Deborah13
Member
But I can't think of anywhere where God punished someone for ignorance. Can you?The infraction still took. Adam was not given ignorance as an excuse. If you read God's Law, you'll find ignorance is never an excuse for guilt.
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
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But I can't think of anywhere where God punished someone for ignorance. Can you?The infraction still took. Adam was not given ignorance as an excuse. If you read God's Law, you'll find ignorance is never an excuse for guilt.
I have been down this road theologically and in the depths of Christian think tanks. What I am about to post is no indication of superiority or inferiority. Both the man and the woman had the opportunity and the potential to do the one thing God forbade them to do. The ONE thing. Before the Decalogue was the Monologue. Do not this one thing... [[[ sigh ]]]
If Adam was observant of the snake's sales pitch to Eve ("who was with her") then Adam was also deceived in that he ate the forbidden fruit along with Eve. Adam may have been with her, but he was unaware what was going on. Otherwise the account in 1 Timothy 2:14 is just plain wrong. Adam had to be deceived if he ate the fruit believing it would not produce the results God said it would and that it would produce the results Satan lied about.
Some teach Adam knowingly ate the fruit willing to accept the consequences because he loved her so much. This cannot be true either. The Bible says Adam listened to the voice of his wife. There was no falling on his own sword... no lover's leap... Something Eve said to Adam got him to eat the forbidden fruit, yet somehow he was not deceived in doing so.
The third and last alternative was that in a panic (sheer horror, I'd imagine) and in her new fallen nature she fed the fruit to Adam who did not question where it came from and he ate. Her voice may simply have been "here try this..."
Ah, some say, then Adam WAS deceived...
No. Adam was not deceived.
Adam, if this is the way it happened which all the scriptures apparently line up with, was defrauded. His trust was betrayed. But he did not change his understanding of what the forbidden fruit was and that it was still on God's extremely short DON'T DO list.
The infraction still took. Adam was not given ignorance as an excuse. If you read God's Law, you'll find ignorance is never an excuse for guilt.
And man and woman have had the same basic relationship ever since (which is why people must be so very careful to choose their mate and lovers). The longer I live the more I see how dangerous it is to give one's self to anyone other than one who loves them as much as they love themselves and more... by fallen human nature (even among the brethren) there is trouble and danger and... well I've gone on and on...
Trust no one implicitly. Not even your own self. Trust only God.
But I can't think of anywhere where God punished someone for ignorance. Can you?
It is Adam's innocence in his sin against God that ultimately allowed God to become a sinless man as Jesus Christ and die for all of mankind's sin (hint: which is why Jesus Christ is known as the second Adam).
Death itself. How many billions who died throughout human history were ignorant of the Law?
This is what bothers me about some of the posts on this thread. There are semantics which go unaddressed.
Was Christ tempted? Yes he was tempted by Satan because Satan directly tempted him. But was he tempted as if he considered with any validity the propositions of the tempter? No, he was not tempted in that way for he was full of Truth. So here are two connotations of the word 'tempted' that are not the same since they end up with opposite answers.
Likewise Adam was not deceived by Satan, but Eve was. 1 Timothy 2:14 is not saying Adam knew exactly what he was doing as some of you suggest.
This scripture is being taken out of context when being used to say Adam was not deceived and therefore knew exactly what he was doing. For why would Paul be saying, let the person, who knowingly and willingly distrusted God, be in charge of the one who was gullible but had to be fooled into distrusting God? That's like saying let the fox guard the hen house. So context matters.
Scripture specifically says that Adam's mistake was that he listened to the woman who was deceived.
Adam was probably with mixed feelings, not knowing what to make of the slander about God presented by the serpent. Remember they have no knowledge of good and evil yet so it cannot even be ascertained that they knew what a lie is, or what guile is. Being unsure, Adam probably would have leaned toward dismissing it, but the conviction of the woman was against his better judgment and he therefore doubted himself, so he ate. Happens all the time between women and men. Men think higher of women than they ought.
