Is the bible inerrant?

Dear Richard,
I don’t assume anything about you whatsoever.

It is very clear that your preconceived idea of what I believe is in a great deal of error.

Why I do not know, but all I have been doing is hoping to correct the strange, concepts that you have been erroneously assuming I believe and stating on this site.

It’s clear to me after thinking about God and life and the big questions I think we all have about why we are here, what is life and death and from reading the Bible on and off all my life that the clear understanding that Jesus provides us of the creation is that it is real history and is 100% true and correct.

That’s is all, nothing more, nothing less.

The Bible is an amazing source of profound truth, it is life giving, it is comforting, to know our Lord God is awesomely powerful, but also terrifying in the extreme, and yet He loves us all so much that He put Himself on the Earth that He created, incarnate as a mere man to be unjustly executed in our place, because of His unfathomable love for us all. But Hallelujah, death could not hold Him.

Praise Him, Thank Him, Worship Him, my vocabulary is insufficient to express my gratitude.

Without Him, we are all lost.

I am your brother in Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the sake of Truth and honesty, there is a great need to set the record straight regarding what I and brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus who believe as I do, thus I have been replying to your posts.

God bless,
jon

Just to clarfy. It is not what you (think) you assume or not, it’s about what you say. You continually preach New Testament doctrine over Genesis. You may consider the Gospel starts there but it does not. The Old Testament charts the understanding of God from personal to tribal god. Jesus is introduced as the Jewish Saviour. As far as He Is concerned He came first for the Jews and despite your assertions we are not all descended from Abraham or Judaism.

Your version of the Gospel revolves around a basic misconception of sin snd death and the false belief that everyone descended from Adam & Eve.

I am sorry if you find this strange or even sacrilegious but there we have our divide.

Richard

Is it also ludicrous that the devil is more powerful than God, because he could corrupt what God had made ?

Absolutely.

The world is as God made it.

Man has made an ecological mess that Nature struggles with but that is not the corruption of sin claimed by some Christians here.

Richard

So the punishment of the devil is also ludicrous ?

What has the devil got to do with birthing pains

Richard

Dear Richard,
thank you for your honest thoughts, it is appreciated!

The New Testament Salvation message of redemption, commences in the Garden of Eden at the Beginning. The New Testament and the Old Testament are inextricably linked together.

If there wasn’t a real literal Fall of a real man, Adam, then what do we need to be saved from?

The Creator in the Beginning in the OT is the same person as the Saviour in the NT.
That alone is enough!

It is not my version of the Gospel, it is the Gospel.

Of course we are all descended from Adam and Eve, doesn’t the Bible tell us that Eve is the Mother of ALL the living and by implication that Adam is her husband and father of ALL her children, He also is father of ALL the living. Why do you not trust the Holy Scriptures with faith?
His Word to us is faithful and true.

Yes, there is a divide, I wish it weren’t so, but what I wish for is not important.

God bless,
jon

Was Jesus 100% human, yes. Did God the Son in humility divest himself of divinity, yes. He took on real flesh, mind and soul. Started out not knowing anything then learned. Then He just like any person believed all the scriptures as did all disciples 100% and was not wrong in that belief. If you could have shown Jesus in his humanity the seed of the orchid is smaller than the mustard seed, he would have said " well look at that! I never saw that before " Most doctrinal problems arise with a misunderstanding the Hypostatic union of Jesus. Jesus had to learn the torah just like you and I, he was 100% human and 100% God. Likewise the scripture is similar authored by the Holy Spirit nevertheless, it was written through 100% human agents, with life experiences, learned knowledge, cultural context ect.

That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son,
is both God and human, equally.

 He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.

Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one,
certainly not by the blending of his essence,
but by the unity of his person.
For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
so too the one Christ is both God and human.

Q. What does it mean that he
“was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary”?

A. That the eternal Son of God,

who is and remains
true and eternal God,1

took to himself,

through the working of the Holy Spirit,2
from the flesh and blood of the virgin Mary,3

a truly human nature

so that he might also become David’s true descendant,4
like his brothers and sisters in every way5

except for sin.6

Finally the important thing is the aim of scripture. Belgic confession

Article 2: The Means by Which We Know God

We know God by two means:

First, by the creation, preservation, and government
of the universe,
since that universe is before our eyes
like a beautiful book

in which all creatures,
great and small,
are as letters
to make us ponder
the invisible things of God:

God’s eternal power and divinity,
as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.

