In other words we are dealing the question: What was the sin & punishment for Adam's sin? If we misunderstand the beginning, then we are much more likely to misinterpret the rest of the Bible.
Let's work through the story of the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden. So, first up we will read the important parts of the story.
Firstly there is this single -- all-important -- command God gave to Adam. (we see that in Gen 2:15-17)
- "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, 'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 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.'" (Gen 2:15-17)
We read the Bible with all the baggage of our current Christian worldview. We can't help having all this baggage, but the wise reader will aim to set aside his baggage and try to read Bible passages as if he was reading them for the first time without any prior knowledge of the rest of the Bible. It's hard, but not impossible.
One thing stands out really plainly. The punishment for sin is death. Our view of death as the punishment for sin might become a little wobbly when we realise that Adam didn't actually die on the day he and Eve at of the forbidden fruit.
This has lead many to interpret that the punishment wasn't physical death but spiritual death.
I recently made a vide on the topic of eschatology (= future things) called "full preterism". I was surprised at how many comments I received on that video stating that (a) Adam was mortal before the fall and (b) Therefore the death sentence in the fall narrative can only mean "spiritual death".
So is the idea that the death-punishment was not physical but really only spiritual But is this really correct?
Our view that the punishment for sin being spiritual death may be bolstered by the fact that Paul in the New Testament exclaims:
"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked" (Eph 2:1-2)
and also,
"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses." (Col 2:13)
Does this mean we are done, the matter is settled, the punishment for sin was spiritual death? Not so fast. Maybe the answer lies in a both and and not an either or response. Firstly, the revelation that man in his state of unbelief is dead in his sins, did not come for several thousand years later.
The original couple -- Adam and Eve -- did not have this knowledge at least we are not told they did. We should, I believe, read the account in the garden of eden as if we were being told it by Adam and Eve themselves.
So far, the plain reading of the account in Genesis 2 is that Adam and Eve will suffer the punishment of death (real physical bodily death) when they eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and this punishment will happen on that very day.
Before we go any further let's read the detailed account in chapter three (3:1-7). First the actual account of their sin.
"Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths." (Gen 3:1-7)
Setting aside for the moment the deceptive distortion of God's command by the serpent and the wrong understanding by Eve, we can certainly see a change in Adam and in Eve in their knowledge of themselves -- their eyes were opened and now they feel the shame of their sin -- but they didn't die physically on that day. This no doubt is further fuel for those who want to argue that the death they experienced was only of spiritual nature.
Again we must then ask, are we done, is the argument settled in favour of spiritual death alone?
What happens next should give us pause as this sets the stage for the whole story of the Bible, the story of redemption. What does God do next?
Adam and Eve had made the first human attempt at sin covering. They attempted to hide their nakedness by sewing fig leaves to cover themselves. This then becomes the story of all of humanity. We somehow, intuitively know our universal human condition called sin, and what do we do? We create these elaborate schemes to cover up our shame and present ourselves as if nothing had happened.
One might say, this is the birth of all of human religion. ALL forms of man-made religion take on the task of presenting man in a state before God that hides his true sinful nature. By doing this our religious forms, hide from us our TRUEST AND MOST ESSENTIAL NEED, namely the forgiveness for our sins, something Christ came to give and ONLY Christ can give.
Back to the account in the garden of Eden…
God however knows our need, and he provides the first sacrificial lamb to cover the sin of Adam and Eve.
- Reading in Gen 3:21 - we see..
"And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them." (Gen 3:21)
What is easily missed in this moment is the fact that there was a death on that very day, a real death, but a substitutionary one, namely the death of the animals from whom God took the skin to cover Adam and Eve.
As Christians we should notice the precursor to the account of Jesus going to the cross on our behalf. He died the death on the cross to cover our sins, importantly he died instead of, or on behalf of us. Later when Paul exclaims "we have died with Christ", I believe he is not saying the we -- who believe and trust in Jesus -- physically died when Jesus went to the cross, Jesus died a substitutionary death for us. We couldn't have died because we were not even alive yet, but Jesus died the death we should have died, yet hid did so on our behalf, much like the animals from whom God took the skin to cover Adam and Eve.
Paul beautifully expresses this very thing in his letter to the Romans in chapter 6 :5-8
"For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him." (Rom 6:5-8)
Now, we know from the growing story of redemption through the Old Testament that the animal sacrifice was only a covering, it could not actually take away the sin, in the way Christ's substitutionary death could. We see this most fully expressed in the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament: (Heb 10:10-12)
"And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God." (Heb 10:10-12)
Back to Genesis chapter two. We must then, take a closer look at the following statement in 2:17:
"in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Gen 2:17)
The last two words of this verse in the Hebrew are simply the same verb in two different forms. The two different forms quite literally mean "die dying".
