Hi thinker:
You wrote:
what do you mean....
... to my comment ...
When Eve and Adam ate the fruit, there was no sin, 'officially', because the Law had not been formally introduced and wouldn't be for quite some time.
I was hoping the rest of my post would have clearly explained it. I'll take another crack at it.
I struggled for many years with the teaching that the Law was in existence since the creation prior to Moses. I really couldn't read that anywhere in the scriptures without some kid of mental gymnastics. I found the Church teachings lacking somewhat about it for my understanding to grasp. If I had to prove it to anyone including myself I just couldn't. In my mind, especially contrary to that teaching, was the scripture ...
Gal 3:19 Wherefore then serveth
the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
And it was added much longer, going back to Adam and Eve, than the 430 years after the promise made to Abraham. Not only was it added but it was added because of
transgressions. What then was being transgressed before the Law was 'added'.
Well it has only been rather recent that I have come up with an explanation that means something to me in a logical way. This explanation works very well with my understanding of righteousness and sin and how it all ties in to good and evil.
According to the scriptures it wasn't the Law that was set before Adam and Eve, it was the knowledge of good and evil. Then YHWH gave them 'simple' commandments initially. 'Don't eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil', for instance.
YHWH was teaching them what to do and what not to do but not necessarily why to do something or why not to do something else. They were given knowledge but not understanding. The tree represented
knowledge of good and evil but the eating of the fruit represented the
understanding of the knowledge of good and evil.
So Adam and Eve, by eating the fruit of that tree began to understand the consequences of good and evil. You wrote:
It doesn't say but God would have instructed them what to do in everything.
I agree but YHWH wouldn't have done it all at once mostly because they would not have been able to take it in all at once. They and their immediate descendants didn't take very much of it in at all, did they, as mankind went down hill very quickly to their destruction in just over 1600 years or so. Only a handful were considered righteous by YHWH according to their belief in Him and their consequential faithful obedience.
And even if YHWH did teach them everything, they wouldn't necessarily 'get' it. How many decades or even centuries has it been since the Church or any organization of the Church 'got' the Sacred Name along with all of everything else? I don't think any of the Church, individuals or organizations, have had ALL the truth. Otherwise we wouldn't be admonished to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Master and Saviour, Yahshua the Messiah.
You asked:
What do you think he preached?
The short answer is he preached 'good'. The Law was not yet introduced by Moses so He couldn't have been preaching the Law yet. So what is 'good' then? It was part of what was set before Adam and Eve with that tree as the scriptures tell us.
Adam and Eve chose to not belief YHWH and disobeyed Him by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As it turns out they learned that was evil because they were told that it would cause their death. Anything that causes death then they learned was evil. Eating that fruit gave them that understanding whereas before they had been given that knowledge only.
Now just as much as they understood what evil was and died for it, Noah made the choice to believe YHWH and obeyed Him gaining the understanding of what good was which are those things that bring life. Noah gained the understanding that anything that brings life is good. So Noah preached those things that were good. With understanding comes belief/faith.
But all that preaching and understanding of good and evil was wasted upon mankind as it chose evil and death because of its unbelief in YHWH rather than good and life. That was the reason for the flood - to wipe out evil with death. Noah understood that clearly as the faith he demonstrated of his belief in YHWH by building the ark. Noah understood good and evil and chose good and life. This was all done without the Law yet being 'added'.
Life started again pretty much from scratch but little was learned about choosing good and rejecting evil with the quick rise of Nimrod. Something was put into place to combat this constant scourged of evil that mankind had want to choose.
Through Abraham YHWH introduced righteousness by faith.
It was very important that the promise was in place before the Law so that there would be no question that the promise of the inheritance of righteous eternal life to the believers of YHWH was to come from faith and not works of the Law. By that time it was all too evident that not even one from mankind would ever gain salvation from death through doing only good works. All had choosen to do evil at least once and were doomed to death even without the Law just because evil brings or results in death by definition.
Not only that, it was the promise itself to Abraham and his one 'seed', Yahshua, that would make it possible for this very same promise to be kept - kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The promise could only be kept if a human could gain salvation from death by doing only good works. This was accomplished through the promise of YHWH by YHWH-shua (Yahweh-saves).
Getting back to righteousness and sin, good and evil. Next, finally, the introduction of the Law through Moses is 'added'. The Israelites are told that 'today' is set before them good and life, and, evil and death and to choose good and life. Just the same as set before Adam and Eve.
Except this time good and evil are additionally codified by the introduction of the Law. The Law does this by defining good, which brings life, as righteousness and defining evil, which brings death, as sin. And why the Law?
Well as we have seen in the above scripture because of transgressions - transgression of those things that bring life - in other words, the trangressions of good. When good is transgressed, that is called evil. Good = righteousness and evil = sin. Sin is the transgression of the righteousness of the Law. Sin brings death because evil, which is coded as sin, brings death.
So Adam and Eve would have died anyway without the Law because they did EVIL which brings death. It wouldn't have been necessary to codify evil as sin for that to happen.
But in order to make salvation possible YHWH introduced the promise and the Law so that evil could be legally eliminated through His grace made possible by the righteousness and sacrifice of Yahshua.
So transgressions of good, which is evil, which became sin, which brings death can be eliminated so that we can be saved from evil which is good, which is righteousness, which brings life.
Remember, scripture says that the Law is for lawbreakers. YHWH and Yahshua, are not lawbreakers so they didn't need the Law before we came along. They only do good, never evil.
So mankind was dead because of transgessions of good before the Law. With the Law put into place by YHWH it was made possible for those transgressions to be erased through belief in YHWH. But what is more important, we can, by our increasing demonstrated belief, or faith, be ensured that we will become totally righteous by doing only right upon receiving the fullness of the Holy Spirit.
So although we can't be saved by the Law, neither can we be saved without it because their would be no way to remove our sins because without the Law there is no sin. We would be dead in our transgressions of good.
Yes, sin is the transgression of the Law but only because the Law was put into place so sin could be defined so we could be saved from the death that comes from transgressions of good.
Hope you can pick up on this line of reasoning thinker. If anyone can it would be you. As I understand it, it agrees with what you have said in your post but just gives more depth to the 'behind the scenes' aspects of the Law and its beginnings.
Yes the Law is eternal now that it has been established just in the same way that we will become eternal once we are made spirit beings. But that doesn't mean that we had a pre-existence just as the Law didn't have a pre-existence except that it is a legal defining of good and evil and the understanding of the consequences of choosing one or the other and this is what has always existed.