Hi All:

There was some confusion when I posted this earlier and it got posted on a thread called test which does not sound too appealing. I am reposting it under this new title. For those that did not read the introduction on "test", this is a letter written to the GB in Brooklyn in 1992 by a then unbaptized publisher. He had carbon copied his elder body. Although his research forms conclusions not in line with the Society he was later permitted to be baptized. He only shared this info with the GB and his local brothers up till 1999. I hope you will enjoy the insight in this letter as I did. Remember this starts out after a discussion of Genesis chapter 1 so the first couple lines may seem to come out of nowhere.

frank


[G.3.1] Jehovah knew that Adam would sin
The import of this is that the fluid dynamics of the garden of Eden were declaring the fall and the time of the fall of man, from the moment that the garden was planted by Jehovah. Whilst it is true that the account was not penned until after the event and furthermore it would not have been beyond the wit of the true God to use this split of one river into four rivers to symbolize something else in the event that Adam had passed the test, the fact remains that the symbolism relating to a sin after 22.5 years is the symbolism that Jehovah has used. And this account is set at the entrance of Adam into the garden in Genesis chapter 2, rather than after the exit in Genesis chapter 4. From this we are forced to conclude that Jehovah is making it plain to us that he did know that Adam would sin and he also knew when Adam would sin. Notwithstanding that we already know that he knew everything from the moment that he said: "Let there be light" from section [1] in any event. It is even written in the prophets that Jehovah knew that Adam would sin, for Habakkuk, who is fast becoming the writer's favorite prophet, has said:
'Are you not from long ago, O Jehovah? O my God, my Holy one, you do not die. Oh Jehovah, for a judgment you set it; and, O Rock, for a reproving you have founded it' (Hab 1:12).
This scripture plainly states that Jehovah has created the earth to be judged and then corrected, this was his whole plan. Therefore he knew that Adam would sin and in fact he designed him or 'set' him to sin. So it is not a question of Jehovah 'choosing not to look', he is so clever that he would know anyway, he does not need to look it up. Now the fact that the true God knew that Adam would sin, means that God had allowed Satan to set him a task that was impossible for him at that time, namely, to desert his wife in favour of Jehovah. Let us therefore make no mistake, Adam mark 2 and Adam mark 3 and Adam mark 4 would all have sinned on the same day, had the experiment been run again, because before the entry of Satan, Jehovah was controlling every factor in the garden. So this mistake was not a weakness peculiar to Adam, it was actually a weakness in all men. This is why his name, Adam, means 'man'. In fact it is a weakness in angels too. Furthermore, man is the chosen vehicle to correct this weakness in all of creation (Psalm 8, Heb 2:6-9)! Therefore we now realize that the scripture in Genesis 2:16,17 is not just a warning, a prohibition with a penalty, it is actually a prophecy. This indeed is why it reads:
'But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it dying, you will die (literal).'
This scripture does not say: 'if you eat from it then you will die', it says: 'in the day' you eat from it or when you eat from it you will positively die. This brings us nicely back to Leviticus chapter 26 (LS[4]). This chapter was not merely a contract with a blessing and a malediction, it was actually a prophecy and a second witness to the Gentile Times being 2520 years long. Similarly Genesis 2:16,17 is a prophecy and we are all still suffering from the malediction associated with that breach of contract.
At this point one might say: this was unfair to Adam! He was going to pay the price for a sin which he could not avoid. So: 'Is there injustice with God? Never may that become so' (Rom 9:14)! For what is this price that Adam paid for his sin? He lost his life, but was it really his to lose? The scripture says:
'The wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life' (Rom 6:23).
So his everlasting life was a gift from God. So if Adam had had everlasting life, then his life would have been his, because Jehovah would have given it to him.
BUT ADAM DID NOT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE
This is a completely trivial observation which follows inescapably from the fact that he died!! One does not need to be a bible scholar to realize this, it is a matter of logic and language. People who live forever do not die, by definition. Actually what Adam had was 'life until time indefinite' or 'life until further notice (all of this is looked at in section [17.1]). Adam's life was therefore not his, because his life was conditional on obedience as measured by the tree of knowledge of good and bad, which means that it could be removed without his consent, which means that it did not belong to him. If Adam's life had been a possession of his and then God had removed it from him without his consent then God would have constituted himself a burglar!
The terms on which Adam was allowed to live were made known to him at the start by Jehovah (Gen 2:16,17), this is a proof that Adam's life was a belonging of the Most Holy. It was not Adam that was defining what the terms would be, because he did not own his own life! There is therefore no injustice in removing this life (or in suspending it temporarily), if the condition for holding on to it is broken. Life does not become one's own until God gives this gift permanently, as in the case of the brothers of Christ. This means that Adam's life actually was a belonging of Jehovah's at the time that sin was found in him. Furthermore, as regards the rest of us, Jehovah himself says:
'Your blood of your souls shall I ask back' (Gen 9:5).
This he does because it belongs to him, it is something holy, set aside for Jehovah. We, the dead, do not own our own life, this is why we do not own our own blood, which is the soul or life in our bodies (Gen 9:4). This then is the justice: Adam, for his part, paid a price with something that was not his for a sin which he could not have avoided, whereas we, for our part, are paying a price with something that is not ours for a sin that we have not all committed. Because although Paul tells us that:
'Death spread to all men because they had all sinned' (Rom 5:12).
He qualifies this by saying further that death ruled as king from Adam down to Moses:
'Even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression by Adam' (Rom 5:14).
Now if the death of Adam really had been a price that was paid by Adam himself, then why would God have imposed the extra penalty on him of:
'Cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life' (Gen 3:17).
