[star!]

Dude,

I gotta chew on this one for awhile.  This kind of doctrine seems to be your strength.  I'll comment more in detail later - after I've had a chance to consider all the ramifications.

Rob

[star!]

Gary, I would say they were driven out b/c they disobeyed. For the first time, something other than God took hold of their hearts, if even for a short time.

In laying out the consequences for their sin, God said to Adam, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'.....

Interestingly both Adam and Eve sinned, though the nature of their sin was somewhat different. Adam's sin was deliberate (willful), whereas Eve was deceived (yet still considered "sin" acc. to 1 Tim 2:14).

Interesting questions, Gary. I like pondering scripture too.

what he said....

LOL

Ok, Mike, if we read the scripture, in Gen 3:22,

So, was it not their knowledge of good and evil that caused the Lord to drive them from the garden. Where does it say because they sinned, they had to leave?

I have heard many sermons on this, that because of their rebellion, and their sin, and all, but where are these written, where does the WORD say, it was their sin that drove them out?

Paul says in Romans:

So, it was Adam that brought sin into the world. So, what was Adam's sin?

Was it disobedience? Did God tempt Adam?

Or was it listening to his wife? According to Timothy, It was Eve that was deceived.

Why did God say Adam would die if he ate of the tree? We know that he lived many more years, and had many children. So, that day he did not physically die. Was it spiritual death He spoke of? If so, what was Adam's sin, that caused him to die?

You asked a couple of times, what was Adam's sin. It seems clear to me,

 God said to Adam, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'.....(Gen 3:17)

Disobedience was Adam's sin. He ate of the tree from which God commanded him not to eat. Didn't matter that it came through Eve, according to Gen 3:17 and 1 Tim 2:14. (By her disobedience, Eve sinned too, even though deceived.)

If you want to get technical, I s'pose you could make a case that they sinned the moment their hearts were turned away from God, the moment they decided to eat from the tree (just before they actually ate). 

Yes, v.22 says God drove them out so they wouldn't eat of the tree of life and live forever (in their sinful state). He wouldn't have needed to if they hadn't previously disobeyed.

And yes, I have thought twice about my answers. There is the obvious answer, then the deeper truths. Good job bro. Now I bow out, wishing I had more time for this. :-)

Gary,

When I got saved again, the issue of God throwing them out of the garden was something I mulled over.

Jesus came so that we might have life, right?  Why did we need life?  Because we couldn't live forever because God threw us out of the garden where the Tree of Life was where if we ate, we would live forever...

Wait a minute!  Jesus died so we could live forever but the reason we don't live forever is because God separated us from the Tree that gave us eternal life?   Isn't that a lot of trouble for nothing?

Here's an idea, let us back in the Garden, duh.  Save yourself a trip to the cross, why not?  Work smarter - not harder!

God would be a complete idiot if this thing was about us "living happily ever after with Jesus".  It's not.  God is making a bride for Himself.  She has to be as immortal as He is but she must also be as sin-free as He is too.  The bride of Christ cannot be deceived into eating from the wrong tree or, even for a moment, turning her heart away from God.

Salvation is not (and never was) for everybody - otherwise, we'd still be in the Garden.  God's not willing that any should perish but He knows they will - and they do.  God is interested in those of us who want to live with Him as God.

If the goal of all this labor is for our eternal happiness only then the picture of eternity looses focus on God.  But if the purpose of all this effort is to create another "person of the godhead" then God becomes the focus of the universe.

If the purpose for all of this is to create a new part of God then that would explain the tolerance for eternal suffering.  People are going to hell, you guys.  If my salvation is just to make me "happy with Him in heaven" then the Creator is a blood-thirsty fool.  But if He's building Himself a bride - to have and to hold from this day forward - a bride who is every bit as divine as He is - then I understand.

yes, only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life will be with Him. All the others will be damned for ever in hell.

Yeah, Lara.  I don't approve of what Adam did... but I understand.

Chris Rock has a hilarious bit he used to do about OJ Simpson killing his ex-wife.  He said that Nicole was awarded all kinds of money every month for alimony and her boyfriend was driving his car and whatever.  Chris Rock said, "I'm not sayin' he shoulda killed her...  but I understand."

I'm not saying Adam should have sinned along with Eve... but I understand.

I'm not saying God should tolerate the billions and billions of people who have gone and are going to hell just for the sake of creating His woman... but I understand.

