JBO gave you very fine answers to this... bur I have a few comments of myown....
If Adam and Eve retained the ability to commune with God after realizing God spoke truth, why did they hide from Him, and try to hide their nakedness with fig leaves?
OBVIOUSLY they had the ability to commune with God, buck naked..... God asked where they were and why they were hiding and covering themselves (paraphrased) and they answered... well, Adam did when he said the woman God gave him told him to eat the fruit.
If they had lost that ability no explanation from Adam would have been forthcoming.
When their eyes were opened they became ashamed, knowing what they had done and what it would cost them. Then God provided a sacrifice for them through the blood of an animal, which symbolizes the need to be covered by the blood of Christ to be saved.
What animal?
After that God drove them out of the garden of Eden and placed Cherubims and a flaming sword to bar them from the tree of life, so they could NOT eat and live forever. The only way they could find eternal life again is through the one who would come to crush the head of the serpent. They must believe the message of the seed (Christ) of the woman who would come by grace through faith to again be accepted by God.
I hesitate to point out the obvious but it was multiple centuries from their banishment and Jesus entering the world via Mary.
Do you think maybe God put them in a coma and then revived them when it was time to learn of Christ's teachings? YEAH!!!! That must be it
Christ very clearly tells us that unless a man/woman is born again of the Spirit he/she cannot know or enter the Kingdom of God. This has always been the only way to be eternally saved in Christ through the Gospel preached in the power of His Spirit. It's the same salvation plan for those of Old Covenant Israel as well as to New Covenant saints throughout the earth.
I quasi -agree with this.
Got Questions simplifies an answer with:
If the Old Testament way of salvation was not keeping the Law, then how were people saved? Fortunately, the answer to that question is easily found in Scripture, so there can be no doubt as to what was the Old Testament way of salvation. In
Romans 4 the
apostle Paul makes it very clear that the Old Testament way of salvation was the same as the New Testament way, which is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. To prove this, Paul points us to Abraham, who was saved by faith: “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (
Romans 4:3). Again, Paul quotes the Old Testament to prove his point—
Genesis 15:6, this time. Abraham could not have been saved by keeping the Law, because he lived over 400 years before the Law was given!
Much of
Romans and
Galatians addresses the fact that there is only one way of salvation and only one gospel message. Throughout history people have tried to pervert the gospel by adding human works to it, requiring certain things to be done to “earn” salvation. But the Bible’s clear message is that the way of salvation has always been through faith. In the Old Testament, it was faith in the promise that God would send a Savior someday. Those who lived in the time of the Old Testament looked forward to the Messiah and believed God’s promise of the coming Servant of the Lord (
Isaiah 53). Those who exercised such faith were saved. Today we look back on the life, death, and resurrection of the Savior and are saved by faith in Jesus Christ’s atonement for our sins (
Romans 10:9-10).
The gospel is not an exclusively New Testament message. The Old Testament contained it as well: “The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’ So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith” (
Galatians 3:8-9, quoting
Genesis 12:3).
As early as
Genesis 3:15, we see the promise of a coming Savior, and throughout the Old Testament there are hundreds of promises that the Messiah would “save His people from their sins” (
Matthew 1:21; cf.
Isaiah 53:5-6).
Job’s faith was in the fact that he knew that his “Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth” (
Job 19:25). Clearly, Old Testament saints were aware of the promised Redeemer, and they were saved by faith in that Savior, the same way people are saved today. There is no other way. Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (
Acts 4:11-12, quoting
Psalm 118:22).