Was death too good for him, did Jehovah have to give him pain as well? No sir! Death was not the price that Adam paid, because his life was not his to give, pain was the price he paid, as did Eve:
'I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy' (Gen 3:16).
This pain was not a retributive punishment, it was a corrective punishment. Take for example Jesus, Paul says of him, that:
'He learned obedience from the things he suffered' (Heb 5:8).
His pain and suffering was not a retribution from God resulting from any sin, because 'he committed no sin, nor was deception found in his mouth' (1Peter 2:22). No, his suffering was beneficial, it was in order for him to 'learn obedience'. Now if a sinless man has to suffer pain in order to learn obedience, how much more so will a sinful man have to suffer. This suffering is corrective, and believe it or not, Jehovah was doing Adam a favour when he threw him out of Eden and gave him pain and suffering! Everything Jehovah does is for the benefit of his creations. And Adam, having learned and benefited from his sufferings will return into a far better place than the Garden of Eden, because whereas the last man Jesus, was the last who was first, the first man Adam, is the first who will be last resurrected (1 Cor 15:45, Mark 10:31, LS[105]). Therefore, although men are created as sinners, they are also created with the ability to learn from their mistakes and to overcome this sin through their faith in Jesus, the one who proved categorically that man, given enough tuition, can learn to rely on Jehovah completely, and so is able to resist all sin.
The view held by some that all of the last six thousand years of pain is the fault of Adam is wrong. For a start the true God was the one who decreed the 6,000 years of pain and suffering not Adam. Secondly Adam, for his part, did not know that his sin would lead to pain and suffering, all he knew was that he would die if he sinned (Gen 2:16,17). So, whilst it is true that 'through one man sin entered into the world' (Rom 5:12), this was not the personal fault of Adam himself, it was a result of the way that man is designed. Neither was it a fault in the design of man, rather it is a deliberate design feature of man that he should sin:
That man would sin was the will of God!
Spelling this out:
[1] For any given sin it is God's expressed will and command that a man should not commit it.
[2] It is also God's will that his creation of man will initially be unable to keep all of his commandments all of the time and that he will therefore sin.
These two statements are not contradictory, although they look it at first sight! Because, it is God's will that men should be allowed to do things that are against his expressed will in the short term. In other words Jehovah does allow his commands to be broken, which means that:
When a man sins he is doing something which is against God's expressed will, but God is willing to let him do it!
We are not saying that: it is God's will that man should not do his will, because this statement is a true paradox (the writer thinks). Rather, we are saying:
It is God's will that man should many times break his expressed will!
And in the case of Adam things are more acute, because God was not only allowing his one command to be broken he actually wanted this command to be broken, because having had control of all features of the garden of Eden previous to Adam's sin, he could certainly have prepared Adam in such a way that he would have passed the test had he so desired. But he did not do this because it was not his will to do this. Because it was God's will that Adam be tested beyond his capabilities, just as it is his will that all men are similarly tested, because they all sin. And now we have to outspokenly say that:
ADAM'S SIN WAS GOD'S WILL
But it was nevertheless a sin because although it was his will it was not his expressed will. Before you all condemn the writer for heresy and apostasy please consider the following illustration:
Suppose a father wants to teach his second-born son, his child whom he loves, to always listen to him, because his firstborn son has stopped listening to him and is now suspected of being a jealous homicidal maniac. Suppose too that he would like to put his firstborn to the test to expose just how bad this maniacal son really is. He might tell the second-born son to do whatever he liked but not to run across the road under any circumstances. This child would not be told why he shouldn't cross the road or that there exist such things as homicidal maniacs, because the father is not only trying to teach him not to cross the road, he is actually trying to teach him to obey his father always. Then he might arrange for a very large and frightening and lethal looking but in fact very lightweight and fairly harmless car to be given to the maniac. He would not let the maniac know that the car was in fact fairly harmless or lightweight, and neither would he tell the child. He would also give the maniac a large gorgeous-looking ice-cream, which both the father and the maniac would know the second-born child would be unable to resist.
The maniac would then arrange for this ice-cream to suddenly come into view on the other side of the road. The child would then run across the road, being unable to resist the ice-cream, which represents the maximum temptation possible for him, and get run over by the maniac in a fit of homicidal jealousy in the very frightening but very light car. The child would become covered with bruises but would not be killed. The maniac would then be exposed as the murderer that the father suspected he was. And the child, having survived this terrifying experience, would learn once and for all to listen to his father, even when he doesn't fully understand the reasons behind his commands!
Well, this is the account of the Garden of Eden with the symbolism below:
Father God
Adam Second-born child
Eve Gorgeous Ice-cream
Satan Maniac
Car Death
Road Tree of knowledge of good and bad
Now in this example it was the Father's expressed will that his son should not cross the road, and furthermore the whole example is designed to teach the son not to cross the road, and to obey his father's expressed will. But in this case it was most certainly the father's will that the son should actually cross the road and get knocked down and therefore learn never to disobey his father again - because this is why he set the whole thing up in the first place! Paul has cryptically spoken about this situation when he said:
'You will therefore say to me: "Why does he yet find fault? For who has withstood his express will? Oh man, who then really are you, to be answering back to God? Shall the thing molded say to him that molded it: 'Why did you make me this way?'"' (Romans 9:19).
