Brethren, when we read that in Genesis 2:17, do we not subconsciously read into it, Yes, but He does not really mean that. He means we will eventually die? We soften it, expecting that God will not carry through with what He literally says. I am going to give you a couple of quotes from some commentaries. The Keil-Delitzsch Commentary says, That in the day that you eat thereof you shall die. It means as soon as he ate, he would die. The Keil-Delitzsch is a very conservative commentary.
Let me give you one from The Interpreter's Bible Commentary, which is one of the most liberal commentaries. They say, Death would follow immediately! From one of the most conservative commentaries to one of the most liberal, they agree the verse says that when they touched that tree, thus showing the intent of their heart, they would die. That is pretty strong.
Brethren, in the beginning, at creation, all sin is deemed as worthy of death. Every sin is a capital offense. Let us think about this a little further. In creation, God was not obligated in any way to give you and me life. He is not indebted to us at all. Life is a gift that puts us under obligation, and that obligation is stated, or at least implied very strongly, right when man is being created. Let us create man in Our image. God gave life to man and put him under the obligation of being the image-bearer of God. That is why you and I were created. Think about that.
In chapter 2 we are further obligated by God's command to take of the Tree of Life, and not the other tree. The implication there is that only God knows how we are to live in order to fill our obligation to be the image-bearers of God. We have to learn that the root of sin lies in the desire of men to live their lives in self-centered independence from God. This is where the root of the trouble is. This is what keeps us from being the image-bearers of God that God intended we be. If we deviate from this, have we not broken our obligation to God? If we deviate from this - if we go from the path, if we miss the mark - we have sinned. We have broken our obligation to mirror and reflect the holiness of God.
Is God unfair if something is so clearly stated? Are you beginning to see why He commands us to choose life? He sets before us two different ways. He commands us to go in a certain direction, because if we go in the other direction we have broken our obligation to be image-bearers, and then He is not obligated any longer after that to continue our lives. He is under no obligation to continue the life that He gave to you and me as a gift. God is not acting unfairly at all. There is no injustice. The commands are very clear.
When the penalty was stated to Adam and Eve, did God say, If you sin, some day you will die? No. He did not say that. The penalty is stated very clearly to be instant death, just as suddenly as it fell on Nadab and Abihu, and on Ananias and Sapphira, and Uzza.
Let us look at this realistically and let us not try to soften what God very clearly literally says. He meant the death penalty in the fullest sense of the word. Even though they did indeed suffer spiritual death, the only reason they lived [physically] was because it was right at that point that God extended grace. That is the only reason Adam and Eve continued to live. God was no longer obligated to continue their lives.
There it is. Cause-and-effect. Sin is the cause of death. Just as surely as sin is an absolute, if one sins, death will be the absolute effect. Do you believe that? It is so important that God put it in the second chapter, and it is one of the first instructions that God gives to mankind.
Let us expand on this, just a little bit. Encompassed within an understanding of this principle here of Genesis 2 also shows why civilization is the way that it is today. We cannot blame the way civilization is on Adam and Eve, we cannot blame all the filth out there, we cannot blame war on them, we cannot blame disease on them, we cannot blame all the things that go wrong in relationships on them, and the reason is expressed to us in Romans 5.
Their fault was they introduced sin, but did we have to do what they did? Nowhere is it written that we had to do what they did, but like them, we did do as they did, we sinned.
Our sins were not exactly the same as Adam and Eve's, but because that principle is at work - cause-and-effect - when we sin, we reap the effect. Just as surely as the horse comes first that - is, in this case - in the typology, sin comes first, and it is absolute that death is going to follow right behind it, just the way a cart follows the horse. We are just as much to blame as Adam and Eve.
How can this be changed is man's challenge. That is what God has challenged us with. How can this be changed? Mankind, seeing the effect in civilization, may not blame it on sin, they may blame it on crime, they may blame it on other processes, but they do see that there is something wrong. They may even go so far as to see that there is something wrong with human nature, but they never put the blame in the right place and the reason is because they do not understand really where to put the blame.
Let me ask you something. Did being in the Garden of Eden, which must have been the most beautiful environment anybody ever in the history of the world ever lived in, stop Adam and Eve from sinning? It is not the environment's problem; the problem is in man's spirit. Change has to be produced from the inside out. If change is produced on the inside, you are getting the horse before the cart, which is the right way, then the environment will change in the right way, because the people who are changed on the inside will change it. The environment is merely a reflection of what is coming up from the inside of people.
There is a problem, because God has mercifully arranged His spiritual and moral laws in such a way that they proceed toward their effect at a much slower manner, which allows time for changes to take place within us as we learn to use them. If death resulted immediately from sin, God's whole purpose would have ended in the Garden of Eden. That is all she wrote. As soon as Eve touched the fruit and picked whatever it was off the tree, that was it. But that is not the way moral and spiritual law works.
