No one can choose not to sin. We are born in sin, and we all roll in our own filth just like a dog rolls in the dirt. Paul says all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.
There may be people without Christ who try to do the right thing, just as those of us in Christ try to do the right thing, but God tells us our righteousness is like filthy rags -— and those are our best acts! The only way to choose not to sin (and we really can’t until we see Christ face to face and are given our new bodies and new names) is to have our filth covered by the Blood of Christ. Then God gives us His righteousness and credits even our feeble acts as if they were Christ’s.
I guess what I am saying is someone without Christ may look like a good person to us, but thats not how God sees it.
There’s a world of difference between being a good person and being a righteous one.
Lots of people are good.
None (without Christ) are righteous.
....”I guess what I am saying is someone without Christ may look like a good person to us, but thats not how God sees it”.....
I think what I’m attempting to understand is that it seems Adam and Eve had the freedom to choose to do as God said or not....but they had no familiarity with consequences at that time for not doing as God said.... He told them....” you must NOT eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, FOR when you eat from it YOU WILL CERTAINLY DIE”...Gen:2:17...though he gave them all the “other trees to eat from...including the tree of life.... but seems under the tempters voice of deceit , who they had not known prior ....eve was deceived and Adam out right sinned against the Known will of God not to eat...for the command was given to Adam. So what was their nature before they sinned?
I just have questions...such as since death entered the world via this event....how would Adam and Eve even know what death was before eating? Did they?....Since they had not yet fallen what actually was the condition of their nature ‘before’ the fall....clearly sufficient to act on “something” within themselves to defy God’s requirement not to eat via satan’s allurement to do so. Evil had entered the garden ....did that alone change their nature somehow ....
I do recognize our righteousness is just as God says “filthy”.....but what was Adam and Eves nature before they ate? Obvious had the tempter not entered the equation it would seem Eve nor Adam may not have chosen the route they did....
We on the other hand know what our nature is in and without Christ...and the difference.