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| Was Adam created immortal? |
Leong
My Hebrew teacher asked me
this: Was Adam created immortal? What do
you think of this?
sing
Adam was created with
immortality - i.e. with an ever-living and undying spirit. This is one of the
reasons for this declaration, ”And God saw every thing that he had made, and,
behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth
day." Genesis 1:31 KJT
Death/mortality
- the separation of his body and spirit, and separation from and cessation of
fellowship/communion with God - was a divine penalty judicially imposed on
account of sin. Mortality is not part of Adam's creation; death is the wages of
sin
Genesis
2:17 KJT — 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.
What
did the race of Adam lose in Adam through his disobedience?
What
did Christ, the second Adam, gain for His race through His obedience?
The
fact that what we have gained in Christ is infinitely better than what we had
lost in Adam - this does not directly deal with the question of whether Adam
was created immortal.
If
Adam had obeyed, he and his race would have been confirmed in the state of
natural blessedness, in which he was
created. It would have been a world without sin and its devastating
consequences.
Genesis
1:31 KJT — And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, *it was very
good*. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Adam
and his race were created immortal. Heaven and the lake of fire for eternity
after the general resurrection are indisputably affirmative of the immortality
of Adam and his race.
1
Corinthians 15:53 KJT — For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this
mortal must put on immortality.
2
Timothy 1:10 KJT — But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel.
Pay
close attention to this 2-verse paragraph:
Romans
5
18
¶Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation;
even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto
justification of life. 19
For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of
one shall many be made righteous.
Mortality,
condemnation of death is the effect of
sin, of disobedience.
May
the Lord grant you understanding. Amen.
Leong
So we do not need Christ to
die for us, had Adam not sinned? But God had planned it to be this way before
the world was formed. So God knew that Adam would sin.
If Adam had not sinned, he would have been confirmed in his natural state of blessedness; if he had not sinned, there would have been no death, mortality to deal with.
God
had made Adam completely capable of not falling had Adam chosen to obey. But he
was capable of falling, too. That explains the thunderous warning, "...
thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt
surely die."
Yea,
God has purposed the eternal redemption of His people; He did not leave the
whole race of Adam to its just and righteous wrath because of sin. He knew Adam
would fail.
Ephesians
1
3 ¶Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4 According
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 Having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself,
according to the good pleasure of his will,
6 To
the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the
beloved.
Go
and read a bit, and you will discover that Adam was created immortal, with free
agency to act in obedience or disobedience to God's command.
Death
is a judicial penalty imposed upon sin; if there were no sin, there would be no
death.
Leong
I just finished joining
our Hebrew grammar class. At the end of
the class, the teacher touched a bit on "is Adam created immortal?" Her answer
was that Adam was created a mortal. The reason is that the Tree of Life is in the garden also.
She
said that the opposite of the Tree of Life is the Tree of Death (aka the Tree
of the knowledge of good and evil). So Adam is created physically mortal but
spiritually immortal
The tree of life was in the garden for one specific purpose: access to the tree of life is for the confirmation in the state of blessedness because of obedience.
The
tree of life IS NOT the opposite of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The
tree of the knowledge of good and evil IS NOT the tree of death. Where does
this silly idea come from?
The
tree of the knowledge of good and evil served one specific purpose:
Genesis
2:17 KJV — 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.
It's
just a normal, ordinary tree. It's designated as the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil to denote one thing:
-
For Adam to eat of the tree is to declare himself as the source of the
knowledge of what is good and evil;
-
For Adam not to eat of that tree, IN OBEDIENCE TO the LORD God, is to declare/acknowledge that God is the source of the
knowledge of what is good and evil.
-
That's the significance of the name of that tree.
It declares a most basic fundamental issue: Who is the source of the knowledge of good and evil: man himself, or LORD God?
May
God grant you understanding.