Rob

P.S. You might find the Chris Rock video on YouTube.  I'm just saying...

[star!]

Wow, I was always glad that God made me a woman instead of a man......... Now?

Here is a question I have been pondering...

What was Eve doing over by the tree in the first place? In order for Satan to have been able to have tempted her, she must have been over looking at the tree. 

Of all of the area in the garden, WHAT was she doing over there????

Was she thinking about eating the fruit prior to Satan tempting her?

 She evidently already had a desire to be wise:

Temptation comes to us in three ways:

1) The lust of the flesh
2) The lust of the eye and
3) The pride of life

According to James, when lust is conceived, it brineth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (James 1:15)

Eve certainly had the lust (desire) part - the desire to make one wise.  Which of the categories does this fall under?  Lust of the flesh?  Lust of the eye?  or The Pride of Life?

So, this falls into my original thought on this post:

They were both naked, and then after the "knowledge" they covered themselves.

So, she had lust prior to the "knowledge" that it was wrong. Else she would not have been tempted. This would have been before Satan even spoke to her about the fruit.

The first "sin" mentioned is after they were expelled from fenced garden of Eden.

sin= chaṭṭâ'âh  From (khaw-taw' {to miss} ; an offence (sometimes habitual sinfulness),

So, here is the next thought on this, is sin, sin... if we don't know it is sin?

Do little children sin, when they do something wrong, or is it sin when they "learn" that it is wrong to do the bad things?

Paul said the law thought him about sin...

So, when we are baptized into Christ, we are dead to sin, it no longer has ahold on us. We live for Christ, and are to become ignorant of sin, as we were as children.

I find that the harder I try not to sin, the more I find my mind preoccupied to the sin, but when my mind is focused on Christ, the sin is longer pulling at my heart, it is no longer the focus of my heart and mind.

Lara, Wait a minute!  That's wrong???  Boy, have I got some repenting to do...

Gary,

I'm trying to see where you're going with this.

The word "sin" isn't used until Genesis 4 but the concept of sin is there from the earliest.  As you point out, "sin" means to miss the mark and I've heard different interpretations as to what the "mark" is.

Sin in the Old Testament seemed to indicate an event or something that one did or didn't do.  The Old Testament also had something it called "sins of ignorance" or "unintentional sin".  Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy have a lot to say on this subject.  Unintentional sin is purely a Mosaic sin.  The New Testament has no such sin as "unintentional".  (For a more complete discussion of this, click here).

So, under the New Covenant, a sin is only a sin when it's recognized as sin.  In fact, something that is really NOT sin can count as sin if you believe it's a sin.  The classic examples of this are dietary restrictions and holy day observance.  Under the New Covenant "whatsoever is not of faith is sin" (Rom 14:23).

This is the sin of Adam and Eve.  By violating His commandment, Adam and Eve demonstrated a severe lack of trust ("trust" is a synonym for "faith") in God.  So, while it's not called sin, it had the look and feel of it.  If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...

So, while I can guilt myself into hell by believing something is a sin when it's really not, the opposite of that is not true.  In other words, if I seer my conscience so that I feel no guilt for committing adultery (for example), that doesn't make it okay.  Ya know what I mean?

Catholicism has deluded herself into believing that worshiping dead people is a good thing to do.  But just because you think it's godly to commit idolatry doesn't make it so.

Homosexuality in the church is actually gaining traction by using a form of this logic.  "I love Jesus and I'm gay so that must make it alright."  That logic works with any sin, however.  "I'm messing around on my wife but I still love Jesus, therefore, it's okay."

I learned in therapy that we have to give ourselves permission in order to "act out".  In therapy, to "act out" is roughly equivalent to sinning.  Alcoholics and drug addicts have to give themselves an excuse to continue in a cycle of abuse.  Sex offenders and violent people also need to give themselves permission to "act out".  A person who acts out has to "connect with a sense of lack" in order to give themselves permission to do what they're going to do.

I gave myself permission to act out by telling myself that I was in a loveless / sexless marriage where all my wife wanted to do is spend my money and give me a hard way to go.  This was my reality and so I used it as an excuse to touch the teenage girl across the street from me.  I also used it as an excuse to drink heavily.  In my mind, I owed it to myself.

Eve gave herself permission to "act out" too.  I like how you said that all she wanted was to be wise.  Surely, God would want a person to be wise, wouldn't He?  But this story exposes a fatal flaw in God's creation.  Coincidentally, God has this same fatal flaw because He created us in His image.  This is a shocking development.