Finally we have scriptural proof that Adam was indeed deceived in following the woman who followed the serpent, for Adam was already like God without the knowledge of good and evil.[ There is a false premise presented in the serpents temptation, which is where it gets its power to tempt. That is, that if you eat you will become like God, knowing good and evil. Genesis3:5. More semantics. Adam already was good in countenance and in righteousness, but since he did not know what evil is, he did not know what that goodness was that he already possessed. Therefore he was malleable.
I try to ascertain the source and cause of the fall of man so as to understand why it happened and be confident as to how the solution solves it. I know the solution is in Christ, so that gives a clue as to what the problem is. Still it requires more than a little reverse engineering through revelation of the Christ via the Holy Spirit. For one lie is built upon another lie to hide the lie beneath it. The root cause is vanity in the creation because all created beings were ignorant of God's Person until Christ. Romans 1:21. 2 Corinthians 10:4-5. 1 Corinthians 2:7-8.Psalm 119:105 Scripture is an lamp for the feet, a light for the path
I suppose it's not surprising that we can't see the whole path with just a flickering little lamp, we would need a floodlight or sonshine to see it all at once.
I will first frame the question as: Did Adam know God was good as in trustworthy? Ultimately faith is going to be required since one cannot prove a negative... I will therefore re-frame the question, Did Adam know faith is necessary because accusation can always be manufactured through a wicked imagination?I'm still trying to figure it out how much he knew and about what, exactly.
Transgressor only means she crossed a line that shouldn't be crossed. We know she was deceived because God is not a liar as Satan implied. God does not rebuke her when she said she was beguiled, therefore it can be ascertained she is giving an honest account to Whom she is accountable. It's not that I think she even thought about God being a liar, anymore than she thought about the serpent being a liar in portraying God as a liar. After all the serpent was cunning in his presentation and did not say outright that God is a liar. She was beguiled through the sparkly imagining that things could be better than they were in paradise. For she saw that the fruit was good to eat for food and desirable for wisdom. Genesis 3:6. Guilt has two connotations, one is a verdict, and one is a matter of a convicted conscience. More semantics. She is guilty of being deceived/beguiled. I believe that the presence of a conscience that discerns good and evil does not appear in mankind until after eating, whereby they saw they were naked for the first time and were ashamed. But this is a deeper and complex issue concerning a defiled conscience. I'll just say it is possible to condemn one's self when you don't deserve it.There are two people who sinned; Eve is said to have been 'in the transgression' which means guilt. She was deceived about something, but in order to be guilty she could not have been deceived about everything.
The word innocence has two connotations. More semantics. There is innocence as in not guilty pertaining to condemnation and justification, then there is innocence as in not knowing good and evil, lies and honesty, etc... Some would call it naiveté. They were both innocent of the knowledge of good and evil before they ate. Therefore I think Eve was innocent and ignorant of such things and therefore was not able to see through the subtlety presented in Satan's insinuations. Therefore mercy and understanding are in order not condemnation. Let's cut to the chase here. The issue is freewill and personal responsibility. Unless we're prepared to say we would have done better than Adam or Eve if put in their shoes, then the accusations of their guilt should cease. Otherwise we are more than likely projecting our own wickedness upon Adam and Eve in self condemnation.Therefore; She's not an innocent hen... it's far more like a weasel guarding a badger's nest.
Seeing as vanity is the problem, this is not an option. The same problem would just repeat itself. Vanity here is defined as taking God and what He gives us for granted, and it began with Satan not Adam. Another way of describing vanity is trying to add to or take away from what is Holy. God needs it to play out so that the creation can learn by seeing what is the end of it.So, what's God's options:
Kill someone, make another someone to replace them ? ( DO OVER! )
Respectfully, you are engaging more semantics. To be competent in an act of sin is not true competence but rather incompetence. Therefore I view this as an unqualified assessment. Please note that neither Adam nor Eve can truly repent without knowing first what they did wrong. And if they were to actually learn what they did wrong and more importantly how they were deceived into doing it, then they also must know they were both incompetent at the time. If they simply say they made the wrong decision however, that is only stating the obvious, particularly after being thrown out of the Garden to experience a harsher life. Being sorry for being thrown out is not true repentance. Therefore to frame the problem as they willingly and knowingly made a bad decision, does not display any new found competence through enlightenment.Give dominion to the one who sinned AND shows incompetence, but still repented, or to the one who sinned, but is not and never was incompetent and who has now repented ?
