But only for people. Neither plants nor animals (other than humans) need to eat of the Tree of Life. So it cannot be for physical reasons that the Tree of Life is needed. It's for spiritual reasons, which is why it only involves human beings.



Why did animals and plants start dying? Why won't they die in the new earth?

NJK, I really appreciate all the effort you put into your response. I'm sure that took a lot of time. I'm going to respond to points I find interesting on a case by case basis as I have time. If I omit to consider something you think is really important, please bring it up again.



You may have spoken to this elsewhere, so I apologize if so, since I'm responding to things as I read them and haven't read everything, but do you consider the words of Jesus Christ to be words spoken by God?



Why do you think God was "most reluctant"?



I'll try to state your position:

1.God's plan was for man to live forever, and made this possible by means of the Tree of Life.
2.When man sinned, God cut off his access to the Tree of Life.
3.The Plan of Salvation restores man to such a place that he can again have access to the Tree of Life, and so live eternally.

So when the Bible says that we receive eternal life by faith in Christ, this is only indirectly. We receive eternal life because we will, after the resurrection, by virtue of Christ's work in the Plan of Salvation, have access to the Tree of Life.

Does this accurately present your view?



That the Tree of Life perpetuates man's life is incidental, as breathing is. God could have created us so we could live without breathing, or without partaking of the Tree of Life, but we are spiritual beings, with intellect, and God wanted to teach us of our dependence upon Him for life. The fundamental truth is that the Tree of Life teaches us that God is the source of life, and our ability to live depends upon Him.



I wasn't able to find any translations saying this. Can you point me to one?



One last question. Were you saying that the Plan of Salvation was only formed after man fell? I understand that it wasn't put into effect until after the fall, but I'm asking if the Plan had been formulated.

You're saying here that man was created by God to naturally die, correct? And, to counter this natural death, God gave man access to the Tree of Life. I've understood you correctly?

Do you believe that animals and plants would have died had man not sin? I've been taking it for granted that you believed, as I do, that plants and animals only die because of man's sin, but I'm not sure that's a good assumption on my part.

MM, if you're reading this, I'm curious if you agree with NJK that man was created to naturally die.

Not sure. I believe unfallen A&E would have gradually died if they had neglected to regularly eat the fruit of the tree of life. I think the same thing will hold true for people living on the New Earth.


After A&E sinned, God cursed the earth. Plants and animals cannot live eternally under such circumstances.

Thank you. I enjoy my work, but I miss my wife terribly when I'm away on assignment.


Indeed, why? For example, why did He command Moses to utterly kill every man, woman, and child? And, what of the other two named above?

Just a note Tom. I’ll answer the questions that you have posted thus far, however succinctly since I have already answered many of these questions. So I recommend that you first read through all of my previous comments before asking questions. I, personally, am not in any rush.

Okay Tom, here are my response, though succinct for the reasons stated above:



Yes. Though I believe that this was through normative prophetic means, allowing Jesus to put it in his own thoughts. As I said, I believe all that He said were directly drawn form what EGW referred to as “I was shown” type of revelations. (Cf. Luke 10:18; John 5:19, 20ff; 8:28; 14:24).



Read EW 149-153. In that SOP account, EGW relates that Jesus, who was actually volunteering Himself for this task, had to present Himself 3 times for this and was ‘“pleading” with the Father’. It is also related that there was also “perplexity” and “trouble/doubt” involved in this decision-making.



Yes to all three points



Yes. That will be tangible effectuation of this Spiritual statement.



I can see, based on your expressed view of things here how you consider this as “incidental”, however in my view I can only see it as “essential/necessary”. Furthermore, your points make more prominent this depletion of the Reality that is involved in God and His Vast Creation. Having a Spiritualizing paradigm here leaves such “realities” out. As an example with created man, I rather see that God’s creation of man was absolutely perfect. (cf. Gen 1:31). In other words all that God created, is created to the best that it could ever be. That is because God is dealing with real elements in nature and the universe and from these elements, he has fashioned the life we know as it best could. We cannot have a Science fiction view where we could e.g., spit fire with our breath or even ‘live without breathing’. That is not realistic.

It is easy to look at the degenerated state of man and creation today an see all the imperfection and say that God could have done things better. However that was not the case in the beginning. Adam was functioning at an optimum level. He was ca. 15 feet tall, some thus estimate ca. 2000 lbs; had perfect fitness and strength (i.e., full range of muscular strength); we use ca. 10% of our mind; he used 100% on top of having abilities such as photographic memory. Just looking at some “geniuses” today and people with special capabilities, such as remembering every event from any day of one’s past life, shows us just how powerful unfallen Man was. Adam was a walking supercomputer. He probably did not need a digital camera or video camera to recall things, nor a spreadsheet or word processor to process data and prepare speeches. He could easily do this as any technology today. Sharing this with others is another thing, however the (ESP-type) ability to send information waves to someone else as with a cell phone may be something that unfallen man could do. All this to say that God created us perfectly given what is actually available as “building materials”. Even the dust from which he formed man was the best material possible.

This reality also extends to Heavenly creature (i.e., not other “humans” in other world). Why are angels given wings to fly. Why not just fly without such assitance or even thought teleport themselves. Angels also need to be made to fly even more swiftly than normal in certain circumstances. The SOP speaking of Angels excelling in strength. Why are all angels so “strong”. Etc.

