05/08/2019
Brief History of Salvation
written by Craig Rusbult, Ph.D.
Human Sin and Three Results
God offered the gift of full life (with relationship, quality, and immortality) to Adam, but with one rule: in Genesis 2:17, God says "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." In Genesis 3:6, tempted by a creature who already had fallen into sin and rebellion, Eve and Adam ate from this tree of knowledge, choosing to make moral decisions for themselves, independent from God, instead of trusting and obeying God.
This fall into sin, which broke Adam's part of a conditional if-then covenant with God, produced three results: The immediate intrinsic result of disobedience was a loss of their innocence and their intimate relationship with God, so in Genesis 3:7-13 we see spiritual death. Then two judicial results were decreed by God, in Gen 3:14-24. The judicial penalty for sin begins with a decrease in quality of life (Gen 3:14-19,23) for humans. And the ultimate penalty (Gen 3:22,24) allows physical death for humans after God removes the life-protecting tree of life: God says, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever." The second sentence clearly explains the purpose of the action: to prevent disobedient sinners from living forever, God removed "the tree of life."
I think this tree symbolizes the supernatural full protective power that continually was being provided by God. When the supernatural full protection was removed by God due to their sin, Adam and Eve began to perish, with natural processes temporarily allowing life while gradually (during the "yom" of Genesis 2:17 that can be translated as "day" but can also indicate a longer period of time) leading to their eventual death. The divine penalty of death in Genesis 3:22 is a key to understanding God's response to sin, and His plan of salv