Sure. It's revealing some important information. That they found something wrong in their station where they had not found something wrong before. They hid from God.in a new found but un-established fear of scrutiny. And that their attempt to cover up was paltry and inadequate.I mean, does the scene about the fig leaves mean anything to you at all?
Good point except for the animal rights activists part. I like animals. We are animals in a sense even as you have pointed out. Let's just say there are negative consequences for others beneath our station because of our sin. Romans 8:21-22. Realizing that and caring about it, brings about Godly sorrow and this is the beginning of True repentance. What remains is to understand why Adam and Eve did the wrong in the first place so as to not repeat it. To say they were not deceived is to not learn anything. 2 Corinthians 11:3.Or how about God doing the no-I-don't cow tow to animal rights activists, and God kills an animal to prove the point and make leather clothes for the man and woman so that they look like a biker gang and by his example teaches them that killing is a good way to make clothes, and let Adam know that God can wipe you out in an instant and make clothes out of you if you ever cross him again. A permanent reminder that you're gonna DIE someday! So, it's not like Adam is in charge... really...
I've read Malachi's post. The fact remains and it is a fact, that Adam was deceived or else otherwise, God is a liar and a tyrant just as Satan claimed. Let's cut to the chase here. The issue is freewill and personal responsibility. Unless we're prepared to say and prove that we would have done better than Adam and Eve if put in their shoes, then the accusation should cease and mercy and understanding commence. Otherwise we are more than likely projecting our own wickedness upon Adam and Eve and will have to repeat the lesson all over again. The term wickedness in scripture is the innate disability to find something wrong with anything, including God. Matthew 11:18-19. The term responsible has two connotations. One is like saying a storm was responsible for the damage, which is a matter of circumstance that can't be helped. The other means the person was capable of acting responsibly but didn't, and so deserves condemnation. Freewill implies that people are always responsible in the latter form, in that they can not lie if they simply decided to. No thought is given that they who lie are deceived. But what does scripture say?That's why I agree with Malachi, I'm pretty sure the serpent said you will be like gods (ambiguous)
You make a good point. However there is a false image of god which is the source of vanity. The word 'us' is therefore most likely the angelic beings who have yet to know or rather understand the Person of God, the Creator, which is why they say let us make man in our image not knowing who they are. Hence Christ is the culmination of knowing and understanding the Person of the Creator through a flesh and temporal existence wherein the consequences of sin are a darkness prepared for the proper presentation of Light. After all one doesn't see the value of a flashlight in the noon day sun. Therefore the Holy Spirit testifies to both the Father and the Son so as to reveal Who God is. But that would mean the creation was deceived and made subject to vanity unwillingly. Romans 8:20And in the end, God did say, the man has become like "ONE" of us, not like "all" of us, or united with US, or "one, like us", or even "us" as a whole; rather -- the speech singled out only "one of us", therefore I'm pretty sure it's not the trinity, because In the bible regarding the trinity, drawing from two places, the logic works out that:
When you have seen the Son, you have seen the Father -- for the Son is doing everything the Father doing.
So, I don't think there is an 'image' of God, or a likeness, where it doesn't apply equally well to more than one of the persons in the trinity.
More semantic confusion above. Sure Adam and Eve, after eating, possessed the knowledge of good and evil just like the God/gods did. That doesn't mean they were not like God in countenance to begin with and yet without the knowledge of good and evil. The lie needs the Truth so as to exist. The Truth does not need nor usurp from the lie. Good and evil are not equal components.Hence Adam must have become like the gods who knew evil because they were divisible (image wise) in a way that I don't think the trinity can properly be divided.