This is the 1st part in a series of 7 written under the title:
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1. Who Are We? - Beginning Again in Eden
"What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor." Psalm 8:4–5 (ESV)
Throughout my Christian journey, I have wrestled with many questions. Most have centered on subjects such as:
Each of these questions is important and deserves careful study. Yet they all depend upon an even more fundamental question—one raised by God Himself in the opening chapters of Genesis.
What is man?
Before asking what happens to us after death, we should first ask what we are in life. Are human beings immortal souls temporarily inhabiting physical bodies? Is the body merely a temporary vessel? Or does Scripture describe humanity in an altogether different way?
The answer matters more than we might think. Our understanding of human nature shapes how we understand nearly every major biblical doctrine concerning death, resurrection, judgment, eternal life, heaven, and hell. If we begin with the wrong assumptions about what a human being is, we should not be surprised if we arrive at mistaken conclusions about what happens after death.
That possibility may seem unlikely until we discover that many of the ideas modern Christians take for granted about human nature did not originate with the biblical writers themselves. Instead, some entered Christian thought gradually through philosophical and religious influences that arose entirely outside the world of the Old and New Testaments.
Before we can answer questions about the soul, death, or eternity, we must first return to the beginning and ask the question Scripture itself asks: What is man?
The search for an answer should begin where the Bible begins. Very early in Genesis we are told how humanity came into existence:
"Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." — Genesis 2:7 (ESV)
Everything that follows in this study grows from this remarkable verse.
Genesis also tells us why humanity was created. In the opening chapter, mankind is commissioned to fill the earth, exercise dominion over the creatures God has made, and faithfully steward His creation. Humanity's calling is inseparably rooted to the earth—the created world.
At the same time, humanity was given genuine freedom—but not absolute freedom. After placing Adam in the garden, God gave him a single prohibition:
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, '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.'”
These words introduce one of the most important questions in all of Scripture. What did God mean when He warned, “You shall surely die”?
Everything that follows in the biblical story ultimately grows out of that warning.
The following chapter immediately introduces a competing claim. The serpent's first recorded words are not an attempt to explain death differently or redefine what God had said. They are a direct contradiction of God's warning. The serpent said, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4)
The issue is therefore not one of definition but of trust. Would humanity believe what God had said, or would they believe the serpent's denial?
Ever since that moment, humanity has lived between those two competing claims. Did God mean what He said about death? Or was the serpent right?
Nearly every question we ask about the soul, death, resurrection, judgment, heaven, and hell ultimately depends on how we answer that question.
Getting back to the story, we know what happened next. Eve believed the serpent's words, ate the fruit, and gave some to Adam, who also ate. The consequences were immediate and far-reaching. Yet the account raises several important questions that deserve careful consideration.
The account raises important questions, though perhaps not the ones we often ask. The narrative never suggests that Eve misunderstood God's warning or asked what death meant. The serpent did not redefine death or explain it differently. He simply denied that God's warning would come to pass.
The issue before Adam and Eve was therefore one of trust.
Would they believe the Creator? Or would they believe the serpent?
The New Testament leaves no doubt about the significance of that choice. Paul writes:
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned." (Romans 5:12, ESV)
Paul's words raise one final question that reaches far beyond the Garden of Eden.
When God warned Adam, “You shall surely die,” what did He mean? That question lies at the heart of the biblical story. It is the very warning the serpent denied when he declared, "You will not surely die."
Throughout the remainder of Scripture, those two opposing claims stand in tension. Was God speaking the truth about death? Or was the serpent?
Yet Genesis leaves us with another question as well. Did God abandon the creation that sin had disrupted? The remainder of Scripture answers that question with a resounding “No.” Instead, it tells the story of the Creator's determination to restore the life that death had undone.
That is why this study begins where the Bible begins. Before we can answer questions about the soul, death, resurrection, eternal life, heaven, or hell, we must first understand what God revealed about humanity in the opening chapters of Genesis. Only then can we follow the biblical story as it unfolds from creation, through the Fall, to the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the restoration of all things.
In many ways, the chapters that follow are an extended attempt to answer one simple question:
What did God mean when He said, “You shall surely die?”
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Watch for part 2. Dust + Breath = Life?
Now posted.
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