Hi Brother,
I thought I should address this issue of Adam physically dying on the day he ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil:
Death is both physical and spiritual.
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
thou shalt surely die - literally -"dying you shall die".
In Hebrew it is the infinitive form of the verb
to die followed by the imperfect.
moth tamooth - tWmT'tAm
Physical death is a process as well as an event.
In other words the process of physical death began on the day he ate the fruit and would terminate later with the event of his physical death.
An Addendum: This interpretation is and has been debated. It has more than one translation, however "Dying you shall die" is by no means excluded completely.
AS in Young's literal translation:
YLT Genesis 2:17 and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.
That it is physical:
Genesis 3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow appears to have understood this in a stanza of his poem A psalm of Life
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
HankD
