If Adam did not sin, would humans have lived forever on earth?

by jwfacts 41 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  JosephMalik

  the Adam/Eve story doesn't say they would live forever

  Maybe its just that; a story.

  To both,

  Well story or not it does say they would live forever. It was for this reason they they were cast out.

  Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

  Joseph
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  jwfacts

  A primevalstory (a story on origins) can follow an infinity of narrative lines but what can never change is its end. It has to end up with reality (as perceived by the storyteller and his hearers/readers).

  Very wise, the Genesis account is an attempt to explains things as they are. It cannot be used to deduce what may have eventuated instead. There have been a number of alternatives presented in this thread that highlight the point. Was sin predestined, foreknown or free will. Each of these scenarios can lead to different alternatives to the answer. We then encounter the question whether there be a physically new earth or is it symbolic.

  As a JW, as with religion in general, there is the need for The black-and-white Answer, The Truth. This does not exist in any book as we know it. If it did, the Bible could be just a few pages long.

  1. Adam was going to live forever on earth. He sinned, I took a 7000 year rest, after which I will sort things out, with humans again living forever on earth again.
  2. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One.
  3. Love God and Love your neighbour - that means no stealing, adultery or war.
  4. ...

  If God intended humans to be able to ascertain the answers, and wished for humans to be able to find a reasonable level of peace, he could have made it that simple.
• 

  OBVES

  The future order in the resurrection helps us understand what was lost when Adam and Eve sinned .We must bear in mind that what was lost had to be restored .

  Adam now is represented by Christ and Eve by Christ's church of the first born : 144000 menservants.

  Christ and 144000 will have the spiritual body which was misinterpreted throughout the ages . The spiritual body is a physical body made in God's way ; as God had established according to His Spirit.

  The heaven now is not a place but a spiritual condition ( a state ).

  Christ entered the heaven which means he got the most perfect physical body sinless and ageless for ever.The same applies to his 144000 men - the greatest christian servants.

  All will be ruling on this earth ! Literally as people understand it nobody will go to heaven. As heaven is now the best spiritual state reserved for the best servants of Yahweh as given above.

  God Yahweh promised after the Flood he would never destroy the earth again.2 Peter 3.5-7 is commonly misunderstood . Read carefully what heavens were destroyed in Flood ! Why heavens if the water flooded the earth only ? And what new heavens are in place ? It cannot be literal heavens ! So the fire that will destroy the new heavens doesn't have to be a literal fire as well .Even if it is a literal fire it will destroy bad people; it will be destruction of the evil heavens ,not physical heavens .

  Now , we have the whole Israel consisting of many nations and it has many saved Christians :

  These other saved Christians : christian men and christian women will have the same spiritual bodies as Christ and his 144000 but they will be subject to further obedience to God and His government : Christ-"God" + 144000 "gods"-men ( like prime minister and his ministers ).

  They will have perfect not aging bodies , yet they will live eternally as long as they will keep obedience.They will be like workers working in for ministers . So,they will rule also over the nations of the world.

  The whole Israel = Christ + 144000 + remaining saved Christians .

  They will rule over the pagan nations who will consist of people who lived in false religions and were deemed good by God to have a chance to be saved in the future.

  They will have physical less-perfect bodies that will age and will need renewal from time to time to go on with living in the Paradise .

  Christ ( second Adam ) + 144000 men ( second Eve ) and their children who are all other saved Christians = the whole Israel .

  Adam and Eve were the progenitors of the future Israel.The whole Israel would be like Adam and Eve and their children if Adam and Eve had not sinned.

  Adam was the first man of possible many human beings who were created seperately in other parts of the earth and God attributed to all of them the same characteristics of Adam and Eve after they both sinned.This way sin went to all men down.That is another scenario if it it really true that other human beings were existing besides Adam and Eve which is possible.

  That is why all saved pagans need to believe in Christ and yet they are outside of the family of Christ and his bride (144000 men) and their children.

  In view of that the pagan people as an offspring of those other first human beings -apart from Adam and Eve- would have been living the same lives as those pagans who will be living in the Paradise with physical bodies that would have required renewals from time to time to continue their existence .

  The best way is to assume there were many human beings apart from Adam and Eve that were created by God Yahweh at the very beginning but they were created after Adam and Eve were created.

  Why ? Because if Adam and Eve were the only first humans and all people originated from them there would not have been the third class of saved people as I had explained. All children of Adam and Eve would have the same perfect bodies as Adam and Eve with the exclusion of the obedience principle ; they would be subject to second death (final death ) if disobedient. Adam and Eve would never sin !

  And now Christ and his 144000 took that what was lost by Adam and Eve.They will never sin in the whole eternity, being as "God" and "gods".
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  White Dove

  JW's would say that Jehovah chose not to know certain things. Why did he have to send angels to Soddom and Gamorah to see if the rumors of badness were true??? Why could he not forsee the fall of Adam and Eve??? Makes no sense whatsoever.
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  White Dove

  The meek shall inherit the earth. In that same scripture, it says that they will also inherit the heavens and a bunch of other stuff. There is no separate designation for some and for others.
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  White Dove

  I think the psalmists, Job, and John were on LSD when they were writing their books. Revelation is WILD! No getting around it, Revelation was definately a halucination while the psalmists were probably smoking weed and getting all enlightened.
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  Sasha

  YES
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  onacruse

  As an aside, consider the consequences of unimpeded human population growth if Adam and Eve had not sinned.

  By the WTS's own calculations, there would now be something on the order of 20,000,000,000 people on this planet:

  *** rs p. 340 Resurrection ***

  If billions are to be raised from the dead, where will they all live?

  A very liberal estimate of the number of people who have ever lived on earth is 20,000,000,000. As we have seen, not all of these will be resurrected. But, even if we assume that they would be, there would be ample room. The land surface of the earth at present is about 57,000,000 square miles (147,600,000 sq km). If half of that were set aside for other purposes, there would still be just a little less than an acre (c. 0.37 ha) per person, which can provide more than enough food.

  Perhaps that takes care of the food supply, but what about the complexity of the attendant infrastructure? Communication systems? Transportation? And, of course, the approx. 200,000,000 Kingdom Halls (@ 100 per KH).

  If Adam and Eve had not sinned, this world would be a very cramped habitation.
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  moshe

  another opinion from The Jewish side- from whatjewsbelieve.org-

  IN SHORT... Jews do not believe in the existence of Original Sin. The concept of Original Sin simply states that because Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, they brought Death into the world. Every human being dies because Adam and Eve committed a sin, and for their sin, all humans are punished with death. However, the Bible describes something entirely different. Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden because if they remained, they could eat the fruit of the Tree of Life, which would make them IMmortal. If Adam and Eve had to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life to become IMmortal, then they were created mortal to begin with. They did not bring Death into the world, and we don't die because they sinned. As a matter of Biblical fact, the answer to Question One shows that one person cannot die as the punishment for the sins committed by another. We die because Death is a natural part of existence, and has been since from the moment the first human beings were created. That is why God told the animals, before Adam and Eve ate the fruit from The Tree Of The Knowledge Of Good And Evil, to be fruitful and to multiply, since they needed to replace themselves. God also told the same thing to Adam and Eve before they ate that fruit as well.
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  OnTheWayOut

  If Luke Skywalker had trusted the instruments on the second shot instead of the force,
  would the Deathstar have remained, the Rebellion squashed, and Evil have won the battle
  and the war? Would that same evil have spread to our galaxy and enslaved the earth?

  Or would it just have been a story that was written slightly different?

  Good points that it is just a story. If it were told different, it would be a different story.
  What about Lilith?