QC and SG accountability (13/1/17)
Selwyn, Joshua and Winnie each shared different aspects of discipleship at work. Selwyn mentioned how he felt that having an attitude of working "as to the Lord" and not people had eventually led to blessing at his workplace. Joshua shared how he had been challenged to be fervent at the workplace by a fellow teacher and had been asked to do BS with BB boys, and Winnie shared how the Lord had perhaps been placing Christian educators in Singapore schools to witness.
We asked how it was that each one of us could be born with a fallen nature (i.e. have "original sin") if in fact it was Adam who fell. I mentioned that the orthodox view of how this occurs is called the "Federal/Representative" view of the Fall. In Romans 5:12ff and 1 Cor 15:21-22 we learn that humanity is represented by two Adams, the second Adam being Christ. We who believe receive the imputed righteousness of the second Adam, just as all men receive the imputed sin of the first Adam. He was our perfect and accurate representative, created without sin with the greatest possible intellectual, physical and emotional gifts possible, and fully capable of exercising his will to choose between good and evil. His representation should be completely satisfying to us.
This view necessitates that truth of a real, historical Adam and a real, historical Fall, just as we believe in a real, historical Christ.I should have mentioned at cell that this view also implies that the virgin birth of Christ meant that He was born without original sin. This doctrine is therefore not incidental to the Christian faith. I did mention that feminists can have problems with the Federal view because Adam, and not Eve (although she was the first to sin) is seen as the representative of all humanity, and bore the blame.
I then asked about the nature of Adam's sin. What does it mean that the one tree that Adam and Eve could not eat the fruit of was called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". After all, Satan's promise to them was that eating this would enable them to "be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5), something that God did not dispute (Gen 3:22). Man in his disobedience and ingratitude took of that one tree when he had been denied nothing else by God. He claimed the independent right to decide for himself what was right and what was wrong apart from God, who is the only true source of truth and goodness. And God's punishment was both right as well as merciful, because the removal of access to the Tree of Life (mentioned again in Rev 22) was both punishment for sin as well as grace that man would not live forever in disobedience.
We asked how it was that each one of us could be born with a fallen nature (i.e. have "original sin") if in fact it was Adam who fell. I mentioned that the orthodox view of how this occurs is called the "Federal/Representative" view of the Fall. In Romans 5:12ff and 1 Cor 15:21-22 we learn that humanity is represented by two Adams, the second Adam being Christ. We who believe receive the imputed righteousness of the second Adam, just as all men receive the imputed sin of the first Adam. He was our perfect and accurate representative, created without sin with the greatest possible intellectual, physical and emotional gifts possible, and fully capable of exercising his will to choose between good and evil. His representation should be completely satisfying to us.
This view necessitates that truth of a real, historical Adam and a real, historical Fall, just as we believe in a real, historical Christ.I should have mentioned at cell that this view also implies that the virgin birth of Christ meant that He was born without original sin. This doctrine is therefore not incidental to the Christian faith. I did mention that feminists can have problems with the Federal view because Adam, and not Eve (although she was the first to sin) is seen as the representative of all humanity, and bore the blame.
I then asked about the nature of Adam's sin. What does it mean that the one tree that Adam and Eve could not eat the fruit of was called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". After all, Satan's promise to them was that eating this would enable them to "be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:5), something that God did not dispute (Gen 3:22). Man in his disobedience and ingratitude took of that one tree when he had been denied nothing else by God. He claimed the independent right to decide for himself what was right and what was wrong apart from God, who is the only true source of truth and goodness. And God's punishment was both right as well as merciful, because the removal of access to the Tree of Life (mentioned again in Rev 22) was both punishment for sin as well as grace that man would not live forever in disobedience.
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