All these things are enough to convict humans
and to leave them without excuse.

Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly
by his holy and divine Word,
as much as we need in this life,

for God’s glory
and for our salvation.

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Where is there the least logical link there? Whether or not animal death came from Adam’s sin is completely unrelated to the Atonement. Are you saying that Jesus had to die for the animals, too? If so, what was their transgression?

Whose enemy? Death results from sin; the ancient church held that Adam’s guilt polluted all of human nature; ar you claiming that it polluted animal nature as well?

Where are you getting your definition of “good”?

If it is good to lay down one’s life for a friend, is it not good for an animal to lay down its life for another animal?

No, I won’t read any more from a site run by an organization that had not a single theologian or actual Bible scholar among its founders and main figures, and as far as I can tell has no one who can read the original languages, plus has an established record of deception.

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Only if you throw out the Hebrew text and rely on the arrogant assumption that what it looks like to you is what it must be. Oh – and if you want to throw out just about all the theological meaning there.

YECers I’ve known really aren’t even aware that they have a worldview, but let’s see if you get the point across – because you just made the issue clear!

Well, not a whole one anyway. But there is enough to exclude some worldviews, such as the entire modern Western one.

Circular reasoning is what it comes down to: YEC advocates find their worldview in scripture because they start with the assumption that their worldview is correct.

Most certainly! I keep asking, but no YECer has ever shown where in the Bible it says that there is the intent to provide objective history and/or scientific accuracy.

If so, my dogma is “the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text” – no additions, no redefinitions, just let it be what it is.

There’s the problem: your worldview is obviously the modern scientific one that you grew up in and absorbed without knowing it, because you automatically expect scientific-style observations and automatically give words a scientific definition.

If your worldview were " based Upon the Holy Scriptures" you would be recognizing that the opening Creation account is an edited version of the Egyptian creation story (because it is; that’s just a fact), and instead of insisting that it is historical narrative (a genre that didn’t exist back then) asking, “Why did Moses do it that way? Why did the Holy Spirit inspire him to do it that way?”

You can’t have a worldview based on the scriptures unless you read them for the ancient literature in ancient genres that they are. If you aren’t even trying to think like an ancient Israelite, you’re only fooling yourself about your actual worldview.

It’s not undeniable because many good and faithful Christian scholars and theologians, and good Jewish believers before them, have down through history seen it as something else. Otherwise you’re committing the first Mormon fallacy, that the real church died out until the centuries reached whichever one you belong to.

Yet unless you have started from the scriptures as the ancient literature they are, and have actually used the grammatical-historical method, not just paid lip service to it, then you have no claim to have a biblical worldview. If you haven’t sat down and asked, “What is my definition of truth? How does that differ from the definition Abraham had? that Moses had?” then you haven’t made even the first step towards escaping your own worldview and beginning to wade in the biblical worldview.

Genesis 1. No, I don’t understand the scholarly arguments, but honest scholars who grew up reading Hebrew studied Genesis 1 and found that the universe is millions of years old, others that it is billions, at least one that it is trillions, but the more conservative ones drew only on the Genesis text and found that the world is uncountably ancient and the Creation is more so.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. You quite happily add to the scriptures when convenient, yet deny that approach to others!
The scriptures don’t tell us that Jesus got slivers when working with Joseph in the shop – does that mean He didn’t? The scriptures don’t tell us that Jesus helped Mary set the table for dinner – does that mean He didn’t? The scriptures don’t tell us that Jesus laughed and played like other Jewish boys – does that mean He didn’t? The scriptures don’t tell us that Jesus looked with wonder at the night sky – does that mean He didn’t? The scriptures don’t tell us that Jesus had bowel movements – does that mean He didn’t? The scriptures don’t tell us that Jesus took baths – does that mean He didn’t?
I could ask the same questions about all sorts of things that the scriptures don’t tell us, but does that mean they didn’t happen? No – it means we don’t know. Some things we might assume did happen (most of the list above), some things we might assume didn’t, but we don’t know if the scriptures don’t tell us – and that applies to the age of the Earth and just what means God our Creator used to make His Creation, it just tells us that He did.

The attitude that expects, nay, demands that God should have forced the inspired writers to address our concerns is arrogant; they weren’t talking to us, they were talking to the people they wrote for, the original audience. The attitude that you can know what the writers had in mind without ever asking how they viewed the world, literature, theology, and especially truth is doubly arrogant because it makes them less God’s people than you.