Jonathan Sarfati, writing in his commentary on Genesis 1-11 says the solution lies in the Hebrew form of the term "die". He quotes Hebrew scholar Kulikovsy which sheds light on how an ancient Hebrew would likely have understood this term:
"When the infinitive absolute precedes a finite verb of the same stem (as is the case here), it strengthens or intensifies the verbal idea by emphasizing 'either the certainty (especially in the case of threats) or the forcibleness and completeness of an occurrence.'"
In simple terms this means that the emphasis here is on certain death, rather than immediate or precise chronology. You might be thinking, here we go, I need to be a Hebrew scholar to understand the Bible. Not so fast, this emphasis is also explained elsewhere in the Old Testament, giving us a strong precedent to affirm our conclusion.
As King Solomon was establishing his reign, after his father King David died, he issued a decree to punish Shimei, using almost the identical words as used in Genesis three.
- In 1 Kings 2:37-40 we read:
"Then the king sent and summoned Shimei and said to him, 'Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there to any place whatever. For on the day you go out and cross the brook Kidron, know for certain that you shall die... So Shimei lived in Jerusalem many days. But it happened at the end of three years... Shimei arose and saddled a donkey and went to Gath to Achish to seek his servants." (1 Kings 2:37-40)
And, some time later.. (in the same chapter 42-46)
"The king sent and summoned Shimei and said to him, 'Did I not make you swear by the Lord and solemnly warn you, saying, ‘Know for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place whatever, you shall die’? ...Then the king commanded Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and he went out and struck him down, and he died. So the kingdom was established in the hand of Solomon." (1 Kings 2:42-46)
Shimei could not possible have been executed on the same day he exited his house, since he was not killed until after he had travelled from Jerusalem to Gath, to locate his missing slaves. In essence we could say that both Adam and Shimei in these two accounts were "as good as dead" the very day the punishment was pronounced.
This is quite a common way of expressing judgment punishments in the Old Testament. When King Saul disobeyed God by keeping the spoils of battle rather than doing as God commanded, and devoting it all to destruction, Samuel the prophet pronounces to Saul that the kingdom of Israel was torn from Saul 'this day'. Clearly it didn't happen for several years.
- In 1 Sam 15:28 we read..
"The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you." (1 Sam 15:28)
It was a pronouncement of judgment that would from that day forward be carried out with certainty, not chronological immediacy.
An analogy might help. Consider a farmer who prunes his fruit trees. The day he cuts branches off the tree, those branches are chopped off and fall to the ground. They have effectively been cut off from the life source. Death is certain but not immediate.
The branch will slowly wither and eventually die.
Likewise with Adam and Eve, they were cut off from preservational life support from God, the very day they sinned. "Dying they died", slowly and finally 900 odd years later when they truly died.
Now some people argue that Adam and Eve were mortal before they sinned. Death was a certainty beforehand and they argue from this standpoint to say that the death penalty can therefore only have been spiritual death. Someone who also believes in evolution as the means God used to create the universe teaming with life as we know would feel comfortable with this argument.
Once you embrace evolution as the means of creation -- the very mechanism of evolution demands that death existed from the beginning as death is it's engine -- then it becomes only natural to claim that Adam and Eve were mortal before the fall.
It might be important to note here that physical immortality can be viewed as inherent -- the idea that Adam and Eve were created with an in-built immortality. They de-facto could not die if they did not sin. The alternative view is that immortality in the original creation of Adam was not inherent but given by God through his divine act of providence, as can be see in the giving of the tree of life in the garden. This view is somewhat strengthened by the idea that once Adam and Eve sinned, God expelled them from the garden and barred them from being able to access the tree of life.
Either of these views seem to fit the story of the fall. The all-important issue lies in the pronouncement of the death penalty as punishment for sin, whether it was physical, spiritual or death of the whole person.
This place isn't the right place to mount an argument for "Young Earth Creationism," but what we as Christians who believe in the inspiration of scripture must affirm are the following assertions from Genesis one:
"God saw that it was good," (Gen 1) is asserted five times in the first 25 verses of Genesis one. This is all before God creates man. I believe it is really dishonest with the plain reading of this chapter to claim that, death, the very means and mechanism of evolutionary creation, is good. That's tantamount to saying English language has no meaning at all.
