Are we prisoners of sin

hi Granny, so why do we have police and law courts. Surely we do all believe in sin which is a breaking of law whether they are Gods laws of mans.

The connection that Jesus had was with Adam who was the only other man to have ever lived who was, for a time, sinless.
Like Adam, Jesus was not conceived in sin, his father was God and not any man.He's not 'fully God' though as can be seen by his own words at John 3:16, Jesus said: For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son. Just two verses later, Jesus again said that he was the only-begotten Son of God.Obviously he was not God himself but an angelic son of God. He came for a purpose as mentioned by Daniel 9:24 "...to terminate the transgression, and to finish off sin, and to make atonement for error..."The way he would do this is by living a perfectly sinless life and dieing a perfectly sinless death. He accomplished both. This point raises some good questions, some that I had grappled with for quite a while myself.
I must say though that Adam & Eve had every reason not to trust the serpent. For one, Adam lived for a long enough time to be able to name all the animals. He knew snakes could not talk ( but the snake never spoke to Adam, it only spoke to Eve) so when eve told him what had happened, he should have known immediately that something wasnt right.We have to remember too that Adam & Eve had a perfect conscience. It immediately told them that they had done the wrong thing because they hid themselves when God approached them...this means that they knew they had done the wrong thing.And finally, God did not cause Eve to have greater pain in childbirth as a way to spite her...he knew that imperfection would cause pain and problems during the very complicated process of childbirth. His intent was to keep, not 'man' but 'Adam' from the tree of Life. Adam had rebelled and so in line with Gods warning he had to die. We cannot live without God which is what Adam chose to do. He chose independence so why should the 'Source of Life' grant him eternal life?The promise to send a redeemer was made right there in the Garden of Eden and that promise was fullfilled in Jesus. He lived a perfect life, and sacrificed it for all of Adams offspring. Without Jesus sacrifice, we could only pay the price of our own sin which is death...but now Jesus has paid that price for us and we have the opportunity to eternal life.

I dont agree with that for the reason that even non religious people have a consciencethis conscience tells them when they've made a mistake or a bad decision...the conscience is a part of each of us and it didnt take any religion to tell us about it.Actually in the bible the word sin comes from a verb (Hebrew- chata’ & Greek- hamarta′no) literally meaning miss, In the biblical sense it means'to miss the mark of the perfect standard of God'. So i dont think you can say that it is purely a religious concept.Humans make errors, its a fact of life not an abstract idea.

hi purpledawn, You left out the part where John tried to prevent Jesus from being baptized? According to John, Jesus did not need to be baptized.Math 3:14 But the latter tried to prevent him, saying: I am the one needing to be baptized by you, and are you coming to me? 15 In reply Jesus said to him: Let it be, this time, for in that way it is suitable for us to carry out all that is righteous. Then he quit preventing him. 16 After being baptized Jesus immediately came up from the water; and, look! the heavens were opened up, and he saw descending like a dove God’s spirit coming upon him. The sinful nature of mankind was not invented by Paul...the Jews had a whole system of worship that revolved around the need to atone for sin via the sacrificial blood of animals. Sacrifices had been practiced for thousands of years before the Apostle Paul explained sin to christians. Mankind did not receive any knowledge of good and bad... they simply abandoned Gods guidance and became independent of his perfect standards. The world we see today is a result of that decision. How did Paul personify sin??? Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

hi onfire, There is no other way to say it. He was only given 1 law in the garden of Eden. It was pretty simple...all the trees were for him but that 1 tree in the middle belonged to God and he wasnt to touch it. For along time he obeyed that simple rule thus living by Gods rulership. Its like saying someone was free of a parking fine until they got a parking fine.
Adam lived perfectly sinless until the time that he committed sin. Once he committed sin, he was sinful. Im not sure i understand where your question is coming from??? Maybe you dont believe that sin exists??? can you elaborate on what you mean? its seems you know more then you think.this is exactly right what you are saying. Adam DID go against a known rule for selfish reasons. And in doing so he made himself an enemy of his father...this lead to his death because his life was wholly dependent on God.When he sinned, he left God and no longer lived by Gods rulership. In Adams case, a law DID exist. He chose not to obey and thus became a law breaker.

but now you are adding something that is not a christian teaching.
If Jesus was not perfect as the scriptures say, then his sacrifice cannot save anyone. Yet we are told that his sacrifice covers the sins of all mankind and thru his sacrifice all mankind can be reconciled again to God.Mark may omit that detail, but other christian writers do not.
You cannot get a full picture if you dont take all scripture into account.

