Questions about original punishment

This all came from the thread about Adam and Eve. Since this is off topic for that thread I'm making a new one. Ya'll feel free to join in. This one just might not turn into a C/A thread........



Well one can hope can't they???? :laugh:

I don't necessarily disagree with some of your answers, but these are some of the questions I have regarding this topic. I think there is much we don't know about this yet have built entire doctrines based upon certain assumptions.

 

Back to the numbers

1. I'm not sure I agree that vs 19 was the end of the punishment, though I agree it could be read that way. I think vrs 20 and 21 are simply a pause while God took care of technical things like showing Adam how to use animal skins and also perhaps to show them how to sacrifice, before carrying out the final sentence. I'll be curious to see what others believe.

I'm not sure what you mean by annihilationism. Would you mind explaining (a link will do). I think God didn't want man to live forever in a fallen state because that would go against His sense of justice. Sin must be punished. I don't think a Holy God could stand for continual unpunished sin and there not be some consequence.

2. Exist forever has a spiritual implication that I don't believe can be derived from a plain reading of the text.

Well, I base this on the obvious that Adam and Eve didn't die immediately. How Satan knew, who knows. Job speaks of Satan visiting heaven and having conversations with God. Perhaps the same went on here. The physical aspect is found here: 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. Gen 2:17

3. As far as continual eating of the tree of life, I'll allow the possibility that one only had to partake occasionally. Why one bite wouldn't, I don't know. It's possible it would convey immortality.

No, it wouldn't have been better than hell. No one would have escaped eternal suffering here. No death means no chance for the rest of us to choose to love God, no redemption plan (how then would Christ die?) and no grace.

"In the day you eat", not 900 years later"......

I believe Adam began to die the moment the fruit entered his mouth. I don't think he could chew and then say "I never inhaled"! That his death wasn't complete until 900 years later means that we have a lifespan also, albeit quite a bit shorter.

I think I didn't copy quite enough. Did I see you ask how Adam knew what the word death meant if death didn't exist? I'd like to know the answer to that myself.