Would you have eaten / touched the forbidden fruit?

by JH 16 Replies latest jw friends

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  JH

  Not me
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  JH

  OK, since I would have obeyed God, why do I have to pay for Adams sin???
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  IP_SEC

  Hey ya man!! Forbidden fruit is the cat's ass!!
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  flipper

  I already have, many times in my life friend
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  JH

  I googled "forbidden fruit" and there are funny pictures.....
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  crazyblondeb

  You can bet if i was told NOT to, I would have!!
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  John Doe

  That makes you the average woman crazyblond--easy to manipulate. ;-)
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  jaguarbass

  I dont think I would have. I'm pretty good about following instructions. But I always end up suffering because I am around those that cant or wont follow instructions.
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  crazyblondeb

  That makes you the average woman crazyblond--easy to manipulate. ;-)

  Trust me, there's nothing easy about me.........most people I know do the exact opposite of what they are told.

  I know you are not calling me EASY!!
• 

  a Christian

  I certainly would have. For I don't believe that any human being who has ever lived could have passed that test. In fact I believe that was the point of the demonstration God orchestrated in Eden. Humans are less righteous than God and, because we are, we don't deserve to live forever.

  The Watchtower's take on Adam and Eve makes no sense. For any "God" would certainly know from the beginning the outcome of the "test" Genesis tells us He gave to Adam and Eve. Heck, any dope could have guessed how Adam was going to do on that "test."

  God told Adam that if he ate some fruit he would die. God then left Adam without human companionship (let alone female companionship) in that garden for what the JW's tell us was quite a few years. Then God finally gave him a beautiful naked woman as his new best friend. Now this gorgeous lady tells Adam that, in spite of what he has heard to the contrary, she thinks they should eat the forbidden fruit. Besides, she tells him, her sources have assured her that Adam has been misinformed about this fruit being bad for them.

  Anyone could have guessed who Adam was going to care most about pleasing, his old friend God or his new friend Eve. After sleeping with squirrels for years what man wouldn't have risked his life to make sure he didn't lose that lady's love and affection? Even if God then "chose not to" look into the future, as JW's say, the God who created Adam would have had to have had a very poor knowledge of His own creation not to have known that Adam was certainly going to fail that "test." Adam did not stand a chance.

  The only way the story of Adam and Eve makes sense is to understand that God not only knew how things were going to end up in Eden, but that He deliberately set the whole thing up to make a point. What point? This one. If Adam in paradise, without a problem in the world, could not manage to obey one simple command from God, what chance does any human being have of living their entire trouble-plagued life without sinning either in word, thought or deed? No chance at all. That is the lesson that was illustrated in Eden. Human beings have a "sinful" nature. A nature which God gave us. And because we do, we don't deserve to live forever.

  But why would God give us a "sinful" nature? Because "God is love," and because God wanted to create people in his "own image," He wanted to create people whom He could have a loving relationship with. But since true love can be neither forced nor programmed, in order to have loving relationships with us, God had to create us as free people. Free to choose to love God and His ways or to not love God and His ways. In other words, free to do both right and wrong, free to do both good and evil.

  But because we can do wrong and often do, and because God can't do wrong and never does, we are less righteous than God. And because we are, none of us deserve to live forever. That means all human beings have, in effect, from their births been condemned by God to die. Not because of anything Adam did, but because we ourselves all fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)

  That's the bad news. Now the Good News. The Bible tells us that God was willing to accept the death of His Son Jesus Christ in place of the deaths which His own high standards - only those who are completely righteous deserve to live forever - had determined we all must suffer.

  This is the "Good News" presented in the pages of the New Testament. That even though God's high standards demanded our deaths as the penalty for our sins, God is willing to accept the death of Jesus Christ in place of the deaths of all who now accept Christ's death as payment in full for all their sins. And because God accepts Christ's death as payment for the sins of Christians, He no longer considers Christians to be sinners. Rather, He considers them to be righteous ones who are now fully worthy of eternal life. And because He does, He now promises to give eternal life to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.

  Adam's actions demonstrated that human beings are incapable of earning eternal life by our own acts of righteousness. For we are simply not righteous enough to ever do that. That being the case, our only hope of living forever is to be given eternal life by God as an undeserved gift. The Bible tells us that He now offers this gift to all who appreciate the high cost God paid in order to provide them this gift. The Bible tells us that God paid for this gift "with His own blood." (Acts 20:28)