Yes indeed, Adam has withstood his express will and I am Bezalel, and today we are asking our molder this very question, in fact we have been asking it for the last few paragraphs. This prophecy is therefore now fulfilled! God made us this way so that we could learn the exceeding love that he has for us, by living in its absence and then finding it! So that we could learn the excelling wisdom of God, by relying on our own and falling down disastrously and then being picked up by God himself, out of his undeserved kindness. He is today still using this technique even on his own beloved nation of whom it was written in advance:
'For God has shut them all up together in disobedience, that he might show all of them mercy' (Rom 11:32).
And it is here suggested that his dealings with Adam were no different. So the resolution of the apparent paradox above, lies in the difference between the expressed will of God, and the will of God. For God expressed to Adam that he should not eat from the tree, but it was actually his will that he should eat from the tree. In other words although Jehovah told Adam not to eat from the tree, he actually wanted him to eat from the tree, because it would be a lesson for him that would save his spiritual life. This does not make God to be a liar, he did not tell Adam whether or not he wanted him to eat from the tree, he just said:
'You must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die' (Gen 2:17).
A command that he knew Adam would disobey, and a command that he wanted him to disobey in order that he might put on some clothes of experience, to protect himself from further disobedience. This does not mean that Adam did not sin, he most certainly did sin because he disobeyed God, and he 'withstood his express will' so he committed a sin incurring his physical death, which was the prescribed penalty of which he was well aware, and we all have this penalty hanging over our heads. But he did not actually withstand God's will, which was in his case that he should sin, because no man can withstand God's will, but men can withstand his expressed will - the writer thinks.
What the actual will of God is for other men and their sins in each case, the writer does not know, this sort of thing lies at the heart of the way that Jehovah teaches us. He many times allows us to be tested too far, because we many times sin. But this is in some way beneficial, and once one has got the measure of one's shortcomings, then one can start to do something about them. This is why the law came first and the Christ came second, to resolve the failings that the law exposed. Similarly the tree of Knowledge of good and bad was eaten from first and the tree of life second. In conclusion of the arguments that Jehovah knew that Adam would sin, the writer would like to quote a scripture that will become very famous among all the servants of God:
'That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and stick to his wife and they must become one flesh' (Gen 2:24).
This scripture is a prophecy. It applies to Adam, who said in the previous verse:
'This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one will be called woman, because out of man this one was taken' (Gen 2:23).
The prophecy is saying that Adam will leave his father who is Jehovah and his mother who is Jehovah's wife, the woman of Gen 3:15, and he will stick to his wife who was Eve, and they must become one flesh. This is saying that Adam will choose Eve over Jehovah, and that he will leave Jehovah in favour of Eve. This is the sin which he committed on Nisan 14, 3993 BCE.
A further implication of the above is that Adam and Eve did not 'become one flesh' before Nisan 14, 3993. Because they did not 'become one flesh' until after Adam had left his (heavenly) father and his mother on that day. This is actually a parallel to the covenant that Jesus, the last Adam, established on Nisan 14, 33 CE. This is why it was only after the sin that we read:
'After this Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she had to become the mother of everyone living' (Gen 3:20).
She was not able to procreate before this time, in fact it was only when both Adam and Eve entered into the 'long garments of skin' that Jehovah made for them (Gen 3:21), these being their 1,000 year long lasting fleshly bodies, that they were able to reproduce. This reproduction by the fleshly woman being a type for the reproduction by the heavenly woman whom she prefigures. The heavenly woman gives birth on the third day after Nisan 14, 1918 which is the ante type of Nisan 14, 33 CE, which is the ante type of Nisan 14, 3993 CE.
Had Adam and Eve passed the test of the tree that they faced on Nisan 14, 3993 CE, an eventuality which was never going to occur, then they would not have been able to procreate at all because they would have been declared righteous, having everlasting life. Such life would have therefore been a possession of their children, since like begets like, and this would contradict divine principle, since the kids would not have passed any test but would have had immortal life from the minute they were born. This would have left Jehovah with just two humans.
From this it is apparent that Adam and his wife were not able to conceive before they sinned, although they were certainly man and wife before this because we read in Genesis 2: 25:
'And both of them continued to be naked, the man and his wife, and yet they did not become ashamed.'
The 64 million dollar question to all fleshly men is therefore: did Adam and eve have intercourse before they sinned? One can certainly reason that they did not because they were not ashamed of their nakedness, like a naked young child, but then why does the scripture say:
'And they began to realize that they were naked. Hence they sowed fig leaves together and made loin covering for themselves' (Gen 3:7)?
Because if they became ashamed after they ate from the tree, then they must have become ashamed of what they had been doing in the past, because the contrast has explicitly been drawn by the holy spirit with their lack of shame at their nakedness before they sinned, and their 'nakedness', which is the cause of their being ashamed, pre-existed their sin. So, whatever it was that they were ashamed about, they had been doing without shame before they sinned. We therefore deduce that they had intercourse before they sinned and for them, being naked and having intercourse, became a thing to be ashamed about, whereas before it was not. This is entirely consistent and indeed prophetic of their judicial situation. Had Adam and Eve had children before they sinned, which would actually have been judicially possible, since although they had spiritual life, they did not own it, then they would have had nothing to be ashamed of since their kids would not have been born in sin. But after their sin, they did have something to be ashamed of since their kids were born in sin, and that is why under law a sin offering was required.
So we can now at last recognize that our embarrassment at our naked bodies is a physicalisation by Jehovah of the judicial condition of the offspring which they produce in this system. In the next system however, this embarrassment will vanish because our children, and those who are resurrected or walk through unrighteous will have them, will not be born in sin. However those who are resurrected righteous, or those who walk through righteous, will not be able to conceive and hence will not marry, so for them the 64 million dollar question is: What will the righteous men and women do with each other?
