How could one's Belief be so strong

Sinning against God requires a blood offering for "forgiveness." Not just any offering though. For those who lived before Christ, they, the Israelites, had to take their first born lamb without spot or blemish, and give it up by faith... showing God that they believed (looking forward) He would send His Son, the Messiah, to cleanse them from sin, as He (God) promised. This was part of the old covenant.

Once Christ came and died, conquered death and hell, and rose again, the payment for sin was made. Now, "all" we have to do, is by faith (looking back) believe that Christ did that for us and accept His payment for our sin. This begins the new covenant, the old covenant having been fulfilled through Christ.

Might I offer another perspective on Adam? I know that this will be different from what some believe, so it is only meant as something to think about, okay?

In the Garden of Eden there was no death, and no understanding of what death was. There was no knowledge of good and evil. The animals, and Adam, were all innocent. God created Eve so that Adam would have a companion. They were placed there in the garden, to enjoy the garden, and were given a commandment to multiply and replenish the earth. They were also told not to eat the fruit because they would surely die. They probably had some idea of what that meant, but how can you really comprehend it in a world without death? Also, in that immortal state, they weren't able to have children, so they couldn't keep that commandment.

The serpent convinced Eve that something was missing, and persuaded her to eat the fruit. She did that without cunsulting Adam, or God, and then she told Adam what she had done. She was still alive, but knew she would be cast out of the garden. Adam had quite a dillema on his hands now. Don't eat the fruit. Multiply and replenish the earth. Can't keep both of those - no way to have children if Eve is cast out alone. But she didn't die (yet - she lived on for hundreds of years), So he chose the best that he could, and ate the fruit so that he would be cast out along with Eve, and they could keep the higher commandment.

Sin and transgression are not always the same thing. Adam transgressed the law, but it wasn't out of evil or malice or even weakness. He made the best choice he could make. Punishment and consequences are also not necessarily the same thing. Laws have consequences which must be kept. Adam and Eve brought death (and transgression, and knowledge of good and evil) into the world, since that was the consequence of eating the fruit. Now they were mortal, and could die, but they could also have children. We never lived in the Garden. We were with God in the pre-mortal existence there, waiting for our turn to come down to earth. If Adam and Eve had not done what they did, they would never have died, and we wouldn't either, but we also never would have been born. What they did was for us, and was part of God's plan. That was where the serpent was confused. "Adam fell that men might be." (2 Nephi 2:25). Adam gave us mortal life. Mortal means having to do with death. Jesus gave us redemption and immortal life.

Just something to think about.

Close. Very close, but I have a bit of a problem with your time line and the fact that Adam and Eve could not reproduce while in the garden.

Here's what my Bible says:

Genesis 1:

26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Genesis 2:

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Genisis 3:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" 2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "

4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. 5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

The consequences for having gone against God's commandment and eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

16 To the woman he said,
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."

17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,'
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat of it
all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

When God threw them out of the Garden of Eden is when they became mortal, but they were already human and could reproduce just like the animals. We know that animals don't feel pain like we do. They process it differently. A vet once told me "they don't hurt because they don't know it's supposed to hurt." I think Adam and Eve were the same way until they ate the fruit of Knowledge.

OT I think the only reason they were removed from the garden was because God didn't want them to be stuck in that sinful state eternally...and if they ate from the tree of life, they would have been.

I think that is a little off topic though?

My belief is strong because even though that did happen, God provided a way of redemption. Christ fulfilled an astounding number (all) of the prophecies given in the Old Testament to the Jews, for their Messiah. It is humanly impossible to have fulfilled even a small number of them in one person. This is just another reason my faith is strong.

I'm not trying to debate this. I recognized that we will probably see it differently. And if anyone would like I can explain in PM how my understanding still fits with what Sept. has posted, but we need to keep religious debate out of this.

I probably didn't make my point clearly enough, but jmo asked why God didn't forgive Adam. I was offering the alternative that being cast out, and the earth being cursed, and the pain of childbirth, etc. are not punishment but part of God's plan.

Yes, and it was also imperative that they not eat from the tree of life and be unable to progress.

If we could have all lived in the Garden of Eden and not in the Earth as we know it, we would not have been able to gain the experience that we needed from our time on Earth. We wouldn't have known pain and suffering and all of the bad things, but we wouldn't understand any of the opposites, the good things, either, or be able to appreciate joy and health and love and all that is good.

Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden as a consequence of their sin -- not obeying the one commandment they had at the time -- not to eat the fruit of the one tree.

EJ

Exactly, so my question was, why didnt GOD forgive them if that is what we are supposed to do....forgive people for their sins.

Thank you Rap for explaining that to me. I also beleive that peole will interpret and relay the information as they understand it. Did that make sense? Well anyway, thanks for taking the time to explain it

I am still reading. And I guess I look back now at the title of the thread "how could one's belief be so strong?" Perhaps I could have rephrased it better.

Thanks for all your replies. I appreciate all of them and for trying to help me understand.

Huggles,

Jen

I like this thread. I think there is a lot for all of us to learn here.

Huggles.

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jmo531 said:
Exactly, so my question was, why didnt GOD forgive them if that is what we are supposed to do....forgive people for their sins.

