Why is sin heritable?

I don't know fully. But Paul has a sentence indicating God includes all people into a kind of resevoir for His own purposes of working out His eternal purpose: " For God has shut up all in disobedience that He might show mercy to all. " (Rom. 11:32)The inherited sin nature passed down to all humanity through humanity's head, Adam, has shut up all people in disobedience.The "second man" Jesus Christ as a new Head of a new humanity reconciled to God, is another great resevoir of God's mercy. We have the choice to step out of one resevoir into the other.So the principle that works against all descendents of Adam through Adam's disobedience is also used to justify all associated with "the last Adam", the "second man" Jesus Christ. It does not so easily come to my mind that Scriptures speak of Adam's punishment by God all that much. I admit that Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden and excluded from the tree of life was a punishment. But on the other hand it is a protection from allowing Adam to live some kind of hellish everlasting existence as a sin infested being. "And Jehovah God said, Behold, the man has become like one of US knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also from the tree of life and live forever -

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Therefore Jehovah God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he was taken.

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So He drove the man out, and at the east of the garden of Eden He placed a cherubim and a flaming sword which turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life." (Gen. 3:22-24)Yes, this expulsion is a punishment, on one hand. But on the other it is God's preventing the now poisoned Adam and Eve from also escaping eventual death from their miseries. He did not want them to live everlastingly as sin infested beings.If a mother warns her child not to drink a certain bottle of poison, and the child disobeys to do so, the child has two problems. On one hand the transgression of the command is a problem. On the other the child has received poison into thier system.The poison of sin and death into Adam's constitution is a self inflicted punishment. It is the result of his being constituted with a evil foreign element of which he was warned not to ingest.In the same way, it is a little off to regard that the mother is "punishing" the child because of the aches and pains of the poison the child disobediently ate.It is not that obvious to me that God is punishing Adam. Adam is suffering for a self inflicted derangment of his being.And God's excluding him from the tree of life seems less to me a concern for competition than a garuantee that Adam would not continue to live forever in this deranged state. That would be a hellish existence. I am not sure what this means. I only have a faint idea of what you mean by God's "go to" method.Jesus Christ is God incarnate as the Son of God, the Son of Man who came and suffered and died for the sinner's redemption. I think it will require eternity for me to fathom that act of God.But His suffering and death, first for three hours at the hand of man, and then for three hours at the hand of His Father, reveals among other things His absoluteness for God's eternal purpose. He cared nothing for Himself. He wanted nothing for Himself. He only cared absolutely for the will of God.This is in essence the God who loved us so much that He went to the uttermost to save us from ourselves having become at emnity with God.This dying of the Son of God is God going to the farthest possible extent to save the objects of His love back into His eternal purpose. So the Apostle John says God "SO loved ... SO loved the world" . " For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who belueves into Him would not perish but have eternal life.

