Death in Relation to the Creation and Fall

For we know that the whole creation (all mankind) groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only the they (unsaved), but ourselves (Christians) which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves (Christians) groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.He is talking about human beings all throughout this passage and specifically to the Christ-followers of Rome.Now look at Mark 16:15: "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."The Greek word for creature here is the same one used in Romans 8:23, or ktisei. The context used in both is mankind. Or do we preach the Gospel to animals and trees?You are the one that is expounding this into more than it is actually saying. The Gospel is for mankind, not literally ALL of creation.This is an example of figurative and metaphorical language used throughout the Bible including much of Gospels of Jesus and the other apostles' letters.i.e. ""He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him" [John 1: 10]Was he talking about all of creation? No, he was talking about mankind."For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."Again, was he talking about animals and plants understanding what God made? Of course not, he was talking about humans.However, there are other portions of the scripture in which creation does mean all of creation. However, in Romans 8, Paul is specifically discussing mankind and the new spiritual nature of Christians. It is clear reading through the entire chapter that is intent, in my opinion.So clearly we must read scripture in context of the surrounding scripture. What exactly is the author trying to convey using tools such as exegesis. We must consider who the author is, who he is writing to, why is he writing to them, what message is he trying to convey and the historical and spiritual background of the church/people he is writing to. All of that must be taken into account to have an accurate understanding of the passage being considered.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

I already showed you where 1/3 of early Church fathers including Augustine, did not agree on original sin and that man was immortal before the Fall (which I am not disputing), even fewer Church father's accept your view that all of creation (not just mankind) was subject to death because Adam's sin (which is even more restricting than Original Sin).So you are wrong Faith. You even admitted yourself that some of the great Christian theologians such as Charles Spurgeon and others do not accept your supposed "orthodox" view. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

that wouldn't really make any sense, no. the thing is, the only rational way to look at the texts is using the words on the page; what the authors said. you have to view them as products of their authors, and not apply magical thinking to them about coded messages inserted by some other force. it's easy enough to apply that kind of thinking to other texts, and come out with erroneous conclusions. sure, but note that it never regards these ideas as separate. when it's used to mean "cut off from life", it means physical death. only by creationists, who want to try and justify an idea about the text being literally written by its main characters. there's absolutely nothing to substantiate this, it goes against even the unsubstantiated orthodox traditions regarding mosaic authorship, and there's a whole lot of anachronisms that indicate it must be false. note the description in genesis 2:

quote:

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And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads. The name of the first is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is Tigris; that is it which goeth toward the east of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

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the author is giving landmarks for the location of eden, and he (or she) is using countries that are contemporary to the reader.mainstream academia regards genesis 1, part of the P document, an even newer addition. partly, i would suggest, because it shows signs of using J (which contains genesis 2 through 4) as source material. i was just explaining why it was slightly different. the psalm is in hebrew, but jesus's dying words are aramaic transliterated into greek.

Ok, fair enough. I agree in principle. However, the Bible is meant to be interpreted as a whole, it is a sum of its parts. I am looking at Genesis with a NT Christian perspective. Specifically Paul discusses the relationship between Adam and Christ in Romans 5 and I Corinthians 15. That is the tie in I am discussing with Genesis. I did not just invent this. It is specifically laid out by Paul in two of his letters.I should have explained this better and shown from what perspective I was going with this. Hopefully this explains my reasoning and position better. Even though the original author(s) of Genesis did not understand the significance of Genesis in relation to Jesus Christ. Looking back through time, this is the perspective Paul and other early Christians took. Rgr, I have heard of this as well, including reading Asimov's "In the Beginning: Science Faces God in the Book of Genesis" which discusses the concept of authorship of Genesis.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

well, no, because it never existed as the sum of its parts until well after it was written. and even if you try to read it that way, there are plenty of parts missing. there are something like two dozen books that biblical authors refer to that are not included in the bible, and many of those aren't known about any other way.many of those parts specifically and intentionally conflict with other parts. for instance, job was written to argue against the premises of the major prophets, the notion that god was just. you can do that, but you have to realize that the NT christian perspective did not exist until the NT christian authors wrote it. it is totally foreign to genesis, separated by perhaps as much as 1,000 years. it does not represent the views of the people who wrote the torah, any more than job represents the views of jeremiah. further, the contextual information from the rest of the torah may even make the NT readings an untenable interpretation. i'm aware of that, but paul is speaking in a metaphysical sense that simply did not exist when genesis was written. this is sort of like saying shakespeare didn't understand the significance of his writing in relation to west side story or lion king. you've got the cart before the horse.

