----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Reisinger" <24jreisinger26@...>
>There is not a shred of evidence that Adam must earn the
> right of continued existence.

This kind of hermeneutic makes Genesis 2:17 absolutely meaningless, IMHO. 
If Adam does not eat of the tree, then....WHAT?  The idea that it is not a 
question to be answered is baseless and shirks the Creator-given 
responsibility to understand implications, especially when the implications 
are seen at Sinai and the rest of the revelation.

>He was given life at his creation.

He was given probation at his creation.  Having a death threat hanging over 
your existence is not "life".

>There is
> not a shred of evidence showing that not eating the tree would earn for 
> Adam
> something he did not already possess.

Sure it does.  Adam earns another day of life that he doesn't already 
possess.  Adam doesn't "possess" life, even another day ,because he has a 
death threat hanging over his head.  That's not possession.  Adam was given 
"life" at Creation, but that "life" came with conditions.  Grace was not 
part of the equation.  Grace (contra Piper, Doug Wilson, N. T. Wright and 
Norm Shepherd) cannot have conditions, else it isn't grace.  Grace is a 
phenomenon of redemptive history, which doesn't start until Genesis 3:15 (we 
cannot confuse the redemptive story which begins in Genesis 1 with 
redemptive history in Genesis 3... in Genesis 1 & 2, there's nothing to 
redeem).  Having a death threat attached to continued obedience is not 
"grace" and to insist that it is grace is not only dumbing down God's 
justice, IMHO, but is precisely the Romanist error of infusion.  Grace with 
conditions is not "grace alone"... and anything that isn't "grace alone" 
isn't "grace".

> If I warn you that a given bottle contains poison and you will die if you
> drink it surely means you will continue with your present life if you do 
> not
> drink it. However, it does not in any way promise you a different kind of
> life as a reward if you do not drink it.

And to this point, no one, including myself has said one word about "a 
different kind of life" as a reward.  This discussion right now is about 
whether or not Genesis 2:17 has anything to say about the life Adam already 
had... and it does by its very use of the word "death".  The fact that Adam 
earned death as a result of "eating" (Rom. 6:23) is just one of the 
witnesses that Adam's next day of life would have been "earned" as a result 
of "not eating".  The threat of withholding another day of life in lieu of 
disobedience precludes the nonsense that his next day would have been 
"grace".  God is obligated to give him another day if he obeys... obligation 
precludes "grace".  Romans 6:23 casts Adam's disobedience-induced "death" in 
terms of "wages".  Contra the linguistic revisionism some find conducive to 
their theology these days, "wages" are "earned" and that's certainly how 
Paul uses the term in Romans.

Christ's relationship with the workers is even more poignant in this matter. 
The fact that he hired them and they're in his garden is due to his 
"generosity" (Matthew 20:15), not grace.  And the wages he pays them "belong 
to them" (Matthew 20:14)... he owes them and is obligated to pay them what 
they've earned as part of His end of the bargain.  The "bargain" is 
generosity.  The "wages" are what "belongs to them".  The payment is 
"justice".  Now one might posit that the fact they are in his garden to 
begin with is grace... but even this is a stretch because the disgruntled 
workers in the story who worked the entire day are the doomed pharisees who 
are going to hell.  If it's "grace", it's common grace, not salvific grace. 
Further, Christ doesn't term the arrangement as grace, but "generosity".

>It does not promise you one single
> thing that you do not presently have but merely promises you that you will
> not die.

The "next day" is something Adam did not already have.

>The thing that is totally absent in Scrpture is Adam "earning life"
> by obedience.

John, you don't realize the disconnect in your own redemptive historical 
affirmations.  You've already suggested that you believe Christ earned our 
righteousness.  Given that revelation is eschatologically progressive, the 
affirmation that Christ earned our righteousness is pointless (or arbitrary) 
without a connection to Adam.  If Christ earned us life by obedience, Adam 
did/would have.  If Christ earned us life by His obedience, Israel would 
have (in its own obey/disobey formula).  The only proof I need about whether 
Adam would have earned life is Christ's earned righteousness because Christ 
is THE revelation of what was true back then.  The New reveals what the Old 
conceals, although in this instance, there are many witnesses in the OT that 
Adam's necessary obedience would've earned life.  Abraham's formula is 
exhibit A.  The formula found in Lev. 18 and Deut. 6, which is Genesis 2:17 
in Sinaitic clothing as more developed and progressive revelation, is 
exhibit B.  Ezekiel 20: is exhibit C.  Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12 are 
exhibit D.  At least the NPP gets this connection.  They deny "obedience for 
life" in the garden (and at Sinai) precisely because they deny Christ's 
"obedience for life" and vise versa (and they deny it on dangerous moral 
grounds: what kind of a God would have a relationship with his creature 
grounded in His justice?).

IMHO, we cannot "act" or "think" or "theologize" as if the salvific 
realities we have now are the same salvific realities that always were.  The 
text doesn't treat the pre-fall realities as the same as post-fall.  Genesis 
3 is as catostrohpically monumental to soteriology as the Flood is to 
geology/biology.  The fall didn't change the terms for salvation.  But the 
fall did change man's ability to keep the commandment necessary for 
salvation and therefore, God's requirements for man come through Christ in 
faith, rather than man's ability.

To suggest that Adam had "life" the same way we have "life" is to impose our 
own post-lapsarian soteriology onto Adam and the Garden and that kind of 
hermeneutic will not fly in the text.  The fall is a dis-juncture in man's 
ability to obey for life.  Those who consistently/across the board impose 
post-lapsarian soteriology onto the Garden (and Sinai) spend their January's 
at Auburn Avenue.  If I truly thought the definition of grace includes 
conditions (a la Piper - "Future Grace" and Shepherd - "Call of Grace"), I'd 
join Rome tomorrow, because conditional grace is at the very heart of 
Romanism.

Chad