"Then the LORD God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever'--

Should God's means be used to perpetuate sin forever?

What sort of "for ever"?

The "for ever" of the slave that bores his earlobe as in Exodus 21:6 ??

Or the "for ever" of the sons of Aaron, as in Exodus 28:43, whom we know have had no such Tabernacle duties since A.D.70??? Do they still today burn incense in the house of the Lord "for ever" as declared in 1 Chron.23:13????

Then cult of the Saducees was rebuked by the Master for taking this "for ever" incorrectly concerning the mortality of men:

"How much less them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation [is] in the dust, [which] are crushed before the moth?
They are destroyed from morning to evening: they perish for ever without anyone regarding [it]."
Job 4:19,20

"For ever" has several meanings in the Word, or we risk confusion, as the theologians do when creating a "for ever" Hell.

I attempted to post an answer to this, but it didn't go through, so I'll try again.

R:
What I see is that you have to make a great effort to divorce "God's glory" from God.

T: God's glory is God's goodness, His character (Ex. 33:18), so God and His glory cannot be separated, nor is there any desire to do so.

R:
Since Ellen White says that it is God's glory which destroys the wicked, you say that "God's glory" destroys, but God doesn't. "God's glory" kills, but God doesn't. "God's glory" causes pain, misery, suffering, but God doesn't.

T: I wish I could remember what I wrote before. Oh well.

The light of the glory of God is the truth about God's character. To know God is life eternal. Those who open their hearts during this life to know the truth about God, to know Him personally and intimately, form character which are in harmony with Him and rather than being destroyed by His goodness are, to the contrary, enlivened by it. The wicked are destroyed by God's character, which is to say destroyed by God. The mechanism of their destruction is God's goodness.

The SAME THING which gives life to the righteous slays the wicked. God destroys the wicked by doing the same thing which gives life to the righteous.

Old Tom: Is sin lethal in itself?

R:
"Then the LORD God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever'-- therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gên. 3:22-24).

"Adam and Eve transgressed the law of God. This made it necessary for them to be driven from Eden and be separated from the tree of life, to eat of which after their transgression would perpetuate sin. ... Man was dependent upon the tree of life for immortality, and the Lord took these precautions lest men should eat of that tree 'and live forever'--become immortal sinners. {TM 133.3}

T: Your idea seems to be, if I am understanding it correctly, that God will kill the wicked because of their sin. However, if the wicked had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever? This means that God could not have killed them if they had eaten of the tree of life? So God is less powerful than the tree He created?

John,

quote:

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What kind of salvation are you offering and from what?

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I can’t offer any salvation from anything. However, God’s word offers salvation both from sin (Titus 2:14) and from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9, 1 Thess. 1:10).

Ikan,
The EGW text also speaks of “immortal sinners”. Would you also apply a relative meaning to this expression? Another point is that, if “for ever” in the Bible text just means the common extension of a life, what is the reason for preventing man from partaking of its fruit?

Tom,

quote:

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Your idea seems to be, if I am understanding it correctly, that God will kill the wicked because of their sin.

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Yes, God will manifest His wrath against sin and this will kill the wicked.

quote:

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However, if the wicked had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever?

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Am I saying this, or are the Bible and Ellen White saying this? And if sinners could have lived for ever, as the Bible and Ellen White say, how is it that sin is lethal in itself?

John,

quote:What kind of salvation are you offering and from what?

I can’t offer any salvation from anything. However, God’s word offers salvation both from sin (Titus 2:14) and from the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9, 1 Thess. 1:10).

Tom: Neither Rom. 5:9 nor 1 Thes. 1:10 speaks of the "wrath of God" (it just says "wrath").

Ikan,
The EGW text also speaks of “immortal sinners”. Would you also apply a relative meaning to this expression? Another point is that, if “for ever” in the Bible text just means the common extension of a life, what is the reason for preventing man from partaking of its fruit?

Tom: Clearly the purpose was to not perpetuate man's life, similarly to how God allowed man to partake of meat after the flood in order to shorten his life span, which was in mercy.

Tom,

Old Tom: Your idea seems to be, if I am understanding it correctly, that God will kill the wicked because of their sin.

R: Yes, God will manifest His wrath against sin and this will kill the wicked.

Old Tom: However, if the wicked had eaten from the tree of life, they would have lived forever?

R: Am I saying this, or are the Bible and Ellen White saying this? And if sinners could have lived for ever, as the Bible and Ellen White say, how is it that sin is lethal in itself?

T: The leaves of the tree of life which are for the healing of the nations yield their fruit monthly, the implication being that the tree will be continually eaten of, not just once. To have eaten of the tree of life would have perpetuated man's life, which was not God's intention.

The whole line of reasoning regarding the Tree of Life is a non-starter anyway. Our physical life is dependent upon our vital force, which is finite. Even if your apparent hypothesis, that one sampling of the tree of life would bestow upon one an infinite vital force, were true, it still would not disprove the statement that sin is lethal. It would simply state that the tree of life was able to heal from the effects of sin.