If there is one thing this passage can NOT mean, it's that the UNSAVED are anticipating the manifestation of the Sons of God, who are the saved, groaning in waiting for the redemption of the body. The LAST thing they want is the manifestation of the Sons of God.And it would make no sense at all for Paul to clearly identify Adam as the first man and the cause of sin and death, and then start using such odd cryptic terms for unsaved mankind as "creation" and "creatures" let alone the oddness of calling only some of humanity "creatures." I don't know how you can talk yourself into that reading. Delving into the Greek doesn't make the situation any clearer. The phrase "and not only they but ourselves also" clearly identifies a difference between humanity and "the creation" or the "creatures."Yes I see your point at Mark 16:15 and here Matthew Henry even agrees with you but I'm not sure I agree with Matthew Henry in this case. It seems poetic to me, and a hint that the entire Creation, every created thing, will be redeemed in the end in some sense too. Yes, "the world" generally refers to mankind, but "creature" is just too odd. Maybe I'll find a commentator who agrees with me about this or maybe not. I'll let you know one way or the other.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Only Spurgeon and Gill. Yes, that surprised me, though their views didn't agree with you either. But two thirds of the church fathers on my side is a LOT more than you have on your side, and Matthew Henry all by himself is enough to represent the orthodox point of view. However, it would be nice to come up with others, if I ever have the time and patience for that.Subjecting the Creation to "vanity" CAN'T refer to humanity, even unsaved humanity, it HAS to refer to the Creation as a whole, and this was done by God in RESPONSE to Adam's sin, for humanity's sake. It CANNOT refer to humanity, it HAS to refer to the rest of Creation.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I would not put too much stock in the opinion of one person either, whether it be Matthew Henry, or any other theologian. He wrote an entire commentary on the Bible, that is his interpretation of it. The Bible's words are inerrant, not Matthew Henry's. It is best to read the interpretations of scripture from a wide number of sources. I will have to do more research on the other sources as well. Why not? (Never mind, saw your second post, before your first post- responding to your first post now). Even if this is so, this does not automatically follow that all of creation was immortal up until the time of Adam's fall. This is only implied through your interpretation.I am not saying I know all the answers or assume to know the correct interpretation. However, the scripture you provide does not show a clear and conclusive case of your claim I mentioned above. It still seems to be that you are reading much more into this than what Paul mentions. That is my humble opinion.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

Ok, using the NASB version it says this: The wording is changed a little bit: "And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit"The Greek word for word is ou monon de alla kai autoi thn aparchn tou pneumatos translated directly as "not only (or only-so) yet but also we-ourselves the firstfruit of the spirit". There seems to be a difference in translations here implying that the word "they" in the phrase "And not only the they, but ourselves" is implied but is not a direct translation from the Greek. There is some wiggle room here for interpretation even between the KJV and NASB (which is one of the more accurate word for word translations from the Greek).More things to consider.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

