Death in the garden

Did God deal deceptively with Adam?

In the second chapter of Genesis, God tells Adam that he may eat of all the trees in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God also warned that, if Adam should eat from that particular tree, on the day he did so, Adam would die. Move into chapter three, and we find Eve deceived by the serpent into eating from the tree, and then sharing the fruit with Adam. When God calls them, He finds them hiding and asks why. “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself,” Adam responds (Gen. 3:10). God knows what has transpired, and when He confronts Adam, the blame game commences: “My wife made me do it!,” says the man. “The serpent tricked me!,” exclaims the woman. Then ensues God’s declaration of punishment for their disobedience:

The LORD God said to the serpent, “because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.” To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 3:14-19

But wait! Where’s the death God promised? Adam didn’t die, but God can’t lie. So, what happened?

It is these questions that have led to the development of the idea that Adam died spiritually when he ate of the forbidden fruit. The logic goes something like this:

Since God doesn’t lie and Adam didn’t die, God must have been speaking of some other type of death. Since man is made up of body and spirit, it must have been Adam’s spirit that died. And it’s dead, but not really. Death is separation. Therefore, just as physical death is separation of the spirit from the body, spiritual death is separation of man from God. As a matter of fact, Adam and Eve, as a result of their sin, now had a “sinful nature” which would be passed down from generation to generation (the NIV translation even uses the phrase “sinful nature” in a few New Testament passages).

I am conflating a few ideas here, and it is, to be sure, an oversimplification of a rather complex topic, far deeper and more detailed than can be handled in a piece such as this; however, it does present some of the argument put forth to support the idea of Adam dying “spiritually” and of man’s nature being changed at the fall. This line of reasoning, however, leads to several questions that have no easy answers:

• Where does Scripture actually say or imply anything along the lines of Adam dying spiritually?

• Where does God tell us that Adam’s nature was changed?

• Why do we not find these concepts in the writings of the early Church fathers?

Yes, God’s relationship with man changed, but there was still a relationship. After all, God still spoke directly with Cain and Abel, Adam and Eve’s offspring, after the humans were banished from God’s garden. The issue for me with the “spiritual death” line of reasoning is, it is too esoteric an interpretation of a passage that appears straightforward. Furthermore, the “spiritual death” interpretation leads to a critical query, the answer for which cannot be the “spiritual death”: how would Adam have understood God’s warning? When we read these verses, we must ask ourselves, what would “in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” mean to Adam? Would Adam have had an understanding of “spiritual death”? Would Adam have believed that God simply meant he would be separated from God or that his relationship with God would be changed? Or would Adam understand this to mean physical death?

There is, in reality, a way in which Adam’s nature was changed that fateful day when he accepted the fruit from his wife’s hand and put it to his mouth. God affirms for us exactly what happened to Adam: “Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis 3:22a). Thus came to pass the serpent's statement to Eve, that eating the fruit would bring knowledge, and the humans now knew good and evil just as God knew good and evil. This does not, that I can discern, equate to spiritual death or a change in proclivity. Unless we are to ascribe to God sinfulness or a “sinful nature,” this cannot be what this verse expounds. After all, God says that “the man has become like one of Us.”  Rather than leave us in the dark, God clarifies the death conundrum in the second half of this verse: “‘and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’” (Genesis 3:22b).

As residents of the garden, Adam and Eve had access to the tree of life, and therefore, had the opportunity to “live forever.” Along with the other curses God pronounces on the serpent, Eve, Adam, and all of creation, He fulfills his original admonition. Death entered into the world because Adam and Eve were removed from the garden and lost access to the tree of life. It can be said, therefore, that in that day, Adam and Eve “died” and brought death to all men:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

Romans 5:12-14

I am not going to delve into all the detail contained in this small passage from Romans, but it is cited here to show that the death of which it speaks is physical death. As for the “sinful nature” that is so often inferred, the Greek word that the NIV translates as “sinful nature” is the word σαρξ (sarx) which simply means “flesh” (as other versions properly translate). Paul explains the battle of the flesh against the spirit in describing his own struggle:

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.

Romans 7:14-20, emphases mine

Jesus cautioned His disciples of this very struggle: “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). This echoes God’s warning to Cain that “‘If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.’”(Genesis 4:7). There are many other passages that describe this battle. We are led astray by our flesh: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death” (James 1:14-15). This is what happened with Eve, and then Adam; and God, being truthful, being holy, and being just, evicted Adam and Eve from the garden taking away their opportunity to avoid death.

Another point to ponder is the use of the phrase “in that day.” We find these words used in many places in the Bible (the phrase occurs 89 times in the NASB), and it does not always refer to a specific 24-hour period or a single rotation of the earth; it refers instead to a particular time frame or the beginning of a particular time frame. As an example, consider Deuteronomy 31:17-18:

Then My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be consumed, and many evils and troubles will come upon them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Is it not because our God is not among us that these evils have come upon us?’ But I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods.

It is clear in these verses that God is not speaking of a single, specific day, but of a period of time. Similarly, God’s portent of death in His instruction to Adam did not have to happen that very “day” to be true. Death came to Adam and Eve through their removal from God’s oasis.

As Scripture speaks of two births, Scripture also speaks of two “deaths.” The first birth is of the flesh (John 3:5-6), a physical birth, and the first death likewise is of the flesh, the physical death all men face as a penalty for sin - “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). The second birth is a renewal by God, birth by the spirit (John 3:5-6) in which God gives us “a new spirit” (Ezekiel 11:19, 36:26), His Spirit (Acts 10:47; 2 Corinthians 1:22) and makes us a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17); it is a birth unto “eternal life” - “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23a). The “second death” is the end only for those who do not belong to Christ, those whose names are not found written in the Lamb’s book of life. This death entails being cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14) along with Satan, the beast, the false prophet, Hades, and death itself. This is an “eternal death,” a torment that knows no end (Mark 9:48; Revelation 14:9-11). Jesus provides a picture of this when He relates the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16. The two births and two deaths are analogous

The Bible does not speak of “spiritual death.” I do understand that people speak of us being “spirtually dead,” not only because of Adam’s falter, but because the unsaved are said to be dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1 for example). This can be seen, however, to simply imply that the unsaved is destined for the second death. Thus Jesus’ statement to “allow the dead bury their own dead.” There is no hope for those without Jesus; their end will be the lake of fire.

I know this does not align with what is generally accepted today. At times, we must challenge our beliefs to see if they are truly derived from Scripture through proper exegesis, or if we have accepted a doctrine simply because it has been passed down for some time. I do not claim to have all the answers - only God does. I am simply offering an alternate perspective, one I believe is a more directly expressed by Scripture. I also believe that, if the idea of Adam dying spiritually was accurate, such a concept would appear in the writings of the early Church fathers (if someone knows of such a writing, please let me know and I will gladly reconsider my position). At times we tend to make things more complex than necessary, and it seems to me, this is one of those cases. Otherwise, we must ask ourselves, did God deal deceptively with Adam?