Foundational in my journey in personal and original (when substantively needed) Biblical Research, I saw that I had to start taking God literally at His word, giving Him a benefit of the doubt and instead prayerfully trying to find out “why” He did or said something as He did. And I certainly have not regretted this, because in many ways, we have lost many key truths in the Bible through Spiritualizing, just like the Allegorical paradigms of early Church Father did damage the Church and Truth.

So, based on this background info for my view on this and other such topics, I see that we are rather physical beings. We only become “spiritual” as we, on one hand, come into communion and communication with God. That is indeed really the understanding of being spiritual. Some people looked at the Cross and saw a false prophet paying a just price. Others, even pagans, saw that “this was surely the Son of God”. Spirituality is the result of how we chose to perceive reality and in this GC when we make a move of faith towards God, then he begins to spiritually/mentally “connect” with us, making us spiritual people. Increasingly this will more overtly also become the effort of the Devil. He is only staying in the shadows for now because if he manifested himself as he really is, he would just prove that the Bible is right. So now he prefers to let man follow their own course, which he at times subtly influences, since this self-worshipping spirit also serves his purpose. Indeed making created beings be “gods” was always his goal.



Given the popularity, though syntactical fallacious, of translators to turn such back to back related verbal forms into sorts of hendiadys, stemming from 1600's KJV understandings and for the most part just blindly followed, I do not think I’ll find one. However, as you should know/be functional in Hebrew, that should not be hard to understand. “The proof is in the pudding;” particularly the overall/contextual Theological issue which do indeed greatly affects the way translators render certain expressions.



Based on the sequence of events and the emotions related in EW 149-153, that is what I understand. It is not the “popular” truth given the overarching popular belief that ‘God knows (all of) the future from the ceaseless ages of eternity,’ however this is an example of how EGW was “shown” something which she herself did not fully grasp, even at all, for the most part, but nonetheless from which the Biblical Theological Truth on “God and the Future” is properly understood. I personally believe that EGW started to understand this very late in her ministry, when she, around 1908, began to realize that God, because of the failure of that privileged SDA generation, was going to prolong time and thus cause all of her prophecies to be put on hold for a much later time than what she had truthfully and possibly been showed.



Based on the statement in Gen 2:17b, Yes. And I add, from the above statements, that this was the best that God could do in created human beings living in our universe elements and atmosphere which God further had to arrange to support optimal life. God also chose Earth for this initial creation because, if man sinned, that was probably the best planetary location in this Milky Way galaxy where a degeneration of nature would take the longest before it severely made living impossible.



I have also addressed this. See also in the above post of my comments in a PM. I believe form PP 62.3 that animals and nature could partake of the fruit “aromatically”. As I also said, I think the tangible eating by man was the object-lesson as well as the matching counterpart for eating the forbidden fruit. So they had no excusing temptation to “taste” here.



As I also state priorly, this affectation of living non-humans, including nature was apparently because of a withdrawal and limited-to-Eden, “Fruit of Life” aroma made available in the air. That is why Adam and Eve and other animals had to be expelled from the Garden that was evidently still being preserved through this ‘aromatic means.’ Such inert things as the “ground” had to be distinctly cursed.

Here are some SOP statements that I found which are helpful to this Tree of Life issue in this discussion:















The following SOP quotes may seem to validate your view however these are only “pastoral”/practical applications by EGW and not a ‘Theological redifining of the realities involved in the Tree of Life seen in her above statements.

If a person refused to breath, he would gradually die as well (although the "gradual" death would be a lot quicker). We couldn't conclude from this that God created man to naturally die, right?

I haven't heard the idea that God created man to naturally die before. This concept doesn't make sense to me, as death, to my way of thinking, is dependent upon sin.



So in your view God did something to make the earth and the things in it "bad" (or "defective"). That is, God actually made the earth "bad" (or "defective" or "cursed") as opposed to pronouncing it as such, in view of the damage that Satan/sin had caused. If God, under your view, had simply left things as they were, earth would have been in a much better condition. But, as punishment for what man had done, God hurt every living thing.



The first paragraph is especially to the point, but I included the one following as well, as it seems to accent the idea that God created human beings to live, not to naturally die.

Anyway, I believe that the first paragraph articulates the operative principle. It's not that God did bad things to the earth, or to plants and animals, to make them defective, or work less well than He originally designed them to, but that, because of sin, Satan was given greater access to this world, and *everything* we see in nature which is less than perfect is a result of *Satan's* work, not God's.

This seems so clear and easy and logical to me that I don't see how or why one would think otherwise. That is:

1.God ==> good
2.Satan ==> bad

It comes down to that. It's not:

1.Man ==> bad; therefore God responds with bad in kind.

Rather, man is bad, but God continues to be good, overcoming evil with good.

Perhaps God didn't do what you think He did. This has been the whole point.

Consider when the disciples asked Christ if they should command fire to come down from heaven to destroy them like Elijah did. Christ sighed, explaining they didn't know what spirit they were of, that He had come not to destroy but to save.

Christ, by nature, is not a destroyer, but a Savior, and the same is true of God (He is described as such in Isaiah, for example). Satan is the destroyer, not God, or Christ. Christ was explaining this to the disciples, whom, because they didn't know God (i.e., know what He was really like), were thinking He (or Christ, who was God in the flesh) would be pleased by having His enemies destroyed by fire. But Christ was not pleased, because that's not the sort of thing that would please Him. The SOP comments on this by saying that the disposition to harm those who act against us is demonstrative of the spirit of Satan.

The point of this is that the disciples did not understand things because they didn't know God. This led them to misinterpret what God's will was viz a viz what happened in Elijah's time. If they had known God like Christ did, they wouldn't have made that mistake.