I agree with DevilsAdvocate on this point, although I dispute many of his particular readings. You come at the scripture as a scholar and not as a believer, as I said before, and a believer regards the Bible as God's word, which means that it was "written" by God Himself, inspired by God, overseen by God, however you prefer to put that. It's God's own work, God's own revelation to us. It is not to be read as other books are read, completely by human standards, such as its being understood one way or another "well after it was written." It is to be BELIEVED first and foremost.But as a matter of fact the books that were finally accepted as canon had been passed down as inspired by God from the earliest days, copied and passed from church to church. There were thousands of churches and soon thousands of copies of the separate books, and every council drew up a list of the books regarded as canonical until finally the whole collection was gathered together as one. There were some disputes, mostly about some books that ended up NOT being accepted as canon, such as Enoch, which some of the Church Fathers treated as canon, but Paul's writings were never disputed as inspired. There was no "whole," as we now have it, in the early centuries, but when the parts were assembled into a whole it was regarded as wholly inspired by God.Anyway, DA is right, the Bible is to be read as a whole, every part in the light of every other part, the more obscure parts according to the clearer parts. It is to be read as God's own message to the human race. The authors of the separate books were His instruments through whose personalities and perspectives God's word comes to us. They serve to tell us that there are many things in God's revelation that we'll eventually find out about that right now are not essential to our salvation. This is not about parts that were left out but parts that were included that we can judge for ourselves. You believe the destructive fragmenting work of the "scholars" rather than the work of the generations of believing theologians. Job is resolved with a declaration of God's justice and righteousness, hardly a disputation with the prophets. Again, you simply miss the whole point of the meaning of its being God's word. Genesis was written to us just as Paul's books were. God knows the end from the beginning, that's why the Bible is the only book of actual prophecy ever written, a fact that the scholars try to dismantle by redating the prophetic parts to periods after their fulfillment, which makes a confused incoherent mess of the prophetic books. Actually, you are here influenced by modern Judaism which is NOT the perspective of those who wrote the Torah, as Jesus continually pointed out. They MISREAD the scripture in His time and they misread it now. The views of ALL the books build on one another, Job fits with Jeremiah fits with Jonah fits with Ezekiel fits with Samuel etc etc etc. The New Testament shows us HOW to read the Old, but you are only going to keep yourself in the dark by insisting on reading it the other way around. Oh God is a LOT bigger than the time period between Genesis and Paul. THIS is what you fail to grasp, to your GREAT disadvantage. This may not be as true as you think, DA. Moses WAS the author of Genesis and he knew God face to face. He foretold the coming of "another prophet" like himself, that the people would HAVE to hear. He certainly looked forward to Jesus Christ. What a small idea of God you have.

I am not disputing this. Not according to most Christian denominations. I am well aware of the Bible canonization process. And yes I realize there is a difference between RC and Protestant Bibles as far as the Apocrypha. However, this has little bearing on our current discussion of Genesis.In today's Christian denominations, even RC, the statement "the Bible is meant to be interpreted as a whole, it is a sum of its parts." is true. I understand this. I understand this as well. Please give me the benefit of the doubt here. I understand much of the authorship of the OT and NT. I am an avid layman researcher of both Jewish and Christian writings. Because they were looking forward from the Torah and other Jewish writings and Paul was looking backwards to the Tanakh (the Jewish Bible). Yes, yes I understand all this. I understand this as well. However, you are not looking at this from a religious perspective that God is the overall author of the Bible. I am not sure what your belief or non-belief is, but that is the understanding of Christians. Since God is the author, he has put meanings and foreshadowings in the Genesis story even if those who wrote it down didn't understand these meanings. You can disbelieve this if you want, but that is what the majority of Christians believe. That you cannot disavow. Only because you are viewing this from a human perspective. God is outside of time and as the ultimate author knows history forwards and backwards. That is the Christian philosophy on the matter.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

The NASB is considered to be accurate but it's based on the corrupted Alexandrian Greek texts which were either corrupted in the early centuries or outright forgeries later, and its translation was also influenced by the Revision of 1881 which was produced by the same committee that foisted those texts on us. It's probably just an inept translation, one of the ugliest I know of, even if it's accurate to the Greek. One thing I know about the KJV translators is that they were the best of the best in all the languages and masters of good English, which cannot be said of the 1881 committee, most of whom were also not even believers although the KJV men were definitely believers and feared to offend God in any way.HOWEVER, I don't see a big difference in this reading anyway. It's merely awkward, bad English. You still have to identify what the "only this" means which is contrasted with "we ourselves." There is no way that could refer to unsaved humanity. Most of them just want to die and never regain consciousness. However, if they DO suffer this groaning, these birth pangs, it is not with any happy (eager) anticipation. That passage cannot refer to them.That awkward "not only this" has to refer to the rest of Creation, whose groanings "we ourselves" share. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This is an issue we will probably not be sure on since we don't know exactly what God told Moses about Jesus Christ. There are hints and mentions of it in Genesis i.e. Melchizedek, etc. I am unaware of a direct foretelling of another prophet in the Pentateuch except where it mentions a covenant and blessing of the offspring (seed) of Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.Also, I am not totally convinced that Moses was the sole author of Genesis though. This is an area I am fuzzy on and would have conduct more research on. I really don't want to get into it here. If you want to pursue that line of reasoning we should start it in a new thread (not sure if it has been broached before or not).