The implication of Satan's question to Eve was that God is not fair. He did not say it directly, but that is the implication. The implication is that God is withholding something good from them. He said nothing about the fact that there were other choices that they needed to have for a fuller, freer, and more exciting life. But the implication of his question to Eve put the spin on everything; and he twisted God's statement into a negative. When God talked to Adam and Eve, He started out by saying, You can eat of every tree of the Garden, except one. Satan turned it around - into a negative.
Understand what Satan was trying to get her to do. He was attempting to get her to question God's Word about what they could and could not do. Let me put it another way. He was getting them to question God's law. And he put enough of a negative twist on it that it was making the law look harsh, restrictive, cruel, and binding. And, of course, the Giver of the law (the Giver of the word) was then the same way as the law appeared to be.
Of course, the fruit looked good to Eve. That is simple enough. But Satan succeeded immediately, because in verse 3 she added to what God said! What God actually said is recorded in Genesis 2:17, and when Eve said what God said, she added to what He said. You know what the Bible says about adding to what God says! That is just as bad as taking away from what God says. So, you see, Satan had her mind rolling in the direction that he wanted it to go.
And then he sweetened the pot by stating unequivocally that she would have much greater liberty doing what he suggested, because she would not die. Death is the greatest robber of liberty that we face, and it is the last enemy to be destroyed. So he hit her with this lie that she is immortal already; and he succeeded, then, in producing an enmity against God's law and His governance. That is evidenced by the fact that she sinned (and Adam, right along with her).
The governor issues instructions and laws for the governed (in this case, mankind) to be edified and submitted to so that there will be order, and the governed will be prepared toward the completion of God's goal.
Do you see how everything is unfolding? Do you see how we are seeing the right and proper uses of government? Fathers and mothers, are you doing this in your home? We will continue, because here is the great Governor unfolding the purposes of government for all of mankind to see. We see here, clearly, that one of the functions of government is to educate its people. You see, to edify. He instructed them. Also to give laws, which would maintain order and aid in the completion of the goal (or purpose) that is being worked out. That is a major function of government!
Now, in this case, God is doing this so that mankind's conduct and goals will be in harmony with God's purpose. God is also showing us, in broad strokes, some of the major purposes of right government, and that is, to edify and to guide. Of course, He also warns of penalties (and in this case, a penalty) that may come.
We begin to see a fulfilling of the instruction that God undoubtedly gave them as a part of what we see there in Genesis 2:16-17 - which I am sure is just an encapsulation of all of the other instruction that He also gave them. What we see in chapter 3 is an unfolding of the result that takes place whenever lawbreaking occurs. And we see again the reaction of the supreme Governor of everything; and He shows us, then, another function of government in the way that He reacts.
In order to maintain that fellowship, God instructed the man and the woman regarding the trees in the Garden of Eden. They could eat of all of them except for one special one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they did eat of that tree, they would die. They did eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus sin was introduced into Eden, right into the environment in which the relationship was to take place. They brought it right home.
Sin was introduced, and it destroyed the relationship, and so God drove them out. God drove them out. Practically every picture or painting you see shows God kind of leading them out. No! He drove them out! It implies a punishing anger, that their relationship was broken. Right at the very beginning we have a huge major principle: Sin destroys relationships. That is the principle. Sin produces separation.
To understand this a little bit further, it is good to understand that at the heart of sin the central concept is a sense of failure. It is a specific kind of failure, or a failure that produces a specific result, a specific fruit. Genesis 2 and 3 teach us that sin is a failure to maintain a relationship - first with God, and secondarily with man. Sin produces separation - first with God, and secondarily with man. Eventually sin produces death - the first death, and the ultimate separation from which there can never be a relationship, the second death.
In addition to being separated from fellowship with God, they were also separated from the tree of life and access to the Holy Spirit.
The basic responsibility of all of mankind, beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, was to keep the commandments of God, shown in Genesis 2:17. There is the basic responsibility God gave to our parents, Adam and Eve. The basic responsibility for everybody, converted or unconverted, is to keep the commandments of God.
In the previous sermon, instead of Genesis 2:17, I used Deuteronomy 30:15-19, where God says that the basic responsibility of mankind is to choose life. That is just another way of saying, Keep the Commandments. Everybody is to do that. (I am using we in a generic sense, for all of mankind. It can also be applied to you and me as individuals as well.) When we do not carry our responsibilities, things happen and those things are not good. I will send a fire upon Judah. The fire is descriptive of the consequence of irresponsibility.
We could reword that and paraphrase it, But if we love we have met our responsibility before God. We have met the command that God gave in Genesis 2:17. We have met the command that God gave in Deuteronomy 15:15-19, where He said to Choose life.