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Well the writer does not know right now and neither can he rely on his current desires being satisfied because they are sinful. However we have found that there is no shame to be attached to nakedness and intercourse in the new system, and therefore it would seem that to desire such things would not be unrighteous, and since we know that the true God is opening his 'hand and satisfying the desire of every living thing' (Psalm 145:16), the writer would propose that the thing that they will do to each other will not be dramatically different from what man and wife are doing to each other in this system, although they will not be doing it as man and wife. The writer is not proposing fornication, he is presuming that the true God will announce some new licensing deal, other than marriage, for this act among those who he has declared righteous. The writer would suggest that the righteous will be forbidden from having intercourse with the unrighteous and vice-versa, this would be consistent with reproducing according to kind. In fact there will have to be two covenants, one for the righteous and one for the unrighteous, and these could be prefigured by Lot's daughters, both of whom had intercourse after they left Sodom, albeit in a rather despicable but no doubt very prophetic way.
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So if it was God that threw man out of Eden then this action was not just for the benefit of Adam, it was also for the benefit of all his descendants, like righteous Seth, because all the things that God does are for our benefit. Seth, at the time of his son Enosh's birth had begun to 'learn obedience from the things he suffered' (Heb 5:8, Gen 4:26, LS[105]). Now, having realized that we are not much good, a fact that the bible makes very very clear, we have to start working hard to learn submission and loyalty and love and obedience, this is why the scripture says:
'In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground' (Gen 3:19).
This was not because Jehovah was trying to make life difficult for Adam. It was not because the true God wanted him to get a lot of physical exercise so that he would physically sweat. No, it was because Jehovah knew that man needs to work very hard spiritually, and to carry out a large amount of spiritual exercise in order to become acceptable to him, and so eat bread from his table, like Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. As Peter has said:
'Yes, for this very reason, by your contributing in response all earnest effort, supply to your faith virtue' (2 Peter 1:5).
He says again:
'If the righteous man is being saved with difficulty, where will the ungodly man and the sinner make a showing' (1 Peter 4:18).
One has to sweat, spiritually, to be saved. Jehovah is using the physical to picture the spiritual. For instance, how difficult is it to grow thorns and thistles, the fruits of the darkness, in your garden? No problem, the writer's garden is full of them. But as for growing food to eat, or as for producing fruits of the light, well this is not so easy, it takes hard work.
As regards Eve, the physical pain that a woman experiences when giving birth, is there to represent the spiritual pain of the woman of Rev 12:1,2:
'And she was pregnant, and she cries out in her pains and in her agony to give birth'.
Jehovah's loyal angels, the administration of the light, also had to work very hard, and suffer pains and agony in order to conceive and give birth to the body of the Christ, the 144,000 who have been declared righteous. This job would have been far easier if Adam and Eve had not sinned, hence Eve's pain was increased after her fall. However this easier option was never going to be the case, Adam's sin was always going to happen. Finally consider please the writing of Paul in Romans 5:12:
'That is why, just as through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they all had sinned.'
We have already seen that we had not all sinned after the likeness of Adam (Rom 5:14). Therefore how is it that 'they had all sinned', even before any of them were born? Well it is because Adam's sin was not his sin, no, it was our sin! His sin was, as we have discussed, not a personal sin of his, but a global demonstration of mankind's sinful heart. Hence he sinned once on behalf of us all. Now mankind has a tendency to blame someone else for their faults. This is what all of Jehovah's people have been doing to Adam for the last hundred years. Whereas in truth, by condemning Adam to death we are actually condemning ourselves according to the manner of the Pharisees. Because, it was not only his fault that he sinned it was also our fault. In fact if Jehovah could not engineer a salvation for Adam, how could he engineer one for us, all of whom are made in his image (1 Cor 15:48)? We are just like the Pharisees who said:
"If we were in the days of our forefathers, we would not be sharers with them in the blood of the prophets" (Mat 23:30).
Jesus' response was to call them hypocrites, because they are actually bearing a witness against themselves, namely that they are the sons of those who murdered the prophets. And truly we, the new hypocrites, have learned nothing from this at all. For we, with equal hypocrisy, are condemning our father Adam, for sinning a sin that he was designed to commit, with the big rafter sticking out of our eye, which says: "You are his sons, his sentence is your sentence"! In fact by doing this we may well be sinning in a manner worse than he did. Let us therefore not condemn one whom Jehovah has saved, the one of dust in whose image we are made, because there are some of us who will not fare as well as he did in the end. In fact this is why angel Michael says in Revelation 1:17,18:
'I am the first and the last and the living one'
Whereas Adam, is the last and the first and the dead one. Because there would be no need to qualify this statement with the words 'the living one' if there wasn't somebody else who was also first and last but was not living. This one was the first Adam, he will be last resurrected and he is currently dead, whereas Jesus who was the last Adam, was first resurrected and is currently and has been since times indefinite and will be forever living. So:
Just as Jesus was the exact representation of Jehovah's very being, so Adam was the exact representation of our very being (Heb 1:3)!
It is as Paul said:
'As the one made of dust is, so the ones made of dust are also; and as the heavenly one is, so those who are heavenly are also' (1 Cor 15:48).
