Old testament scripture

[brq]

Why did God Allow forty generations of human beings to suffer
like Adam and Eve before he sent the savior to save them?

 

[nuntym]

Why did God Allow forty generations of human beings to suffer
like Adam and Eve before he sent the savior to save them?

A part of the answer to that question would the answer to another question: has the sufferings of humans ceased after the savior has come and returned to God?

Another part would be the answer to yet another question: is suffering evil?

 

[Chesster]

St. Aquinas states in his Commentary on Galatians 4:4

Two reasons are given why that time was pre-ordained for the coming of Christ. One is taken from His greatness: for since He that was to come was great, it was fitting that men be made ready for His coming by many indications and many preparations. “God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all in these days hath spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1: 1). The other is taken from the role of the one coming: for since a physician was to come, it was fitting that before his coming, men should be keenly aware of their infirmity, both as to their lack of knowledge during the Law of nature and as to their lack of virtue during the written Law. Therefore it was fitting that both, namely, the Law of nature and the written Law, precede the coming of Christ.

 

[Douglas_Naaden]

Part of the reason God allows suffering is so that we will learn our lesson and turn from sin, which is the source of suffering, to God who is the source of consolation. Christ Himself underwent the same thing.

Anyhow, the simple answer to your question is that the world wasn’t ready for Jesus until long after the Fall. I’m sure you’re aware how the Pax Romana enabled Christianity to spread. But more than that God was molding a people, the Jews, to be ready to accept Jesus when He came. You can see this quite clearly in the progression of Covenants (cf. Scott Hahn’s, A Father who Keeps His Promises).

The standard to which the peoples of the Old Testament were bound were quite a bit looser than the morality preached in the New Testament. A good example of this is the acceptance of polygyny in the OT, while in the NT you have the concept of virginity.
Even as it was, with all the preparation, you had people condemn Christ for being too radical. Today, the vast majority of non-Catholic Christians take exception to Jesus’ call for strict monogamy 2000 years after Jesus has come and gone. Think of what that teaching would have meant around the time of King David!

Jesus isn’t magic. God’s healing is organic. To a mind that thinks salvation/healing/purity all comes with a one-time life commitment, yeah, it seems weird that Jesus didn’t come right after the Fall. To those who realize sanctification, healing, and salvation come only after uniting ourselves with Christ in His Passion, Death and Resurrection, one day, one step at a time, with grace organically building upon, restoring and healing nature, then the slow progression of Salvation History makes a great deal of sense.

 

[Robbinson]

Why did God Allow forty generations of human beings to suffer
like Adam and Eve before he sent the savior to save them?

We still suffer - salvation was possible before Christ by looking forward to the coming of the Messiah and is now available through Christ’s ultimate sacrifice and faith in Christ who has come (and will come again). God’s salvation plan hasn’t changed, it has proceeded as He always intended.

God’s salvation plan on a macro level has always been salvation through faith (faith in God), sacrifice (sacrifice of animals even before the Mosaic Law, then as set for in the law of Moses, and with Christ, of Christ himself) and repentance from sin (was required then, is required now). In each period, we remain damaged by sin and we still suffer.

Blessings,

Brian

 

[fewnotmany]

Why did God Allow forty generations of human beings to suffer , , , ,

see Numbers 32:1-15

32:10 "So the LORD’S anger burned in that day, and He swore, saying, 11 'None of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob; for they did not follow Me fully,

The same sentiment can be found in

Mt 16:24 -
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

 

[KingAlfred]

Why did God Allow forty generations of human beings to suffer
like Adam and Eve before he sent the savior to save them?

And…why did He direct the Israelites to massacre the Canaanites to take possession of the Promised Land? What does that say about today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

 

[Douglas_Naaden]

And…why did He direct the Israelites to massacre the Canaanites to take possession of the Promised Land? What does that say about today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

eh, nothing. The Israeli-Palestinian is a political conflict. Since the coming of Christ and most obviously, with the events of 70 AD, the Jews, as such, no longer have a any sort of religious mandate to occupy that land.

In a few words the reason the Israelites were ordered to massacre.

The land of Canaan belonged to the Israelites. It was their ancestral heritage. The Canaanites were intruders who moved in while the owners were away…and they weren’t about to leave. Furthermore, you can see as part of the Providential plan that as a crossroads for trade routes along Egypt and the fertile crescent, the land of Canaan was the perfect place to be a “light to the nations.”

The Canaanites were wicked people, who had turned form the Lord. They worshiped idols, and even sacrificed their infants to Moloch. Unfortunately, for both Canaanites and the Israelites, when the 2 people intermingled, the Israelites ended up adopting the Canaanite’s horrible rituals. If God were to just let this happen, the weak light to the world that the Israelites were, along with any hope for humanity would be extinguished.
Holiness in the OT was something that had to be protected from impurities, because of the weakness of the people. Pharisee means separated. It was how the Israelites stayed pure.
Compare this to Christ, who, in the NT when an impure person touches Him, He doesn’t become defiled, but that person’s defilement is taken away.

Anyhow, so it’s a combination of things, but I think those are the main reasons.

 

[jblake]

KingAlfred;:

What does that say about today’s Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Nothing.

The blame for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be laid squarely on the refusal of Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, and other Muslim countries to honour the treaties that they signed, and their subsequent point blank refusals to honour the promises that they made to the residents of the territory that they claimed dominion over.

xan

jonathon

 

[nuntym]

I would like to share this, a mystical fact involving God’s Holy Name YHWH that links the Old and New Testaments:

The Shekina