Featured What Happened "On That Day"? Genesis 2:17

I was taught that Adam died spiritually & had to be *born again*. The animals died physically and after the Flood, they would be not only sacrifice and clothing but also food. Because of Adam, we all die physically. I imagine that you would agree but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

 

Do you think that some rogue animals began eating other animals after the fall and before the Flood?

 

Cool topic, *Tom!

I find it interesting that in both your title of the thread and the first line of your post, you use the phrase "on the/that day", yet you quote the scripture passage as saying "in the day". Why? Are you more comfortable with the word "on"? Do the two prepositions mean the same?

I contend that they do NOT mean the same. "In the day" actually helps to understand the usage of the word "day" to mean "timeframe" or "era". And while I'm all on board that the "days" of Gen 1 are limited to the amount of time it took to have both an evening and a morning, since the scripture gives us that information, such info is not provided with Gen 2:17.

Based on my foregoing comment, I don't think this is necessary. And our first position, it seems to me, should be to take the text as directly as we can, rather than looking first for a way to interpret it differently.

I like your point about Satan's use of "in the day" compared to God's use of it, given the immediacy of Satan's "promise" compared to the delay of God's "threat". However, part of the result of their eating of the one tree was that God removed access to the other tree (of life), suggesting that the death was either a progressive death (their bodies started to die, or the DNA started to have mutations that would lead to death, or some such) that could be halted (reversed?) if they still had access to the tree of life, or it was a certainty of death that would be realized in all cases except where they ate of the tree of life. The "certainty of death" model is something that can be backed up in Paul's epistles.

The idea of a substitutionary death that satisfies the "in the day" contention is not a bad one, in my mind, but it suggests that then Adam and Eve would have died even without eating of the wrong tree, because the substitutionary death was not REALLY a substitutionary death, but only a delaying death--since they eventually died anyway. The sacrifice must have been an interesting "type" of Christ's eventual atonement, and probably, as you suggest, was performed in front of Adam. But I'm not so sure that was the problem with Cain's sacrifice. The most obvious reading of the text, imho, is that Abel brought the best of his flock, while Cain just brought "some" of his produce. It might not make so interesting a story, but we wouldn't want to put more words into the passage than are there already in order to make a more interesting story.

[Gen 4:3 KJV] And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
[Gen 4:4 KJV] And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

God didn't say anything about whether the animals that were slaughtered were the best, nor anything about the fat, when He gave the skins to Adam and Eve.

If I'm right, that Adam DID die physically "in that day", it doesn't diminish the idea that the threat was for a comprehensive death, but it removes the need for defining other types of death. "Physical" death then is the only type of death that is needed. And "physical" resurrection is then the hope of the believer, and the resurrected believer would be whole in his resurrection, just as he was whole in his death.
And the threat of death that hangs over all of us that have come from Adam is what is removed (via the subsequent, promised resurrection) when we are "passed from death into life" (John 5:24).

 

Did animals kill after the fall and before the Flood?

 

As most also think. But it's not really true, else you would willingly use the "in the day" phrasing. You're not as comfortable with that phrasing, so you automatically adjust it to the more comfortable phrasing for you.

The reason you're not as comfortable with the phrasing in the text, I expect, is that it is not what we normally use today. We talk about what will happen "on" a particular day, not ever "in the day", at least not in a future-looking discussion. We do have a phrase "back in the day" that means something very similar to what I'm suggesting--in a past time frame or era, rather ON a particular day in the past.

I'll try to explain better.

If Adam and Eve were supposed to die for their sins "on the day" they ate of the tree, and instead they did not die that day, but died another day, then the sacrifice for the animal skins, being effectual for preventing them from dying "on the day", life returned to normal, except they lost their cushy living quarters and easily obtained food. There's no part of the penalty that says they would die another day, so if they didn't die "on the day", the atonement was obviously effectual.

But being effectual, and seeing that they still died, 900 something years later, the dying at 900+ years must have been the original plan, as it wasn't discussed in the threat.

I don't think that was the case, and most Christians don't either, I'll wager. So that must mean that the dying at 900+ years was NOT the original plan, and therefore dying at 900+ years was the penalty, and the sacrifice was then NOT effectual for preventing that death.

You could say that the sacrifice was needed every year to stave off the death requirement, but we don't see that when Cain's sacrifice was rejected--he still lived a decent time afterward, it seems, since he needed a mark to keep others from killing him.

Well, I wouldn't be quite so bold as to say the WHOLE system of sacrifice started that day. But it does make sense to me that sacrifice for sin could have started that day. But was that the only reason to sacrifice? Noah may have sacrificed as a type of thank offering, or perhaps a plea for no more flooding of the whole earth. It's hard to say with the information we have in scripture, and if we say something that isn't explicit in scripture, we need to be careful not to say it is the only way to view things, even if it does make perfect sense to us.

 

If they had not eaten the fruit would they have ever died? if you pluck a leaf from a tree it does not immediately decay .

 

The warning was not about *immediate* death.

 

I argue that their physical body was changed. It was changed from life to death. What did not die was the soul. Not only were they separated from their spiritual body. Their body of incorruption died and they were given bodies of corruption. It happened immediately. They already "knew" there was a change. They were naked and ashamed. God explained the change the next daily visit. What happened to them is the reverse of what happens to those in Christ when we die. We literally have to physically die to be changed back and restored.

 

1 Corinthians 15:51 (KJV)
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

Can a spiritual body, whatever that looks like, which is incorruptible, die?
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