If, therefore, there was a flaw in an exact representation of ourselves, then there is a flaw in us too. Furthermore, this flaw will be an exact representation of the flaw found in Adam, namely: We all want to be our own God. This is what Satan offered to Eve (Gen 3:5). In fact Jehovah, who can change men's language from one common and universal vocabulary into hundreds of differing ones in one instant, is not regarded by most as being any better at managing their affairs than they are themselves. Notwithstanding the fact that we take several years to learn even one of these languages, the plurality of which Jehovah created simultaneously in less than a microsecond! Truly this is conceit.
[G.3.2] The law and the tree
This bears an exact parallel with the law of Moses. Consider please the following features of the law:
'It was added to make transgressions manifest' (Gal 3:19).
'By law is the accurate knowledge of sin' (Rom 3:20)
'All those who depend on works of law are under a curse; for it is written: "Cursed is every one that does not continue in all the things written in the scroll of the law in order to do them"' (Rom 5:10)
'The Law has become our tutor leading to Christ' (Gal 3:24).
'The scripture delivered up all things to the custody of sin... we were being guarded under law, being delivered up together into custody' (Gal 3:22,23).
'The wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life' (Rom 6:23).
'If a law had been given that was able to give life, then righteousness would actually have been by means of law' (Gal 3:21).
'All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God' (Rom 3:23)
So whereas the tree of knowledge of good and bad made manifest the sin that was in Adam, the law made manifest the sin that was in all men (Gal 3:19). For Adam, having eaten, gained a knowledge of good and bad, and so gained an accurate knowledge of sin, realising that he was spiritually naked, having no protection against sin, and so began to understand the sin that was intrinsic in him. Whereas the law gave all men an accurate knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20), and exposed their inability to desist from it. Whereas Adam, having eaten, was put under a curse (Gen 3:17), the law put all men under a curse. Whereas Adam was never going to be able to avoid taking the fruit, no man was ever declared righteous by law because all sinned and fell short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).
Whereas the tree of knowledge of good and bad could never give life, because there was a separate tree for this purpose, neither could the law, Jehovah made a separate provision for this purpose, namely the death of his firstborn son, the twig out of the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1). This is the one who has now become the tree of life! Life results from righteousness and death results from sin, but no-one was declared righteous by law, and so the law condemned all men to death even as the tree condemned Adam in the same way. The curse that Adam was put under, and the pain that he suffered, was teaching him to develop a resistance to sin and showing him that he needed a saviour. This was indeed recognized by Seth at the time of the birth of his son Enosh whose name means 'Mortal man', 'incurable', 'destined to die' (Gen 4:26, LS[105]). Adam was about 235 years old at this time. Similarly the law was a tutor leading to Christ (Gal 3:24). The isomorphism is:
EDEN ISRAEL
Adam Jews
Tree of knowledge Law
Tree of life Jesus
So in conclusion we now know that if Jehovah foresaw that millions of sinful man could not live up to the 600 laws of Moses (Lev 26:41), he most certainly also foresaw that one sinful man Adam would not be able to live up to the one law of Eden.
[G.3.3] How old was Eve when she sinned?
Then the man said:
"This is at last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This one will be called Woman, because from man this one was taken" (Gen 2:23).
The word 'one' is appearing twice in close succession. This indicates a calculation (compare John 8:1-11 LS[91A], Rev 17:12,13 LS[53]). The calculation works as follows:
Bone of my bones 2 times
Flesh of my flesh 1 time
From man this one was taken .5 times (1 splits into 2)
_________
3.5 times
This one actually has the famous form: 'A time, times and half a time' (Rev 12:14), although in this case it is actually: A flesh, bones and half a man! Paul has spoken on this subject also, he says:
'"For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and he will stick to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This sacred secret is great. Now I am speaking with respect to Christ and the congregation' (Ephesians 5:31,32).
Truly the most holy one is amazing. Paul, for his part, knew nothing of the greater meaning of what he was talking about here, because this was a sealed up thing, although this scripture does look like he did actually know, but that would be impossible because knowing the correspondence between Adam and Jesus gives you the date of Armageddon, mind you Paul did write this after Jesus said what he did at Matthew 24:36! He has just explicitly stated that Gen 2:24, is a sacred secret and that it is a parallel of Jesus and his congregation, the greater Adam and the greater Eve. Peter, the last Eve, was born again in Nisan 33 CE (John 20:22). Yes indeed, this sacred secret is truly great!
In fact this very scripture is a second witness to this period of 3.5 times:
'That is why a man will leave his father and his mother and he must stick to his wife, and they must become one flesh' (Gen 2:24).
The calculation here is:
Man 1 time
Father 1 time
Mother 1 time
Two become one .5 times
________
3.5 times
Adam said: 'this is at last bone of my bones'. This means that Eve lived for the last 3.5 years of Adam's life before he sinned. In other words if we take 'this one' i.e. 3.5 times 'from man' in particular from his age at his sin, then we get her birth. So we can now say that:
EVE WAS BORN IN TISHRI 3997
Poor old Eve was only three and a half when she sinned!! Mind you she was born a fully grown perfect woman. Satan must have thought that she was a sitting duck. We now arrive at a very interesting scripture:
'And both of them continued to be naked, the man and his wife, and yet they did not become ashamed' (verse 25).
The physical pictures the spiritual. Both Adam and Eve were spiritually naked, they had no knowledge of sin, they had no resistance to it, because they had never been exposed to it. They had no protection from any past experience of seeing sin. They got all of this when they ate from the tree. Then they were spiritually exposed, they realized that they were sinful and vulnerable. Then they were ashamed. When men and women are naked in public they feel ashamed. This physical feeling of shame before the eyes of men is symbolizing their sinful condition before the eyes of the one from whom nothing can be hidden. Therefore we must follow the exhortation of Paul, who says:
'Clothe yourselves with the new personality, which through accurate knowledge is being made new according to the image of the one who created it' (Col 3:10).