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Maybe because Adam and Eve directly disobeyed Him? That's what allegedly brought all the sins into the world, and from then on the world was no longer pure, and that's why Jesus died, to take on the sins. Forgiving people of their sins doesn't mean that *God* forgives them of their sins (to my knowledge); but if we do forgive others of their sins then it helps prevent resentment and anger etc building up in our hearts. That's my understanding of it anyway...

Wendy, I don't plan on debating what you said at all. Like Jen said, we each get different things from the Bible. That's the beauty of it. It speaks to each individual in their need.

Jen, God being the perfect parent, He knew that Adam and Eve had to suffer the consequences for disobeying Him. He did give them a way out by giving them eternal life when their time on Earth was done. They, too, will stand before the Judgement Throne. Jesus' blood will also redeem them... and like Sky said, the blood sacrifices they made during their lifetime will serve their purpose.

Adam and Eve's sons, Cain and Able, also made sacrifices to God. You'll read about it if you haven't already. Able's sacrifice was accepted because he had pure intentions. Cain's sacrifice wasn't accepted, shown by the fact that the smoke from his fire didn't rise but went down, because he had resentment towards Abel in his heart when he made his sacrifice.

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SeptemberMorn said:
Adam and Eve's sons, Cain and Able, also made sacrifices to God. You'll read about it if you haven't already. Able's sacrifice was accepted because he had pure intentions. Cain's sacrifice wasn't accepted, shown by the fact that the smoke from his fire didn't rise but went down, because he had resentment towards Abel in his heart when he made his sacrifice.

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I think that animal sacrifices were only required during the Old Testament (?)... but why did God want them anyway? God is supposed to be all-powerful, omniscient, etc; why should sacrifices have pleased him, especially when they were of innocent animals such as lambs which had never in any way harmed Him?

That is hard to understand, especially in our times. There is a lot of symbolism involved. The animals that were sacrificed were symbols of God giving his only son as a sacrifice for us. When people showed the willingness to give back to God their first-born unblemished male animals, that helped them to understand the gift that God would give to them, and showed their recognition and thankfulness. It would have been a big deal to the people in ancient times since the first unblemished male would otherwise probably be the most likely animal to be kept for future breeding. I've taken note in my flock which rams would have been sacrificed if we lived under that law, and they would have been the hardest to give up.

I think that we look at death differently now than they did back then too. Life is hard, and survival is hard, and for the animal, maybe going back to live with God was more of a blessing than staying for several years on earth. Especially when that animal was born to the purpose of sacrifice, and would have understood that before coming to earth (IMHO).

It wasn't so much for God's benefit as for the people to understand and remember that they needed to look to God for everything, particularly for redemption. Even understanding the purpose, I think it would have been very hard though, and I am glad that I don't live in Old Testament times.

I like this thread too. I am so happy to see that I am not the only one with questions. I can relate to Silver so well. Thank you guys!

Huggles,

Jen

Yes, sacrifices were required only until Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice.

Why did God want them? Ref. Sky's post:

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_Sky said:
"Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin."

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Old Testament Law for sacrifices

If you want to read a bit more, scroll down to the very bottom of the page and read the two references.

When Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they began to die. They had sinned, and needed restoration...

But something that is being missed in this conversation is the other party involved: the snake, or rather Satan. Satan had begun his work to counter God and to continue his effort to become all powerful (the reason he was thrown out of heaven in the first place.)

Now that Satan had enticed them, and they were no longer sinless and perfect; the plan was prepared... not just for the redemption of Mankind, but for the crushing of the serpent by the Son of God. This is a war of good and evil... only by Christ dying, conquering death and hell, and rising again could everyone know ...including Satan... that GOD is the Almighty One.

Down: continues to bite tongue and mulls over wording and ideas of his reply(ies).

Hi - Looks like this thread is very interesting and an opportunity to consider things in a new light.

First, how do I believe? Without my belief nothing makes sense to me in this world. I also rely on the feelings of my heart which tell me that God is real. Finally, I pray and I know He listens because I get answers.

This is my opinion on God forgiving Adam and Eve:

Why didn't God forgive Adam and Eve - He did. He provided a way that they could repent so he could forgive them.

Even though He loved them, they still had to face the consequences of what they had done. God knew they could not fully pay the consequences themselves and that not only would they die, but they would not be able to be in His presence.

When Adam and Eve transgressed the law, two things happened. First, they brought mortality into the world - death of the body. Second, they died spiritually or in other words were separated from God.

God loved them and wanted them to reverse these things, only there are two forces at work - justice and mercy. As things were, only one of the two could be satisfied. Because of this a third party was required. Christ stepped in so that Adam and Eve could be forgiven and all the changes, death of the body and spirit, undone. He paid the price for justice and since justice was then satisfied, having been paid, mercy could claim the sinner if they turned to Christ who meets out mercy. So through Christ, Adam and Eve were forgiven by God because they accepted Christ.

I believe that the blood sacrifices were offered up until Christ was sacrificed as a symbol of what was to come since it had not happened yet - it was a reminder and a sign of faith. Now that it has happened, we sacrifice our hearts - place ourselves symbolically on the alter as an offering to God instead.

Thanks for letting me share my views.