Image by dkkqs (https://www.flickr.com/photos/36966991@N06/11011556585/).
Submitted to Luther Rice University
September 17, 2014
In Genesis 2:16, God issued a command to Adam. He said, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”1 It is later documented in this historical account that the first woman, Eve, was deceived by the serpent. The creature told her that she would not die, but would be like God, having superior knowledge. Having succumbed to the serpent’s craftiness, she ate the fruit of the tree and gave some to Adam, who also ate (Gen 3.4-6). This sin against God led to a curse against all of mankind of both physical and spiritual death.
What did it mean to die? The focus of this discussion is spiritual death, but there is something important to briefly note about the physical aspect of the curse. Adam was told that the day he ate of the fruit, he would die, yet he and Eve were not immediately executed for their sin. It is a common thing for there to be a double entendre in Satan’s lures. The cunning serpent had been correct in the sense that they would not physically die on the spot, but now with the knowledge of good and evil, the couple would experience shame in their nakedness, and feelings of pain, fear, and sorrow along with the eventual cessation of physical life.2 In essence, they died to the life and privileges they enjoyed, and their bodies would decay and return to dust (Gen 3.19). They certainly got more than they bargained for! But far more significant was the spiritual aspect of God’s pronounced judgment for Adam’s disobedience.
Spiritual death is defined simply as “separation from God.”3 Adam’s and his wife’s sin in the Garden of Eden erected a spiritual wall between them and their Creator. They had been transformed into depraved beings that could no longer connect with God, nor with each other in the same way that they had enjoyed in the garden (Gen 3.16). The expulsion of the first human family from the garden was symbolic of this separation.4
This was no small matter! God would visit Adam’s sin on his children! A huge consequence of the sin in the garden was that Adam’s depravity was passed on to the entire human race, so that no man who has been born from a woman can commune with God in the way that he was originally designed. Many examples in the Bible show us that man inherited a tendency toward lust (2 Sam 11; Phil 3.19), lies (Acts 13.10), contaminated worship (Exo 32; Rom 1.21-23), and other sins. Modern issues such as abortion, the global acceptance of sexual perversion and gay marriage, disdain for Christians and the Bible, and many others demonstrate the depravity of mankind. We have not evolved into better people. This “spiritual deadness” sentences man to “eternal judgment” if he is not redeemed (Jas 1.14-15).5 The good news is that this redemption came many years later in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who takes away the sins of all who will believe in Him. John MacArthur writes, “Those who are identified with Adam—every person who has been born—is subject to death because of Adam’s sinful act. Likewise, those who are identified with Christ—every person who has been born again in Him—is subject to resurrection to eternal life because of Christ’s righteous act [of atonement for sin on the cross].”6 Adam and Eve were designed for immortality, but their sin sentenced all of mankind to eternal death, separated from God. So God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, the third person of the Trinity, to die in man’s place and regenerate anyone who calls upon Him for salvation! What wondrous love this is!
Many have asked the question why, if it bore such a great consequence on the entirety of humanity, did God put the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden in the first place? It seems as though God was setting Adam and Eve up to fail. A false doctrine held by the Mormon Church is that it was God’s desire for the first humans to fall, and it was good that they did. His spirit children, Adam and Eve, had to eat the fruit so they could become mortals with the ability to have children.7
Even though God is omniscient, having known about Adam’s failure—and the failures of all mankind—from before the foundation of the world, a better understanding of the purpose of the tree of knowledge is that it was a test of Adam’s obedience to God, and not a trap. There were undoubtedly a large number of beautiful and fruit-bearing trees in the Garden of Eden, so the prohibition of this tree should have been no big deal. But Satan, in the form of a serpent, was the one who set the trap. He channeled Eve’s thoughts to the forbidden tree and its fruit, reasoning that if God was good, He would not withhold anything from her and Adam if He truly loved them.8 The tree itself was not poisonous in a material sense, as C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch note, but it was empowered by the Spirit of God to produce the consequences in man for disobedience, something Adam and Eve chose of their own free will when they took the advice of the serpent.9
Our thoughts now turn to something very interesting. What would have happened had Adam and Eve obeyed God and turned Satan down? What seems most obvious is that the curse would not exist. We can look at God’s judgment on Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:16-19, and safely assume that the opposite of each point would be true. Eve and all future women would have no trouble bearing children. Perfect, reciprocal love would be the theme of every husband and wife household. Adam would have had perfect dominion over all of creation and the ground would have easily yielded food and natural resources without the constant crowding and encroachment of thorny weeds. Obtaining food would not have been very difficult. And most importantly, there would not have been physical death, at least not in the painful, sorrowful, frightening sense we perceive it today.
Would knowledge of good and evil have been withheld eternally from Adam and Eve? What could have happened had Adam and Eve not fallen to temptation is pure speculation. It’s important to note that there were two significant trees planted in the Garden of Eden. One was the tree of life, the fruit of which was empowered by God to give eternal life. The other tree, the tree of knowledge, has been part of the major focal point of this discussion. One can assume that God had great plans in store for His image-bearing human creation. Access to the tree of life may have been the plan, as well as eternally enjoying the direct tutelage of God Himself. Keil and Delitzsch suggest that “by obedience to the divine will, [Adam] would have attained to a godlike knowledge of good and evil.”10 Constantly making right choices may have made Adam and Eve extremely sensitive to even the most subtle deception. Satan may not have even had any future chances!
The Bible tells us that someday God is going to set all things right as He originally intended it to be, and that both physical and spiritual death will cease. Before this can happen, a great purging of the earth and its inhabitants must take place, but it is truly amazing that God delays His Son’s return in power and glory until the last possible person puts his or her faith and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. God judged Adam and Eve for their sin and cast them out of the garden, but He did not totally forsake them or their descendants. Praise God that He cares about us and for us even in this wicked age.
1 Scripture taken from the New King James Version
2 David S. Dockery et al., Holman Bible Handbook (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 1992), 124.
3 Walter A. Elwell and Barry J. Beitzel, Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), 602.
4 K. A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26 , vol. 1A, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 237.
5 Russell D. Moore, “Death,” ed. Chad Brand et al., Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 406.
6 John MacArthur, 1 Corinthians: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary (Chicago: The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1984), 417.
7 Aaron K. Newton, “Comprehending Counterfeit: Understanding, Counteracting, and Evangelizing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.” Faith and Mission 21, no. 3 (Summer 2004): http://www.galaxie.com/article/fm21-3-02 (accessed September 17, 2014), 32.
8 Charles Ryrie, “Satan’s Counterfeit.” Grace Journal 2, no. 3 (Fall 1961): http://www.galaxie.com/article/gj02-3-03 (accessed September 11, 2014), 17.
9 Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Commentary on the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 53.
10 Ibid., 54.