Death in the Garden

The second chapter of Genesis God gave Adam every tree that was pleasing to the eye and good for food (Gen 2:9).  However, God commanded Adam to not eat of the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that he eats of this tree he will surely die (Gen 2:17).  Adam, of course, does eat (Gen 3:6), but He goes on living to the ripe old age of 930 (Gen 5:5).  But God could not have been wrong though Adam lived on.  Something died to be sure, but the question that demands an answer is what died.  This question is generally given the answer that it is a "spiritual death" that took place, though ultimately a physical one followed.  This is true enough, but it is quick answer with little elaboration for such an important question.  Without jumping too far down the "rabbit whole," I want to explore this "spiritual life" that passed away.

To have life in the garden was to live in paradise.  This is true more so because of the fellowship that God had with His creation in that time before the fall than the notions of what the garden in Eden might have been like actually.  All creation, man, beast and the plants existed with no barrier between them and God and between each other.  This merry state of things was wrecked by the "fall," and since then "...the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of child birth right up to the present time (Rom 8:22).  Man's existence was one of perfect communion and harmony with creation - the dream of every hippie worth their dreadlocks - as well as a perfect communion and harmony with the creator.  Man enjoyed God to the fullest extent that his humanity allowed, and God delighted in man.  This was life and life abundantly as God had designed it and pronounced it good.

It must be noted that man, first and foremost, is a spirit.  Now this is where the rabbit whole can get impossibly deep.  Suffice it to say the spirit is that part of us that wills, dreams, imagines, creates and has the capacity to perceive other spirits, in those around us and ultimately in God.  The Hebrew word for breath, as in when God breathed the "breath" of life into man and he became a living being, is synonymous with spirit.  It is a gift from God and separates us from the rest of creation.  It is also part of the imago dei, that part of us that makes us, as Tozer says, "in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large."  As such, as Tozer also points out, our hearts cannot find rest until they find rest in God.  Our spirit is most fully alive when in perfect fellowship with the divine, and from the divine alone is the spirit given life.

In the Garden man's spirit and flesh were united, there was no war between them as Paul speaks of in his epistles.  And they, together, could enjoy fully God and His presence.  The rebellion at the tree threw the proverbial wrench into the clockworks.  What died in the garden was the wondrous life that man was created for and was created to enjoy with God.  It wasn't simply the death of some intangible, metaphysical essence that lies shriveled and decayed within us - whatever that means - until Christ quickens us.  For the spirit persists, still dreams, still imagines, creates, wills and so on.  But it is the slave of sin and death, and this dead-life is one of emptiness, futility, vanity and things that do not satisfy.  One need only a brief glance across the landscape of our world at spirits that are dead to see what this looks like.  Some might even recall that reality for themselves.

So God, of course, was absolutely right and, as is always the case, His words truer than we can imagine.  The reality of this "spiritual death" is far greater than that of physical death as man is a spirit with a body, not the other way around.  It is a death most grievous to God and most devastating to man.

How wondrously and inexpressibly magnificent is it, then, that God lovingly sent his son to redeem this "stiff necked people" people and restore to them, in His words, "life and life abundantly."  But what does that look like?  And, though we have access to it through the cross of Christ, how do we take possession of it?