Death in Relation to the Creation and Fall

Sigh. The scripture also doesn't use the word "Trinity" or "the Fall." And the example of the NT's interpretation of the OT is VERY good reason to follow suit.

I do not question the NT. End of subject.

Whatever you say, arach. I'll stick with traditional theology.

Arach, you aren't a believer, right? You approach the Bible purely as a scholar? I didn't say I understand all the NT, I don't question it because I know it's God's word so I know it's the truth even though I may not understand all of it yet. Jesus said "believe," He didn't say "criticize." I trust that difficult parts will eventually be revealed to me if I wait on God to reveal it. What a believer does is seek God's help in reading and understanding, prays about it, listens to sermons, reads commentaries, consults the concordance etc. In fact trusting it is the only way you'll ever understand it. If you question it with the attitude that any part of it is wrong you'll just get deeper and deeper into misunderstanding. The Bible is no doubt the only book that should be approached this way. It IS God's word.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Christian theology begins in the New Testament and continues through the Church Fathers and down the millennia. It IS traditional theology and not "new-fangled" and it very specifically rejects a great deal of the understanding of Judaism. Jesus contended with the Pharisees you know, but you prefer their thinking over His apparently. I do not understand that attitude, unless you are an orthodox Jew yourself. It's only through the New Testament interpretations that you can hope to understand the Bible.

So orthodox is just "canned" to you. Guess you've dispensed with THAT then, hm? No. Sin is inherited through the father and His Father was God, not Joseph. As I understand it sin is not inherited through the mother, according to some commentaries I've read. Jesus was absolutely sinless, free of original sin as well as personal sin. He could not have died a "natural" death BECAUSE He had no sin of His own, and if He had, His death could not have saved us. Why do you keep ignoring the scripture I've quoted? Death is the fruit of sin, without sin there is no death. What the Tree of Life did for them before they sinned I don't know, but they could not have died if they did not sin and we know they didn't until the serpent deceived Eve.Apparently it fostered or sustained immortality in some way, which was not a problem before they sinned but would have been a disaster afterward, which is the context of that verse.You cannot read scripture outside the context of scripture. If death is the result of sin then whatever the Tree of Life did they could not have died anyway.Sorry, I didn't grasp that you were quoting something about a walled enclosure. Not sure what the point is, however. Oh yes it is. Death is not the natural route to life, it is only so for the seed and spiritual life in the sense Jesus is alluding to. When the seed dies you get a new plant, that is not the case with the death of animals or people, you just get rot and decay. Life for the microbes and insects perhaps, and for the predators of course, but not for the animal itself. It doesn't make sense to anybody, why should it? The implication is that the world WAS very very different indeed before the Fall and before the Flood too. If the Bible is the word of God, which of course I believe it is, then we are simply to believe and trust it whether we understand it or not. We're talking about GOD here, not a man-made treatise, despite all the claims otherwise. In fact the commentaries about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil say it was simply meant as a test of their trust and obedience. That's the only attitude we can rightly have toward God. We can and should investigate His word in great depth, sure, but not with a critical attitude. That's really all you mean when you say you want me to "think deeper." It's you who needs to think deeper. Scripture always has to be conformed to scripture, and the underlying attitude always has to be trust or the effort is only going to mislead.Jesus was very hungry after His time in the wilderness, that's all it says. It does not say He would have "starved to death." And since He Himself says it was within His own power to give up His own life on the cross, THAT's the context you need to read THAT scripture in. He claimed the power to live or die at will, HBD. Tree of Life, eating food in the glorified state too, those are not things you can understand all that easily. I don't know what "passed to a better life" means, and since your interpretation denies the contexts I've given over and over I can't agree with you about it. Sin is the cause of death. God said if they disobeyed they would die. It hadn't happened before. You have to read all those other verses in that context, whether you are able to make sense of them or not. The death of plants is not death in the sense of the death from the Fall. You can keep repeating it but that doesn't make it so. And plants were apparently the only food before the Fall. NOW we are to eat meat to sustain us, as God told Noah. BIG CHANGE. It actually says "for SIGNS and seasons," which many interpret as meaning that they were given originally as signs in the sense astrologers read them, although since the Fall they've lost their original significance. Except some do read the gospel in the Zodiac. I have a book called "The Witness of the Stars" by E. W. Bullinger which is all about that. You don't have to take it as gospel truth [in fact he's got some heretical views] but it's interesting stuff.There's an interesting study called The Star of Bethlehem that you can get on DVD that investigates the position of various planets around the time of Jesus' birth. I think it may have a few problems myself but it's nevertheless very interesting. The guy uses a NASA program to track the position of the planets through the millennia.Also, it's really not all that clear that the word "seasons" in that context refers to the sequence of Spring, Summer etc. The word in the English of the KJV simply means "appointed time" and the reference to "signs" does suggest it may not refer to the seasons as you are thinking of them. But even if it does, again the only death that is connected with the seasons is plant life, which is not death in the sense associated with the Fall.I know I'm skipping around your post but I think I've answered what I wanted to answer. If not I'll continue later. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Interesting thought though I would suppose the cloned person would simply inherit the same sin as the person it was cloned from.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But she would also not have been conceived and born in the normal way, and would have NO parents, except those of the person she was cloned from. She'd have that person's DNA, no inheritance of her own.

