95 THESES FOR THE RE-FORMATION #13

Thesis #13 of 95: Our first parents "died" immediately they ate the forbidden fruit

BIBLICAL REFERENCES

From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die (Gen2:17)

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own free will, but because of Him who subjected it, in the certain hope that creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (Rom8:20-21).

In the days of the voice of the seventh messenger, when he starts sounding off, then the mystery of God will be completed, as has been announced to His servants the prophets (Rev10:7).

COMMENTS

Humanly speaking, the Little Book of Providence and these theses related to it arose from applying a highly literal (some might say pedantic) approach to scriptural interpretation. Every word, including how it is parsed in its original language has been taken into consideration. Usually, such a literal approach results in seeming contradictions with other passages, indeed many passages of the bible. But that is not the case with The Little Book; interpreted in the way that I have been shown the bible should be results in total coherence, at least to the author’s satisfaction.

So here is an example: “In the day you eat from it you shall surely die” (Gen2:17). Eating the forbidden fruit did not result in our first parents merely becoming mortal and liable for punishment, they died on the day the fruit was eaten [Heb: אֲכָלְךָ֥ בְּי֛וֹם]. What they experienced that very day is what Paul was referring to in my earlier thesis with regard to his reference to individuals by nature being “dead” in trespasses and sins – a defiled conscience resulting in a disruption in their relationship with their Creator.

For as we know, Adam went on to live for centuries, and as the earliest Church fathers rightly testify, he was neither cursed nor damned. The first man to experience that fate was Adam’s firstborn son Cain (Gen4:11). As a consequence of his parents’ folly, Cain’s soul like everyone else’s must inhabit a corrupted intellectual vessel (body and brain) with instincts alien and opposed to God’s law (Rom7:23-24). But in Cain’s case he was also dead in spirit, i.e., twice dead (Jude1:12). Body, soul and mind had become united in evil, hateful towards God and humanity. He had succumbed to the Evil One (Gen4:7); become a child of the devil (1Jn3:12) and the archetype of a theologically eluded third soteriological category of humanity. Counterintuitively, this is great news for all of us, as is the related Rom9 passage considered in thesis#10. If you’re not yet acquainted with The Little Book of Providence, this is likely to appear🤣. So, it’s time for a ditty:

 “A snake and trees,

Aug’s twos for threes,

Disaster now at last shall please”

Ref: Rom8:20; Rev10:7 quoted above

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