Interesting point - you are talking about the two guys that went to heaven without physically dying - I think they were Enoch and someone else - I could be wrong about the name, but I'm fairly sure it was 2 dudes. I'll read up on it. Sorry.
And I believe the other one was Elijah. In any case, dead or alive, he still had the stain of sin on him when he got there.
But what does the Bible say about God and time? I agree that most Christians say that and I admit that that's how I understand it as well, but is it truly Biblical? I'm not sure. Could God have existed outside of time, created time, and then entered Himself into the constraints of time? I don't know - that's all speculation by the way - ill informed speculation at that. But clearly Christ was within time for a period.
Depends on how you feel about the Trinity. The scriptures say that Christ was with God, that Christ was God and that in the beginning all things were made through Christ and so on in John 1.
As far as I know, the Bible says nothing about God being outside of time and space. This is something that was most likely made up by apologists to explain a contradiction. The problem with that though is that apologetic explanations oftimes create contradictions of their own.
God's original plan was for us all to be as A&E were before they ate the fruit. God's new plan for us is to be perfect as Christ was, to be holy and blameless before God, so that we can be in perfect relation with God as we were intended. Since God wants us with Him, it makes sense that He would measure us against the standard for being blameless and in His presence - that would be Christ.
This suggests that God did not know that Adam and Eve would disobey him. This contradicts what we are told about God knowing everything, including the future.
OH, sorry, I see what you are saying now. Well, A&E were the first humans, they were special. I know that sounds like a dodge but it's not. They were the only humans to not be born of another human, they had access to eternal life (as physical creatures) and they were unique in many ways, so it makes sense that their lives and their choices would have unique consequences. That's all I got, sorry.
Im afraid Im just going to have to remain skeptical then.
Wasn't his act of rebellion, fueled by his desire to be equal to God, the very prideful thing which made him a sinner? We'd have to look at the text, we're starting to get into waters I'm not very familiar with and would feel uncomfortable speaking of off the cuff about because I could very easily get something wrong. Sorry.
Okay, we are told that Satan wanted to be (or thought he was) like God, that there was a rebellion and he and a third of the heavenly host were cast out and that this occurred sometime before or right after creation. This may or may not explain the serpent in the garden (if it doesn't then the serpent was just a talking snake which makes the story that much less plausible).
Problem is, when I did a little research on this, I ran into a couple of problems. The only book in the Bible that mentions Satan being cast out is in Revelations chapter 12 and as everybody knows, Revelations is an account of what will happen in the last days. The only other reference I found was Isaiah 14:12:
"How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!"
First I want to address the problem with the Isaiah reference. When this verse is read in context, it is an obvious continuation of chapter 13 which is a prophecy against the king of Babylon.
As for Revelations 12, it tells the story of how the dragon (Satan) threatens the pregnant woman and her soon to be born child. She and the child are then whisked away to safety.
Then in the very next paragraph it recounts a war in heaven between the dragon, Satan (presumably the same dragon that threatened the woman in the preceding paragraph) and his angels on one side and Michael and his angels on the other.
The problems here are twofold. First, the dragon (Satan) swept a third of the stars from the heavens with its tail (which I interpret to mean that the dragon was so large and menacing, its tail was able to literally knock the stars from the sky)
before the war in heaven while he was threatening the woman. Secondly, As I mentioned, Revelations is an account of what will happen in the last days. So if Satan is to be cast out during the celestial battle in the last days as Revelations clearly states, how is it that people take the story in this chapter to mean Satan was cast out before creation? And why would there even be an account of Satan's ouster before creation in an account of the Apocalypse at the end of days?
It could very well be (what I underlined). I never thought of it that way, that's an excellent question. Evil could be only the result of a sinful choice and not some malevolent force that exists apart from choices - I am not sure, I'm speculating again. But if evil is an actual force that creates temptation, remember that experiencing temptation is not a sin - acting upon that temptation is the sin. I know you probably know that, I just don't want to assume. Christ was tempted a lot but was perfect because he did not give into temptation.
No, temptation is not a sin but pride is.
OH. Ok. No need to get testy. I never argued that only God knew good and evil; obviously the angels, Satan and the fallen angels knew as well. I was just thinking outside the box based on what my NIV said, allowing myself to see something that I may not have seen before. I can't read the whole thing and know everything and catch everything the first time. I try to be open-minded some - I guess a little too much. Sorry.
I'm no linguist or scholar either, you may be right, I don't know. Sorry.
I apologize if I seemed testy but it wasnt really directed at you per se. I was just making an observation that one doesnt need to be a scholar to see that the serpent meant that by knowing good and evil, they would be like the gods in that respect.
Although this presents a problem in itself in that, since Adam and Eve were not aware of the concept of good and evil or even of the concept of what it would be like to be like the gods, why would they be tempted by it?
He spoke the words, so I guess in that sense he did.
I say seemed because I don't know what was going on in Eve's mind, I don't know if that temptation is what caused her to make the decision to eat the fruit. I don't know if it was a culmination of things that caused her to eat the fruit, or if it was a specific thing the serpent said, or if his temptations got her thinking about something else.
I would call tempting a direct influence. Obviously he doesn't make the choice for us or force it upon us, but we are certainly tempted. I am personally influenced by temptation from time to time - the danger of temptation is that it does influence our decisions. But we still make our decisions.
These 'desires in our hearts' you speak of could be another way of describing sinful nature - the desire exists within us but we are not guilty of sin until we act upon it - our sinful nature is a negative influence on our decision making which causes us to naturally act sinful/evil.
If I taunt you and you injure me out of anger, whose fault is it? The court would find you guilty of assault and I would not be charged at all because you always had the choice not to assault me. You could have walked away and that would have been the end of it.
Spoken words have no power to make us do anything. It is our choice to allow words to trigger us and it is our choice to react or not to react.
Sure. It makes sense to me. Something awful infected the human race because of someones decision and was passed down and became a part of what it means to be human. I don't know another way to explain it without getting more abstract and confusing. I'm not the best at explaining things. I would only muddy the waters more if I explained it differently. Sorry.
Thing is, the text says nothing about the eating of the fruit infecting them with a sinful nature, it only says that after eating it, they had the
knowledge of good and evil. If simply having the knowledge of good and evil means we have a sinful nature then the gods must have had a sinful nature too, correct?
