Observations as I follow God through the Chronological Bible.

God told Adam he would die if he ate from the tree of knowledge. Adam ate from the tree, but death was not immediate. He lived a long life before death took him. To God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.[1] From God’s perspective, Adam lived less than a day.[2] From Adam’s perspective, he lived 930 years and then he died.[3]

Knowing that Adam and Eve would live for a season after they ate of the tree, God took steps to cover their nakedness. The leaves they had attempted to cover themselves with were inadequate. Leaves would not protect their skin from the thorns and thistles the earth would now produce. The blood of an animal was shed to provide leather clothing. God decreed the thorns and thistles and then took action to protect the ones who deserved thorns and thistles.

After sin had been judged and the consequences softened, God made a perplexing statement. “The man has now become like one of us knowing food and evil.” Adam and Eve already bore the image of God. They were already “like one of us”. Their sin made them even more like God than they already were. Yet we are nothing like God. The paradox teaches us an important lesson. When humanity becomes like God, we destroy ourselves.

After acknowledging that Adam and Eve had become “like one of us”, God said, “He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” The Bible calls death an enemy to be conquered and God has promised death will be conquered. But death is also a friend that frees us from God’s righteous judgments when we sin and bring pain into our lives.