Genesis

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NASB	Genesis 1:26 ¶ Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
AMPLIFIED 2015 2015	Genesis 1:26 ¶ Then God said, "Let Us (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness [not physical, but a spiritual personality and moral likeness]; and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the cattle, and over the entire earth, and over everything that creeps and crawls on the earth." [Ps 104:30; Heb 1:2; 11:3]

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Subject: Did God Create Man Mortal?

Bible Note: Part Two
2. Man�s mortality.
No, God did not create man mortal. Man as created would have lived forever, body and soul.

A. God threatened death for DISOBEDIENCE. He did NOT threaten death for obedience. Man was not going to die unless he disobeyed. When man sinned God pronounced the sentence of death, which brings us to my next point.
B. The mention of physical death in the curse was not in passing. This was also given as a reason for concluding that man was created mortal. Gen. 3:17-19 �Then to Adam He said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat from it';
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return."
As you see, God tells man his end (Till you return to the ground). He then gives a reason for that particular end (For you are dust), and then He repeats that end (And to dust you shall return). So it�s not �in passing.� The curse has two parts: misery (consisting of a cursed earth and hard labor), and death. Death was initiated on the day Adam sinned and culminated when he returned to the ground from which he was taken. �(T)he body is dead because of sin� (Rom. 8:10), not because of the absence of the Tree of Life. In the Curse, God was not simply stating facts about the future of man; He was pronouncing a sentence. �(B)ecause you listened� cursed�� So God wasn�t describing the �natural� course of events; this is a judgement, and this judgement included physical death.

3. Sin�s penalty.
Finally, are the wages of sin spiritual death only? Or rather, was God�s threat of death for disobedience spiritual only instead of body and soul? To answer this one must realize that the truths in Scripture form a system of truth. No truth stands in isolation from the other truths of Scripture. They are tied together, and one statement has implications and effects on the rest of the system. So it is the case on this issue. If the curse was only spiritual death, this has implications in other areas; the most significant of which is the Gospel, and substitutionary work of Christ. Christ took our place before the bar of God�s justice. The penalty for sin, which should have rightly fallen on His people, fell on Him. So the substitutionary death of Christ proves the spiritual-only view of death wrong and the whole man (body and soul) right. For if sin�s penalty was spiritual death only, then Christ substitutionary death would have needed to be spiritual only. It would have been sufficient for him to be separated from the Father in our place to satisfy the curse. But his Father forsaking Him AND His death on the cross proves that the death God threatened was of the whole man body and soul, and not the spirit only. �For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.� 1 Pet. 3:18.

You probably noticed that I didn�t answer the question as to why God made the Tree of Life. It really wasn�t my purpose to suggest why God made the Tree of Life. My purpose was to show that it WASN�T made because of some supposed mortality of man. I think the discussion on the Tree of Life is a legitimate one, but the answer for its purpose must be found in some other solution than the mortality of man.

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Genesis

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