Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said to pinklight:

There is not difference of nature here. And in the same way that God knows Adam told the truth, he knows Eve told the truth, since he curses the snake. But should we conclude therefore that Eve (or Adam) have seperate sin natures. No i don’t think so.

The sin nature is revealed through continued rebellion. We know that Adam has this rebellious sin nature because God says that Adam is the one who may rebel again and take and eat from the fruit of the tree of life. God also says in Hosea 6:7 that Adam had dealt treacherously with Him. And it was Paul who said that it was one man alone (Adam) who brought sin into the world. All of the evidence is that Adam was continuing in his rebellion because he had a sin nature and that sin nature was passed on to us so that we are all naturally rebellious against God’s rules.

But where is Eve ever called rebellious? God does not say that Eve dealt treacherously with Him, nor does Paul or any other author say that Eve’s sin is passed on to her offspring. Where could Eve have received this sin nature of rebellion? She could not have inherited it from Adam? I challenge anyone to give a Scripture that lists Eve as bringing sin into the world or passing rebellion onto her offspring or even a hint of rebellion that would have caused God to kick her out of the garden.

Paul tells us in 2 Cor 11 of his fear that the Cor will be led astray in the same was as Eve was by the serpent. He is not excusing Eve of guilt. Do you think he would excuse sin, when he is so grafic about the nature of sin in other parts of the bible (Rom 1,3; Eph 2)

Mark, what you don’t seem to get is that we all agree that Eve sinned. It is the issue of continued sin through a nature of rebellion that is the issue. If you believe that the Bible affirms that an innocent person who was deceived into sinning will get a a nature of rebellion from that, then you will need to prove this from the Scripture. God draws a line between Adam’s sin and Eve’s sin and only one of their sins was done in rebellion and the taint of rebellion was only upon one of them.

And in 1 Tim 2 Paul explicitly talks about the woman who was deceived and became a transgressor. Here Paul is explicit in teaching Eve was a transgressor. She is a sinner.

Verse 14 is about “the woman”, the one who is still in that transgression. She is still deceived and still in that sin, but this can’t be Eve as Eve is dead and gone. The one who is continuing (perfect tense) in the state of sin is alive at the time of Paul’s writing.

So what does Paul actually say about Eve? He said that she was deceived. The woman who is a concern for Paul is like Eve but Eve is not called a sinner nor was her offspring (Jesus) an inheritor of a sin nature through her. It was impossible for Jesus to have a human father because he would have inherited a sin nature from him. It was not impossible for him to have a human mother because no stain of rebellion comes through her. See my post here http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/11/20/adam-as-head-of-the-family/ for an understanding of one sin nature that is bypassed through the woman.