 

Hi Frank,
Thanks for posting this interesting piece of writing attempting a look behind the scenes, as it were, of the theatrical spectacle we all got plunged into without being consulted, and without even being given a program of what this ‘game’ is all about.

I agree with the observation that God knew Adam would sin and show more loyalty to his subordinate than the One he owed his very existence to – and with whom he conversed regularly and intimately in the’ breezy part of the day’ –

But I am not too sure about the validity of the other conclusions being drawn here, especially the redeemability of Adam,
who’s sin according to Paul, was clearly of a likeness warranting severer punishment than the ‘first’ death meted out to those inheriting merely the physical consequences of alienation, futility and death ordained by God,

for what in Adam’s case would have been a deliberate transgression of a specific command, while in possession of moral and spiritual perfection, the same as Satan possessed before his sin against the Holy Spirit.

Clearly, the’ likeness of the transgression by Adam’ provides the very contrast between the first and second death, from which redemption is eternally impossible -and there are only these two types of death.

Rather, the way God condemned all humans to futility provides a good way for individuals to express their free will to choose God as their Father and God, instead of this coming about as a natural consequence of Him being the Maker and us a product, which has no say in the matter and type of being, or, whether even ever wanting to be – having Him as Father just by default, as it were.

This seems to be very important to Him – not the having people worship Him as such, but that we do so for the right reasons.
God wants our dependence on Him to be a deliberate choice and exercise of our own sovereign will.

Another aspect – actual the most important one in the outworking of God’s purpose by means of the’ last Adam’ – is the issue of God’s righteousness, and this is not clearly shown in the explanation presented in the treatise you have quoted.

The unfairness requiring undoing and restitution from is not that done to Adam, but that to his offspring, who inherited the consequences of a sin, the ‘likeness’ of which they never committed.

For God to punish you for sins you commit while being subjected to the condition of involuntary imperfection is unrighteous, and calls for His life in return for yours, just as it is also written: ‘an eye for an eye thou shalt demand.’

God, by nature, cannot die. Hence Christ is both our and God’s righteousness.

That there is a rather greater than 50/50 chance for creatures made in God’s image to turn against Him despite hindsight and experience, as afforded by an intimate acquaintance with the knowledge good and evil,

can readily be seen by the end of Millennium falling away of the masses to once again follow Satan, the opposer of righteousness.

The final percentage of those not willingly sinning after the’ likeness of the transgression by Adam’ may ultimately be very small indeed – but then again, God never really cared much for quantity and numbers, as against quality of heart.

Many are the friends of a rich and influential person, but when the chips are down, you find out who among them is true and real.

And God is no fool. In the end He will destroy all those worshipping Him for the wrong reasons along with those rejecting the real life as offered in Christ Jesus.

So God’s foreknowledge did not in any way diminish the reality of Adam’s choice, nor could the test be construed to have been conducted in bad faith, since God also provided the tree of life as a reward in anticipation of Adam’s obedience.

