Jesus vs. Adam-Your Thoughts Are Needed

by Mister Biggs 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Mister Biggs

  This goes out to anyone (Jw's and x-JW's).

  I was just wondering last night about how JW's teach that Jesus was the Last Adam; how he balanced the scales because he was perfect; how only the sacrifice of a perfect human body can redeem mankind from its sinful state. (Of course, other religion's may teach these things, too. However, I've only lived my life as a JW so I can't speak on behalf of other faith's).

  Anyway, Jesus came to earth and passed the tests that Satan threw at him. He remained loyal and proved to all the angels and God that it is possible to "defeat" the devil.

  But, what about Adam? How come, even though he was perfect, he couldn't remain loyal? Well, Adam was created. His wife was then created. Everything was new to them. They had to learn so much as they went along. They "winged" it, so to speak. But Jesus possibly lived thousands and thousands of years before coming to the earth and taking on a human form. Wouldn't you say that Jesus had a much better chance of not sinning since he was God's first creation? I mean, he got to see how humans operate. More importantly, he knew Satan before Satan became Satan (huh??? LOL!). He knew how Satan operated. So, are the scales of justice really balanced?

  They're balanced in the sense of perfect vs. perfect. But Jesus had a HUGE mental advantage over Adam, right? Even us as imperfect people have a bigger advantage than did Adam and Eve. At least we have a history to go by. We even have a Bible (for those of us that believe in the Bible). Adam and Eve had nothing to go by.

  I welcome everyone's response but please keep it nice. NO FLAME WARS, PLEASE.

  Thank you!
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  Xenu

  The test presented to Adam was simple. It did not involve a mystery or a series of promblems. It involved obedience. And unfortunately Adam failed. Jesus on the other hand faced much more than Adam ever did.
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  Mister Biggs

  I guess Xenu is the only one in a thinking mood today.
  :o)
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  Liberty

  Mr. Biggs you've got it. This whole ransom sacrifice stuff is utter nonsense when simple logic is applied. If he was really a supernatural being Jesus would have already known that he would be rewarded greatly in eternity so it was easy for him to meet his tests. Many an "imperfect" mere mortal has suffered worse and died much harder without being assured of anything but oblivion so how is Jesus so special? Not that I think any of it is true anyway so I don't mean any disrespect to Jesus as a person, but see it as just a logic problem. Jesus may have been a real person but Adam is really just not possible so there is nothing to use Jesus as a sacrifice for. Nor would a super being of God's stature waste His time with such stupid cruelty...senslessly torturing and killing His son for no good reason! The whole idea is just insane.
• 

  Scully

  Someone else brought up the idea a few days ago that Adam and Eve were caught in a case of entrapment.

  God merely told them "From the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad, you must not eat." Logically, if they had not partaken of that tree, they did not know the difference between good and bad.

  They also did not know that one of God's other creations was going to come to them with cunning and ask Eve "Is it really true that God has said you must not eat from that tree?"

  They didn't know the difference between good and bad, so how could they possibly differentiate between truth and falsehood? They were extremely childlike in their experience and knowledge.

  On the other hand, there was the spirit creature, who later became Jesus, supposedly the firstborn of all creation. He saw everything that happened in Eden. He knew about the temptation. He had seen Satan putting Job to the test with God's permission. He was supposed to "prove" that a physically perfect human could be tested and pass that test. However, he was not Adam's true equal. He had vast knowledge and millenia of experience from life in heaven. Unlike Adam, he did not have a mate. Unlike Adam, he was not isolated with just the animals around him. He had centuries of observations in his consciousness. He did not have the same "innocence", the same inability to differentiate between good and bad, between truth and falsehood.

  Physically, he and Adam may have both been "perfect". But intellectually, socially, psychologically, Adam was infantile. Of course Jesus would pass the test. He had "studied" for it from the beginning of time, if you believe what the WTS teaches about him.

  Even the fact that Job passed the tests that God allowed him to experience, that was more "fair" in comparison to Adam, than Jesus' comparison to Adam. Job had no idea why everything in his life was being turned upside down, the same way Adam was clueless about the existence of a "devil", or even the existence of such a thing as falsehood. He had never been exposed to anything else but God, the animals and Eve.

  It seems to me that Adam was set up for failure and Jesus was set up for success.

