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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mitch Blevins who wrote (33053)	10/16/2001 9:40:21 PM
From: Stan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

Hello, Mitch. How are you today? You can make the Old Testament say about anything if you are willing to redefine words to your liking! The definition of death is separation of spirit from body, as a result of the deeper death -- alienation from God through sin. I think the lake of fire was unknown to Adam. Notice that you used New Testament references to define a word in an early Old Testament passage. A principle is true regardless of time. Now, as to Adam's understanding of it: Perhaps the literal Hebrew can shed more light on what God told Adam then can the English expression “you shall surely die.” It reads: “a death shalt thou die,” or “a dying thou shalt die.” This indicates the experience of death does allow for something more than a physical one. Even more, this expression suggests to me that God gave it in an emphatic if not stern manner, to present a guard for Adam against his lack of experiential knowledge of death. Therefore, Adam should trust that death is indeed an unwanted thing. This was, IMO, the real trouble: trust vs. self-determination. But, the word does present a curious problem that we would have trouble appreciating. To us, it is a common human experience. We see it around us; we are under its threat from many sources; we feel its slow arrival as we age. However, death is a theretofore-unknown thing to Adam; much like a fourth primary color might be to us. He may have been perfectly capable of apprising it intellectually, but not in reality. You seem to acknowledge that the other passages that reference the tree of life do mean "die" in the physical manner we are all accustomed to. So why interpret it differently for the death-promise? You’re right about that. Actually, I was not aware of the Hebrew expression when I posted it. Because of the serpent's cunning, I believe Adam had failed in a critical mission – to guard the garden, especially that tree. (Gen. 2:15) The serpent said to Eve, “Thou shalt not die a death.” He categorically states that she would be safe from this death if she ate. The only thing that makes sense to me is that he tried the fruit and received the eye-opening effect and spoke as one who now knew. But, he was evil now. His strange assertions created fear in Eve, for she buttresses the command "to not eat of its fruit," with "or touch it." Further, she eliminates the doubled, emphatic expression, "a death you shall die" to merely "die" indicating a growing acquiescence to the serpent's suggestion as well as a declining sense of aversion to the penalty. You’ve no doubt heard of the old trick of a pusher who is trying to get a child on drugs. The authoritative voice of experience telling the innocent, unworldly child that he’d feel just great and all his problems would go away! But, my father told me drugs were bad. Oh, that’s not true. He just doesn’t want you to have any real fun. But, they're bad, aren't they? . . . The pusher has him. Secondly, Adam was not meant to live forever in the body... remember why God kept him away from the tree of life? We are poles apart here. Death was not in the world until after sin and he was not kept away from it until after sin. The only tree they couldn't eat of was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They had access to the tree of life freely while they stayed loyal to God. Why did Adam actually eat of the tree? Eve was deceived into sinning (1 Tim. 2:14), but not Adam; he was deliberate. IMO, he wanted separation from God so that he could attain the knowledge of good and evil despite what the result might actually be. The good had been hidden from their eyes in the same sense their nakedness was – ever present, but unacknowledged. The Hebrew word for “evil” (about the tree) doesn’t mean “sin.” It means “misery, injury, distress.” Well, these were just as foreign an idea experientially as death was. He wanted to have elevated knowledge beyond what his innocence could afford. The only method of gaining this god-like knowledge was disobedience. I think he regretted the results (misery, injury and loss), but not enough to repent. All of us humans have the taste of that fruit in our mouths. We want to experiment with death – separation from God -- and for most people, up until physical death. Death will be an eye-opening experience for us all. Mitch, I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I am concerned about you. Your eloquent fight is protecting your own death from remedy. Thanks for listening. Stan