Lambano
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- Jul 13, 2021
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Questions about the Fall - The consequences shell game
- Thread starter St. SteVen
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soberxp
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soberxp
Well-Known Member
Then why doesn't God eliminate the treacherous Satan, instead letting humans endure suffering?
In my view, the methods of a ruler share many similarities with those of a divine being.
For instance, in ancient China, rulers required people to kneel before them.Is this to train humans to get used to kneeling and worshipping god one day?
Or perhaps I misunderstood the meaning of worshipping a deity by kneeling.
If you were to meet God one day, would you be accustomed to kneeling before Him?
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It's part of the Logos, the plan.
Food by the sweat of our brow. Thorns and thistles.
When will this end? Not until the judgment.
Only in the new order off hings will the curse be broken.
soberxp
Well-Known Member
I know there may be many reasons, but I don’t think choosing a simple method is a mistake. However, the fact that God chose the most difficult path to carry out His plan seems exaggerated to me... Did He not trust that the human He created were good?
Were they good?
We have failed miserably.
Few humans have shown themselves to be good at all.
I think God loves a good story.
What are the necessary elements?
A villain, a hero, a victim, ???
Will we be not rescued in the end?
soberxp
Well-Known Member
If no Satan the serpent, they were good. And all will be good. Just as the Revelation tells us.
soberxp
Well-Known Member
In my view, God is not saving humanity, but rather one of His creations—Satan. However, the ending is not a good story. Satan remains unsaved, irredeemably wrong...
You don't believe that humankind created in God 's image will be saved?
What is the point?
soberxp
Well-Known Member
It's not that I haven't seen God saving humanity. I just saw more in it.
If God didn't intend to save Satan, why did God keep him around all along? Was it because they were going to celebrate New Year's and Christmas together?
I hadn't thought much of this in the past, but it sure is strange.
The original consequence to Adam was death in the day you eat thereof.
But then after the fact all these other consequences are piled on.
And death becomes a mystery consequence. What kind of death, and when?
Since the Fall is all goofed up, do we also misunderstand the consequences for us?
Maybe we aren't on the hook for Adam's mistake and the questionable consequences.
Thistles and thorns don't prevent me from eating.
Why have a judgment day if wrath is already pre-determined?
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Deborah_
Well-Known Member
Death of human beings came after the Fall.
I'm pretty sure that death of plants and other animals predated the Fall - because Genesis 1 makes a big issue out of reproduction, and if there's no death then you don't need to reproduce.
Personally, I think the evenings and mornings are a literary device. If taken literally, you then have to explain how you can have evenings and mornings without the sun.
The Judge can choose to adjust the sentence after the crime has been committed. And God will always tend to go in the direction of mercy.
They still had a free choice whether or not to obey God. There were two of them - Adam had the opportunity to stand up for God and didn't take it. And the 'bait' that was dangled in front of them was to be 'gods' themselves - alternative sources of authority. If that isn't rebellion against the authority of God, what is?
The given reason for reproduction is to fill the earth and subdue it. Humans had long lifespans. What about the animals?
Good point, but...
A literary device that makes a point.
Even a day with no sunlight has a beginning and end which is determined by a full rotation of the planet.
I'm not a legal expert, but what I see is an extraordinary difference in the consequences.
If you eat, you die: suddenly becomes pain in childbirth and food by the sweat of your brow with thistles and thorns.
Not to mention the Serpent losing its legs.
Again, I question the ability of A&E to understand the long term consequences of the act.
Especially since the consequences were not given in detail and they had no comparisons to gauge such things.
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There was another consequence that we haven't yet discussed.
With the knowledge of good and evil, the enemy was given access to their minds.
The unanswered question in Genesis three is key to understanding this aspect.
Adam said he hid because he was naked. God asked, "Who told you that you were naked?"
Who indeed? At the end of Genesis chapter two A&E were naked and unashamed.
So, where did the shame of nakedness come from? Who told them that they were shamefully naked?
It wasn't God. After eating thereof, they were racing around like crazy people
sewing leaves together to cover themselves.
And even now we still have that shaming and condemning voice to contend with.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Some good points for discussion here.....
Did God need to outline every detail when the sentence was death? Did they know what death was? Did they know when it would take them?
Yes, they did know what it was, because animals were not created to live forever, so they would have witnessed death, just not in humans, obviously because they had only just begun their relationship as husband and wife....and were given their instructions. They had everlasting life in paradise on earth before them....granted on one proviso....that they were not to eat of just one tree....one that the Creator had claimed as his own. That was the only thing that would result in their death.....what would the other consequences matter if death was the penalty?...and they had no idea how long it would be until they died.
The Bible tells us that the animals die the same death that we do, (Eccl 3:18-20) so did the humans expect death to be a different experience for them? Apparently so, as they invented “immortal souls” and iminaginative places for those souls to go. God simply told them that they would die and go back to the dust....end of story.
