The Original sin and the Actual sin

[David]

God said to Adam, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die"(Gen. 2:17)  who obeyed this commandment until the serpent came to Eve and enticed her, "In the day you eat of it you will be like God.

It is for fear lest you should become like God that He said you should not eat of it."

So Eve began to consider, "We have been keeping ourselves from becoming God.

God forbade us to eat that fruit because He wanted to be the Only God" and there she went and ate of it.

She also gave it to her husband Adam and let him eat so that both would become like God.

After eating, they were immediately seized with fear.

It was then that God called Adam: "Where are you?"

"I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked: and I hid myself," Adam replied.

“who told you that you were naked?   Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?"

God asked again.  "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate,"  Adam said.

And God again asked Eve, "What is this you have done?"

"The serpent deceived me, and I ate," Eve answered.

So the Lord God said finally to the serpent:

"Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more then  every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and  you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

and I will  put  enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and shall bruise His heel."

That serpent  was the main culprit that Adam to sin and fall.

Hence, God's curse first on the serpent which challenged and revolted against Him, not on the human who fell.

The serpent did the Devil's works under oppression, despite the fact that it was just a creature just as Jesus had  called Judas Iscariot the Devil(John 6:70).

As regards to sin, confusion may rise for the lack of clarity in terms of definition and limit.

For example, someone starts to eat and realizes, "Whew!  I did not give thanks first. What shall I do with this sin. O Lord !"

Another one is seriously sick, but prefers to endure rather than commit the sin of using medical assistance instead of faith.

Sin, in this case, is not going to hospital, it is rather to tolerate the disease.

If one knew that  demons cause all diseases one would not hesitate to expel them first, and eradicate visible remains of the diseases by means of surgery or medicine, later.

No matter the germs brought by demons, they are to die out as long as they do not invade again.

In case they come back , germs that have been perishing may start to live again.

Therefore, one should not allow a single moment any disease to be at work in his body.

Should we regard a disease as God-given, we would have to tolerate the pains as well otherwise it would be revolt against Him to refuse what He gave.

If, on the other hand, we regard diseases as given by demons, we should curse them hard.

Sin is not going to hospital, but not striving  to live at all costs.

Why was it a sin to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil?

Because there was basically no effort to live.

God ordered Adam not  to eat so that he may live, but he rejected the warning  and ate that which was sinful.

The message of the whole bible is about life, in short, it tells us to believe in Jesus in order to have life.

Deuteronomy 30:19 says, "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing;  therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live."

The very movement of faith is trying to live in this manner.

Now Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit.

Then God stopped them from eating of the tree of life(Gen.3:22-24).

He did not interfere with them before they ate but it was after that He called them to account  for their behavior.

Does not this sound strange?

Did the Omniscient God not know so that He had to ask why and who had done it?

God already knew that Adam would eat and why, but called him and asked, "Where are you?"

Thus, against eating  from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God took no preventive measure except a post factum treatment.

In relation to the tree of life, on the other hand, He takes in advance an  appropriate countermeasure to protect the fallen man.

Genesis 3:22 says, "the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil.

And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever,"  and in verse 24, He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which tured every way, to guard the way to the tree of life."

Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil resulted in the serious problem of fall for Adam, God's creature, and many more occurred afterwards. 

When the fall took place God was never out of His sences nor did He fall asleep.

Psalms 121:3-4 say say that God does not sleep nor avert His gaze from the world he created.

Would it have been possible that He did not know about their approaching the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?

God did know that Adam and Eve were seduced by the serpent and ate of the tree, but did nothing to prevent if only to deal with the situation afterwards.

God could have surely stopped them from approaching the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, by placing the cherubims and the flaming sword, but He did not.

Death, as mentioned in, "In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die,"

refers to the original sin, namely not  the death of the corruptible body, but that of the spirit.

Bodily death is returning  to the dust, whereas spiritual death means going to hell.

Likewise, spiritual death means living in hell and spiritual life means living in heaven.

One can properly understand the meaning  of spiritual death if he knows that the spirit does not refer to one's personality but to a permanent being.

Just as one can cross a river by means of a boat to the spirit.

And "I"-that is, my soul is attached to the spirit and so lives forever.

Humans have a soul, a spirit, and a body(1 Thess.5:23).

From the functional point of view, the spirit exists forever, the soul is the personality, and the body is flesh.

Just as one needs to get on a boat to cross the river the souls depends on the spirit in order to exist even after the body disappears.

In this sense, humans are made of the soul and the body.

It is because of this spirit that death means to die forever, and life, to live forever.

If this soul lives, it is life, if it dies, it is death.

