Adam's leadership in taking of that forbidden fruit. That passage I told you, concerns sin in Cain seeking further inroads into his being. The problem here is that you do not appreciate that there were distinct chambers of Cain's being.Check your experience. Do you not become aware that certain cravings are IN you but you close the door that they may not get deeper into your psychology and your chosen actions ?These cravings are in already IN you. But there can be a door you open or keep shut either accepting them or limiting them. And sometimes you are unable to close the door. You still have a knowledge of good and evil, but the good you would do you fail to do sometimes. And the evil you would NOT do, you actually end up doing, sometimes.This process was at large in that ancient society. And eventually every imagination became evil and the earth was filled with sinful violence.We need to be saved from ourselves. We need to be saved from the guilt of sin and the power of sin. And we need to be saved from the righteous judgment of God. We need to be saved from self condemnation. And we need to be saved from living by the knowledge of good and evil when it usurps the living by God Himself as divine life. Not at all. The account makes a point of it that all the following descendents DIED like Adam DIED.Ie. Genesis 5:5 - " ... Adam lived ... nine hundred thirty years, and he died."

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v. 8 - " ... the days of Seth were nine hundred twelve years, and he died."

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v.11 - " ... all the days of Enosh were nine hundred five years, and he died."

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v.14 - "And all the days of Kenan were nine hundred ten years, and he died." etc. vs.17, 20 until Noah.Now I may not be able to site a verse in Genesis saying Adam was cursed explicitly. But the ground was cursed on account of his sin (3:17)So I will retract somewhat my writing that Adam was cursed if that is what I wrote. But the misfortune which was his and his descendents because of the cursed environment was quite evident to them - "And he [Lamech] called his name Noah, saying, This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands, which which come because of the ground which Jehovah has cursed." (5:29) And Galatians says that Christ has saved the believers in Christ from the curse of the LAW of Moses which only pronounced more man's sinfulness - "Christ has redeemed us out of the curse of the law, having become a curse on our behalf ..." (Galatians 3:13a) "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:17) Do you think eating of the forbidden fruit had nothing to do with Adam dying ?
And why did all his descendents die ? Read that paragraph you wrote again and see if you can detect your own self contradiction. "It didn't cause them to die" and then "it didn't cause them to die that same day."Which do you believe, it didn't cause them to die or it didn't until another day?What do you think caused Adam to die ? Explain. That is right. And my next post after that one expressed possibly how this happened that God warned Adam not to eat of what God called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.It seems that what you are really after is some way to diminish the honor of God in your interpretation of this story. A common thread in many of your objections seems to place God in the bad light in one manner or another. Explicitly Genesis doesn't say that. But being restricted to Genesis in this Bible Study is your hang up and not mine.And Romans which sheds so much light on the Old Testament says that through Adam sin entered into the world. And through Adam many were constituted sinners.Not leaning on extra Genesis explanations OF Genesis in the rest of the Bible is your imposed restriction, not mine.This restriction that you want to impose enables you to attach your own analysis which unfortunately includes some aspects which are blatantly opposite to what what we are told in Genesis. In light of the rest of the Old Testament, let alone the New, we can see that the entire REASON Cain and Abel were offering sacrifices was that they fell short of God's will and needed to recognize the need for atonement and reconciliation.Why? The Old Testament says that from birth man goes astray. Psalm 58:3 - "The wicked are estranged from the womb; They err from their birth, speaking lies. Their venom is like the venom of a serpent ..." Interesting it is that the Psalmist likens the sinning nature to the venom of a poisoness snake.It is no wonder that you feel the need to amputate the book of Genesis from the rest of the Bible so that you may spin it to teach something practically opposite of what it says in some important places.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

First Peter 2:11 proves that in man various lusts in the fallen body, the flesh,are waking war against the human soul. "Beloved, I entreat you as strangers and sojourner to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul." This is how Cain's experience with sin crouching at the door should be understood - " ... sin is crouching at the door; and his desire is for you, but you must rule over him." (Genesis 4:7) Sin was in Cain's fallen body crouching at the door of his heart and waging war against his soul.Satan has an objective existence outside of man in the atmosphere or "air" but it also the spirit "operating IN" the children of disobedience - "And you, though dead in your offenses and sins, In which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit which is now operating in the sons of disobedience." (Eph. 2:1,2) Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The disciples didn't have any more of an ear than anybody else. One betrayed Him and (at least) one denied Him.

That isn't what it says. I didn't say he was eager to take responsibility. I said that responsibility was thrust upon him by God as the natural consequence of his actions.It was God who wanted him to take responsibility. We are to ones who should be eager to take responsibility, to be more like God. We're not talking about other portions of scripture; we're talking about this one. And I'm not trying to make a point; I'm just pointing out what the scripture says. I have never said that anybody is noble or good. I have said that we are responsible for being as good and noble as we possibly can be. Our struggle to be good is dependent on the knowledge of good and evil.And Adam didn't "lead" anybody. They didn't have a lot of interior partitions in Biblical times or rooms within rooms. It's more likely that the "door" image refers to the (one) entrance to the house. All humans die. There's no significance in the fact that Adam died. There's nothing in the account to suggest that he wouldn't have died without eating the fruit.What is significant is when he died. He didn't die when God said he would die. God either lied or changed His mind. Clearly not, since he didn't die until many years later. All humans die. They didn't "inherit" death from Adam. There's no contradiction there. The fruit didn't cause them to die. They died another day from another cause. All I'm after is to read the story as written. If the story seems to diminish God's honour that's the story's fault, not mine. If you want to read God's honour into the story that's fine, but you have to mangle the story to do it. Not at all. You said you could make a case for original sin from Genesis alone, didn't you?If original sin originated in Genesis, than we have to understand what the Genesis story says before going farther afield. If Paul agrees with Genesis that's fine. If he disagrees, we have to figure out whether Paul is wrong or Genesis is wrong. Yup. What it doesn't say is that Adam is to blame. There's no need to "amputate" what is already separate. What we do need to avoid is cobbling together a Frankenstein monster out of every part of the Bible.