Adam clearly lacked faith in God to provide a remedy for the predicament his wife got him into, and so selfishly chose to trade in his eternal future of association with his Maker for a few more years with a woman who treated his headship with contempt.

More could be said, but internet availability is rather sporadic and short for me at the moment, so this will have to do for now.

 

i have to beleive that jehovah knew that adam would sin because he is god. now why is the big qustion. why would god allow the whole mess? my onley guess is jehovah chose to create this scenerio for the greater good of all life in order that all might wittness how that evan one sin would destroy a whole race and planet. i also beleive that in the end jehovah will make it so that no one suffers. how we shall trust and wait.

 

Hi Diagnol:

I think the letter stands on it's own merit. If you don't agree with every point it makes, that is your perogative.

frank

 

Yeah, that’s right, what I think doesn’t matter at all.

I was merely pointing out some details in which these ideas contradict the Word of God, which may be of concern to those choosing to be guided by it.

But each to their own, I guess.

 

Hi Diagonol:

Perhaps there is something that I missed in my comment to you. Where did I say that your opinion is not important? That it does not matter? I said that to have issue with the letter is your perogative, which I apparently misspelled and is rightly prerogative with the definition below

pre·rog·a·tive
/priˈrägətiv/
Noun

A right or privilege exclusive to a particular individual or class.

So, you have every right or privilege to that opinion, and anyone reading it has the prerogative to agree with you, either silently or in writing to the DB. I just don't choose to argue or debate the point with you at this time. Like I said originally, I think the article stands on it's own. If I thought that it contradicted God's Word I would not have posted it, or I would have pointed out where I thought it did so.
You and everyone else can believe whatever you wish, our Loving God gives us that gift. Does your salvation or mine hinge on believing that God knew that Adam would sin? I don't believe so. I totally believe that Jehovah God knew that Adam would sin well before he did and that Jehovah had his plan for Adam's and all his offsprings' redemption well before Adam sinned, that was the whole point. You obviously do not share my faith in this regard, that's OK, you don't have to because I am not responsible for your faith nor you mine.

frank

 

Frank,

you say that God "had his plan for Adam's and all his offsprings' redemption well before Adam sinned."

Do you mean to say that you believe that Adam and all his offspring will in the end be saved - because that is what this statement sounds like - or am I drawing a wrong conclusion here?

By the way, I had no problem discerning that you might be in agreement with the article, and that is fine with me; I just pointed out some areas where it is in conflict with the Word of God, which you have decided not to discuss, and that also is fine with me.

I just love people making statements about the Word of God without wanting to discuss them. That is so JW.

 

Hi Diagonal:

I do believe that Jehovah will "in the end" save everyone, for that is how I understand the Love of God and the Salvation of God. Jesus name in the Hebrew means "Jehovah is Salvation" and the Apostle John informs us that "God is Love". Now if he "is" Salvation and he "is" Love then Love equals Salvation, it is an easy mathematical axiom. Peter tells us that it is the will of Jehovah that everyone repents and is saved and we know that "everything that is his delight he shall do". Since it is God's will that all repent and are saved then that is what will happen. It only took some very little evidence for some Christians to have the kind of Faith that preserves one alive, perhaps you are one like that. Others will take more disciplining in righteousness, perhaps even a thousand years of such, but in the end, I believe that all will be saved. Jesus is known by at least JW's if not just about every Christian Faith to be the "Great Teacher", but with all due respect, he is only a reflection of the Father. If he is the Great Teacher, he learned how to be so from his Father. Now this is a "discussion" that is so pitched that no agreement will ever come of it, so I am not inclined to "discuss" it. Not because I don't think I have a good case, it's just an argument or discussion that will never conclude. I don't know if "that is so JW", but I am not one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Since Love never fails, and Love equals Salvation, then salvation will never fail. You cannot honestly dispute that! But I know you and others will try as I also know that I am in a distinct minority when it comes to my understanding of Salvation. If you are a Father, which one of your children would you give up on, no matter how long it took if time were of no consequence? Could you give up on even one? I couldn't. I doubt very much if Jehovah, or for that matter will Jesus either.

frank

 

Thanks, Frank, for clarifying your position on this point, and I sympathise with your wish that all people may repent and come to salvation.

I vary slightly though in my opinion as to whether the only aim of a discussion ought to be the reaching of agreement of the parties involved, because I think an honest airing of opinions and the reasons for them being held, does a lot of good for all participants, and ultimately gives the truth a chance to be discerned by those so inclined.

However, I am rather busy at the moment and need some time to think about your position in order to square it with what I have learned and accepted so far, so I hope to come back to this interesting topic some time soon.

 

I can't take a stand on this one way or the other, since we all now the scriptures, and can twist them any which way we want.

But I would say this: the Jews were convinced that Jehovah wanted them to stone adulterers. But Jesus shamed them for 'casting the first stone'.

Side with love and forgiveness, as that is the core of what Jehovah wants us to learn. There are consequences to sin, God will not be mocked, but we should let him determine what is just; and for us, side with forgiveness, and not judge.