That sin is lethal is not only apparent from the many Scripture texts which say as much ("the sting of death is sin" "the soul that sinneth shall die" "sin pays its wages: death" etc.) but the venom of the serpent is used to represent sin. For example:

quote:

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Lift up your head and look away from yourself, away from your sin, to the uplifted Saviour; away from the poisonous, venomous bite of the serpent to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. (LHU 256)

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What clearly language could be used to represent the lethality of sin than "venomous bite"?

Roseangela

I'm really quite surprised that you could truly doubt that "sin could be lethal in itself", as you put it. Humanity was so insanely and lethally sin-filled before the Flood that God finally withdrew His Spirit at the close of the ark’s door and we know what happened next! Their minds were so much more powerful than ours, their lifespan ten times longer (without the fruit of the Tree of Life) and yet the evil effects of their sin are beyond our imaginations. You really don't think they were happy in the sins, do you? The pre-Flood race was absolutely miserable with sin, reeking of hatred and evil such that would make a 900 year old Charlie Manson or Stalin or Hitler look like Cub Scouts.

Tom is correct: meat eating wasa pre-Flood evil, was allowed so as with Noah's family, but only temporarily, was this God's plan, as the earth was an utter agricultural Ground Zero.


Go take a look at the Grand Canyon and ask yourself if sin is not lethal in itself.

Sin is an alien disease; it spawned in a non-human being, Satan, who is quarantined away from the rest of the heavily populated universe, limited or “reserved in chains” to this planet. No other place in the vastness of infinity is it found. God always correlates it with disease in the Word for this reason.

Perhaps you may reconsider so bold a theory after studying this:

"The work of Christ in cleansing the leper from his terrible disease is an illustration of His work in cleansing the soul from sin. The man who came to Jesus was "full of leprosy." Its deadly poison permeated his whole body. The disciples sought to prevent their Master from touching him; for he who touched a leper became himself unclean. But in laying His hand upon the leper, Jesus received no defilement. His touch imparted life-giving power. The leprosy was cleansed. Thus it is with the leprosy of sin,--deep-rooted, deadly, and impossible to be cleansed by human power. {DA 266.1}

Now to me this sounds much more lethal than you will agree with. She makes no distinction between the soul and the body. Perhaps you see the side effects of a leper’s horrific life, the missing fingers, the mottled skin and the disfigured face, as the disease. It is not. It is the reactions to the disease. The disease is in the blood stream, the immune system, deep within the sufferer. Sin is as literal as that. It’s a rotting debility, biblically called “corruption”. It is the prime reason why we will need new bodies at the resurrection. You can get the new spirit now.

A thief must let Christ take away his thief’s heart, not merely his "rap sheet".

Sin is a disease, as real as any leper's, that no amount of sewing fingers back on, or promising to not to lose anymore can halt. It is the sin-master within, controlled by Satan that must be given to Christ to crucify, so that He can put a new heart into a man. Not a patch up or a re-education or a adjusting to one's mental viewpoint, or even agreement with the Three Angel's messages can equate with a new heart, a new spirit, a death of the sin nature within.

As for the Tree's ability to make someone in fact never dying or immortal: I doubt that the Tree is a co-Redeemer with Christ, as "God alone hath immortality".

Satan and the fallen angels are not immortal: there is nothing created with natural or self-winding immortality! To dream about whether Adam could have become an immortal sinner if he could of fought his way past the angel guards (not likely) is in a question in the same cast as Adam’s belly-button and Noah’s pet dinosaurs. Adam was clearly so terrified at the results of his sin, I wonder if busting through the Garden to steal that fruit also ever crossed his mind. I doubt if he was that stupidly defiant, considering the nightmare of all nightmares his hands had caused.

I doubt that that is E.G.W.’s and hence the Lord’s point; rather they are plainly refuting the fantasy of a never ending tortured after-life or Hell, a very popular idea of Satan’s, requiring immortal sinners roasting forever. Take note that EGW wisely brings this impossibility up when writing of the Judgement. Read the surrounding contexts in {CET 108.2}, {GC 533.3 through to 535.1}, {4SP 353.2 to 354.2} etc. That is her focus, not an impossible fantasy about “What if Adam...”

The Tree's fruit "perpetuates" the eternal life that God gives you (through re-creation), as gasoline perpetuates your car. No gas operating car = no gasoline. The unsaved sinner is on foot = no car, and no need for gas.
You must be His before you can eat of His.

Is not our born again life a today a token of the immortality promised at His return? Do we not need the righteousness of Christ to be ours, as it was Adam's before the Fall, to be able to eat of that Tree in the future?

The Tree appears to be a most powerful tool (the other being the River of Life) of the Lord to perpetuate physical health only of the unfallen or the future redeemed, also labelled overcomers (of sin!), as seen by the fact that fallen Adam, who had eaten of it "x" times before he fell, only lived an equally long life as his sons and grandsons, who never even touched it (See Jarad, Methusaleh,Seth, Enos, Cainon, etc.)