Hi for_his_glory,
I fail to see how Adam's sin was different than his children's. You're right, they acted selfishly and sinned. I don't see any difference, rather, I see that the spiritually dead Adam begot spiritually dead children who do the same thing as their father. God said, 'They know right and wrong like Us,' Genesis 3:22. Just as Adam's children had a sense of right and wrong, we should be able to see that they have the same nature as their father who after he sinned knew right and wrong.
No one has answered the question of why a person needs to be born of the water and the Spirit of God, John 3:5. I see evasion in Ernest's response. What about you for_his_glory. Are children born of the Spirit as newborns, then they lose the Spirit-born status and then have to be born again? And if you say they lose their Spirit born status, then when do they lose it? Which sin do they perform and die spiritually? Children do sin don't they? They neither know God, let alone their right hand from the left. Yet, children are the most selfish people I know. Sometimes they never mature and remain children in adult bodies. Plus they need the righteousness of Jesus in order to be accepted by the Father. There is no other way to Heaven but by Jesus Christ. To say that children who die before whatever sin accountable age there is, is to say there is another way to Heaven. I flat out reject that.
Righteousness came by one Man, and condemnation came by one man.
- Davies
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Matthew 19:
13 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them.
14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
15 And he laid his hands on them, and departed thence.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Job 119:73 JOD. Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.
God made each one of us in his image and since God is a Spirit without form that image would have to be his image of love. We are also conceived in our mothers womb as we are fashioned by the hands of God being therefore made in His image of love innocent in the womb until we are born as God gives us our breathe of life. We are born from the womb into a sinful world because of Satan using a serpent to tempt Eve who in lust also gave Adam to lust of the fruit. Believe it or not, but sin was in the world before the fall of Adam. Go study about Satan's fall to earth and then began to deceive the nations, Ezekiel chapter 28 and Isaiah 14:12-17. We were born into a sinful nature and prone to sin at some stage of our lives, but not being without any understanding how could a baby sin until it is trained to know right from wrong. Adam and Eve did not sin until they gained knowledge of it by their disobedience and then sin was revealed to them.
God knew from the very beginning that even before he created man he knew they would fall short because of Satan being in the world. God whom is Spirit without form took on that form of flesh and blood (Jesus) come to earth as His living word to walk among us teaching us how to reconcile ourselves back to Gods grace and mercy. Salvation only comes by that of Christ life, death and resurrection as through his sacrifice taking all of our sin and nailing it to the cross so we can have a mediator between us and God as Christ makes intercession for us as God can not look upon sin. That is why God had to turn away from Jesus on the cross as he was taking all our sin upon himself.
Jesus was teaching Nicodemus in John 3:3 that it was a Spiritual rebirth or renewal of our spirit that through Gods spoken word we can reconcile our past sins through repentance to be made sinless again before God. We are all born with a sin nature because of sin being introduced into the world through Satan’s deceit when he told Eve it was alright to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil even though God forbid them to eat of it. Our flesh will always sin because that is our nature and God can not see our flesh because of our sins nor can he hear the prayers of a sinner.
John 9:31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshiper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.
Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Romans 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
Sin separates us from God because God is a spirit and can only recognize his own children by what spirit is living in their hearts. We have to renew, rebirth - born again, Gods Spirit within us in order to be called a child of God and see the kingdom of heaven. We now put off the old man (flesh) and put on the new man (Spirit). We are renewed by the word of God and through the Holy Spirit teaching us of all things.