In that line of thinking, I would suggest that we're all going to be ashamed someday for the conclusions we've come to about the limits of Jehovah's ability to forgive.

Manasseh .. enough said!

Those who continue to oppose the righteous world Jehovah is determined to create will need to be 'cut off'. But when and how that happens is up in the air. (knowing full well what the scriptures say about the 1000 year reign..., but 'like a child' I'll keep my mind on love, and not judgement)

Maybe Hitler will be our brother someday, as shocking as that sounds

 

Hi SingleCell:

A good friend of mine from Austria wrote a very interesting article on Gehenna and in it he discusses Mercy and Love in the regard that we are discussing here. I thought you might like it. Perhaps others will too. Here is an excerpt from that article, I will try to re-format it. I cut and pasted it, but that never works out well here or on the old DB. Remember too that this writer is Austrian. He speaks and writes English well, but occasionally the sytax or choice of words is not as precise as it could be. With that in mind, it is a very good take on Mercy and Love.

What does the Bible tell us about God’s love and his mercy?

(Matthew 5:44) However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you;

So Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies and to love them, unconditional of what they are doing in general or are doing to us specifically. Is it reasonable to conclude that this principle uttered by “the word of Godâ€, Jesus Christ, is only applicable to humans? Well, let us read the next verse how Jehovah thinks about it:

(Matthew 5:45) that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens […]

So in truth by acting like we are commanded in verse 44 we perfectly imitate the love and the MO of our heavenly Father. Loving unconditionally makes us into real sons of our God!

(Matthew 5:46) 46 For if YOU love those loving YOU, what reward do YOU have? Are not also the tax collectors doing the same thing?

Yes, that is true. We must also love those who hate us. And what happens if we do so?

(Matthew 5:48) 48 YOU must accordingly be perfect, as YOUR heavenly Father is perfect.

We become perfect imitators of God who loves his enemies that hate him.

And quantity is not a matter for God. There is no difference if you hate him 10 points or 10,000,000,000 points. He IS love, period…
(1 John 4:8) 8 He that does not love (unconditionally as we see from Matthew 5 above) has not come to know God, because God is love. . .

The verb translated “come to know†is “ginosko†which signifies a very deep knowledge and intimate knowledge. This love is the divine essence of Jehovah.

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8) 4 Love is long-suffering and kind. Love is not jealous, it does not brag, does not get puffed up, 5 does not behave indecently, does not look for its own interests, does not become provoked. It does not keep account of the injury. 6 It does not rejoice over unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails […]

The same love that defines God according to 1. John (“agapeâ€) has all those qualities. Let us emphasize verse 7 and 8a:
(1 Corinthians 13:6-8) . . .. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. . .

The verb translated “bears†is “stego†and most importantly means “to cover†or “to preserveâ€. The verb translated “endures†is “hupomeno†which can also mean to remain, to preserve. So plainly, the divine love endures all and never fails (“ekpipto†= falls powerless).

I hope this helps to flesh out why I believe that Jehovah God will save everyone eventually. Some by acquiring faith and love now in this system and others who are more resistant to discipline through the refining "fires" of Gehennna. Those fires are symbolic by the way and don't mean eternally dead. That will make for another good discussion.

Frank

 

Hi Diagonal:

I guess i used the wrong words when I said I will not discuss these points. If discussion is what you want, that is what I will give. But know up front that if it turns from a "discussion" to an arguing of viewpoints, I will not continue. I am not in any way, shape or form Jesus, so don't take this the wrong way but Jesus rarely even discussed his teachings in public and I usually like to follow that same format and example. He never argued! He did not have to, he was the Word of God. All the same, even though I am not him, I like to follow that example, but I am willing to do my best to teach what I understand from God's Word. All too often I have seen this just go round and round in circles like snakes eating our own tales over and over again. With those as the ground rules, discuss on.

frank

 

Thanks for the thoughts Frank!

You may be right ... I think the only option we have is to determine to be child-like and accept whatever Jehovah has determined, whatever that means.

On one hand the case you've cited can be used to promote lawlessness, and on the other hand the opposite can be used to promote judgment.

E.G. bow to Jehovah and come what he wills.

 

Hi SingleCell:

I don't think lawlessness needs any additional publicity agents, it is doing just fine on it's own. As for how the love of God would promote lawlessness, I am not sure what you mean. Perhaps you mean that people will not fear doing wrong as they will be saved anyway, is that it? I don't think it will be quite that easy. The lawless will definatly be punished but with the aim of repentance as it's goal, not simply to punish them for what they have done wrong. You know of many scriptures that talk of God's discipline for those that ignore his love and mercy. This will be a long hard road for the ones who walk down it. It is so much wiser to accept God's free gift and live to enjoy what Jehovah and Jesus have in store for those that love them. Jehovah disciplines those that he loves and since he loves those that love him and those that hate him currently, that means he will discipline us all to the degree necessary to benefit from his Love.

frank

 

I have read here and their diferant veiwpoints on this.and I sure want to hear the real truth and its a simple qustion jesus died for our sins but what about adam and eves sin? after they suffer death as decreed by god,could they receive a resurection because of jesus .or does jesus sacrifice apply to everyone except adam and eve?