When Satan tempted Eve, he induced her to doubt God’s character. He incited her to believe God did not have her best interests at heart. He was withholding something better from her. Satan flat out declared that God was lying. When Eve believed Satan, and Adam chose to join her, the human race became rebels whose hearts were filled with doubt.

When God presented Adam and Eve with the animal skin, representing the righteousness of Christ, something very important happened of which we should take note. God presented them with His gift before they had done anything, other than run and hide from Him. This shows that the giving of salvation is independent of anything we do. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance.

Since the wages of sin is death, Adam and Eve would have died had God not intervened. The entire human race would have perished. But God did intervene (“as soon as there was sin, there was a Savior”) by instituting the Plan of Salvation. Because of this intervention, the human race was saved. Christ in the gift of Himself to the human race gave it an existence out of Himself. God united the fallen human race with divinity and thus reconciled it with Himself. God treats everybody, not just those who believe in Him, but everybody, as though they had never sinned. He treats them as well as He treated His own Son. God does not condemn them. He does not count their sins against them. This is legal justification.

Jesus in prayer to His Father said that knowing God is eternal life. He said He finished His work by glorifying God and magnifying His name. This is another way of saying that Jesus made God’s character known. He did this by healing others and proclaiming the Good News about God. God is not the harsh, arbitrary taskmaster Satan has made Him out to be. God would rather die than allow His children to. Jesus gave the gift of eternal life to the world by revealing God’s true character to it.

The revelation is that God in Christ reached out to rescue sinners while they were still in their sins. While hating sin, God loves the sinner. In the same prayer mentioned above, Jesus said God loved us as God loved Him. This shows that God’s love is independent of our sinfulness. Knowing that God loves us as we are, speaks to our hearts that the doubts Satan snuck into our souls are false; God can be trusted.

We are saved by the revelation of God’s character, which is the same as saying we are saved by grace, since God’s grace is His goodness lavished upon its unworthy recipients. We become partakers of eternal life when we see and believe the picture painted by Jesus Christ. This experience transforms us, regenerates us. We are brought into harmony with God and His holy law. Rebellion is removed from our heart. This is justification by faith.

Tom, while it is true the love of God saves us, it is also true that the blood of Jesus saves us. Both are necessary. Both go hand in hand. God did not force Adam and Eve to take off their fig leaf garments and put on the blood stained garments of His choosing. They had to make a choice. Which they did. No love, no justification; no blood, no justification. No justification, no salvation.

My take on this verse:

Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

The minute that Adam and Eve disobeyed...they did die spiritually. They seperated themselves from God and needed to be "born again". they were then subject to the first natural death and without rebirth, destined to the second.

Just my take.

"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" means exactly what it says. But Jesus died in our place that day instead Adam and Eve. He is the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Rev 13:8. Sister White put it this way:

1 BC 1104
The law of God existed before the creation of man or else Adam could not have sinned. After the transgression of Adam the principles of the law were not changed, but were definitely arranged and expressed to meet man in his fallen condition. Christ, in counsel with His Father, instituted the system of sacrificial offerings; that death, instead of being immediately visited upon the transgressor, should be transferred to a victim which should prefigure the great and perfect offering of the son of God. {1BC 1104.5}

Like Tom said...."As soon as there was sin, there was a saviour".

Exactly what i said above in other words.
adam and Eve sinned....broke the law God had given them and that severed the conection between God and man.

The Desire of Ages----PG- 764

"This is not an act of arbitrary power on the part of God. The rejecters of His mercy reap that which they have sown. God is the fountain of life; and when one chooses the service of sin, he separates from God, and thus cuts himself off from life. He is "alienated from the life of God." Christ says, "All they that hate Me love death." Eph. 4:18; Prov. 8:36. God gives them existence for a time that they may develop their character and reveal their principles. This accomplished, they receive the results of their own choice. By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that His very presence is to them a consuming fire. The glory of Him who is love will destroy them."

Adam, chose to sin knowing the result, according to the warning given him by the angel. Their sin...resulted in spiritual death.

Repentance was needed [rebirth] in order to reinstate them in their conection to God, but they had forfeited their innocence for a "fallen nature" which no longer could stroll through Eden together. They were now destined to suffer the first death....

However, the plan of salvation was in place and in God's mercy, if His plan is/was excepted, the free gift/believed, their life could be a spiritual walk with their Creator and escape the penalty of their sin ....the second death/eternal death.

Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.


Praise God for His sacrifice/spilled blood to redeem this fallen mess of humanity.

Charlene, I beg your pardon. I thought you were implying that the warning - "In the day ..." - referred to the spiritual death they suffered, whereas Sister White makes it clear God was referring to instant and eternal death. Thanx for the clarification.

Was the death of Jesus necessary in order for God to justify forgiving our sins? Did God require the death of Jesus before He was willing or able to pardon our sins?

Yes,
Rom 5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.

Heb 9:22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

Advent Review and Sabbath Herald--- 09-21-86
Christ Our Sacrifice

"Many have expressed wonder that God demanded so many slain victims in the sacrificial offerings of the Jewish people; but it was to rivet in their minds the great truth that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. A lesson was embodied in every sacrifice, impressed in every ceremony,
solemnly preached by the priest in his holy office, and inculcated by God himself,--that through the blood of Christ alone is there forgiveness of sins. How little we as a people feel the force of this great truth! How
seldom, by living, acting faith, do we bring into our lives this great truth, that there is forgiveness for the least sin, forgiveness for the greatest sin!"


God is good.

Yes, the blood of Jesus makes pardon and salvation possible. But why? Why was the death of Jesus necessary? Why doesn't God simply forgive the truly penitent? Why is death the wages of sin? Is God blood thirsty?

The "blood of Christ" is synonomous with "the death of Christ" which is synonomous with "the cross" so that asking why the blood was necessary is equivalent to asking why Christ died on the cross.

The cross reveals to us the truth about:
1) God (He would rather did than see us die; He prefers risking the loss of His Son for all eternity than to see us lost)
2) Sin (The wages of sin is death; Christ was made to be sin, which resulted in His death)
3) Satan (Satan was demasked as a murderer)
4) Us (We are all would-be murderers of God)

Without the death of Christ, which is an integral part of the Plan of Salvation, the whole human race would have been lost. Thus the Spirit of Prophesy tell us that "to the death of Christ, we owe even this earthly life" and "never one saint or sinner partakes of his daily blood, but he is nourished by the body and blood of Christ." "Christ by His wonderful work in giving His life restored the entire race of men to favor with God."

The death of Christ is not only necessary for the salvation of those who choose to respond to God's grace, but gives physical life ("justification of life" in Rom. 5:18) to all.