the conscience was pre programmed for Adam & Eve. They had a strong sense of what was right and wrong which is why, when they disobeyed, they hid themselves from God because they were afraid. Their inbuilt conscience told them that they had done wrong. They did not need to be told, they just knew.We are a little different in that, Adam and Eve had complete dependence on God for a time, we never did. We have always lived independently from Gods laws and so we have had to learn them.But there are still aspects of Gods standards lodged in our conscience. Murder, stealing, rape, incest, fraud ect...these are universally accepted standards of right and wrong. They are aspects of our conscience that never forgot Gods standards. Thats true to a degree. Kids are not pre programmed to know right and wrong, we have to teach them...this shows we do not live by instinct like other aninmals.But once they do know what they can and cant do, their conscience is what guides their decisions. they grow to know that some thigns are really bad and should be avoided...this is the same conscience that guided Adam and Eve except that God instructed them in good and bad because, just like parents today, he chose the standards of good and bad. Then when they rebelled, they chose for themselves what was good and bad and no longer lived by Gods standards...they chose their own.

if you want to use the word 'sin' in a non religious sense, you would say that it was to make an error/mistake according to some law or rule.if you use it in a religious sense, you would say that you have made an error according to Gods law.So it really depends on what sense you are using the word...but it is not purely a religious idea is what I was trying to say, it simply means to make an error according to some stated lawEdited by Peg, : No reason given.

thank you for the clarity on that
'It was the english word chosen to best represent...' thats a much better way of saying it that i'll have to remember. if we were speaking ancient hebrew we would not be so confused...it would simply be an error toward law

Paul and other christian writers used the OT Messianic prophecies and attributed their fullfilment to Jesus... they didnt invent anything new, they applied the existing prophecies to Jesus.some examples are found in Acts 8:26-40 where it reports that when the Ethiopian eunuch said that he did not know the identity of the Servant of Isaiah’s prophecy in Is 53:7-8, Philip pointed out that it was pointing to Jesus.At Isaiah 53:4-6 we read "...But he was being pierced for our transgression; he was being crushed for our errors. The chastisement meant for our peace was upon him, and because of his wounds there has been a healing for us...'Math 8:16But after it became evening, people brought him many demon-possessed persons; and he expelled the spirits with a word, and he cured all who were faring badly; 17that there might be fulfilled what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He himself took our sicknesses and carried our diseases."1Peter 2:21In fact, to this [course] YOU were called, because even Christ suffered for YOU, leaving YOU a model for YOU to follow his steps closely. 22He committed no sin, nor was deception found in his mouth. 23When he was being reviled, he did not go reviling in return. When he was suffering, he did not go threatening, but kept on committing himself to the one who judges righteously. 24He himself bore our sins in his own body upon the stake, in order that we might be done with sins and live to righteousness. And "by his stripes YOU were healed."here Mathew and Peter were quoting from Isaiah 53 and applying the messianic prophecy to Jesus. So they were not adding anything to scripture, they were showing how Jesus fulfilled existing scripture. im not sure how you come to that conclusion??? the whole jewish system was based on sacrificial blood. The high priest role was to offer the sacrifices on the alter.
Even Mary (jesus mother) presented her sin offering at the temple as per the mosaic law. thats right, it did end with the destruction of the temple. But it ended for Christians before that time. The apostle Paul considered this very question about sacrifices and provided this answer in Galatians 3:19-24,"Why, then, the Law? It was added to make transgressions manifest, until the seed should arrive to whom the promise had been made ... Consequently the Law has become our tutor leading to Christ." The animal sacrifices under the Mosaic Law typified a greater sacrifice that the Messiah would give as mentioned in Isaiah 53. This is why the system of scrifice ended when jesus died on the stake. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

no, im not adding.
Gen 3:8-11 shows how they hid themselves in the garden because they were afraid. God then askes them if they had eaten from the fruit of the tree and the man points to his wife and blamed her.So this shows that the man had a conscience that told them they had done wrong. If they did not know they had done wrong then they would not have hid from God, nor would they have been afraid. They knew beforehand because their conscience told them so.

im curious how you can get around it... If God did not command sacrifices, why do see it commanded in the Mosaic Law?

quote:

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Exodus 29:35"And you must do this way to Aaron and his sons according to all that I have commanded you. You will take seven days to fill their hand with power. 36And you will offer the bull of the sin offering daily for an atonement, and you must purify the altar from sin by your making atonement over it, and you must anoint it to sanctify it. 37You will take seven days to make atonement over the altar, and you must sanctify it that it may indeed become a most holy altar. Anyone who touches the altar is to be holy."

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Im not sure where you're going with this.Previously, they relied on God for knowledge of right and wrong but afterward they relied on themselves for that knowledge which is why they suddenly decided that nudity was bad.anyway, if you'd like to elaborate on what point you're trying to make, that would be appreciated.

hi Phat, that could be partly true in that they had never experienced the effects of sin because neither of them had previously engaged in sin...so their conscience had never known it.They did however know that eating from the tree would lead to death. That can be seen by eves conversation with the serpent. She knew that she wasnt allowed to eat from it and that they would die if they did. We have never lived without sin and its effects so it's hard to imagine what their experience was.

Well c'mon, the tree wasnt magic...it wasn't full of a special potion that suddenly gave them knowledge. It wasnt brain food, It was just a tree.