Adam and Eve Chose Death Instead of Life
Day 13
by Gini Crawford, MSW
Choosing death
Adam and Eve chose death. Did they have a good reason to? Now we do know they had never experienced death, so the awfulness of death wasn’t a part of their emotional awareness. Yet, we also know from Genesis, God talked to Adam and Eve possibly daily. So knowing God, logically we could say, He explained to them what “to die” meant, at least from an intellectual standpoint. I feel Adam and Eve choosing death was reckless and egotistical, and we could use some more negative adjectives. What is your thought?
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Genesis 2:16-17 ESV®
We have all dealt with the horror of death, so definitely we have a right to be frustrated at Adam and Eve at the very least. I have dealt with death from my mother dying when I was five, and from other family and friends dying. The year I wrote this devotional day, I knew three people who died. Death is always a hard situation to go through, isn't it? God knows how hard death is for us. One of the times we know Jesus Christ cried was when He saw how hard death was on us (John 11:32-38).
Sin brings death
God created Adam and Eve to live in a world that was without death. He made them to have eternal life, but they chose eternal death. God wants us to have eternal life as well, but we choose death too. Did you know you choose death every time you sin, because the result of sin is death? 1 Corinthians 15:56a says, “…the sting of death is sin.” A world with no sin is a world without death. I know it doesn’t make any sense to me why Adam and Eve chose death over life, but when we choose to sin, we are going down the same path that Adam and Eve followed.
For the wages of sin is death... Romans 6:23a ESV®
Are you are feeling weary, discouraged or even guilt ridden as a Christian because sin seems to control you? Take heart, God is there, and is of course wanting to empower you to follow Him and not sin. Pour out your heart to God. He loves you and will help you stop sinning. He died for that.
Death is described
Let's look at death from God's perspective, which is the truth about death. Death doesn't mean "extinction" as you might think, but more "a separation from" (Isaiah 59:1-2; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). Adam's and Eve's fall into sin caused a separation with God, which is spiritual death. This break in relationship with God was immediately evidenced by Adam and Eve hiding from Him, and blaming Him and each other for their sin (Genesis 3:6-13). As soon as they sinned, their bodies also began to age. The outcome of this aging is physical death - separation from our physical body.
A lot of people seem to believe that when we die, we decay in some box, or become part of some good cosmic force in the universe, or we become an angel type being. However, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures (the Bible) teach the opposite. They teach that death is not the end of who we are as a person: Physical death is a temporary separation of our soul and spirit from our body, not extinction of self; in the future, our soul and spirit will be reunited with our new resurrected body. (Psalm 16:9-11; Acts 24:15; 1 Corinthians 15:20-58). Since we are eternal beings from birth, death is called "being asleep" (John 11:11-14). What does all this mean? To put it simply, it means you either live on in a state the Bible calls eternal life with God in heaven, or you live away from God in hell.
Did you know you are created to be an eternal being?
Life Application
God is the God of life, not death. Jesus is the source of all life. He is our Creator. Jesus created everything so we could have life, and live life to its fullest. Read Genesis 1:1; John 1:1-4, Colossians 1:15-17. How do these passages enlighten you about Jesus being the Source of life. God never wanted our destiny to be death. Read Ezekiel 18:23, 32. Does God like death?
A journey form death to eternal life: My uncle Ott would say, "I am just going to a pine box in the ground when I die, so why be in a hurry." He would say this quite often, and the looks he got were priceless as you can imagine. Yet as reality is, he got old and developed Parkinson's disease. Several months before he died, the certainty of death hit him hard, which made him very afraid. He was entirely serious when he started screaming for Jesus to forgive his sins as he rode to the hospital in the ambulance. What happens to us after death (as my uncle Ott realized) is something we do need to take very seriously.
If you are thinking, and it is normal to, "How can I know there is really a god who cares about my death?" God's Word clearly tells the true story from Genesis to Revelation of the God Who created us to love us, and when we rebelled against Him He conquered our death by His death. (Isaiah 53:4-6; Luke 24:13-32; Revelation 1:5b). Believe in the God Who is the source of life and you will have your sins forgiven and eternal life will be your destiny. Read John 3:16-18 Acts 10:43; 1 Peter 3:18.
Reflect on John 3:16-18.