Yes, it is, because you have never stopped to ask what Moses or any other inspired writer meant when he wrote, and because you are operating with a definition of truth that cannot be found in the scriptures. If you think it can, then show us: where do the scriptures inform us that they mean to tell objective history? where do the scriptures tell us that they intend to be scientifically accurate?

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He also didn’t say creation was just 6,000 years earlier. It is your interpretation that adds in the 6,000 years.

Which genealogies? They differ from each other and also between the hebrew and greek texts of the OT. Doesn’t sound like they are “unambiguously clear” and genealogies in the ANE weren’t used for the same purpose as the one I have created for my family.

No it’s not. You asked, " where in the Holy Scriptures are we told that evolution is real?" and the only answer possible is no where because the Bible isn’t a biology text.

Of course, just like the Bible doesn’t tell us how life started. I am sure you have no problem accepting the process by which the sun generates light even if the Bible doesn’t address it.

While you can argue that the original autographs were inspired and inerrant that doesn’t apply to the creation of what we think the original texts said, the translation of those texts, and most importantly how we interpret those texts. Unless you know of a scripture somewhere that says a particular translation is inspired/inerrant.

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That right there proves that you don’t have a biblical worldview because it totally ignores how the scriptures treat genealogy!

Except–

And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation"

How? The text doesn’t say. Was it abiogenesis (which would be as Aristotle described)? Did it start with simple plants and progress to more complex? We know He didn’t speak them into existence because the text tells us so!

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures"

There it is again: we are not told how the land brought forth living creatures, but He didn’t make living creatures by command, He ordered the land to make them . . . somehow; we just can’t know.

YHWH-Elohim formed the man of dust from the ground

Oops – third strike. God didn’t make Adam by speaking, He used dust.

So you’re both adding to and subtracting from the text now. Your assertion is incorrect.

No – but He uses the best means available when He speaks to His people, which tells us that the Holy Spirit moved His chosen writers to use the literary forms that would get the message across best, which means they wrote in conformity with the culture, worldview, and forms that would hold deep and rich meaning for the original audience. And since by reading the scriptures that way there is vastly more depth and richness of meaning than in reading it as modern literature, then that is how to read it – by thinking like an ancient Israelite.

Evolution is an elegant system that has brought people to Christ. Somewhere here I posted a psalm from the perspective of the biology students in our informal university intelligent design club made up of students who arrived at university as atheists or agnostics but due to their study of science concluded there must be a Designer. At the moment I can’t remember how to find that or I’d re-post it here (help, moderators?).

There are no biblical references that assert the literal reading of the above texts. Reading it literally is a decision you make beforehand, it does not come from the text. To be biblical you have to ask whether the inspired writer intended a literal reading, and that can only be done by asking what genre that writer chose.

The cows, and the deer, the raccoons, the dolphins, the zebras, the eagles, and the tuna too, right?

After all, it’s the same “all” that you insist on for your view of the flood, and in fact insist on for the issue of death when the word “all” isn’t even there. To be consistent, you have to say that Eve is mother of all the animals.

Why do you pick and choose to choose one definition for a word in one place but a different definition in another place? Why do you pick and choose what to take literally and what not?

Most assuredly. That’s adding to the text what isn’t there.

Also most assuredly.

Ouch – good point.

Interestingly – and relevantly – the second temple Jews considered the Septuagint to be inspired, and they knew that it differed frequently from the Hebrew. Plainly they had a different understanding of inspiration, and since the Apostles were second temple Jews we can assume that they shard this view

That kind of makes the understanding of inspiration held by second temple Jews that biblical view of inspiration.

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You, I and all created things need to be saved from the direct presence of a holy God that should destroy everything that is not Himself in His blazing maximal infinitive furnace of being!!! Our God is a consuming Fire! We need to take that very literal!

One thing to realise is that there are two types of sin, ontological and moral. Ontological sin is the sin of “not being of Gods essence”. We are not pantheists yet God requires total perfection. So all things need protection or mediation from God’s maximal destructive essence. (cleft of the rock)

Moral sin is transgressing the command of God when a creature has the knowledge of Good and evil. All people have sinned (moral) and fallen short of the glory of God (ontological).

