ABSTRACT: God told Adam that he would “surely die” if he ate from the forbidden tree. He and Eve did not immediately return to the dust upon eating the fruit, but they did experience death in other forms. Their immediate shame and alienation from God, along with other descriptions of the curse beyond Genesis 3, reveal that death means more than the cessation of physical life. Therefore, the new and resurrected life in Christ holds a promise far greater than mere physical life.
For our ongoing series of feature articles for pastors and Christian leaders, we asked Mitch Chase (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), pastor of Kosmosdale Baptist Church and associate professor of biblical studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to explore the various meanings of death in Scripture.
Every funeral, every graveyard, is a stark reminder that everything is not right in the world. We face the reality of death. People we love, and people we’ve never met, will breathe their last breath in this life under the sun. Local churches and ministers will have a close vantage point to the suffering and sorrows of others. And there will be times, which only God knows for sure, when we will be among these “others,” when we will feel the weight of our own mortality.
While the biblical authors tell the blunt truth about the problem of death in the world, they do not leave us in the dark as to its cause and its remedy. Its cause is sin, and its remedy is resurrection. In fact, we can even say that its remedy is a person — the Lord Jesus Christ. According to the biblical authors, death will die. In an important sense, it already has.
Thinking about death is beneficial, especially when we do so with an open Bible. There in its holy pages, we read about how death is the result of sin, how the forces of death are at work in this broken world, and how Christ’s victory over death secures and foreshadows our own embodied life. Death disrupts life for now, but not forever.
‘You Shall Surely Die’
God made the first man and placed him in a garden of life. Eden was paradise, and from its ground came every tree that was pleasant to see and pleasing to eat (Genesis 2:7–9). In the garden, man experienced blessing and goodness. The God of life had both bestowed life and provided food to preserve life.
The man had a mission: to work the garden and to keep it (Genesis 2:15). These tasks sound, at first, like what farmers do. But when these verbs (“to work” and “to keep”) appear together elsewhere in the Torah, they are the duties of Levites, who were given the charge to preserve the sanctity of the tabernacle precincts (e.g., Numbers 3:7–8; 8:25–26). Likewise, Adam was responsible to serve (“to work”) the garden like it was a sanctuary and to guard (“to keep”) the garden from anything unclean.
The Lord provided everything good and necessary for Adam’s duties. Yet God’s good words came with a warning. There was a tree in the midst of the garden from which Adam must not eat (Genesis 2:9). God told him, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:16–17).
This prohibition was not burdensome, for God’s generosity was displayed everywhere — in every tree, every blade of grass, every piece of fruit, every beautiful flower. The prohibition was not ambiguous, for though there were two trees in the midst of the garden (Genesis 2:9), God specified the one that was forbidden (2:17). The prohibition was not unreasonable, for the God who had given Adam breath was the one who gave this command. And the prohibition was not unkind, for God told Adam in advance what would happen if the fruit was eaten.
After some unspecified time, the Lord gave Adam a wife, and they were joined in the covenant of marriage (Genesis 2:21–25). Together, they were to fulfill God’s commission to be fruitful and multiply, to exercise dominion over creation, starting with Eden (1:26–28). But into Eden came a crafty and creeping thing, a serpent with lies to tell (3:1).
Targeting the woman, the serpent distorted God’s character and challenged the truth of God’s word (Genesis 3:1–5). “You will not surely die,” the serpent told her (3:4), directly denying God’s warning to Adam (2:17). The woman believed the lie, took of the forbidden tree’s fruit, and ate (3:6). There with her, Adam took the fruit she gave him and ate it too (3:6).
At this point in the biblical story, we would expect the author to say, “And the man and the woman died, for they had eaten the fruit of which God had said not to eat.” But that’s not what the biblical author reports. Instead, their eyes were opened, they realized they were naked, and they tried to cover their shame with fig leaves (Genesis 3:7). That doesn’t sound like death. Or maybe we aren’t aware of all the sounds that death makes.
Shame and Exile
Adam and Eve would die physically, but God showed them mercy by first giving them many years of life and fruitfulness. Eventually we read the words, “Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died” (Genesis 5:5).
Where did Adam and Eve live out these centuries? Not in Eden. According to Genesis 3, God sent the couple from paradise, placing cherubim with a flaming sword at the eastern entrance to bar reentry (Genesis 3:22–24). And when they left, they had painful promises ringing in their ears. God told the woman that there would be ramifications for childbearing and for marriage (3:16). God told the man that there would be ramifications for his labor and life (3:17–19). The dust from which he came would, in due time, receive him again, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (3:19).
