Friday, November 3, 2017

THE UNFORGIVEN SIN

While I was deeply studying the meaning of Original sin and combing the bible and the church teachings on such, suddenly it became clear to me as if a curtain is opened up what has been there all along. I was looking for verses that will prove the woman in Genesis 3:15 is the Blessed Virgin Mary and her seed is Jesus but hardly one can see this in any of the verses directly but it is implied in some like in St. Paul epistles. So I can only infer that the Church Fathers used assumptions base on the role of our Lord as the savior and Messiah and therefore the "seed" of the woman in Genesis. There are some things in the scriptures that are not specifically written but are implied or using types in the New Testament with the Old Testament by typology.

The woman in Genesis 3:15 can't be Eve for sure even simple logic because she has fallen against the trickery of the devil. She and Adam are the cause of the fall of men. In fact when the Lord God confronted them in the Garden they were hiding from him. And when they met, Adam pointed to Eve as the one who convinced him to eat and disobey God. On the other hand, Eve also pointed to the serpent as the one responsible for convincing her to eat. Of course the Lord God knew it all along and was testing Adam and Eve unfortunately for the human race both failed the test. So Eve had fallen with Adam and there is the implied evidence why the woman of Genesis can't be Eve but God is referring to "another woman". This means only one thing, that woman is already existing whether in the mind of the Lord God or truly existing not in flesh and blood as the first parents but in spirit.

Whom God has predestined, he foreknew.

But is not the Lord God, all-loving and all-merciful God? He is a forgiving God as we see in the scriptures he even forgave David for his grave sin of murder and adultery. And the Lord God never changed, he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. What am I driving at? The point that puzzled me was, why did God not forgive our first parents sin? Not only he did not forgive them, but he also expelled them from paradise and curses of hardship like pains of giving birth and labor need to get food to eat. Yet we can read that God so loves the world that he gave his only begotten son...so why?

The answer comes from the very nature of God that he is not only all-merciful, all-loving, and all-forgiving God but he is also the God of justice and that justice demands own and willing admission of guilt and repentance of the wrong done before the judge who is the Lord God. So the question cropped up, did Adam and Eve humble themselves before God, admit their guilt, repent and beg for forgiveness? Let's go back to Genesis 3 and see what happened.

God has decreed that from then on there will be enmity between the serpent and the woman. Enmity means opposition or hostility, in short, they will battle against each other. Eve was already under the influence of Satan and naturally how can she even oppose the devil? But wasn't she forgiven for her sin and therefore be strong to oppose the devil? So I looked back in the bible and lo and behold. Both Adam and Eve never repented their sin. They never repented. Nothing in the bible that shows they ever repented and beg for mercy and forgiveness from the Lord God.

Instead of repenting, the pride of Adam and Eve got the better of them and tried to take away the blame on them by pointing and blaming others instead of humbly admitting their fault and beg for forgiveness from the Lord God. It shows a more complex type of sin than simple disobedience to the Lord God's commandment like the disobedience exhibited by Jonah whom the Lord God loved even while he tried unsuccessfully not to follow what was required of him. The disobedience of Adam and Eve involved almost all the capital sin of Pride because they won't admit it's their fault; Avarice because they coveted the Knowledge of Good and Evil and they wanted to be like God which is the same sin of Lucifer who wanted the throne of God he served, Lust because with the knowledge comes power, Anger because they were angry at each other pointing the blame on others, Sloth because they may have not been very busy tending on the Garden that God gave them and so their minds were easily manipulated by the serpent, Gluttony because they were not satisfied with all the kinds of fruit they were attracted on the fruit and wanted to eat more and lastly, Envy of the serpent over men who were so loved by God that he gave them dominion over all the earth's creation.

With all the elements of capital sins in them, they were thoroughly consumed in sinning against the Lord God.  They could not admit their personal fault so they put the blame on others than themselves. We can read that Adam pointed that its the fault of Eve while Eve pointed that its the fault of the serpent. A classic case of unrepentant sinners is pictured by the bible. I realized the original sin is more complex than just mere disobedience. Because they did not immediately repent, Adam and Eve totally transformed their human nature with the very first sin recorded in human history that remained unforgiven for thousands of years until God himself took it upon him by giving his Son to save humanity from that original sin and its consequence of death. That is the original sin. It's so mortal that God has given them severe punishment, expelled from the Garden of Eden and has denied them the Tree of Life, from immortality to death. Not only was the punishment the most severe in all of human history. The sin became the natural state of our first parents, like Lucifer became Satan because of his unforgiven sin, likewise, our first parents became sinful in their natural state which the Catholic Church teaches as concupiscence to sin.

This natural state of sinfulness is contracted by the children and passed on through generations that is why the original sin is the only sin that is not personally committed but is passed on sin from the first parents.

In summary, because the sin was not forgiven by God for the failure of Adam and Eve to humble themselves it consumed their natural state like Lucifer who was in his original state one of the Seraphim of God but rebelled and so change his natural state from an angel of God to the devil, Adam and Ever has procreated men in their state of sinfulness and thus able to pass on the original sin to all the people of the world being the first parents from whom all men came from. That natural tendency to sin which is called concupiscence to sin is the consequence of sin. The worst is they died without atoning for the sin they have committed. So then who would atone for the said sin? No one is capable of satisfying the justice of God. Men were doomed to eternal death unless God saves them. For this reason, God acted in the fullness of time and came down for the work of salvation which was decreed in Genesis 3:15

ORIGINAL SIN AND SALVATION.

Looking at the sin of Adam as an unforgiven sin, we can now fully understand in layman's term why Jesus Christ, the son of God came down and became truly human being to redeem us from the bondage of the original sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve because no one can atone for the sin originally committed by them. No one because Adam and Eve did not admit to it, did not repent, and did not atone in reparation for their sin. The sin therefore remained. The original sin is not a sin that is freely committed by us but it is a sin that is contracted to us. It's like a virus passed on from one that is infected of it to his children. It's not the fault of the children but that from which it originated.

However, the children suffered "death" as a consequence of that sin. Men were denied by God the tree of life which is eternal life and because there was no forgiveness given to it, there was no reconciliation. Nothing in the bible shows that Adam and Eve asked for forgiveness and God forgave them. For that reason, in the old and new Testaments, they are blamed for the loss of men of their original innocence and purity and entry of death to the life of men. 

Only God, therefore, can save us from the Original sin and its grave consequences. And since God so loves the world, he gave us his only begotten son Jesus Christ to be the sacrifice and atone for the sins of Adam and Eve passed on through all the generations not only to redeem the world from the consequence of the original sin but also to give us life eternal. The consequence of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus is that God has given back to us the Tree of Life. We can now partake of that tree through Jesus Christ who is himself the tree that gives us spiritual food.

Finally, through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, he asked for forgiveness from the Father. "Father forgive them for they do not know what they do" and his sacrifice and death on the cross was enough to atone for the sin of Adam and Eve which the latter failed to do and so we suffered the consequences for their failure to reconcile with the Lord God.

But while the original sin was finally forgiven to men through Jesus Christ who became man and took to himself the sin of Adam and Eve and asked for forgiveness on their behalf to God through his sacrifice on the cross but yet the consequence of the sin remained in their natural state. That is why Jesus commanded that man must be born again that by baptism we are regenerated and justified and made righteous by God's saving grace through the merits of Jesus Christ. The bondage of sin is broken and forgiveness becomes available for all who will believe in Jesus Christ and follow all that he commanded.

By Bro. Manny, OTFS Chief Apologist



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