Will have to do some research and get back to you on this. I have heard these arguments before but am not going to take them at face value. If you don't accept the direct Greek translation I provided, I will have to check and see if this is the same as what the KJV pulled from and get back to you. The direct Greek translation did not have the phrase "not only them" it had "not only yet but also". If you want to argue over this phrasing I will have to dig a little deeper and identify the sources and which Greek wording is the most accurate (coming from the most credible Greek manuscripts). It will take a little work. "Not only this" meaning "not only - all of mankind suffering as with the pains of childbirth but we ourselves (Christians)".However, though I lean to the belief Paul is talking primarily about mankind I am not totally convinced this is not also talking about all of creation. There is figurative and metaphorical language here. What I am cautious of though is reading too much into this especially concerning the fall of Adam. Even if Paul is referring to all of creation, I still don't see how you can categorically state that this implies that all of creation was immortal and without death until Adam's fall. To me it seems two separate unconnected concepts which is not clearly defined in Scripture. Just my two cents.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

If you are going to research the Greek texts and the Revision of 1881 would you please include my blog on that subject The Great Bible Hoax of 1881 in your researches? I believe I've at least touched on all the important issues involved there, and my main reference is Dean John Burgon who powerfully criticized the 1881 revision when it came out [not to be confused with the Burgon Society which is a KJV-only group I don't fully agree with], and I have many references in the margin to source material. There are also people who comment on that blog from time to time who are scholars on the subject way beyond anything I claim. I can point you to them if you are interested.As for the original Greek, translation isn't always best served by a word-for-word rendering since languages are rarely equivalent on that level. I haven't researched this particular issue but one of the things Burgon criticized was the revisionists' slavish "schoolboyish" understanding of Greek, and their apparent tone-deafness to good English. Well I'm glad you are at least considering that it may refer to all Creation. As for implying that all Creation was immortal and without death until the Fall, this is the clearest passage that implies that which is why I keep referring to it.But there are other scripture references that support it, even the others I also keep referring to if read in the context of each other. If for instance "the wages of sin is death" although that specifically has to refer to humanity, it's also a blanket definition that suggests that since there was no sin in the world before the Fall that has to mean that there was no death whatever in the world before the Fall. Same with "By one man sin entered the world." Again it is referring to humanity but it also makes the equation Sin=Death; no sin, no death. This is after all the basis on which we need a sinless Savior to die for us, so that the death He died was OUR death and not His. Then you have God cursing the ground for humanity's sake, which brought forth thistles for the first time. No mention is made of animal life, but then we have the passage we are discussing in Romans 8 where it is worded "God subjected them to vanity" for our sake, and I can't see how it could refer to anything but the REST of Creation besides humanity whose groanings we also share. I can't see splitting Creation between saved and unsaved humanity, and the phrase "not only this" or "not only they" has to imply Creation apart from human beings. And it is said there that they too suffer from the "bondage of corruption," We know that all Creation NOW dies, of course, which means it all suffers disease and deformity and decay and so on, which is the other part of my argument that all this IS suffering by all creatures, so that this is no GOOD Creation, so it cannot possibly have been the case before the Fall. And again the unsaved aren't at all eager to see the manifestation of the Sons of God. I earnestly wish some of them would join us but as long as they stay unsaved the whole idea is obnoxious to them. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting.