Genesis 2:16,17 – How did death come about? – Bible study

We hardly talk about how death came about, it is to understand about the dreaded death we need to go to the beginning of everything, because we will start this journey asking ourselves about what we are made of, where we came from and where we will go. 

The land was ready and everything in it was good in the eyes of God, but something was missing in the land, the being called man was missing.  

We note that in all verses about the creation of the universe, God will say “let there be” and according to the word of God everything was created, but when God creates the human being he does not say “let there be”, but He makes the being human with their own hands and having as raw material the dust of the earth, that is, man is created from the dust of the earth. 

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man was made a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)

God then creates the human being’s body using the dust of the earth, then gives the human his spirit, breathing the breath of life into his nostrils and then what was just a “clay doll”, becomes a living being.

The human being is composed of three elements which are, body, soul and spirit. What is striking is that in the process of creation, God takes so much care and affection that He wants human beings to have His trademark, and He says: “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness”.

Inside every human being there is the breath of God, that is, the breath of life. And here we begin to explore, the speech of death. God plants the Garden of Eden and there He places man, but in the Garden of Eden, there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree in the garden thou shalt freely eat, But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die. (Genesis 2:16,17)

Adam in the garden had free will of choice, and by faith Adam lived a life of obedience to God, and we also understand that Adam had never witnessed a human death, we now have God, dialoguing with Adam, and saying that if he ate of the fruit , surely he would die.

Here we can extract that every time we fail to hear God’s voice and do His will, we can also die physically or spiritually. Adam had only two choices, believe and obey, or not give credit to God’s voice and choose to disobey Him.

We see that the enemy for a moment, takes control of the serpent, which leads to persuade the mind of that couple, telling them that what God had said about the tree of good and evil, was not real.  

The enemy induced Adam and Eve to backslide from the faith, that is, they stopped believing in God’s words. The faith of that couple at that time, was shaken by the words of the serpent. 

And then there is a division of sentences where God distributes man’s sentence and one of them is the one that gave rise to the elaboration of this book, death. In the sweat of your face you shall eat your bread, until you return to the ground; because of it you were taken; because you are dust and to dust you will become. (Genesis 3:19)

 Obedience produce in man eternal life, but from the moment the man disobeyed God, he was destined to die.

Adam and Eve were created to live forever, but through disobedience to God’s command, they suffered the consequence of sin which is death. God created placed the tree of life in the Garden, so that man would eat from it continually, and thus he would never die. Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of good and evil, and God then reminds them that disobedience would have a consequence.  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat of it; for in the day you eat thereof, he shall dies. (Genesis 2:16,17)

Here the reflection for our day, because at the time they eat the fruit, they did not physically die, but were subject to the law of death, which was the result of the divine curse for disobedience. They died in the moral sense, as we see God warning Adam about the real consequence if he ate of the fruit, that is, he would die.

The death of Adam and Eve at that time was not physical but moral death, at that time their nature became sinful. From this moment on, every human being that would be born would come with original sin, that is, as the sinful nature. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)

They died spiritually by disobeying the voice of God, as a result of this disobedience, Adam and Eve destroyed the intimate relationship they had with God before eating the fruit. 

For those who are after the flesh are inclined to the things of the flesh; but those who are after the Spirit to the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but the Spirit’s inclination is life and peace. For the mind of the flesh is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Therefore, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8) 

They no longer wanted to walk and talk to God in the garden, we saw when they sought to hide from God.

You see, today I have proposed to you life and good, and death and evil; (Deuteronomy 30:15) 

We can understand that God has always given human beings free will, that is, the power to choose between a blessing or a curse. But unfortunately when the Christian does not take God’s warning seriously, and adopts the ways of the ungodly, the divine curse will surely be upon him. 

When a Christian renounces sin and lives a life following the will of God, serving Him continually, he will surely live in the blessings and power of God. 

We understand that when we leave God and his just ways, we automatically lose his presence, his help and, consequently, divine protection.