The literal reading of Genesis is going from dark to light, chaos to order, unknown to known. dead (adam was created dead) then made alive. Nakedness to clothed. Zero towards One (always improving but never arriving at Gods perfection AKA he is always above all for eternity)

The western church suggests a light – dark— light progression to avoid making God the author of sin. It’s what I describe as ontological Pelagianism. I don’t think the eastern church stresses this.
The problem the western interpretation that is not what the text says about the ontological state of the world in Gen 1,2.
Isaiah 45:7

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things.
First God creates dark, void chaos this is the Creature/ creator distinction. Then God makes it better by degrees by his forming actions. This progressive model fits better with modern conceptions of how the world and societies function. In nature we see a Dark and light world. Both good and evil are present from the beginning. But the foundation is not of God’s good essence nor can it be.

How could Adam know God was good if he did not know good from evil? How could Adam praise God while ignorant of His goodness? Allowing for God to be the author of ontological sin is a necessity or else we become pantheists. And once you make a free will creature out of “not God stuff” he will choose a “NOT GOD” choice especially if he doesn’t even have the categories of good and evil in his brain. But God is also love and teaches the “NOT GOD” man about the gospel of Grace so he can properly praise Him. The clothing of Adam is the gospel of Gods mercy. God will cover the shame of our sin, moral and ontological by the sacrifice of Christ! Now Adam can fufill his proper role to praise a good God for eternity. A loving God creates and allows humanity to understand his own creatureliness thru folly. But in love and mercy teaches him true religion and communion with God.

One fact is often overlooked in the garden is who is naked? Adam yes… also Satan… God is clothed in righteousness. A snake is a naked animal. When Adam and Eve gain the knowledge of good/evil what do they understand? The pre-existing condition of their own nakedness in light of an ontologically perfect God. In their own words, they hid from God because of the awareness of the shame in their pre existing, natural disposition (Job 1:21). They missed the mark of God’s perfect being by necessity. They “fell short of his glory”. To further support this claim the scripture illuminates a fascinating point. Satan is described as a snake, an animal with no hair, or covering. A reptile, by simple observation, is also naked. The bible states that hair is a form of clothes and covering. “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane?” (Job 39:19) “… For her hair is given to her for a covering.” (1Co 11:15) “Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor.” (Job 40:10) Therefore Satan, delusional and cast down from heaven (Luke 10:18), lost his glory and both humanity and he are naked in the Garden.

Jesus states in the book of Revelation 3:18 “I counsel you to buy from me gold (Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold,Pro 8:10) refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”

Adam and Satan also follow the same attempt to steal God’s perfection by knowledge. Satanic folly suggests “be as God”, Adam agrees with this idea! Adam and Satan are Archeptially present with Christ on Golgotha as the two thieves of Gods perfection. But God grants grace to Adam and curse to Satan. Just like the two theives on the crosses.

sorry I really got going there!

Well, you said the A&E punishments as written in Gen 3 because of the Fall from Paradise on Earth are ludicrous and so my logical question is if the punishment of the devil is also ludicrous?

Gen 3:14 - The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
Gen 3:15 - I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Meaning, he (the devil) will end up in the lake of fire.

Also ludicrous?

As long as you are taking any reality then the answer is yes. Snakes slither without legs. The devil doesn’t enter into it

Richard

I am not sure if the ontological viewpoint works. If we were created by God, why is ‘not being of Gods essence’ a sin that leads to doom and destruction? Is that not accusing God for making inherently bad work, doomed regardless of what the human does?

A better interpretation might arise through seeing God as the ruler of rulers. In ancient kingdoms, being rebellious towards the king was a serious crime, even if there were no written laws against it. We have been unfaithful and rebellious towards God, for example by doing things ‘my way’ rather than respecting the authority of God. That deserves punishment. This viewpoint belongs within the moral sin and suggests that moral sin is sufficient to condemn us, without any ‘ontological sin’.

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Dear Roymond,

but that statement is absolute nonsense!!!

I have observed the tactic you employ is that to keep hammering your compromised beliefs home, repetitively I expect believing that people will swallow all the contradictions and inconsistencies that your interpretation involves. And I guess it is a sad fact that some will. But for the following reasons it is abundantly clear to me that your interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is severely in error and is a False Teaching.

I refute the legitimacy of your interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. The interpretation you arrive at is contrary to the clear teaching of Jesus, Who is the Lord God, our Creator and Saviour.

