The answer is rather simple, actually. You talk to the person like a brother. If he continues to sin, you report him to the elders. The elders, with love and compassion, seek him out and talk to him...to let him know he's loved and appreciated. If he repents well and good. If he sins again, then you take him to a quarry and smash his head open with a rock!
Seriously, in the theology I embrace, Adam and Eve were placed in the garden setting with the sole intention of sinning. Why else would one take an innocent and perfect couple, introduce them into an environment with an intelligent, lying, malicious being such as Satan, and tell them there's only one sin they can commit and the penalty is death? These lovely people didn't even know what lying was, nor would they understand why anyone would do it.
God, knowing this would happen, called a great premortal conference and the Plan was introduced. But if our first parents were to sin, they would then need a redeemer and a mediator (since God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance). And though he walked and talked with Adam and Eve, once they sinned, their bodies underwent a change and they became subject to death and old age and he could no longer communicate with them directly. I believe we were all there at the premortal conference and it was there that the great prophets of the earth were chosen and foreordained (see Jeremiah 1:5), and it was there where the Messiah was chosen and empowered. God, knowing that once Adam and Eve would sin, realized that they and their posterity would need a redeemer and mediator. Thus, once the deed was done, the great Mediator, Jehovah, became mankind’s Lord and Savior.
So why would all this be necessary? Because previous to mortality, we all existed as spirits and, to progress further, we needed physical bodies. But though the bodies Adam and Eve possessed were technically perfect, they lacked the ability to contain and channel large amounts of energy (glory), as well as house limitless intellects. For that we needed to fall and then be redeemed by a sinless and perfect God. For reasons we don’t yet know, we will have the potential of being resurrected with the power and glory of our Mediator. After his resurrection, as you know, he had a physical body capable of moving through walls and ceilings, and he had the power to ascend to Heaven and virtually traverse the Cosmos at will. Thus, John writes:
Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)
Now add to that Jehovah’s relationship to the Father:
Who being the brightness of [the Father’s] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high: Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. (Hebrews 1:3-4)
And finally:
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:16-18)
From these scriptures we can deduce:
- We are the sons and daughters of God
- Jesus is in the “express image” of the Father
- Not only does Jesus resemble the Father, he has the same capacity for “brightness” and “glory”
- If we are children of God, we’re also heirs, and joint-heirs with Christ, inheriting all that the Father has
- Once resurrected, the righteous are “so much better than the angels.”
Now as the sons and daughters of God, we have the capability, or potential, of greatly exceeding the power and intelligence of angels. The Orthodox Christians have this saying: “God became as man so man can become as God.”
Thus, Adam and Eve, as spirits, were given physical bodies that are perfect within their limitations. Through the fall and the redemption, they and their posterity not only become subject to death, they are judged by accepting Jesus as the Savior and Redeemer of this world, and by dedicating themselves to the service as others. Only by successfully navigating mortality can man develop the necessary physical, mental, emotional and spiritual skill sets required for a future administrator in God’s Kingdom; and only by gaining the same sort of glorious physical body Jesus gained, through the resurrection, will he be able to harness vast amounts of power needed to aid in the creation process on other worlds.
Bottom line: Scripture states that Jesus is in the express image and glory as his Father, and that we are to be in the express image and glory as the Son. The Son inherits all that the Father has, and we have the potential to be in his express image and glory. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe we go through all of this just to recapture status quo.
That’s a bit narrow, in my view; however, we shall see!