Christians are those who want to live forever.

They believe in Jesus because they love life.

They also love God for their very attachment to life.

They can forsake anytime any material things in order to get life.

"In the day that day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall surely die"

means to live forever in hell.

And since humans are living-spirits, not life giving spirits, they do have the power to give lfe.

1 Corinthians 15:45 says, "The first man Adam became a living being.

The last Adam because a life-giving spirit,"  therefore humans live thanks to the life-giving spirit whereas Christ lives even after death because He is the life-giving spirit.

Humans, since they are living spirits, die forever if they decide once to forsake life.

On the contrary, Christ can come back to life even if He is killed for He has the authority to lay down  His life and the authority to take it again(John 10:18).

Just as God said "If you eat of it, you will surely die" humans cannot but die.

Malachi 3:6 says, "I do not change," Psalms 89:34, "My covenant I will not break, nor  alter the word that has gone out of My lips."

God never changes.

Nothing in His word, His will, His decision, or His law changes.

The law God decreed in the beginning remains the same from the beginning to the end.

Consequently, God Himself cannot cancel nor avoid the law concerning the fruit.

The one who goes against this law cannot but die.

Here, one can examine the sin aspects of Adam and Eve, respectively.

Eve ate first the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.

The Hebrew concept of God is that of a self-existent and self-sufficient One(Exod. 3:14).

Eve, however, being seduced and made to think that she could also become like the self-sufficient God, ate of the tree in order to live by herself.

Her sin, nevertheless cannot be inherited even it is satanic because her spirit came from Adam.

On the other hand, Adam's sin is one of disobedience to God's word since he did not refuse the fruit when the woman gave it, not that he wanted to become God.

Had he eaten  in the intention of becoming God like her, he could not but die forever like the fallen angel.

His spirit's death was caused by disobedience.

Likewise, all humans after Adam were doomed to go to hell from the moment he ate of the tree but before, Christ came and died a substitutional death.

To put it differently, the second Adam, Christ came and died for the sin of the first Adam before he goes to hell.

No matter the great number of humans in the world, they are just one spirit in Adam.

Hence, the death of the second Adam can replace that of humankind.

Thus, the moment Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Christ secured the authority of death and the moment Christ died humans were redeemed.

In other words, they have also secured salvation when the First Adam ate.

Salvation of humankind was promised by Jesus's death, and the one to perish at the end is the Devil only.

Christ can be raised again for being the life-giving spirit.

When Adam ate on this earth, the Devil's perishment was legally determined in heaven.

Had the Devil known about it, he would not have seduced and made Adam eat of the tree.

Now, he also wanted Adam eat of the tree of life so that they may live forever in sin.

God know it and blocked up the way.

Humankind had to live with Christ even if determined to die by Adam's sin.

Genesis  3:22 says "the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil."

Here, "good and evil" refers to life and curse, resurrection and death, heaven and hell.

In other words, the one to taste death and experience life is Jesus Christ, the Holy Son among the triune God.

The moment Christ died so did humans, the moment He was raised again our resurrection was also determined.

When we are baptized we say, "I am dead with Jesus, and I am alive with Jesus," which is to confess our union with Jesus in life and death.

This is how God's will to destroy the Devil was done.

Consequently, before Christ's passion, humans had to be cursed in the flesh because of sin, but after His resurrection they acquired the power to eradicate curses.

In other words, after His victory on Calvary, they obtained the right to be freed from curses.

One should not conclude hastily that Christians should also be cursed just because the Old Testament people were.

After Jesus's resurrection, we have the right to reject diseases and curses.

We can now experience "good"(life and resurrection) as we experenced with Christ "evil"(death, curse).

Any believer can have the right to kick away diseases, curses and death.  This is his authority.

The original sin is hereditary whereas the actual sin is committed by one's free will.

The original sin involved the spirit's  death but Christ's substitutional death of Christ ended this curse.

One must know the good and evil with Christ lest he wants to be influenced by it.

Apart from the original sin and the physical sin, there is the intrinsic/inherent sin which refers to the corrupt personality which is inclined to sin.

Genesis 4:7 says, "its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."

As it says that whoever hates his brother is a murderer(1 John3:15), the sin committed in our mind is the inherent one.

Thus, the original sin gives birth to the inherent sin which in turns gives birth to the physical or personal one.

Therefore, even though we are saved today, we are still under the influence of the inherited original sin if we disobey.

We must, by denying our wicked disposition, really love God.

We must all become men of obedience, not of disobedience.

We must all become saints who live in Christ and in obedience since we are partakers of death and resurrection, and we experienced with Him the knowledge of good and evil.