It's like when a kid first discovers that his mom doesn't know what he's doing 24-hours a day.  It's almost unthinkable.  God's like us?  God can connect with a sense of lack???

The good news is, God's a big boy.  He's had a little time to deal with His emotions.  Also, Jesus did a WONDERFUL thing by insuring that God will never act out against His people.  That's really the best news of all.

Rob

This goes back to my original question, when you first showed me this road Rob.

Which sins did Christ forgive us of?

And when does (did) he forgives us?

Surely, all of them.

And He forgave them at the foundation of the world (almost 2000 years ago).  Jesus was slain from the foundation of the world and so when Jesus was slain the world was founded.

Interestingly, mankind was quite a few thousand years old by the time Jesus finished the work of creation.  I never understood that until after I started believing what I was reading.  Before then, I thought He'd finished creation back in Genesis.  Not so.  The seven days of creation must have been a prophecy rather than a history lesson.  Isn't that fascinating? 

Ok, so who is forgiven?

Who goes to hell, and why?

Everybody is forgiven.  Jesus is the reason.  There's only one sin that cannot be forgiven - the sin of not accepting Jesus on His terms and conditions.  This is the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  Those who don't receive Jesus are already judged.

People who are not "in Christ" are going to hell and are now in a kind of hell.  This fact is not limited to people who have never heard of Jesus but it also includes all those who have heard of Him but who have not accepted Him on His terms.  Because of their presumption, God is under no obligation to accept them or even recognize them.

We were kicked out of Eden so that it would be impossible for a rebel to eat of the tree of life and live forever.  God loves everybody unconditionally.  So what? God only accepts those who accept His Son because Jesus is the propitiation for our sins.  He is the perfect sacrifice of atonement.  Acceptance of Jesus is acceptance of peace with God.

But I cannot stress this point enough - God does not allow acceptance of His Son on just any terms.  He has prescribed the method of acceptance.  If we deviate from that, He cannot help us. You cannot pray Jesus into your heart.  Why?  Because the bible NEVER says that we receive Jesus that way.

There are a hundred false ways to receive Jesus but only one correct way.  Unfortunately, different denominations teach ways of accepting Jesus that the bible never prescribes.  The result is that these rebels cannot live forever.  Just like Adam and Eve they will never eat of the tree of life.

Rob

RIGHT!!

Now back to your post above. If a person is a homo-sexual, and is baptized into Christ, HE (the Holy Spirit) will start the changing process. We can not judge a person that has been baptized into Christ for a life-style we don't agree with.

There-to, we can not judge a person outside of Christ, because his sins were forgiven too. We do how-ever need to give them the "Good-News", that Christ has forgiven them. 

When a person is baptized into Christ, they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. 

When does a person receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and how?

According to what I read, it is by the laying of hands, sometimes at the same time as the baptism, and sometimes after.

When we are baptized into Christ, we become as new creatures, we are to become like Adam, prior to the fall. Not having the "knowledge" of good and evil.

I'll go along with you on the "we cannot judge a person who has been baptized" but we certainly can judge whether his lifestyle is good or bad.

I'm a convicted sex offender, Gary.  What would your reaction be if I decided to "rekindle an old flame" (so to speak)?  Surely, you'd say, "God forbid!" (or words to that effect).  You would rightly want to come over and kick the tar out of me.

Judgment that is out of bounds is judging the motives.  Saying, "He's a convicted sex offender because he hates women" is a judgment of the heart.  That's God's job - not ours.  Now, if I were to TELL you that I hate women then it's no longer a speculative judgment because I told you my motive.  This is a little simplistic but I think you see what I'm saying.

A practicing homosexual has to come to the conclusion that that lifestyle is offensive to God in his own time and his own way.  Stopping something you want to do because I say not to do it is a little shallow and a little weak.  But if we were talking about murder then our paradigm shifts a little bit more, ya know?  I mean, the attitude, "I'll stop killing when God shows me it's a bad idea" is probably not the attitude we'd want somebody to have.  Everything is by degrees.

So, judging whether something is good or bad is not the kind of judgment Jesus was encouraging us to avoid.  We get into trouble when we start judging why someone is the way they are.  "Oh, he's just doing that to get attention" is a HUGE judgment call.