Something did die in the garden that day. Adam and Eve continued living physically, but they weren’t the same. After Adam and Eve had sinned, they weren’t ready to face the Lord. Dignity and trust were compromised. They had believed the serpent’s words instead of God’s words. Their rebellion brought ruin upon their innocent estate. They didn’t feel peace; they felt afraid — of God, their maker and sustainer and provider. Their confidence shattered as shame filled the recesses of their hearts. Prior to eating, they dwelled in fellowship with the Lord. After eating, they felt alienated. Sin brings shame, shame causes a sense of alienation, and alienation is a kind of death. Sin alienates us from God.
The apostle Paul writes that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). Because Adam was our federal head, the leader of our humanity, his actions had tremendous implications for all who would come after him. Humanity “died through one man’s trespass” (5:15). In Adam, we fell. As fallen sinners in a fallen world, our sin leads to death. And along the way, we face the shame and alienation of sin as well. When Adam left Eden, so did we. His exile was ours.
But when Adam was exiled, he and Eve left with hope. God had covered them with better garments, skins from animals (Genesis 3:21). And he had given them a promise, through words spoken to the serpent, that a son from Eve would defeat the serpent (3:15). Living under death’s shadow, Adam and Eve had hope that God would raise up a victor who would make everything right. This promise was a seed of light that would grow in the dark, and the darkness would not overcome it.
The Shadow of Death
Ever since the events of Genesis 3, mankind has dwelled in the shadow of death. The refrain “and he died” in the genealogy of Genesis 5 is a tragic but clever literary reminder of sin’s consequences. People multiplied, and so did sin. And as sin spread, so did death.
What does death encompass? Instinctively, we know that death involves the cessation of breath and heartbeats. Our lungs need air, and our veins need the flow of blood. Without these, our bodies die. But is there more to the problem of death than the ending of physical life?
We have already seen how shame and exile cast us into death’s shadow. The biblical authors also describe various other conditions with deathlike language. Consider four examples.
First, the descent of the prophet Jonah. Arrested in the midst of his flight from God, Jonah is cast into the sea and swallowed by a great fish (Jonah 1:15–17). Jonah descends into the waters, plunging toward death by drowning. He later reflects, “The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God” (2:5–6). Jonah’s deathlike descent was followed by an ascent, a deliverance. When Jesus drew attention to Jonah’s experience, he said, “Just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40). The correspondences between Jonah and Jesus are valid because Jonah’s descent was a kind of death.
Second, the near-sacrifice of Isaac. The promised son of Abraham traveled to a mountain with his father, yet Isaac didn’t notice a lamb for the burnt offering (Genesis 22:7). Abraham built an altar and laid the wood and then bound Isaac on top of the wood (22:9). Taking the knife in his hand, Abraham prepared to offer his son (22:10). But in the last moments, the Angel of Yahweh called for Abraham to stop. Isaac didn’t die that day; a ram, which had been caught in a thicket, was offered instead (22:13). When the writer of Hebrews spoke about the near-sacrifice of Isaac, he spoke about why Abraham was willing to offer his son: “He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back” (Hebrews 11:19). If Isaac had been figuratively raised, then he had figuratively died first. His near-sacrifice was a kind of death, and thus his deliverance from death was a resurrection.
Third, the state of barrenness. This state caused great frustration and agony. It was a kind of living death, a death the woman (and her husband) had to endure. The threat that barrenness posed was the death of the family line. When God enabled a barren woman to conceive, the experience was life in a formerly dead womb. Rachel told Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!” (Genesis 30:1). Rachel’s barrenness was a kind of death, and having children was so important that Rachel considered her individual death as the alternative to a life of barrenness. Likewise, when the Lord enabled Hannah to conceive a son, she juxtaposed an intriguing set of statements in her prayer of exultation: “The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up” (1 Samuel 2:5–6). Amid these reversals, Hannah celebrates that God gives life and has granted conception to the barren woman.
Fourth, bodily sickness. Sickness disrupts the vitality and flourishing of bodily existence. Healing brings deliverance from the shadow of death. In the book of Psalms, David prays, “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. . . . Turn, O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of your steadfast love” (Psalm 6:2–4). When the king of Israel spoke of Naaman the leper, he said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?” (2 Kings 5:7). Leprosy was a kind of death. Curing leprosy would be the restoration of life to the walking dead. When King Hezekiah was ill to the point of death, his healing was like resurrection. He said to the Lord, “Oh restore me to health and make me live! Behold, it was for my welfare that I had great bitterness; but in love you have delivered my life from the pit of destruction” (Isaiah 38:16–17). Serious illness was the threat of death.
As we read what the biblical authors say about death, we see that their language about death and destruction applies to conditions prior to biological death. They broaden our understanding about the problem of death. The forces of death intrude on bodily life in a number of ways. Peril and barrenness and disease are examples of how the power of death works in the world. This truth sets up the signs and wonders of Jesus’s ministry, for he came to battle the principalities and powers and to exercise dominion as the Last Adam. He came to speak words of restoration and cleansing, subduing the curse and corruption that plagued God’s image-bearers. And death was not outside his dominion.
