Hi Mike,

I have been thinking deeply about the creation of Adam. I have come to believe that Adam was created MORTAL and not IMMORTAL. I don’t know what your position is on the subject, but here is why I believe what I do… perhaps you can straighten me out if I am wrong:

God placed TWO trees in the Garden of Eden: The “Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil” plus the “Tree of Life“. God gave Adam ONE command, and that was to “not eat of the Tree of Knowledge.”

If Adam DID eat of the Tree of Knowledge, God warned that “dying, ye shall DIE“, or “ye shall SURELY (certainly) die“). This, to me, is saying that Adam was already dying, even before He ate of the Tree of Knowledge. His death wasn’t yet “CERTAIN” since he still had full access to the Tree of Life! (But of course, we know that he did not partake of it)

All Adam had to do, was to eat of the Tree of Life, so that he would BECOME “immortal”! Isn’t this why God says that after He ate of the Tree of Knowledge, that He then guarded the Tree of Life, lest he eat of it and live for ever?

I look forward to your response!

God Bless,

J____

Hi J____,

It is good to hear from you again. You are right on about Adam’s original condition while yet “in the hand of the Potter:”

Jer 18:1 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Jer 18:2 Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
Jer 18:3 Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potte r: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.
Jer 18:5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
Jer 18:6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay [ is] in the potter’s hand, so [ are] ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

All of God’s “clay vessels” are “marred [ while yet] in the hand of the Potter.” That is because God has not yet finished “making man in His image.” What that verse should read is “Let us be making man in our image.” The first step in that process is to make a “marred vessel of clay.” It was the result of being in this sad, “marred, naked, dusty” condition, while yet “in the hand of the Potter” that caused Adam and Eve to succumb to the lust of the eyes, the lust of the heart and the pride of life before they ever ate of the tree of life.

1Jn 2:16 For all [ sin] that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Flesh itself misses the mark of the Christ we are now to know after the spirit. So Adam, by virtue of being flesh, is sin and needs a sacrifice for what he IS, before he ever does anything. As soon as Adam does something, he is then also in need of another sacrifice for what he DID. So God has given us a “sin offering,” for the flesh that we are. But He has also provided a “trespass offering,” for what we do in “the body of this death.” Adam sinned because he was in a “body of this death.” He sinned because he was dying. He did not begin dying because he sinned. The lie of the serpent “thou shalt not surly die,” has man thinking the opposite of the Word of God to this very day. Adam was dying when he drew his first breath:

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

“Flesh and blood” are synonymous in scripture with “corruption.” Adam was “corruptible and in corruption” from the time he drew his first breath. That is why he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam was created with a fleshly mind. Adam was created of the dust. He was created with an earthly carnal mind. He was “a vessel of clay marred in the hand Of the Potter.”

I have written all this years ago in the paper on The Law of Moses Versus The Law of the Spirit.

Go to that paper on the web site. If you read down about three quarters of the paper to the section entitled ‘Phrase # 7- Under The Law.’ The remainder of this paper discusses the original condition in which Adam was created while yet a “vessel of clay, in the Potters hand.”

I think you will find that it confirms what you have asked me about in this letter. I would only add that the ‘flaming sword, guarded the WAY of the tree of life.” This symbolizes the fact that it is only by going through that flaming fire of the Word Of God that we can partake of the ‘Tree of Life, that is in the paradise of God.” The ‘Tree of Life of course, is Christ. And His word burns out of us everything that separates us from Him.

There was no chance that Adam and Eve would ever have eaten of the tree of life first. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which was placed right in the middle of the garden. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which had been made to look so appealing to the natural, clay, dusty, naked, carnal mind. We have every scriptural reason to believe that the tree of life on the other had “had no form or comeliness that we should desire it.” Here is the only way the carnal mind could possibly have thought of the tree of life:

Isa 53:2 For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
Isa 53:3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Mike