Posted on 12/22/2016 8:06:09 AM PST by Salvation
All I had to do was read the headline.
“Would Jesus Have Come If Adam Had Not Sinned?”
Full Stop.
God is ALL KNOWING. God KNEW Adam would sin. So the question is foolish.
Why read on or watch a video?
No it was like knowing because He sees past present and future. It is all the same to Him.
With that, I completely agree.
Jesus is an old soul and had come to earth many times:
John 8: 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57 “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58 “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59 At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
Just as the scripture states.. Be kind to strangers as they might just be angels in disguise.... People did not recognize Jesus each time He was here.
Hebrews 13:2
Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.
Finally, Per Matthew 13, we are the good seeds planted here on earth to grow. You never want your seeds to sprout in the middle of the winter. Everything is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to according to God’s Divine Plan.
Just as the scripture states.. Be kind to strangers as they might just be angels in disguise.... People did not recognize Jesus each time He was here.
Like what I stated on the annual Christmas-is-pagan thread:
>>>Five bucks says the Messiah has spent a lot of time decorating Christmas trees, but noone recognized him. <<<
There are two possible answers I can think of, which go in very different directions.
1) We don't know what God intended; we only know what God commanded, when he prohibited eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is possible that God intended for A&E (not the TV network, the happy couple) to never eat it; it is also possible that God would have intended for A&E to eat it, but not at that time. If the latter were the case, then the result would have been better than what actually occurred: A&E would have, at the right time, learned the nature of good and evil--presumably at a time that they would have been able to, of their own volition, choose good instead of evil, and have avoided both having a sinful nature, and giving authority over the earth, which had been given them by God, to Satan.
But there is a second possibility...
2) The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not a tree that gave one a knowledge of good and evil, in an axiological sense. The phrase "knowledge of good and evil" could have been, in the times that the Bible was being written, a euphemism for sex.
The evidence for this can be found in II Samuel 19:35, when Barzillai the Gileadite describes his lack of physical abilities due to his 80 years: he can't hear singing, he can't taste his food...and he can't distinguish between good and evil (הַאֵדַע בֵּין־טֹוב לְרָע), the same words (towb and ra) found in the description of the tree in Genesis 2:17 (וּמֵעֵץ הַדַּעַת טֹוב וָרָע).
It would make no sense that an 80yo patriarch would say he was incapable of discerning between good and evil in the midst of talking about physical attributes...but it would make perfect sense that he would talk about the three most common attributes of very old men, that they can't taste their food, or hear high pitches ("singing girls") well...or do the nasty.
Further evidence is what happens to A&E when they eat the fruit. What is the first thing they do: enter into a discussion of the nature of good and evil a la Socrates or Aristotle or Confucius or Kant? Not at all. Instead, the first thing they do is notice that they are naked.
Finally, what are the punishments given to A&E? Eve is going to suffer in childbirth, but won't be able to keep herself from getting pregnant again and again, meaning having sex; having eaten from the tree of sex, she won't be able to stop herself. Adam will have to work hard, with the clear implication (since he gets his curse after Eve) that he is doing this to take care of his family, fighting the earth all the way to do this--all the while taking the sex that Eve is cursed to desire, all because, having eaten from the tree of sex, he can't help himself.
If this interpretation is correct, the point of the Eden story shifts: it's still a story of sin bringing death requiring salvation (the snake and the seed of the woman show this), but it is also a specific story about two trees, the tree of sex and the tree of immortality, and when A&E eat the fruit of the first tree, God has to keep them from eating the fruit of the second tree--they are like God in that they know how to beget (create) whenever they feel like it (Gen. 3:22), and without death there would be no end to their begetting.
That's how the second theory goes. Given that there is no indication in Scripture which one was meant by the phrase "knowing good and evil," it can't be said which one is the more likely scenario. From a theological standpoint it makes no difference: A&E do what they are told not to do, but what the snake deceivingly gets them to do, with the result that Eden is lost, the snake (Satan) gains temporary authority over the earth, and the plan of salvation, designed from the foundation of the world, begins its implementation, with its manifestation in Christ, and its fulfillment at the end of the age.
and he can’t distinguish between good and evil
Possible, but he doesn't come across as having dementia in his conversation with David in II Sam. 19.
So you believe that the “knowledge of good and evil” FRUIT was mostly about sex? I’ve always lacked understanding on this. I certainly didn’t think it was about eating a apple.
It’s an interesting theory that has some logical support, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I believe it :-)
There is a third possibility between the two, that God may have meant the name of the tree at its face value meaning, but that by the time of David the phrase had become a euphemistic reference to sex, perhaps because of people reading the story and seeing all the sexual references. Only God knows.
To be honest, those writings are so old and so bereft of detail that I’m always reticent to search for too much meaning beyond the clear meaning of the words being used.
But it just means I need to consider context more as I study. A friend of mine that actually went to seminary said that one of the problems with such an education is that every student is required to take a scripture and come up with a meaning nobody has come up with before. Now, that can be a really good thing for a lot of reasons. The problem is that no small number of times they come up with meaning that, in reality, is simply not there. An example would be homosexuals claiming Sodom was destroyed because of poor hospitality.
I’m going to guess that “trouble finding a parking place” isn’t the right answer ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.