A Response

I suppose I ought to respond to Belthshazzar’s comments, since he responded to mine. In this exercise, I don’t mean to call God a liar, no more than I intend to convince myself that the universe was created in 6 days. You see, I am approaching the text as one who is hoping to find meaning, clarity and understanding. If I read that God told Adam and Woman they would “surely die” if they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and I read that they eat from it, and I read that they don’t immediately keel over, my first thought is ‘why not?’ not, ‘God is a liar.’

In addition I have to be suspicious of the statement that “Adam and Eve did not immediately die, but they did die ... therefore, God was both gracious in suspending the punishment and trustworthy in that he causes them to die.” Belthshazzar is making the assumption that if they had not eaten of the tree, they would live forever, never knowing death. This is not suggested by the text. We’re never told that eternal life is God’s intention for Adam and Woman. In fact as we’ll see later, the generations that proceed from them and from Cain and Abel lived inordinately long lives. Thus, I don’t think it’s logical to assume that God simply stayed their sentence till the time of their death.

Finally I’ll make one last comment about the nature of my post. Of course I don’t mean to make God out to be a liar. And of course I hope that my faithfulness to him with flavor all that I read and study in these pages. But if I am to make a serious study of scripture, then I can’t let my assumptions about God change the way I read the Word. Should I let my image of God characterize the way I read scripture? Or should what I read in scripture characterize God?