In fact, this kind of judging exposes the heart of the one doing the judging.  This is the kind of judging Paul was talking about in Romans 2:

The very act of judging shows why we would be doing what we are judging other of.  We tip our hand when we judge others because when we judge why, we are telling the world the reason we would be doing such a thing.

"He's just telling us to go easy on homosexuals because he's one."  That's a HUGELY damaging and inaccurate and hateful judgment.  Nobody who says that he is of God should ever be guilty of making such a statement. But, while that is an unfair and ugly judgment, it is NOT judgmental to say, "Homosexuality is evil".

Switching gears: There is power in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and there is power in the external anointing of the Spirit.  Peter said that baptism is, in part, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  Paul said that when we are baptized we become free from sin.  The indwelling that we receive at baptism gives us power to live life free from sin but not necessarily power to perform miracles.

As an aside, I had a visiting evangelist lay hands on me and pray for me that I would be able to walk in the gift of prophecy.  Ain't that cool?  So now, if I tell you something's going to happen to you, listen to me, okay?

In the New Covenant, we are supposed to use our ability to judge good and evil.  It's not something we should run away from.

So, while we may start out not knowing good and evil, the attaining of that knowledge is not sin.  In fact, it's profitable for our maturation. 

I hear what you're saying but there are arguments on both sides.  I'm not at all opposed to exploring them with you.

Rob

I agree, there are motives. But I think what I am trying to say is, before we judge someone, whether homosexual, drug abuse, WOW big wreck!!!

Sorry, watching the truck race at Taledaga!

any way...  or even a woman abuser, that calls him/herself a believer baptized into Christ, should we not find out how long they have been a follower, because just like you, or I, the things that were haunting us, were not able to quit the same day we were baptized into Christ. It took awhile to develope these lustful attitudes, so too it takes a while for the Lord to renew our minds.

Is it wrong to be homosexual, the Old Covenant tells us so, and even Paul wrote about it, so too, we are told to treat women with respect. If I beat my wife and come to know Christ, and get baptized, the Holy Spirit will work on my heart, changing my desires, and anger. If I continue to beat my wife, then this simply means that the person baptizing me failed to explain to me what repentance means. 

When we are being baptized, we should have a person explaining to us, that we are to have a mind change about our sins. Simply being baptized into Christ does not save a person, it is a combination of repentance and being baptized into Christ.

I think that where the Church has failed the body, is letting the people think all they have to do is except Christ into their hearts, but fail to explain what repentance is. 

I was told when I first saved, that I needed to quit sinning. But the more I tried, the more I sinned. And even when I was able to quit doing one sin, another would creep in, taking over my mind. Even upto being high minded, and thinking I was better than others, because I had conquered my sins. Without seeing the pride I had. But in my mind, I was hurtful and judgmental of others.

I guess, another thing that keeps coming to my mind, is.... how is homosexuality any worse than any other life-style (speaking of the un-saved)

I keep hearing believers talking about the unsaved, and how the church keeps coming against homosexuals (unsaved).

Here is my quagmire though, if a person calling themselves a Christian is still living the lifestyle,  how do we explain to them that they need to have a change in their lives, when we/they still have hidden/open issues in their own lives.

For example, I still have issues with tobacco. I want to quit, but within me, I can not find the means to quit.

I still struggle with the urge to look at pornography, I don't have the urge as strong now, but at times I find myself tempted to look. I know it's wrong, and I pray for deliverance, and for a while the urges are gone, but then they creep back in, and I find myself condemning myself. 

But once I came to understand what you were telling me those few months ago, I find that when the urges come, I don't condem myself, I just except that I am still stuck in this sinful body, but that my sins were forgiven, and the urges no longer have such a pull on me. I will go for shorter and shorter periods. And the urges to look go away because I am not fighting them in myself, but the Holy Spirit in me makes the desire less strong within me.

I don't know how to witness this idea though, because in the past, I would tell the unsaved that they needed to repent (quit sinning), and except Christ into their hearts.  Knowing in my own heart, I had not achieved a sinless state.

Do I make any sense, or am I just rambling?

No.  You make TONS of sense.

As we know (at least intellectually) life in the Spirit is victorious, delivered and above sin.  But that's not to say we're not tempted.  I hear you loud and clear about being tempted and getting under condemnation.  That is not a very profitable lifestyle but I think every Christian has experienced that to one degree or another.

WOW!  Big crash!

Sorry, I'm working on a Windows computer... ;)

We know that when we're not looking at Internet porn that we're not sinning but then we think about looking at Internet porn and the process starts all over again.

