I've been interested in the exchange that Russ started on 9 Feb 2000.
There are a few points to which I want to respond, without quoting
everything that came along. In Russ's first posting, he said, "Christ's
salvation consists in restoring that image." This was elaborated further
down.
I don't agree. I claim salvation by faith in Christ's finished work, but
am clearly not in the condition of Adam before the fall. I still have the
nature of Adam from after the fall and echo Paul's "O wretched man that I
am..." I do not expect to be restored to the aboriginal nature when my
salvation is complete. Rather, I expect to become something close to what
Adam would have become had he resisted the temptation to become like God
via a shortcut.
Russ's point 2, "Adam and Eve are the parents of the human race." answers
Dick's notion that Adam was the father of the Semites and David's "I am
inclined to think physical descent from Adam of all those in God's image
is correct, but am not convinced that it is proven." when taken in
connection with Acts 17:26: "and hath made of one blood all nations of
men for to dwell on all the face of the earth..." I think this also bears
on Glenn's problem with non-human hominids. IMO, whatever "cousins" we
may have had in the past, all persons now living are descendants of the
first man, the first entity to bear the image of God. Empirically, the
evidence of this is that all races are completely interfertile and all
are religious--though some of the religions are strange and some are not
recognized as such.
I would also call to Dick's attention I Corinthians 15:22: "For as in
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." If Adam was
ancestor only of the Semites, then I almost certainly cannot suffer from
Adam's fall, for I doubt that I have any Semitic ancestors. Certainly the
Amerinds and Australian aborigines are exempt, for they were in place
long before his date for Adam and Noah. Or was Adam's condition a virus
or prion that was carried by the winds worldwide, one for which there is
no immunity?
Russ seems to reject allowing mankind to be related to other creatures.
"Let's be wary of claiming that ... human beings and other primates have
common ancestry." Why must _Homo sapiens_ be completely a new creation,
connected to the rest of living things only by matter? Or did the matter
also have to be specially created? Why could not God transform a bright
beast into a man? If we take the analogy of the new creation (2
Corinthians 5:17), what God has done is taken the old creatures and
transformed them. He didn't have to start from scratch. Is there any
scripture which prohibits our sharing descent with the rest of creation?
On this I have to agree with Glenn, though I cannot push Adam and Noah
back millions of years.
Dick raised an objection to Russ's "Is there an objection to the idea
that in fact [Cain] married his sister?" Or that Abraham married his
sister (Genesis 20:12)? Apparently Dick, in citing Leviticus 18, does not
believe in progressive revelation. Without becoming "dispensationalists,"
I think we have to recognize the difference between the Adamic, Noahic,
Abrahamic, Mosaic and new covenants, each of which builds on and adds to
the previous ones. See, for example, Acts 15:20, 29, in connection with
Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 17:14, Deuteronomy 12:23.
I hope this is not too disjointed for those who have not been directly
involved in the exchanges, and that there are not too many misspelled
words. Every time recently I have tried to spell check, the computer has
completely hung.
Dave
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