What I'm doing is standard hermeneutics as I've studied them. Sure I COULD be wrong about this or that but I've spent enough time on these things to be convinced of what I've said here. The rule is to interpret the difficult scriptures by the clear scriptures, there's nothing about percentage. ALL scripture is inspired by God, and it must all be reconciled, you can't make one part contradict another. God said death would be the consequence of disobedience, and "the wages of sin is death" confirms that. Therefore the Tree of LIfe has to conform to that revelation, you can't assume there's a contradiction just because that's the way it first hits you, you can't just make it eliminate the immortality that is obviously implied in the other scriptures. Again, the obscure is to be interpreted by the clear. If you aren't clear about any of it then keep working on it, but I am clear about it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You're forgetting the rule of trusting scripture instead of treating any of it as fiction.

I'm not talking about "sins of the fathers" and that's not where I got the idea, it's a theological position I'd have to look up the source of. This has nothing to do with personal guilt, it's about how we inherit sin from Adam, not particular sins but sin, period.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Yes, it ap0parently had a ROLE in it as I've acknowledged, but what role is not clear, since we KNOW they did NOT die before the Fall. You have to put it all together with God's saying DEATH would be the result of sin which means there was NO death until then, PLUS the "wages of sin is death." I've addressed all the Genesis scriptures. You are the one twisting them. There is no reason to continue this absolutely ridiculous argument.

As I recall, you too believe in evolution, so that must be why you are making the same argument as all the other "liberal Christians" on this thread. I have argued my case basically from THREE PASSAGES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN CONCERT. You cannot take one out of that context and accuse me of misreading it. I did NOT misread it. Alone it does not say anything specific about animals but in the context of the other scriptures it is clear that they also died as a result of the Fall.There is only one passage that clearly refers to the animals and that is Romans 8:19-22 where it is said the entire Creation, or the Creatures, anticipate the revelation of the sons of God, when they too will be freed from the "bondage of corruption." MEANING DEATH AND DISEASE, what else?Now go to God's telling Adam and Eve that if they eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they WILL DIE, and the scripture that says "The wages of sin is death." This is talking only about the human beings, but IT ALSO SAYS THAT DEATH IS THE RESULT OF SIN. There was no sin before the Fall, therefore death entered at the Fall. Even if you claim that all this refers directly ONLY to humanity, consider the simple fact that animals cannot sin and therefore could not die EITHER. But yet they do die, and this is the result of what? Of God's subjecting them to death FOR OUR SAKE as a result of OUR SIN. This does not come from Romans 5:12 but specifically from Romans 8:19-22 and but also from ALL THE SCRIPTURES TOGETHER THAT I'VE REFERRED TO. These amount to the argument that THERE WAS NO DEATH BEFORE THE FALL, PERIOD, for humanity or for the creatures and that BECAUSE GOD BROUGHT ALL THE CREATURES UNDER DEATH FOR OUR SAKE AS A RESULT OF THE FALL, the ultimate redemption will include all the creatures, the whole Creation WITH US.Here's My message 29. PARTICULARLY NOTE WHAT MATTHEW HENRY SAYS ABOUT THE DEATH OF ANIMALS, which I have bolded: Please note that THIS passage, Romans 8:19-22, is where it is said that ALL CREATION, including the animals of course, WAS SUBJECT TO "VANITY," meaning death and corruption, FOR THE SAKE OF MANKIND after the Fall. GOD DID THIS FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY. It wasn't a direct result of the Fall, THEREFORE Jesus did not die "for the animals" but nevertheless His death will redeem the ENTIRE CREATION. A new heavens and a new earth, the works. AS A RESULT OF JESUS' DEATH FOR US.I did NOT interpret Romans 5:12 to refer to the animals, but IN CONTEXT OF ALL THE SCRIPTURES I'VE REFERENCED, the death and redemption of the animals is implied.From Message 93: I state it again more completely in Message 96: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I remember you although I don't remember much about you except that you are a scientist, a Christian, and I thought a believer in evolution. Am I wrong about any of that?A "liberal Christian" is a Christian who doesn't regard scripture as inerrant, especially someone who rejects a literal interpretation of the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Would this be a wrong understanding of your position?ABE: Wrote the above too fast. Liberal Christianity doesn't necessarily reject parts of scripture, they can think they are believers in Bible inerrancy, but they make scripture mean something other than it has been traditionally read to mean by redefining its traditional terms. But I'd still call a Liberal Christian a Christian who rejects the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

"Mixing and matching" as you call it is standard hermeneutics. Scripture has to be read in the light of scripture. That's what I was doing in collecting those passages together.ABE: Otherwise I dispute your reading of Romans 8, I've given my reading, and that's all I have to say.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.