Mike,          
Thank you for all your time helping me understand the way Adam was created. I pray you can help with this thought I’m having from this paper on the fall of man I just read. I agree God made Adam corruptible, from the dust of the ground, weak and naked. Here is where I’m confused: You said Eve committed every sin in the world (1Jn 2:16/Gen 3:6) before she ever ate from the tree. 

Rom 5:13  For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

So the comparison between 1John2:16/Gen 3:6 shows us the weak condition of the creature’s heart and mind, but it is not sin. There is no law for that at that time.  You asked me this “Do I really feel Adam’s flesh and blood could have inherited the kingdom of God before he ate from the tree?”  1Co 15:50 says that it can’t so, no, I do not believe that it could have.  But Rom 5 clearly states death came into the world by Adam’s transgression.  So before his offense he had to have been immortal then became mortal by eating.  However I still feel his flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom before he ate, but death was not in the world before he ate. So I have to believe if he hadn’t eaten he would not die but then again he was flesh and blood from the start, and I know he was going to eat because the scriptures are quite clear why he was created naked.  I guess I see an apparent contradiction here. I hope you understand my thought and really hope you can help. Thanks, M____

Hi M____,
You say:
“So the comparison between 1John2:16/Gen 3:6 shows us the weak condition of the creature’s heart and mind, but it is not sin. There is no law for that at that time. “

… and you conclude:
“Rom 5 clearly states death came into the world by Adams transgression.  So before his offense he had to have been immortal then became mortal by eating.  However I still feel his flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom before he ate, but death was not in the world before he ate. So I have to believe if he hadn’t eaten he would not die, but then again he was flesh and blood from the start, and I know he was going to eat because the scriptures are quite clear why he was created naked.  I guess I see an apparent contradiction here. I hope you understand my thoughts and really hope you can help.”
“The creature’s weak heart and mind… is not sin… So I have to believe if he hadn’t eaten he would not die?”  Are you still under the delusion that ‘olawm’ and ‘aion’ have something to do with ‘eternity?”  Have you not yet read the series on the Law of the Offerings? Do you not yet see the difference between the sin offering and the trespass offering? If not, then go to the web site and read the study notes on those two offerings and listen to those two audios. All of this has already been written on and dealt with in that series.
“The creature’s weak heart and mind… is not sin?” Are you saying that David is wrong when He says.

Psa 51:5  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Do you see some difference between God shaping Adam and shaping us in our mother’s womb?
Here is what Rom 5 says:

Rom 5:13  For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

“Sin was in the world… until the law,” it simply was not imputed before it was codified and written on stone tablets and in scrolls.
Here was the law that Adam transgressed:

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The fact that sin was not imputed does not mean that the wages of physical sin; being made naked, marred and of the dust of the ground, was not death until Moses, simply because “sin was not imputed.” Surely you would not disagree that Adam and all in him had physically died even from Adam to Moses. I’m not sure what you are trying to make of the statement “sin was not imputed.” That is a spiritual statement, not a physical statement. If it is anything other than a physical statement, then why did people die between Adam and Moses?
Like all of us once did, you are struggling with the concept of “comparing spiritual things with spiritual,” and yet that is the only way the holy spirit teaches us:

1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

God’s word certainly never denies that the wages of sin is death whether sin is imputed or not.
The imputation of sin has to do with spiritual justice for transgressions of God’s law. It has nothing to do with whether we physically die or not. Look at the very next verse of Romans five:

Rom 5:13  (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 5:14  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

‘Transgression’ has to do with the trespass offering. The sin offering has nothing to do with trespasses committed. The sin offering is for what we are by birth, “marred in the Potter’s hand, shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin.”
As with most of Paul’s letters, the book of Romans deals with the spirit that still saturates the church. It is a spirit which teaches that if you can do the right things, then you deserve to be saved. Such is not the case. Salvation does not depend upon us or our efforts. It is all “of, by and through,” Christ.

Rom 11:36  For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

So Adam’s sin was of, by and through the fact that God had created him “marred in the Potter’s hand, naked and of the dust of the ground.”

Jer 18:4  And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

No, neither Genesis nor Romans says that sin was not in the world before Adam ate of the tree. It simply says “sin is not imputed where there is no law. It does not say ‘sin is not imputed where there is no law of Moses.’ The law of Adam’s day was “Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it for in the day that you eat thereof to die you shall die.”

Gen 2:17 Yet from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you are not to be eating from it, for in the day you eat from it, to die shall you be dying.

God drove Adam out of the garden to keep him from eating of the tree of life and living for “olawm,” not for ‘eternity.’ “Olawm” is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek ‘aion.’ It is a word which encompasses both the olawms or aions of each person who ever draws breath, as well as the long period of time in which all those generations of mankind will be living, and so we have this statement in…

2Ti 1:9 Who saves us and calls us with a holy calling, not in accord with our acts, but in accord with His own purpose and the grace which is given to us in Christ Jesus before times eonian,

Paul cannot state it any clearer. God knew and intended “before times eonian” for Adam to transgress, be brought to see his need for a savior, repent and be converted and saved from sin and death. He was not kept from dying, but saved out of and through death.

Joh 12:24  Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

God’s word is deliberately written in a way that demands that we consider it in its entirety if we want the Truth, and so we are plainly told:

Psa 119:160  The sum of thy word is truth; And every one of thy righteous ordinances endureth for ever.
Isa 28:9  Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? [ them that are] weaned from the milk, [ and] drawn from the breasts.
Isa 28:10  For precept [ must be] upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, [ and] there a little:
Isa 28:11  For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
Isa 28:12  To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
Isa 28:13  But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.

That is why Paul tells the Corinthians that he spoke “the hidden wisdom of God.”

1Co 2:7  but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the worlds unto our glory: (ASV)

… or as the Good News Bible puts it:

1Co 2:7  The wisdom I proclaim is God’s secret wisdom, which is hidden from human beings, but which he had already chosen for our glory even before the world was made. (GBN).

So truth is never to be found in but one verse of God’s Word, like the bad King James translation which reads:

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Gen 2:17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam did not die that very day because “to die you shall be dying” is a spiritual statement. He lived to be 930 years old, but he was physically dying when he took his first breath, simply because he was “shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, of the dust of the ground, naked,” before he ever ate of the tree. But Adam had to disobey before he began to die spiritually. We are all conceived in sin, by virtue of being in Adam, but we are not born “of our father the devil” until we obey him:

Joh 8:41  Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Joh 8:42  Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Joh 8:43  Why do ye not understand my speech? even] because ye cannot hear my word.
Joh 8:44  Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

I hope this helps you to see that Christ does not intend for most people to see the sum of His word in this age, for that ‘sum’ speaks of spiritual matters and not of physical matters. “The holy spirit teaches only by “comparing spiritual things  with spiritual,” thereby blinding us all from birth. Christ’s healing of the man born blind from His mother’s womb, testifies of this.

Joh 9:34  They [ the chief priests and Pharisees] answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.
Joh 9:35  Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Joh 9:36  He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?
Joh 9:37  And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.
Joh 9:38  And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.
Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And [ some] of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

When we are cast out of the fellowship of Babylon, then Christ comes to us, finds us and opens up the heavens for us by giving us spiritual vision.
Your brother in Christ,
Mike>