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For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:16,17)These words came out of the mouth of Jesus. They mean that His receiving into Himself the divine justice of God on behalf of we sinful Adamic descendents, testifies the great extent to which God loved the wayward world. And the key to the appreciation of how great God's love was resides in our realization of how precious Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was to the Father.I think the revelation of the Bible is that God could go to no greater extent in His love to save us from His own perfect divine Justice and impart into us His eternal life. "For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:26)Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I did not as of yet look at what verses the poster used.
But are you suggesting that God's truth cannot be conveyed in a poem or in a song ? Psalm 119 is one big long song. Would you say that no truth from the Torah was portrayed in Psalm 119 because it is a song ?The story of Cain and Abel following the disobedience of Adam strongly indicates that sin was by then a power within Cain.God warned Cain that this lurking sin was trying to master him but he should master it instead. If you think about it what God is saying to Cain is very much like the serpent of the past chapter is now inside of him. Something personified and evil is lurking at the door of Cain's psychological and spiritual heart.The student of Gameliel, Saul who became Paul, was well instructed in the Torah. And he had good reason for laying out the entrance and transmission of sin's nature in man after Adam's disobedience.And I do not count poetry as unable to speak truth nor that confirming passages about inherited sin are not found elsewhere in the OT as well. The sin lurking at the door of Cain's heart is now infested the whole race. It runs rampant dragging society down into greater and greater immorality. Even the very thoughts of the imaginations of people are one unbroken wicked video game of evil.The decline started from thier forefather Adam's ingesting the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And Paul was right to say that through Adam sin entered into the world. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I agree that they had one command, not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.I agree that they could obey or disobey this one unique command.But in Romans 7 after outlining his struggle with sin in his members Paul says: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death ?" (Rom 7:24) When did mankind receive "the body of this DEATH"? It was after Adam had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.So sin and death entered into the world through Adam's eating in disobedience of that tree.Before Adam had eaten no one could say that they needed deliverance from "the body of this death."It is true that obedience or disobedience is available to all people. I have no argument about that.But man has now a knowledge of good and evil. That does not mean man has the power of life to perform the good that he knows. Nor does man have the full life power to resist the evil that he knows.Man gained a knowledge of good and evil. And man is very proud of that knowledge. The body of this death to often prevents him from performing the good that he knows and agrees with in his mind. And the sin in his members drags him down so that he too often cannot resist the evil that he knows.He gained the knowledge. He is exceedingly proud of the knowledge. He does not have the full life power to live up to his knowledge. A law of sin and death makes him captive to a stronger force within him.For years I did not see the connection between this and Adam's eating of a fruit. Eventually, I decided that what entered into man's body brought sin and death.Now I do not pretend to understand everything about this. But Paul also says that the evil spirit is operating in the sons of disobedience, the sons of Adam: I do not understand everything about the entering into Adam's body a bad fruit and the operating of an evil spirit in fallen man. But Paul says that in his flesh dwells no good thing. And the contrary law of sin he sees operating in his members.Since God did not create man with this body of sin and death, I must assume that it came about when Adam ate of the fruit of the tree that God warned would bring death to him.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I've been wavering on this one lately.
Hugh Ross of "Reasons to Believe" has given me some thoughtful objections that perhaps this is not the case.He points out that even for man to eat vegetation is the death of that vegetation. Maybe death entering the world has only to do with man.I've been pondering it lately a little more.Also I think the personification of Sin is biblical. I think this may agree with you. However, I think I can see the point that even when Satan is bound during the millennial kingdom, a sin nature is still in the living people on the earth.The "Person" part is bound for 1,000 years. Yet the evidence is that still the sinner is on earth and may not at all times cooperate with God.This is why Christ has to shepherd the nations with an iron rod.What do you think ?Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Not so. This was not the tree of natural life. It was the tree of divine life.The tree of life represented the life of God Himself. It is God's eternal purpose to dispense His life into man that God and man may be united.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I also find the best policy is to say "Amen" to whatever the word says. While some bible readers seem troubled by this, I found it to be a relief. Not a relief from responsibility mind you. But a relief.I remember that as a young man in my first year away from home at college, I eventually told a friend that I felt like a demon. And I was not kidding.Some years latter when I learned of the personification of Sin in Romans 7, my experience made more sense to me. something was lurking to capture me, slay me, deceive me, just as Paul had written.The personification of Sin made complete sense to my experience. I think that the Bible is economical in what it tells us. Perhaps there was more involved there in the garden then we can know. Something of the deep occult seems to be evidenced.Though I do not understand it all, I think human history is as it is related there. The foundations of human life on earth are rooted in the supernatural, I do believe. This is a point to ponder for me. Sin had to have been somewhee in Satan. And Satan had to have been in the universe. So I think Paul's use of the word "the world" may have on it some limitations.If the serpent sinned by his lying, then the sin of lying was in the universe. It was somewhere because the tempter was sinful and the tempter was in the garden. I think that the cattle slain so that Adam and his wife could be clothed occured before Abel died. But Abel was the first human death.I believe that Abel received the revelation to offer cattle as a blood sacrifice from his parents. It does not say that. But I think his offering of a living thing was a pre-figure of Christ and instructed by God to Abel's parents.I think that Cain did not follow the revelation of his parents and presumed to come up with a original idea. In this sense Cain was the first inventor of a human religion. Hadn't thought much about that.Aurthor Custance of "The Doorway Papers" has some things written about the actual fruit. I think I will finally get around to reading it. Let me think on that one. I had never considered that. Exactly. I noticed. This is why some scholars give up on any concept of a golden age of peace or millennium.And I noticed that though Satan is bound the sinner still dies at the age of 100 according to one prophecy.I had never considered that the hosts of Satan were not bound along with Satan. I want to bounce that off of some brothers I know whose fellowship is valuable to me.Thanks for sharing your thoughts.And see? Christians can have different views without condemning one another. We all see through a glass darkly. But then, face to face with the Lord Jesus.We will know even as we are known.

Greetings ICANT You're blessed to only get a short answer this morning.I think Paul even leaves something like this argument as an unanswered question in Romans 9:19-22. He ends the query with "What IF ...?" (9:22) .Maybe he left us with the impression that some matters were too deep even for him.Do these words of God indicate to you that perhaps a sin has been commited: "And Jehovah said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed ..." (See Gen 3:14) I assume you have no problem with the old serpent being identified as Satan the Devil (Rev. 12:9). The only question is whether you would regard God's cursing of the serpent in Genesis 3:13 as indicative of Satan having transgressed, sinned, missed the mark.If so, then Satan's sin preceeded Adam's. Am I right ? Well, sure. Pharoah and Judas also did a job for God. But they too sinned. I think Pharoah confessed the same though I haven't time to look it up right now. That's a big philosophical issue that I don't think I can answer completely this morning.But I believe that whatever God was Satan made himself the antithesis of. If God is truth Satan became the lie. If God is light Satan became the opposite, the darkness. Satan could not create anything really. He could only become the opposite of what God is.Now the phrase in Isaiah about the Lord creating evil, I would have to revisit. And I probably would have to review the original Hebrew there with some linquistic helps. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.