When I was on probation, my probation officer could show up at any time and go through my stuff.  It happened about 5-times in the 5-years I was on probation.  A couple times, they showed up and told me to logon to my computer.  Then they ran a program that scanned for picture files (.jpg, .gif, .bmp, etc.) on my hard drive. 

The first time they did this (back in 2004), I had a few pictures that I didn't even know about.  I had deleted the hundreds of megabytes of pron I had on my hard drive right after I got arrested.  It was MONTHS before I was convicted and went on probation.

Anyway, I was squeaky clean for 5-years.  Those guys could have come in at any time and scanned and would have found nothing anywhere on my network.  Then I got released...   What's up with that, Gary?  I thought I was walking in the Spirit all that time and the truth is I was just scared I'd get caught!

Honestly, though, Gary.  It was EASY.  I couldn't believe how liberated I felt.  It wasn't that I wasn't tempted because I was but I didn't do it because I didn't want to go to jail (or suffer some other indignity).

I maybe had a couple of alcoholic drinks when I was on probation but generally I didn't drink at all during my probation because I didn't want to "drop dirty".  (That's ex-con talk for testing positive for alcohol in my urine.)  Before I got arrested, I used to drink about 3- or 4-times a week.  And I used to drink to get drunk.

Now, I have a drink or two once a week.  I get together with a guy I used to work with and we eat tacos and have a beer or two down by the river.  The difference is, I'm not drinking to get drunk but it's kinda hard - especially if I have two.

In other words, I'm going to hell, Gary.  It's like I want to have a cop breathing down my neck again so I don't destroy myself.  I'm engaging in a bit of hyperbole but not much.

The guy I meet once a week is the second person I baptized after I got saved again (in 2004).  I kinda screwed that up because I did NOT tell him that he's dying to himself but I did tell him that he was receiving a new Spirit.  He was raised Baptist and was baptized when he was a kid but, back then he probably didn't do it for the right reason.

The good news is that he's finally started reading the bible for himself.  That process to about 5-years.  Talk about your late bloomers.  He and I discuss the bible at dinner over some beers.  Ain't that interestin'?  It honestly sounds like something Jesus would do. 

Neither one of us are getting drunk but I gotta tell ya; not having about 4-shots of Tequila or something doesn't feel right.  I need to stop drinking altogether because I don't like where this might lead, ya know.

Our psychologist has a healthy attitude toward temptation.  He says that we should treat it like it's just something floating down the river of time.  We shouldn't be afraid of it.  Notice it and let it pass.  The worst thing we can do is engage it at any level.

That's what Eve did.  She played around with this huge temptation to be wise and it destroyed her - and us.  She should have just let the temptation pass by until next time.  That's what I need to do too.

Love ya,
Rob

Yeh, I can't drink. I used to drink REAL bad. When I was in the Army, I almost got put into the dry out tank. So I slowed down. I was drinking about a half a case a night. When I got out, I started drinking even more. When I quit, I was up to almost a case and a half each night. That's 36 cans. I tried Jim Bean once, and got alcohol poisoning, I drank so much. So I never touch that stuff again. But it did not stop me from drinking my beer. I know in myself, that if I drink 1 can, I would not be able to stop.

I find myself wanting to judge my sister when I see her drinking, but remember that she does not have the same issues I have. I DO however warn her that it is easy to get out of control.

On New Years I have a Wine Cooler. Once in a while my wife and I will get a 4 pack of wine coolers, but when drinking it, I keep thinking "am I tempting God"??

No!  You're certainly not tempting God by having a drink with your wife.  I know how you feel, though. 

I've had a maximum of two beers at a time since I've been saved again.  The first time I did it, I was with a couple guys from the shop after work.  I had just been let off probation and they each bought me a beer to celebrate.  So I had two beers - after going 5-years without.  It was party time.  I had to get out of there fast.  So I drove home drunk - just like old times.

Since then, I've had occasion to drink a couple beers but I've spaced them out - and I have eaten with them too - which takes the edge off.  The last time we went out, I just had one.

MS Securty Essentials?  No way.  You youngsters with your new-fangled Windows 7 and stuff really angry up my blood.  Whatever happened to the good old days of Windows 98 and floppy disks?

Okay.  We've talked about Adam and Eve, Chris Rock, Drinking alcohol, sexual immorality, and Windows 7.

Yep.  We must be at MyChurch :-)