The reasons you provide that distort the Holy Scriptures do not stand up to serious scrutiny.

The age of the Earth and the Gospel are fundamentally linked, that is a clear fact.

Jesus Himself spoke about Earth history; e.g., He placed man and woman at “the beginning of creation” during His discourse with the Pharisees over marriage and divorce:

“4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,” Matthew 19:4;

AND

Jesus said*,** “6 But from the beginning of creation, God created them male and female.”* Mark 10:6,

Thus, we are reliably informed by the Holy Scriptures that God created mankind from the beginning of creation, not billions and billions of years after the creation.

The following article explains the importance of a correct understanding of the age of the Earth and all of creation:

Jesus compared His second coming to Earth to the abrupt and catastrophic commencement of the Global Flood during the “days of Noah”, when all life on Earth was destroyed except for those safely aboard the Ark:

26 And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man”: Luke 17:26

It is an indictment against the Churches that have compromised the Truth of Scripture as attested by Jesus Himself and the Apostles, what we are so clearly taught by Jesus Himself, and exchange the Truth from God for a lie that compromises the Truth using weak arguments that turn what the Israelites Truly believed when the texts were written, (that is, the original audience) on its head.

I have learned throughout my life to be very wary when interpretations of the Bible end up being the precise opposite of what is so clearly written in the Holy Scriptures. Your interpretation turn creation on its head and deny the Truth of the all encompassing flood that extinguished all life except for those in the ark.

Such compromised interpretations of the creation and the Flood historical narratives, would have us believe that the Earth is billions upon billions of years old and the ‘flood of Noah’ was merely only a local flood somewhere in the Middle East in those days. Such a belief is not only wrong, but it flies in the face of common sense, as I have repeatedly asked here, WHY would God have righteous Noah laboriously build such a massive sea going vessel over many, many, many decades just for a local flood. It makes no sense whatsoever, therefore it is a False Teaching.
You are unable to provide a satisfactory answer to this straightforward and simple question.

The fact that the Holy Scripture accounts of the creation and the Flood are historical narratives is further reinforced by the unambiguous teaching of Jesus Himself and the Apostles, that are ever so clear the creation and flood are real history.
There is no way around that, except to discredit Jesus and the Apostles by saying Jesus and the Apostles were in error about the creation and the flood. Which is precisely what you and Theistic Evolution believers do, and it appears wax lyrical quite elaborately.

As sincere, honest and faithful Christians, aren’t we expected by our Gracious Lord to believe in faith what He and the Apostles He appointed teach.
If Christians don’t believe the Bible, in what sense are they ‘Christ followers’?

Jesus said, “37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matthew 24:37.

Jesus, therefore, upheld Genesis as REAL literal history, i.e., it really happened, which in Truth was the traditional Jewish view back then, (when Jesus was teaching the people), that is based on Moses, historical record of a six-day creation just thousands of years ago.

As you will no doubt disagree, an informative article about the traditional Jewish view is at:

It is an undisputed fact that belief in evolution is an ancient pagan idea, if you don’t believe that statement, read:

Furthermore, Paul based his theology on the historic truth of Genesis, describing Jesus as the “Last Adam” Theistic evolutionists have made plain their belief that Jesus was mistaken.

Consider the Holy Scripture that informs us all:

“45 So also it is written: “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” The last Adam was a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. 48 As is the earthy one, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly one, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.

50 Now I say this, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. 55 Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 15:45

It is Jesus who rescues us all from the penalty of sin (death) if we believe and accept His Gracious free gift of Salvation. This has been humanity’s downfall ever since Adam’s Fall from God’s perfect creation

“12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—" Romans 5:12

15 But the gracious gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.” Romans 5:15,

“21 so that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Romans 5:21;

“21 For since by a man death came, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:21-22.

The Gospel is summed up in Paul’s statement:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord Romans 6:23

If the creation was really millions of years old, this central Gospel text is false, placing death long before the wages of sin, thus destroying the logical link to the free gift in Christ Jesus of Salvation!

Our salvation will culminate with our living with God in the restoration, the new heavens and new earth forever and ever. This restored world will be similar to the way God originally created it in the beginning:

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or painRevelation 21:4

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”. Romans 10:9

46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? John 5:46-47

Therefore it’s correct to say that what Moses wrote is inextricably anchored to Christ’s teachings.

