Mortality Existed Prior to Adam's Sin.

It is a Biblical fact that the beautiful cherub Lucifer turned against God and had a great host of heavenly beings on his side. Lucifer and his army had already sinned and suffered the destruction of their bodies as seen by the fact that Satan confronted Eve in a borrowed body. He had to use the body of the serpent to entice Eve. However, human death owes its origin to the first human sin.

There is nothing in Genesis 1-3 that says Adam was created immortal. The burden of proof rests with those who teach he was, since we cannot prove a negative.

Reading the first few chapters of Genesis along with 1 Corinthians 15:45-50, the Scriptures clearly indicate that Adam was created mortal. God linked the human soul to a body of flesh and breathed into it the breath of life and man became a living soul. The Scriptures do not say that the flesh became mortal as a result of sin.

Adam was created mortal, which means there was a possibility that death could take him. He was made from the dust of the earth, a very unstable material, to say the least. In order that his life might be prolonged indefinitely, or at least it seemed until his probationary period was over, he was given access to the tree of life. If Adam's flesh was created immortal, then there would have been no need for the tree of life.

According to Genesis (and reading the passages in 1 Corinthians 15:50), the fleshly body was never meant to be eternal for "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Adam was flesh and blood, and we have the same type of body as Adam.

Read 1 Corinthian 15:44-54 again, which clearly teaches that Adam was create mortal, corruptible.

The conclusion is that Adam was created in a natural body. Paul says Adam was taken from the earth, earthy (v. 47). When Adam sinned, God told Adam "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (Gen. 3:19).

Adam's life was dependent on air and food. He was a mortal man with the possibility of immortality. Not only that, he was potentially corruptible. In other words, if God had denied him food he would have grown hungry and eventually his body of flesh would have died. He was mortal by nature and would have fated sooner or later to return to dust. The fact of God warning Adam that if he ate from the forbidden tree he would die is an acknowledgment that the body was such a nature as to be subject to death.

We can compare Adam's flesh to the nature of Christ's flesh. Jesus was "made like unto his brethren." Jesus took on himself a body of flesh just like Adam's before the fall. Jesus' body was mortal, corruptible, but not corrupted for he did not sin. Jesus had blood. Jesus needed air to live. Jesus needed to eat, he had to eat food to sustain his flesh. If Jesus bled long enough, he would have died a natural death by bleeding. Jesus aged, which means he had cells that died and replaced with new cells. Christ is the second man in every sense of the word, the Adam of God before the fall. He had a mortal body capable of dying, as was Adam.

There is nothing mystical about Adam. Man is made from the earth, earthy. The same elements in the earth are the same elements that our bodies are made up of. Those coming from the loins of Adam, the first man made from the earth, is said to be in "his own likeness, after his image." (Gen. 5:3) The Bible says we have borne the "image of the earthy" (1 Cor. 15:49). It's an earthy body like Adam's, not a glorified body, and so we are in his likeness, after his image.

That is the nature of man so far in the aspect of that which is natural, what constitutes it for what it is, earthy.

There's the absurd teaching that when Adam sinned, his nature was changed. We are bombarded with the term "sinful nature" (Calvinistic theology); that every infant born is born with a sinful nature inherited from Adam, which the words, nor the concept is supported by Scripture. It's a term we have taken for granted without really examining its consequences. It clouds so many areas of Scripture when dealing with the "flesh" and its "members" (eyes, ears, tongue, sex organs, hands, feet) in the New Testament. When one substitutes the word flesh for sinful nature, or mind for sinful mind, the simple truths of Scripture are shaded and hidden which cripples our understanding of God's words.

We know our bodies are sustained by cells dying and being replaced with new cells. Since man was created a mortal being (his flesh), this is where the tree of life comes in. God gave Adam and Eve the tree of life as a means to prevent the body from its natural cycle. As long as they continued in fellowship with God, they had access to that life sustaining tree. When they ate from the forbidden tree, God denied them access (and his posterity after him) to the tree of life. Death (spiritual as well as physical) is the natural consequences of sin, but it is also a divine sentence.

Prior to Adam and Eve committing sin, it was necessary for them to eat in order to sustain their mortal bodies, and the Bible is clear that they were given access to the Tree of Life, an indication that their bodies were created mortal. The Tree of Life helped in sustaining their mortal bodies from aging. They were allowed to freely eat from that tree.

"And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." -Gen. 2:9

"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:..." Gen. 2:16

The Bible says right there that Adam was given permission to eat of EVERY tree in the garden, and this included the "tree of life."

We know that when God made Adam it was not for the purpose so he could die, but to have life and live forever. God made provision for him to live forever. To be under God's blessing is life. Death on the other hand is the result of Adam's sin. [We die spiritually because of OUR OWN SIN, but also physically because we have no access to the tree of life due to the sin of Adam....and the fact that we are susceptible to physical diseases)

We know that the Bible says it is appointed unto men once to die and after that the judgment, yet we know there will be many people who will not die even though they are appointed to die. In other words, we know that those who are appointed to die will not die because something circumvents that. Something happens to supplant that death sentence upon that soul.

As said above, the Bible says Adam was given permission to eat of EVERY tree in the garden (Gen. 2:19,16) , and this included the "tree of life". God provided the tree of life from which they could freely eat. If Adam had ceased to eat from the tree, he would not have lived forever. He had eternal life as long as he had the tree of life, and enjoying the benefits of having daily fellowship with God. The only tree he was not to touch was the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil."

Immediately man assumes that Adam did not eat from the tree of life at all. Considering God made Adam from the earth, a natural man (1 Cor. 15:47), with all his body parts working and functioning the way God intended it to function (with the laws of cells dying and having to be replaced with new cells, to digest food and eliminate it, etc.), he would need food to sustain his body. That tree of life is what sustained Adam's natural body from losing weight and eventually dying. His soul wouldn't have died, but his fleshly body would have. The fact that man has to be excluded from the tree to prevent him living for ever suggests it had a similar continuing function.

God drove Adam and Eve from the garden lest they reach out and eat of the tree of life and live forever. God told Adam from the dust he had come and to dust he would return. Again, the implication is that what had sustained Adam's physical health and immortality was his partaking of the tree of life, not simply once, but on a regular basis. Revelation 22 supports this thought, where this tree comes to play again for the healing of the nations, bearing crops every month of the year in the eternal state. Because of Adam's sin, God denied him any further access to this tree of life and thus became subject to mortality.

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