Original Sin Again

I have already found that it is

 

I know you think I didn't, but I did
If you tell your child (grandchild?) that if he disobeys you, you'll send him to his room, there is a necessary corollary that if he obeys you, you won't send him to his room. If he obeyed you and you punished him anyway that would be bizarre and unreasonable.

If Adam had eaten the fruit and died immediately, it might be possible to argue that if he hadn't eaten it he would have lived a normal lifespan, but since he lived another 900+ years, that kite won't fly.

 

I do actually know that. God said, 'Dying, you will die;' in other words, you'll go on dying until you're dead.

I think you'll find it was.

What is a covenant? The Hebrew word used in the Old Testament is Bara, which comes from a root word meaning ‘bonds’ or ‘yokes.’ The idea is of two parties binding themselves to perform some mutually agreed action. The Greek word is diatheke, which means a ‘disposition’ or ‘arrangement.’ The puritan John Owen defined a covenant as, ‘A voluntary convention, pact, agreement between distinct persons about the ordering and dispensing of things in their power, to their mutual concern or advantage.’ A simpler definition might be, ‘A mutual agreement, a benefit being assured on the fulfilment of certain conditions.’

There is an example of a covenant in 1Sam 20:11-17. Jonathan promises to help David escape from Saul, and David promises to show kindness to Jonathan’s descendants (cf. 2Sam 9:1 ). There is an oath and the name of the Lord is invoked (vs 12, 16-17 ). This is an example of a covenant between equals. Sometimes we see covenants between parties where one side is clearly superior to the other. These are called by theologians Suzerainty Covenants.. In such cases, the terms of the covenant are dictated by the stronger side (eg. 1Kings 20:34 ), and the benefits are therefore likely to accrue to the stronger at the expense of the weaker. It goes without saying that God is always the Superior and He dictates the terms of the covenants into which He enters.

‘Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die “’(Gen 2:15-17 ). The covenant comes in the form of a provision, a command and a warning, but a gracious promise is necessarily implied- eternal life; ‘if you don’t the forbidden fruit, you shall live.’ Adam was put into the position of a tenant moving into a house. The landlord might tell him, “You can live here rent-free in return for doing the garden; you can eat all the stuff that grows in the garden, but don’t touch the vintage claret in the cellar or you’re out!”

This arrangement has all the attributes of a covenant. The greater party (God) gives to the lesser party (Adam) a perfect environment, ample provisions and eternal life. The lesser party agrees to oversee and to care for the environment, and to obey the rules laid down for him. A breach of these rules is a breach of the covenant and must lead to the forfeiture of its benefits. The covenant might be better termed the ‘Covenant of Obedience’ since it was obedience rather than works which were required, but it has been called the Covenant of Works to distinguish it from the Covenant of Grace.

It might be supposed that Adam had no other law to obey save the single one of not eating from the forbidden tree, but that would be a simplistic view. Adam was under the Moral Law of God, the Ten Commandments, as a moment’s thought will confirm. Suppose Adam built an idol in the garden to worship, or suppose he strangled Eve! Would God have said, “Oh, that’s alright, Adam, just as long as you don’t eat the fruit!” The very thought is absurd. It is true that Adam could not have coveted his neighbour’s ox or his ass since he had no neighbours, but he certainly coveted that which God had denied to him and stole it to his own inestimable loss and that of his posterity. ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned’ (Romans 5:12 ).

There is no doubt but that the Covenant of Works was a gracious covenant. God was under no obligation to do anything for Adam, yet He gave him a wife, placed him in a beautiful garden with only light tasks to perform (there were no weeds before the Fall- Gen 3:17-18 ) and gave him dominion over all the rest of creation. However, there is no mention of mercy in the covenant. Adam is warned, “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.” To put it another way, “Do this and live.” Adam’s privileges were dependant on his obedience. Yet he was well able to perform this obedience. God had made him entirely righteous; otherwise He could not have pronounced the whole of creation ‘very good’ (Gen 1:31 ).

 

Yep. When Adam ate the fruit, he was obeying Satan before God, making an idol out of his appetite, dishonouring his Heavenly father, causing the death of all his progeny, stealing what did not belong to him and coveting what God had denied to him. That's six out of ten commandments. But I ask you, if Adam had built an altar to the sun or the moon in the Garden, or if he had murdered Eve, would God have been OK with that?

The 1689 Baptist Confession (1:6) states
The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the Holy Scripture.....' 'Necessarily contained' refers to those things which are not 'expressly set down' but are the inevitable and obvious conclusion of the Scripture. If you deny that, you cannot possibly believe in the Trinity.

 

The doctrine of the Trinity is not expressly written as you very well know, but it is understood because it is 'necessarily contained' in the Bible as is the doctrine of the Fall and the Covenant of Works. Actually, the CoW is even more clearly expressed because of Hosea 6:7 (NASB etc.).
'The Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.' We who are spiritual are to compare Scripture with Scripture as well as understanding the nature of God in order to understand Him fully . If you think God was only concerned about idolatry after Exodus 19, you have a deeply flawed understanding of Him.

 

That could be Modalism just as easily as Trinitarianism.

You will know (or should do) that the 1689 Confession uses the term 'necessarily contained.' The WCF says 'by good and necessary consequence.' I think I have used the word 'implied' exactly once on this thread. I wrote, "The covenant comes in the form of a provision, a command and a warning, but a gracious promise is necessarily implied- eternal life; 'if you don’t the forbidden fruit, you shall live.’" I stand by that; it is absolutely necessary and to deny it is the merest obstinacy. However, if you prefer, you can change it to 'necessarily contained' or 'necessarily consequential.'

 

You say that Martin is holding to manmade traditions and fables, and is just following allogory/symbolism, but the real truth is that he and I are just taking the literal truths expressed in the scriptures, in that Adam was created with a morally perfect nature, he sinned, and that nature became corrupted and caused him to have tasted both a spiritual and a physical death. That same really bad state was passed along to all of us now, and only Jesus avoided being tainted and corrupted by the sin nature all now have.
Jesus nature cannot be the exact same as ours, as we were corrupted by the fall, His was not, and he overcame sinning by being in the very nature of God, not be just willing Himself to not sin!

 

I would agree a number of them show yielding, but in view was more suffering in regards to the spirit and the flesh.

Here I see the suffering of Christ. I don't take the position most do, and think this shows Christ asking for another "way," because that would contradict the truth that not only did He come for this specific purpose, but He had every intention of carrying it out.

I view this as His saying "Let this be the time when I go to the Cross," or in other words, "...let's do this."

In other words, "Let your will be accomplished now."

Again, the suffering of temptation is, in my view, not simply mundane temptations, but follow after a more spiritual struggle. For example, the grief of the Lord over man's condition. That Christ understands our condition doesn't necessarily mean He was actually tempted in a way where whether He would resist temptation comes into question.

It simply doesn't make sense that God planned this prior to creating the world and there being even the remotest possibility that He would fail to accomplish that which He came to do.

Perhaps a temptation to call down 10,000 Angels, lol?

No, not even that.


God bless.

 

No, would say that I see God has placing Adam in a test to see if he would be obedient to God, he failed, and thus had his very nature corrupted and changed, and from that time forward, God has judged Adam as being in our stead, as representing us before God, so all are physically born in His image, spiritually dead and sinners.
Those of us now in Jesus are spiritually alive again.
We sin because it we want to, as our nature is inclined towards it now, but Jesus had NOTHING in His nature inclined/bent towards sinning!