It's a thorough going denial of one the basic laws of logic. The law of non-contradiction.
To top this off, the chapter finally says "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." (Gen 1:31)
This was after he had made all animal life and the crown of creation, human life.
To claim that man was made mortal -- and by this I mean that man before he sinned was definitely subject to death -- is, I believe, to deny the plainest sense in which the opening chapters of the Bible are written. To fail here is to create a broken foundation for the remainder of your theology.
The idea that the body is already dead whilst not actually being dead yet, is also confirmed by the apostle Paul in his letter to
the Romans: (8:10)
"Although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness." (Rom 8:10)
Clearly this can't mean spiritual death because Paul uses the language of "the body is dead."
Finally, there is one more argument that should give us confidence that we have understood the punishment of sin to be the real and physical death of the whole person called human being.
Some time after Adam and Eve rebelled, God calls out to them in the garden and asks:
"Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Gen 3:11)
God then pronounced judgment on both the serpent and the original couple. Given that Adam had been given responsibility for creation, his judgment is also the one that falls retrospectively on all of humanity.
If we were in any doubt that the punishment of death was physical, this doubt should be dissolved by the sobering words to Adam in chapter 3:19
"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Gen 3:19)
To be told "to dust you shall return," is quite literally pronouncing the total destruction of the human body.
We are now still left with the question we asked at the outset, was the punishment only physical, or both physical and spiritual?
I think the issue arises here from our modern "dualist thinking," which we have largely inherited from the Greek philosophers, many of whom believed that man has a dual nature. The real person is the soul or the spirit -- they tended to interchange these two terms -- and this real you, is trapped in a physical body. The Greeks had a rather negative view of the body and an exaggerated view of the soul. They believed the soul was inherently immortal, i.e. indestructable, whereas the body was this natural evil, and they viewed death as being saved from this natural evil called the body.
I am going to make a further video looking into the question of "inherent immortality of the soul" in a future, I simply want to ask the question here, what was the ancient Hebrew way of looking at man? Was it dualism or did they view man as a single entity with the spiritual and the physical as just different aspects of the one and the same person?
Early on in the Reformation period, Martin Luther recognised the significance of denying the idea of purgatory, it was one of his objections to Roman Catholicism raised in the 95 theses, nailed to the church door at Wittenberg. It was the wicked practice of extracting money from the poor so that the pope may release a poor relative from the fires of purgatory:
"They preach only human doctrines who say that as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, the soul flies out of purgatory."
This was very early on in the reformation. When one follows the development of Luther's theological ideas on hell, the afterlife and eternal punishment, one thing stands out. Luther strongly rejected the `dualist` notion that man consists of two fixed entities, body and soul. Luther saw these two as different views of the whole. Luther strongly rejected the idea of the soul being a `ghost like` entity that separates from the body on death. As we move into considering the next question on the `immortality` of the soul.
This quote from one of Luther's university lectures on the psalms, late in his life is helpful:
"God is our Dwelling Place, and not the earth, not heaven, not paradise, but simply God himself. And indeed he is that from generation to generation. This means that from the beginning of the world to the end of the world God has never deserted his own. Adam, Eve, patriarchs, prophets, pious kings are asleep in this Dwelling Place. If, as I believe, they have not yet risen with Christ, their bodies are indeed at rest in the grave, but their life is hidden with Christ in God and will be revealed in glory on the last day. In this way Moses [we must recall Luther was speaking on psalms that were attributed to Moses] calls attention to the resurrection of the dead and the hope of the life over death."
Now I recognise that most people believe in what is commonly called `The Intermediate State` today. This entails that the souls of believers leave their bodies at death and go to be with Christ in heaven. On the flip side, the souls of all unbelievers leave the bodies at death and go straight to hell. You might be thinking of the parable called `The Rich Man and Lazarus` right now, and I wouldn't blame you.
- I again intend to make yet another video answering the question from the "Rich Man and Lazarus story" - Was it a story to tell us something about reality, i.e. this is exactly how the afterlife is going to be? Or, was it a parable with a simple message, like so many of Jesus's parables? I hope you will return for the answer on this question.
Reformer, Martin Luther certainly rejected the notion that this parable is evidence of an intermediate state and an immortal soul. Needless to say, it does come as a surprise to many to realise that Luther rejected this idea as an `invention of Romanism.`
I shall leave you with this thought from Martin Luther, in the hope I have whet your appetite for more on this subject:
"I permit the pope to make articles of faith for himself and his faithful, such as.. the soul is immortal, with all those monstrous opinions to be found in the Roman dunghill of decretals."
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