Adam: unrighteous from the very beginning
Dec 24, 2013 7:30:36 GMT
Post by Colossians on Dec 24, 2013 7:30:36 GMT
This material is for the teaching of the Body of Christ, however the author reserves copyright over it.
_____________________________________________
ADAM: UNRIGHTEOUS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING
The conventional wisdom concerning Adam’s initial spiritual state, is that he was created righteous.
The wisdom is incorrect, being based on a childlike appropriation of the statement in Genesis that God created everything “good”.
Such “good”, applied to trees, rocks, rabbits, and elephants, as well as man. In that rabbits and rocks are not righteous, neither was this “good” meant to indicate that Adam was created righteous. Rather, it simply indicated that the form of things was perfect with regard to God’s purposes: it was in fact a “good” filtered through the veil of the law (for Genesis was part of the law), and not a "good" in terms of the revealed New Testament.
Jesus Christ has told us that “there is none good but God”. The conventional wisdom would have us believe that, although this may now be the case, in the beginning there were in fact two who were good: God and Adam, which means that you’d have trouble telling the two of them apart were it not for the fact that God could throw a rock further than Adam.
But rather, what those of the conventional persuasion have not considered, is how one might possibly create a righteous person (as distinct from an unrighteous person) anyway – how the ingredients in the one might differ from the ingredients in the other. And so what they miss, is that righteousness cannot merely consist of absence of transgression, but must be represented in the positive: it must be enacted.1 And so they completely overlook the fact that there is no record of Adam’s ever praising or thanking God: according to their criterion of default, any unbeliever they meet in the street should be considered righteous until shown to be otherwise.2
1 Indeed this is why it is so important that we understand that God is a trinity, for without the Son’s enactment of the Father, God were without substantiation of His own righteousness.
2 To object here that such a man in the street is necessarily unrighteous because he has descended from Adam, will be unacceptable, for we are not here considering any person other than the very first person, and if one judges that the very first person was righteous by way of apparent absence of transgression, then one is obliged to judge anyone one meets, by the same criterion.
And so it is in fact not possible to create a righteous person any more than it is possible to square a circle, for not even God might create someone who had, so to speak, 'hit the ground' praising God.
Adam was innocent in the beginning, but not righteous: he was in fact in what Paul terms “the offence” (Rom 5:20)3, which consisted of failure to worship God for who He is, and failure to thank God for His provisions, the latter most conspicuously seen in his failure to thank God for Eve.
The offence:
“when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful” Rom 1:21
3 See our work: "Understanding the entering of the law, at Romans 5:20".
Amen.
_____________________________________________
ADAM: UNRIGHTEOUS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING
The conventional wisdom concerning Adam’s initial spiritual state, is that he was created righteous.
The wisdom is incorrect, being based on a childlike appropriation of the statement in Genesis that God created everything “good”.
Such “good”, applied to trees, rocks, rabbits, and elephants, as well as man. In that rabbits and rocks are not righteous, neither was this “good” meant to indicate that Adam was created righteous. Rather, it simply indicated that the form of things was perfect with regard to God’s purposes: it was in fact a “good” filtered through the veil of the law (for Genesis was part of the law), and not a "good" in terms of the revealed New Testament.
Jesus Christ has told us that “there is none good but God”. The conventional wisdom would have us believe that, although this may now be the case, in the beginning there were in fact two who were good: God and Adam, which means that you’d have trouble telling the two of them apart were it not for the fact that God could throw a rock further than Adam.
But rather, what those of the conventional persuasion have not considered, is how one might possibly create a righteous person (as distinct from an unrighteous person) anyway – how the ingredients in the one might differ from the ingredients in the other. And so what they miss, is that righteousness cannot merely consist of absence of transgression, but must be represented in the positive: it must be enacted.1 And so they completely overlook the fact that there is no record of Adam’s ever praising or thanking God: according to their criterion of default, any unbeliever they meet in the street should be considered righteous until shown to be otherwise.2
1 Indeed this is why it is so important that we understand that God is a trinity, for without the Son’s enactment of the Father, God were without substantiation of His own righteousness.
2 To object here that such a man in the street is necessarily unrighteous because he has descended from Adam, will be unacceptable, for we are not here considering any person other than the very first person, and if one judges that the very first person was righteous by way of apparent absence of transgression, then one is obliged to judge anyone one meets, by the same criterion.
And so it is in fact not possible to create a righteous person any more than it is possible to square a circle, for not even God might create someone who had, so to speak, 'hit the ground' praising God.
Adam was innocent in the beginning, but not righteous: he was in fact in what Paul terms “the offence” (Rom 5:20)3, which consisted of failure to worship God for who He is, and failure to thank God for His provisions, the latter most conspicuously seen in his failure to thank God for Eve.
The offence:
“when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful” Rom 1:21
3 See our work: "Understanding the entering of the law, at Romans 5:20".
Amen.