Even though humans can’t always grasp the gravity of the sin and evil we’ve brought into the world, we understand death very well. The American philosopher William James called the knowledge that we are going to die “the worm at the core of human existence.”
We’ll only die once, but we spend our entire lives in the valley of the shadow of death:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 ESV
Nothing about death seems normal; it isn’t the way things ought to be. The Bible explains our predicament: God cannot permit sinful, proud, selfish humans to live forever – we would be continually creating “Hell on earth”. When humans rebelled against God, we forfeited our right to eternal life.
Spiritual Death
The Bible recognizes two kinds of death – physical and spiritual. When Adam and Eve ate the apple, they didn’t drop dead physically. God’s warning referred to their spiritual death, not their physical death, and that day Adam and Eve died spiritually.
In order to form the right picture in our minds, we need to understand how sin and spiritual death are related. Should we think of spiritual death as a penalty imposed by God, which we deserve, or should we think of it as an intrinsic result that sin brings about naturally?
God never said that in the day they ate from that tree, he would have to kill them. He said that in the day they ate from it, death would be the result. God turned mankind over to the natural outcome of their decision to join Satan in his rebellion. This implies that spiritual death is the natural result of sin. So, we can also understand sin as a fatal spiritual disease.
A spiritual disease requires healing, and that aligns with the Bible:
“And by his stripes, we are healed.”
Isaiah 53:5
I said, “Have mercy on me, LORD; heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
Psalm 41:4
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
Matthew 9:10-12
In this story, Jesus compares himself to a doctor who has come to help those who are sick. Matthew was a patient in need of healing. The sickness was sin, and Jesus was the Healer.
Physical Death – the Tree of Life
Living forever in a fallen, spiritually dead state, separated from God would have been a terrible and eternal punishment. Try to imagine yourself in a world of evil with no escape. When we consider death in that context, it’s a sign of God’s compassion toward us, perhaps not punishment at all.
And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So, the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:22-24
So, God limited our lifespans by blocking our access to the Tree of Life. But God won’t let the story end here. We will all experience physical death, but its purpose is the hope of resurrection from spiritual death to new life in the new creation. And there, we will enjoy the fruit of the tree of life for all eternity.
“To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
Revelation 2:7b
“On either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
Revelation 22:2