At the time of their defection, they had all the knowledge they needed to avoid such a penalty.....death was presented as the opposite of life.....nothing more, nothing less.
The added results of the penalty did not make God a liar.....he simply responded as his perfect justice indicated. He took away all the benefits of obedience......and rightly so. They did not have to work for their food and having children would have been as easy as it is in the animal kingdom......cursed ground would still provide for the animals, but with difficulty for the humans.
But instant death would not have answered the slanderous accusations that the devil had spoken....so God, in his wisdom, turned the rebellion into the greatest object lesson human kind would ever have, whilst at the same time providing the devil with an opportunity to prove his slanderous claims....and by extension, the rest of his spirit sons, who were now part of this rebellion instigated by one of their own.
Who told the humans that they were naked? They did....with a knowledge of evil, they could now see an evil aspect to everything in their lives....the very thing God had tried to keep from them....he never wanted evil to touch them, but as an equal opposite of good, it existed as a natural balance that is seen in all of God’s creation.
Their God-given conscience informed them that nakedness in their now sinful bodies would take them where they knew it was not ‘natural’ to go. That is why they hid themselves.....a knowledge of evil had opened up a portal into another world where the good could easily be conquered by that evil, unless we followed God’s direction to the letter.
As children of Adam and his disobedient wife, we inherited their world and live a life that we were never meant to live.
Thank God that he had a rescue mission to save us from the everlasting consequences of their sin.
II question whether Adam knew what death was.
Reminds me of a child that we tell to not run out into traffic lest they die.
The sternness of our voice says more than our words.
At some point they will see road kill and better understand.
But the cautionary warning probably comes before any awareness of what death is.
St. SteVen said:
Adam said he hid because he was naked. God asked, "Who told you that you were naked?"
Who indeed? At the end of Genesis chapter two A&E were naked and unashamed.
So, where did the shame of nakedness come from? Who told them that they were shamefully naked?
If they told themselves that they were naked they would not have been naked and unashamed at the end of chapter two of Genesis.
As son as Adam told God he was naked, the culprit was eluded to. "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat... ?"
Who indeed. After eating we see the first couple scurrying around as if they were out of their minds. Because they were.
Their minds were flooded with shaming thoughts and confusion. IMHO
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Again you ignore the very nature of the warning....death was understood by Adam, because he had witnessed it in nature. If death was the penalty, what does anything else matter...? As far as they knew, it could have occurred at any moment.
Their eviction from the garden was unforeseen, so anything that happened to them outside of it was never taken into account before the fall......do you understand this?
You are putting the cart before the horse.
Read ch 2 again....it’s a condensed version of ch 1.....the creation of Eve closes chapter 2....the fall had not yet taken place...there is no shame because the knowledge of evil has not yet been unleashed.
We read about that in Gen 3.
Well, it says that they sewed fig leaves together to cover their reproductive parts.....the feeling of shame was something they had not experienced before....we can only imagine what thought were now running through their minds......a knowledge of evil, invaded their thought processes, exposed the potential for it everywhere. This is what God wanted to protect them from ever experiencing....and obedience would have done that for them and all their children.....forever.
It was God who showed them that the fig leaves were not enough, and he made long garments of skin for them because life outside the garden was going to be difficult. Their flesh would need to be protected from the “thorns and thistles” outside on cursed ground.
The only ones who could have “told them” that they were “naked” was themselves...through the faculty of conscience....something we are all born with.
To this day, many of us still have that feeling of shame if our bodies are exposed to the wrong people.
Adam and his wife were married, evidenced by the fact that God gave Adam a wife, a perfect “complement” of himself.....her female qualities balanced out his male qualities......she was not just a companion, but was to be the mother of his children. The balance of both sexes were to be the basis for raising their children to respect the qualities inherent in the roles of both sexes....which we see now are under threat. Gender confusion has derailed all that God intended for his creation......nothing in human life is as should be.....I think we all know that through experience.
God will give us back what we lost...but not to those who want to discredit the Creator as the rightful Sovereign of our existence. He shows us what his standards are and what happened to those in Bible times who violated them. His justice is not delivered on sentiment....it is fair because he is the epitome of all that is just...but from his perspective, not ours. We see things superficially...he sees things on a much deeper level.
We cannot turn God into an all forgiving sop.....because the Bible accounts show that he means what he says......he forgives only when repentance is demonstrated from the heart. Crocodile tears don’t move him at all.
Qualifying for life is what humans had to do from day one. Obedience is all the Creator ever asked of his free willed children. It had to be a willing obedience, out of love and respect, not a forced one through fear of punishment. The first humans disobeyed, thinking that they had nothing to fear......satan told them that they wouldn’t die....he lied....but he has used fear ever since to keep humanity in check.
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