The Nature of Man

What was Adam's punishment for eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? He was banished from the garden.

Ge*3:22 ¶ And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Ge*3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Ge*3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.


But God also said: Ge*2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam did not die physically that day. But he did die spiritually. He died physically because God forbid him to eat of the tree of life "lest he live forever".

 

Where is this quote from?

:jesus:

 

HP, you're actually quoting me. I did NOT mean we have new body now. I was saying that we have a new reborn spirit now. The body comes later.

 

I have no disagreement with any of this you posted.

I need to know how you reconcile Romans 5 with your pov on Adam only passing on physical death.:jesus:

 

Because that's the way I interpret it? :laugh:

"Passing on" death means that we experience death because of Adam's sin, which got him separated from the tree of life. And so are we. He "passed on" the same punishment to us that he received. We cannot enter the garden either.

 

I encourage you (because I like you :laugh: ) to read Romans 5 and ask yourself if it is not contrasting spiritual death and spiritual life between Adam and Jesus.

With your pov you will have to conclude that it is contrasting pyhiscal death with spiritual life between Adam and Jesus. Do you really think this to be the case? Study it.

:jesus:

 

HP: In passing on physical death, corruption of the flesh, depraved natural sensibilities are also a part of the corruption and depravity passed on to Adam’s posterity. That is not sin, but rather serves as a formidable influence to sin, a proclivity to sin. That still lies in the realm of the physical yet it clearly serves as a formidable influence to the spiritual.

 

Ok. I'll study it. :thumbsup:

 

Okay, glad we got that cleared up! :wavey:

 

Me too. :love2:

 

I think Romans 7 has a lot to say about this.

Rom 7:5 For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, [fn] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
Rom 7:9 Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
Rom 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
Rom 7:18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. [fn] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing.
Rom 7:23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

Now if we look at it logically, we have to conclude that we are born subject to sin and therefore death (by Romans 5:12). If we were not born inheriting death, then no baby would die before they had a chance to become a sinner. I think we biologically inherit death, and by the time death takes us, we deserve death because we have sinned.

Look at Jesus... if this were no so, he would not have died on the cross. It would have been impossible to kill him if he were not subject to death because of his biological tie to humanity, because Jesus never sinned. But he did resurrect, which means that - for the first time someone died who did not deserve it. Therefore death could not hold him and therein is the resurrection.

When we believe in Jesus Christ, we are made righteous by our faith (as Abraham was in Gen 15) and - as Paul says in Romans 7 our spirit continues alive while death is carried out in our bodies. But it MUST be by resurrection because - again as Paul says in Romans 7, like a woman who is married is bound by The Law to her husband until the husband dies. Once dead, the Law has no more claim or effect on the wife to remain married to the dead man. As such, death reigns in our mortal bodies, and when we participate in the righteousness of Christ which comes through faith, we too are made alive in the resurrection where The Law (which brought death to mankind as a punishment of sin) no longer has a claim on us.

 

HP: I liked most of your post. It was in this last sentence that you lost me. Has all been fulfilled? Christ stated that the law would be with us until all is fulfilled. Certainly there are ceremonial laws that Christ fulfilled, but every man and women that reaches the age of accountability owes a debt to the law. I am still as bound by moral law as Abraham was. So are you. Even in these verses we are bound by the law if we are married.
Ro 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
1Co 7:39 ¶ The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.

 

Where did Christ say the law would be with us until all was fulfilled?

The Law is the reflection of God's standard. Jesus fulfilled that by keeping the Law perfectly. We are free from the bondage of the law, which brought death because no one could keep it.

I think the passage above is talking about the religious laws regarding marriage.

The term "the law" can mean different things depending on context.

 

Sorry Marcia. I should have posted it with my remark. Mt 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

 

HP: What are ‘religious laws?’ Are you suggesting that God is not the author of those passages relating to the obligation the law presents to us concerning our spouse, that possibly they are merely the results of man’s conjecture, and as such not obligatory upon man?

Break a moral law and the hope of its penalty will come alive for you, either in this world or at the judgment. You are either a servant to the law of God and as such obedient to God’s laws, or one is a servant of the enemy of our souls, but to one or the other one will be subject to. Only as we are obedient to the laws of God are we dead to them.

You say you have faith? Prove it by your works. Faith without works is dead. 1Jo 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

One cannot keep the commandments of God without living in obedience to God’s law. One cannot love God and live in disobedience at the same time.
Mt 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

 

The point is, Christians are not in bondage to the law.

Gal 3:
24Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
25But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

 

HP: Some professing Christians are that I have run into certainly are. You come into bondage to the law as one allows sin to rule in ones life. Ro 6:16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

We are to be bond servants of Christ by living in obedience to His law and commands, but if we allow sin to rule and reign in our hearts and lives we become enslaved, i.e. in bondage to the law and its demands. Love, which produces obedience, is indeed willing bondage. Paul said he was a bondservant of Jesus Christ, did he not?

What some call bondage others call it their willing obedience. We do not serve the law out of force or coercion, but rather out of love towards God, i.e., willing obedience. Love indeed constrains ones intents, but does so willingly and joyfully, not merely as some hard task or duty to perform. If we love God we love His law. If we do not honor, love, and act in obedience to His law, we cannot love Him. Mt 7:21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 1Jo 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 1Jo 4:20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? Joh

14:15 ¶ If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

 

I think I would agree with this, but my point is -- once we have experienced physical death in our physical bodies, we are no longer debtors to the law, the law has been fulfilled - we are dead. Both of the verses above say that the law releases the woman once her husband dies. Paul uses these verses to demonstrate that - once you die, the law is fulfilled and you are you released from the law. This is why I said: "...we too are made alive in the resurrection where The Law (which brought death to mankind as a punishment of sin) no longer has a claim on us." (emphasis added)

We can only be resurrected after we die, and we must die so that the law can be fulfilled in us and found incapable of restoring to us to God.

Gal 3:23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster [to bring us] unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.


Rom 8:1 [There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

Romans 8:3 above says that SIN is condemned in our bodies though our spirit is made righteous by our faith in Christ. Therefore, our mortal bodies die - the just punishment for sin - and the law is fulfilled. Paul makes it clear that our FLESH and our SPIRIT are separate entities with separate destinys (Rom 7).

Rom 7:5 For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

Rom 7:9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.

Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

 

The Law was fulfilled in Christ, every jot and tittle.

Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

We are not bound to the Law. We are bound to Christ.

Christ fulfilled ALL the Law.


Rom 3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

Rom 10:4 For Christ [is] the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

 

Amy.G, I fully agree with you. However, we must also realize that sin (and therefore The Law and death) will continue to reign in our motral bodies until we die... until The Law is fulfilled in us. Then, we can be partakers in the resurrection of Christ because our spirit was made righteous (made alive) by faith in Jesus Christ. Otherwise, our bodies would never die after coming to faith in Jesus Christ.