Why Adam Lost His Agency in the Garden – Chapter 1
This study is about the agency and the duty of agents based on Adam and his agency. Adam was the first man created in God’s image and likeness from the dust of the earth and given his agency initially in the garden of Eden. He was created by God to inhabit and be inhabited by God’s glory, and was placed in the garden to dress and keep it. But when temped, Adam transgressed the command of God. As a result, the scope and location of his agency was decidedly changed.
God had created Adam in the image of His light and the likeness of His love, yet Adam sinned against God by disobeying His command to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Consequently, God took the agency of Adam and his family and their posterity from the garden and gave them their agency in a temporary life of probation, called Today, to prepare them to meet Him and be placed in a kingdom where they will receive their agency in eternity.
To promote a sound understanding of our agency in the life of probation, this study begins with a discussion of principles and definitions and what it means to be agents unto ourselves. In subsequent chapters, the agency of those who either fulfilled their agency or had it taken from them in this life is reviewed. For some who had been entrusted with the Lord’s work, disqualified themselves from continuing as agents in a particular role or capacity because of transgression.
Included in this study is a review of free will and why we must reconcile our wills to our Creator’s will to express free will. To be truly free, we must be liberated from all sin by faith in His Word. Those who do not reconcile their will to God’s will as revealed in Jesus Christ will remain bound (without free will) in sin as captives of Satan, the enemy of all righteousness. Whereas, those who reconcile their will to God’s will may exercise free will by the power of His Spirit of truth.
Why Adam Lost His Agency in the Garden – Chapter 2
Agency involves making decisions and acting on those decisions in the place and time in which we live—which, at present, is on earth in this mortal (temporal) life. The consequences of our decisions and actions depend on whether they are in harmony with God’s commands, covenants, and laws by which He governs our existence. Contemplating beyond this mortal life, how we choose to think and act now will determine the place in which we receive our agency in eternity.
Consider Adam. When first created, he was given dominion over all the earth and placed in the garden of Eden where he lived freely with one exception; God commanded him to not eat the fruit of a specific tree. While all other decisions made by Adam did not bring him under condemnation, choosing to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree did. After he partook of the fruit, he was cut off from God’s presence by God driving him from the garden and limiting his time on the earth.
Adam’s agency in the garden meant he had power to make consequential decisions based on the terms and conditions presented to him by God while he was in the garden, e.g. with respect to what he could and could not eat. Thus, his agency did not give him unlimited liberty whereby he could make decisions that violated God’s commands and laws without penalties.
When Adam transgressed God’s command, his agency was curtailed dramatically by God. The new but more restrictive bounds and conditions of Adam’s agency in the mortal state into which he was placed after his fall were markedly different compared to the unique bounds and conditions of the agency he had been given in the garden. These new terms and conditions of his agency in mortality were more limiting by God’s design based on His justice and mercy. …
See the links above for the remainder of the posts with references.
Blessings,
Dwight B
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