.
• Gen 2:15-17 . .The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden
of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying:
Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of
knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for in the day you eat of
it, you shall die.
The first thing to point out is that in order for the warning to resonate in
Adam's thinking; it had to be related to death as he understood death in his
own day rather than death as modern Sunday school classes construe it in
their day. In other words: Adam's concept of death was primitive, i.e.
normal and natural rather than spiritual.
As far as can be known from scripture, Man is the only specie that God
created with immortality. The animal kingdom was given nothing like it. That
being the case, then I think it's safe to assume that death was common all
around Adam by means of vegetation, birds, bugs, and beasts so that it
wasn't a strange new word in his vocabulary; i.e. God didn't have to take a
moment and define death for Adam seeing as how it was doubtless a
common occurrence in his everyday life.
Adam saw things born, he saw things grow to maturity, he saw things
gradually wither, he saw their life ebb away, and he saw them decay and
dissolve into nothing. So I think we can be reasonably confident that Adam
was up to speed on at least the natural aspects of death; viz: he was
familiar with mortality and he was familiar with immortality.
Seeing as Adam was created with immortality, then had he not eaten of the
forbidden tree, he would've remained forever 21, but the very day that Adam
tasted its fruit, his body became infected with mortality, i.e. he lost
perpetual youth and began to age; a condition easily remedied by the tree of
life but alas, Adam was denied access to it.
Mortality is a walking death; it's slow, but very relentless. It's like Arnold
Swarzenegger's movie character The Terminator-- it feels neither pain nor
pity, nor remorse nor fear; it cannot be reasoned with nor can it be
bargained with, and it absolutely will not stop-- ever! --until you are dead;
really dead, like as in deceased.
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