You seem to think that scripture is simply interpreted by logic, reason, and reality. Not everybody has an ear. The reason being that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The word itself is not mere human interpretation...it is God Breathed.Thats why it takes a spiritual ear to understand spiritual things...this is not some basic common sense that any buffoon who wishes to understand it and also keep their own imagination and outlook can even see.

And just how do you determine that other than using logic, reason and reality? You could use emotion; is that what you use? When something makes you feel good you accept it and when something makes you feel bad you reject it?How do you test to see if the interpretation you get is not mere human interpretation? Is there a label that says "Hecho en Paraiso"? Ah, how is that different than checking your brain at the door?

We have something called a human spirit.We are not only a body and soul. We also have a human spirit.
This spirit of man is in a comatose condition - deadened.It is the place within man that the new birth takes place - "That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ." (John 3:6) The human spirit was created the highest part of man. But in the fall of man it became deadened and comatose from the damage of sin. It sunk in position underneath the soul of man. In some cases it sinks even beneath the body in some people.This does not mean that the mind of man which is part of his soul is to be under appreciated. The mind has its proper place. But originally the mind of man was to be subject to the higher function of the spirit of man.And that is all I am going to say now. But that the SOUL of man and the SPIRIT of man are distinct is made very clear in the New Testament. As the revelation of God's purpose proceeds so does the deeper revelation of the nature of man proceed.And Hebrews 4:12 proves that the soul of man (which houses also the MIND of man) is distinct from the spirit of man where the new birth occurs - "For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of the soul and spirit ..." (Heb. 4:12) The living word of God is able to aid a man to discern his human soul from his human spirit.All three parts of man comprise the total man. It is not a matter of denigrating any part. It is a matter of appreciating their varied functions and learning through practice how to coordinate them together.Perhaps your human spirit is deadened and you need forgiveness that you may be regenerated - born of God. Then you would discover there is a whole dimension to your human life that you have been missing.In the unsaved man the human spirit is not totally nonexistent. But it is damaged and in need of something like a resurrection. Or more biblically a "birth".But I believe that the human conscience is one part of the human spirit that is not totally dysfunctional.Discovering the human spirit is a great adventure. And when you are saved the Holy Spirit bears joint witness with the rescued human spirit that a person now is indeed in a living relationship with God - "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." (Romans 8:16) Without this inner bearing witness of the Person of the Holy Spirit WITH our reborn human spirit, God is not real to us. God may only be a topic of philosophical discussion, or in some cases people's ridicule and mockery.When the spirit of man begins to ascend above the soul to its rightful position, one can become a spiritual man as opposed to a mere soulish man or worse a fleshy man.This is all discussed much by the Apostle Paul in his First Corinthian letter.This has little to do with the level of intelligence a person has.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Word salad and nonsense.My spirit is not comatose. HUH?What is the living word of god?How does it enable a man to discern his human soul from his human spirit?

It might be. You don't know what the living word of God is and yet you are sure you know your spirit is not in need of regeneration? Is it possible that you lack experience in someting that others have gone before to have some experience ?How do you know that it is not simply a timing matter , that you have yet to experience something ?Why don't you cease for a season arguing about it with me or any Christians. And instead find a field somewhere where you can talk out loud without self consciousness, and have a good long talk with God ?I mean pouring out your heart to God seeking Him and asking Him about whether your spirit is alive or dead.Do so with a willingness to have your whole life changed. No need to argue with me or with Phat any more. Who are we that you should argue with us.You have a human spirit. Seek God pouring out your heart to God, confessing your sins and inquiring about the means of salvation. He does not turn away an honest seeker.You must be willing to be changed by God. God is ever in the business of changing people.If you really want to get good results call out "Oh Lord Jesus! Oh Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus I want You. " And add thanksgivings. Add praises as you pour out your heart seeking God. The Bible says to enter into His courts with praise. Bringing your complaints is good. Bringing your complaints WITH thanksgivings and praise is very effective.I guess it is effective because it shows trust to some degree.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I am a Christian, a devout Christian and an honest Christian.So perhaps instead of more evasion, misdirection, misrepresentation and quote mining you try answering the questions.I asked my Spirit "Spirit, you comatose?" and my spirit answered "Nah, Boss, working hard but being quiet-like."Now, what is the living word of god other than more carny con-games and word salad?

Why do you capitalize Spirit on human spirit ? This leads me to assume you do not know what I am talking about.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The fleshy and carnal believers in the church in Corinth whom Paul said were natural and soulish believers rather than spiritual men, also considered themselves devout.God knows.

'acause I did and when speaking of a particular item or the first letter starting a sentence it is common practice.Now how about answering the questions.Now, what is the living word of god other than more carny con-games and word salad?How does it enable a man to discern his human soul from his human spirit?

Again you resort to misrepresentation, attempted misdirection and unsupported assertion.I said "I am a Christian, a devout Christian and an honest Christian.", and those are facts which can be verified.