Paraphrasing from the Bible:
God tells Adam and Eve that if they eat from the tree of knowledge, they will surely die that day. But the serpent sets them straight. He says that if they eat it their eyes will become open to good and evil, like God, and they will not surely die.
Boy, Mitch, did you flub this one. The Bible makes mention of three kinds of death. 1. biological death (James 2:26a) which is self-evident.
2. The second death, the lake of fire (Rev.21:8).
3. Spiritual death: Being dead in trespasses and sins, (Eph. 2:1) which is a condition of sinners who are alive here on the earth, and of those who will live forever in the lake of fire. This is what Adam and Eve experienced immediately -- a separation from God.
Their death of the spirit showed up immediately in a sudden break of fellowship and loss of innocence. The near millennial life-span was an opportunity for repentance (just as our eighty or so years is). It may have been an effect of the tree of life or just a pristine gene pool that gave them long lives.
The serpent says that then God would be afraid that they will eat from the tree of life and live forever like God. Huh? You're extrapolating. He did not say God would be afraid of it.
Their eyes were opened (to be like God). And God was so afraid that that they would eat from the tree of life that He threw them out of the garden. No. God forbade them access to the tree of life now that they had sinned and were living in spiritual separation. This would have allowed them and us, unending biological life. That'd be great, wouldn't it? Every sinner from Cain on would have complete freedom to usurp the resources of God's world for their lusts without end. That's a sinner's paradise, not God's. God wasn't about to have His world in the hands of sinners permanently. God evicts all men from earth eventually, so they can be judged. Those who make peace with Him before eviction (their death), get to come back to resume eternal life.
They did not die (lived for almost a millenium, if you believe the account).
Since man was meant to live forever in the body, it doesn't matter that he died nearly a millennium later or died yesterday. It still is infinitely short of an eternity.
You're right, however, about the serpent not being Satan himself. He was identified as a beast of the field, the most cunning one. Nowhere in the bible is the devil credited directly with the deception of Eve, the serpent is. However, the serpent became evil somehow, whether through an agreement with the Devil, who is a serpent spirit, or by eating of the tree and finding no physical death himself -- a testimony he could have convincingly given. (IMO)
Stan |