  Love, Scully
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  Mister Biggs

  Scully-

  Excellent points and I loved that Job comparison.
  Great food for thought!
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  Xenu

  Scully,

  This argument would imply that the tree contained special power that
  would give Adam the ability to discern something that he had not before. However, Adam knew the outcome of his actions when God told him that he would die. The tree of knowledge could have been nothing more than a name. That name may have implied that man no longer wanted God to tell him what was good and bad. But man would take it upon himself to have his own knowledge of what was good and bad. Perhaps it also meant that Adam would know bad becuase he was now opening himself up to sin. Adam was without sin. And to disobey God was in fact unnatural.
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  bjd4jc

  We even have a Bible (for those of us that believe in the Bible). Adam and Eve had nothing to go by.

  If you believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God then Adam and Eve did have something to go by.... the Word of God. Unlike even us (in the sense of the Bible), God spoke directly toward Adam. Wouldn't you think that this would be something to go by?
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  Justin

  The expression "last Adam" is found in Paul's discussion of the resurrection found at 1 Corinthians 15 (verse 45). It is also based on Paul's comparison found at Romans 5, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." (verse 19)

  There is no doubt that atonement for human sins is taught in the Bible to accrue from Christ's death, and that this death is in some sense a sacrifice and a ransom. But a detailed theory of atonement is not worked out in the Bible. The WT idea of the "ransom," current ever since the time of Russell, is one form of the substitionary theory of the atonement - that Jesus died as the sinner's substitute. According to the WT, he was actually the substitute for Adam (all mankind being in Adam's "loins" - or in his genes as we would now say). Just as Adam forfeited a perfect human life through disobedience, so Jesus sacrificed a perfect human life to make up for Adam's transgression.

  The perfection referred to includes sinlessness, with the potential of living forever free from old age and sickness. This is the only equivalency that is required. The equivalency is similar to that mentioned in the U.S. Declaration of Independence - "All men are created equal ..." They are equal as human beings before the law, with certain inalienable rights. Nothing is said about their intelligence, their education, their natural abilities, and so on. Just so, Jesus and Adam were equal as PERFECT human creatures.

  The fact that Jesus kept his integrity under trying circumstances that Adam did not face, as foreshadowed by Job, is another matter. The WT, to my knowledge, has never claimed that Satan was able to boast over his conquest of Adam and Eve as he could have done if Job had failed - to Satan, Adam and Eve were a piece of cake. It is to the WT's discredit that it does not accept the idea that Adam and Eve will not ultimately be held responsible for their error but will instead themselves come under the benefits of the ransom. This, in fact, is the view that Pastor Russell held and which was later changed by Rutherford. But even Job did not keep his integrity perfectly - as the WT has shown, the dialogues between Job and his three friends reveal some self-righteousness on Job's part. Job kept his integrity as an imperfect man, whereas Jesus kept his as a perfect man.

  What ultimately gave Jesus' human life its ransoming value, though, was not its equality with the life of Adam. Jesus was the incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and as such was himself God. The union of divinity with a perfect human life gave that life infinite value, and the One who was sacrificed was not a mere creature who was entitled to his own life rights which could not justly be substituted for those of others, but the Creator himself.

  Justin
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  Will Power

  They are equal as human beings before the law, with certain inalienable rights.

  
  Isn't this what Jesus proved? The law was handed down and as time went on, the ones in high places made themselves the judges. They decided when, how & who could worship, how much it would cost, how they should dress, what to eat, what not to eat, the laws became more of a restriction on the very ones Jesus drew to himself.

  Jesus showed the sinners, the gentiles, the outcasts, the sick & lepers that they were loved, that they were worthy, that they too had hope if they believed, without all the fanfare, the heavy yokes. They only need believe and they were healed, welcomed, forgiven, loved.

  His death on the crossbeam nailed to a tree and his resurrection to a place he had always been, as prophesized, produced His witnesses who spread the good news, & recorded in the bible for future generations that they may believe, that He was going to prepare a place, for God's kingdom has a house with many rooms. (not actual rooms OK?)

  Alas, I don't know if Jesus' sandals were brown or black, or if Job parted his hair on the left for the right. IT DOESN'T MATTER!
  If anyone tells you it does, refuse the yoke!