The books of Moses start out by explaining in Genesis that God initially created a perfect world with no sin, death, pain etc. God called His creation “very good”. Before sin entered the world, there was no death. Even animals ate plants as there was no carnivorous activity in the world.

“29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every animal of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to everything that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.” Genesis 1:29-30

“21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” 1 Corinthians 15:21-22

Nor was Jesus wrong about His genealogy:

23 When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years old, being, as was commonly held, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, 24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, 25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Hesli, the son of Naggai, 26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, 27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, 28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, 29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, 31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, 32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, 33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, 34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, 35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Heber, the son of Shelah, 36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, 37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, 38 the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. Luke 3:23-38

The above genealogy tacitly directly connects Jesus to the historical figures of Noah and Adam. Furthermore, the genealogy is real history, as clearly evidenced by the complete line of patriarchs from Adam to Jesus. Real history further confirms that Adam was a REAL man!

Neither was the Father in Heaven culpable of deception in allowing Jesus to teach error—a blasphemous consequence of such faulty thinking.

When Christians try to accommodate evolution and the Bible, their grip on Genesis as literal history must first be loosened, i.e. Genesis must be presumed to be allegory, or metaphor.
And so the first man Adam is no longer a real person.
But the New Testament names each of his descendants, generation by generation, all the way to Jesus! See the Genealogy again in Luke 3:23-38 above.

When Jesus discussed the creation of man:

4 And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? Matthew 19:4-5

and Noah’s Flood,

37 For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Matthew 24:37-39

AND

Jesus said,“26 And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man: 27 people were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, and they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Luke 17:26-27

He clearly spoke of them all as historical events, not parables, (though obviously parables can have a historical basis, just as they can also be entirely fictional to communicate the message).

The contrived idea that you claim Jesus was “speaking from the knowledge of His time” thus Jesus was in error as a fully human person, belies the reality that Jesus is the Creator.
Yes, incarnate Jesus is a man, but His deity remains upon Him.
Didn’t He say that the angels of Heaven are ascending and descending upon Him?
Didn’t He perform miracles, didn’t even the wind and the waves obey His command?
Didn’t Jesus talk with Moses and Elijah?

I thoroughly recommend that you read the excellent article by Australian medical doctor Carl Wieland at:

Importantly from this article is the following excerpt:

The Lord Jesus repeatedly made it clear that His words and actions were on the Father’s authority, in all respects. Some examples are firstly:

“28 So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I Am, and I do nothing on My own, but I say these things as the Father instructed Me.” John 8:28

And, For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.” John 12:49-50

One thing is very clear from all this. Namely, that the erroneous belief that ‘science insists that evolution and long ages are ‘fact’ is the most serious challenge to biblical authority, and thus to the faith in general, that the Christian faith has ever faced. If our Loving, Gracious Lord Jesus’ words in Scripture can’t be trusted on these foundational matters, how are we able to trust anything at all in the Bible?

I have noticed that theistic evolutionists have declared their belief that Jesus was mistaken.

For example, on this theistic evolutionary website, the following was written:

“If Jesus as a finite human being erred from time to time, there is no reason at all to suppose that Moses, Paul, John wrote Scripture without error. Rather, we are wise to assume that the biblical authors expressed themselves as human beings writing from the perspectives of their own finite, broken horizons.”

This is all the more serious because Jesus and the apostles used the history they taught to back up the theology that they taught. Areas that use the real history of the historical narrative parts of the Bible, include:

the Resurrection

“20 But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 21 For since by a man death came, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, 24 then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to our God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27 For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is clear that this excludes the Father who put all things in subjection to Him. 28 When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.” 1 Corinthians 15,

and marriage:

*“10 Setting out from there, Jesus *went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds gathered to Him again, and, as He was accustomed, He once more began to teach them.

2 And some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began questioning Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. 3 And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send his wife away.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, God created them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, 8 and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore, what God has joined together, no person is to separate.”
*10 And in the house the disciples again began questioning Him about this. 11 And He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her; 12 and if she herself divorces her husband and marries another man, she is committing adultery.” Mark 10:1-12,

and atonement:

“12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned— 13 for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not counted against anyone when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the violation committed by Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

15 But the gracious gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many. 16 The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one offense, resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many offenses, resulting in justification. 17 For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

18 So then, as through one offense the result was condemnation to all mankind, so also through one act of righteousness the result was justification of life to all mankind. 19 For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. 20 The Law came in so that the offense would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:12-21

and Heaven:

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.