Mighty Hands and Outstretched Arms
When the Old Testament authors celebrate God’s power, they sometimes speak metaphorically about God’s outstretched arm and his mighty hand (e.g., Deuteronomy 4:34; 1 Kings 8:42; Psalm 136:12). His strength could not be overcome. His hand and arm were unmatched. And in the fullness of time, the metaphor became flesh and dwelled among us.
Jesus was a greater prophet than any in the Old Testament. His words were the very words of God, and he spoke with divine authority. Jesus was a greater priest than any in the Old Testament. He was a perfect mediator for sinners, and he could actually make the unclean clean. Jesus was a greater king than any in the Old Testament. His kingdom would never end, and his rule could subdue any opposition.
During Jesus’s earthly ministry, his power and authority were on display as he exercised dominion over the forces of death. When he stretched out his hand to touch a leper, his touch cleansed him (Mark 1:41–42). When he told a paralytic to rise and walk, the man did so (2:10–12). When he touched Peter’s fever-ridden mother-in-law, the fever fled (1:30–31). When he encountered a blind man, he gave the man sight (John 9:1–7). When a deaf and mute man was brought to him, he opened the man’s ears and loosed his tongue (Mark 7:32–35).
Whether deafness or muteness, blindness or leprosy, sickness or paralysis, nothing could resist the powerful words of Jesus. His signs and wonders confirmed his claims and the truthfulness of his teaching. The miracles vouched for his authority and testified to his identity. He subdued the forces of death, which had wrought havoc in the lives of image-bearers all around him.
But greater things were still to come. The hands of Christ accomplished their greatest work when they were transfixed to a cross. Wonder of wonders, the Son of God died in the stead of sinners. Lifted high in the spectacle of public crucifixion, the Son of God’s victory looked like defeat. Propitiation was veiled by humiliation. There upon the rugged tree, Jesus bore the penalty for sin and paid its wages in full.
Eve had heard that her future offspring would defeat the serpent, but the defeat would come through the son’s suffering. The nail through Jesus’s feet reminds us that the heel of the promised son would be struck. The thorns on his head recalled the truth that he would bear the curse that had ravaged God’s good world. His outstretched arms were a welcome to the nations to come and receive the life that flowed from his side.
The promised Redeemer would not defeat death apart from death. His death was integral to the divine plan of redemption. Jesus entered the grave. He was wrapped in the cords of corruption in order to burst them. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death in order to fill it with light. He was laid in the tomb in order to fill it with life. Jesus died in order to break death from the inside.
An Enemy Whose Time Is Short
When Jesus rose, he did so never to die again. What happened to him was different from what happened to Lazarus or to those raised from the dead in the days of Elijah and Elisha. Though raised from the dead, they remained mortal and would die again. When Jesus overcame death, he rose unto bodily immortality. This was the beginning of something new, the firstfruits of embodied glory.
The biblical authors had held out hope that those who surely died would surely live. The problem of death would be solved when those who dwelled in the dust awoke with the joy of resurrection life (Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2–3). The resurrection of Jesus was a decisive event because it guaranteed the deliverance of God’s people from the cords of corruption.
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan dies and is raised from the dead. The stone table on which he died is broken by the power of new life. It stands as a visible reminder of death’s defeat. Risen from the dead, Aslan rushes to the White Witch’s castle, where he breathes upon the stone statues that had been in the grip of dark magic. The witch had turned the creatures to stone, ending their lives and asserting her power over them. But Aslan’s breath breaks dark spells. When he breathes upon the stone creatures, they come to life again. Resurrection wasn’t just for the great lion. It was for all his people too.
Rising from the dead, the Lord Jesus has broken the power of death. And at his return, he shall raise his people from bodily corruption. The perishable shall put on the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:53). When the dead are raised, death will be swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54; Isaiah 25:8). Though our future is embodied glory, death is not our friend. True, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21), but death is called an enemy, indeed “the last enemy to be destroyed” (1 Corinthians 15:26). There is a sadness to the end of bodily life. Because we are not invincible, our death is inevitable (Ecclesiastes 2:14–16).
But our physical death is temporary. We have the hope of glory because Christ Jesus died in our place. Though we die, we will not die in our sins. The Lamb of God has been slain for us. The blameless Son was our faithful substitute. He died covered in my sins so that I could live covered in his righteousness. Whoever believes in Christ will not perish but will have eternal life (John 3:16). Christ has given his body and blood, and he bids us to receive them. The cross has become the tree of life for us, a promise of life fulfilling what once stood in the midst of the garden. Because of this redemptive work, eternal life and blessing are forever ours. Because of this redemptive work, our very bodies will be caught up in the glorious hope of an imperishable existence. Christ, who is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), promises all who come to him in faith, “You shall surely live.”
Desiring God