*5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost. 7 The one who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. 8 But for the cowardly, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and sexually immoral persons, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

9 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, full of the seven last plagues, came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”

10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very valuable stone, like a stone of crystal-clear jasper. 12 It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on the gates, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. 14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

15 The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. 16 The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, twelve thousand stadia; its length, width, and height are equal. 17 And he measured its wall, 144 cubits, by human measurements, which are also angelic measurements. 18 The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. 19 The foundation stones of the city wall were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; 20 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. 21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; 26 and they will bring the glory and the honour of the nations into it; 27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

22 And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever. Revelation 21:1 - 22:5

are only a few of the areas in which compromising Christians are theologically crippled, because they don’t have the same strong stand on Genesis that Jesus and the Apostles have when they taught about these areas and even now they still have.

What a tragedy that so many Christian leaders have been bluffed and intimidated into assuming that secular interpretations of the evidence interpreted through what is based upon an atheistic, secular humanist, materialistic, naturalism, worldview philosophy to dictate their understanding of God’s Word. And right at a point in history when there are more scientific reasons than ever to confirm the utter rationality of trusting the Bible, not evolutionary conclusions.

Evolution is a completely Falsified belief system as far as I am concerned.
There is no discrepancy between science and True Christianity.
The battle is between disparate worldviews!

God bless,
jon

Well if this isn’t the pot calling the kettle black I don’t know what is.

And for the rest of your post it is TLDR and SOSO.

3 Likes

Not at all. The categories are totally separate issues. Ontological sin is by necessity, it cannot be any other way (Unless you become a pantheist , read Spinoza). It is not a judgement for some action. It has nothing to do with creature choice. Its is the necessary state of a thing. God dwells in maximal fire/glory in his essence, we are finite.

Another way to think of it is that Gods glory can occupy all space, thus there is no space for me to exist. Paul to timothy " —he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion.

When we think of spacelessness we often picture something non physical. But spacelessness can also be accomplished by filling all space and eliminating it. Aristotle forbid the idea and the west continued in that thought until Cantor.
the logic was

  1. if an actual infinite substance existed it would fill all space and thus I and everything else would not exist
  2. I and other things exist therefore the actual infinite (greatest possible/ maximal) substance does not exist

I believe God is the greatest possible substance filling all space. And yet I exist! How?
Its the same question of Moses at the burning bush and Nebuchadnezzar staring into the fiery furnace. Physics also suggest this state in the singularity which is described with Godlike qualities no space, no time, no parts or measure, unified force. (that is why atheists are always trying to explain away the singularity because it transcends all measurement and understanding )

Regardless if we grant God the essence of maximal substance, then all things require protection to exist, a safe space to exist (cleft of the rock). That would require ontological justification for anything NOT GOD to come into existence.

Jesus did not die for Adam. He died for everyone.

If the only important sin was Adam’s then we have nothing to worry about. we aren’t guilty of anything, it is all down to Adam.

Why can’t you see that blaming Adam is just a cop out?

Sin is not inherited. Sin does not dominate or corrupt. Sin has no substance, or presence or power in itself.

Sin is disobedience to God. Nothing more, and nothing less. It is neither endemic or even inevitable.

Sin is a choice. A wrong choice at that. But it is still a choice that can be avoided.

The world is not corrupt. Adam did not overthrow God’s perfect creation. Death was always part of God’s plans. Death is a necessary part of the circle of life. Jesus Himself said that before you can be reborn first you must die!

The Garden was never real!. Cognisance threw us out of Eden not a banishment by God. Eden didn’t exist. Eden cannot exist. There is no flaming sword on this earth.
Weeds are just plants in the wrong place.
A Rose in a wheat field is a weed
and
A head of Wheat in a Rose bed is a weed.

There is no such plant as a Weed (Capital W)

Pain is a necessary part of healing. Without it we risk further damage.

Death is necessary to sustain life. Without it everything starves, and you end up with the 7 very thin and bony Cows in Joseph’s dream.

The Bible is not meant to be taken at face value or literally. That is not its modus operandi. Read it! God speaks in parables! The Garden is at best a Parable.

Stop being so stubborn and simple minded. It is not All or nothing!

Richard

PS If Jesus died for Adam’s sin why does Adam’s sin still persist? Was Adam more powerful than Jesus?