“your mortal bodies …” (Rom. 8:11, NKJV)
Now that we understand the concept “outer darkness”, used in the parables, it provides a foundation for the unfolding of our existing revelation of what exactly happened at the fall of man in paradise.
We have looked at this history of the first people in the garden of Eden so many times, in so much detail, but this history keeps unfolding. Man and Woman in the Garden of Eden have a choice – they can choose between the Tree of Life (along with other trees in paradise), or they can choose to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Gen. 2:16-17 spells it out as follows: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 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.’” Adam lived for another 930 years after the fall, thus this death was not one of the physical body.
It could also not have been Adam’s soul (his will, intellect, and emotions) that died that day, as Adam was not a zombie after the Fall – he functioned normally. We know that Man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), and is thus primarily a spiritual being, as God is spirit (John 4:24). We can thus say, without hesitation, that Adam and Eve’s spirit became dormant, or died. They lost the ability to know God and to walk with him in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8).
But, different from Man who, like God, was spirit, humanity today inhabit physical bodies. Scripture refers to them as “mortal bodies”, as in the following verses:
- “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.” (Rom. 6:12)
- “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom. 8:11)
We need to understand that before the Fall, man was not subjected to mortality. God had after all said that if they only ate from the Tree of Life that no one would die. Only by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil did man become mortal. “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” (Gen. 3:22). After the Fall Adam and Even no longer “live forever”, but rather live in mortality!
What is mortality? A dictionary defines it as: “The action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism.” It is thus clear that death is directly linked to time. Death is thus anything that lives, but whose existence comes to an end with the passing of time. (A different definition could be: Any life, expressed as a factor of time.) In other words, someone/thing whose life is not eternal, but temporal.
With this in mind, the following Scripture is very, very important: “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:18, KJV). Visible things are temporal, the invisible eternal. Selah.
According to Strong “temporal” means “for the occasion only, that is, temporary: – dur[eth] for awhile, endure for a time, for a season, temporal.”
Therefore the eternal, immortal God is also ipso facto invisible: “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17, KJV).
In other words, if the Man and Woman were not subject to death whilst they were eating of the Tree of (eternal) life, they would have to be, according to Scripture, also invisible! After the Fall, when they had “surely die[d]”, and they became mortal, temporal beings, they became visible. They gained visible, physical, “mortal bodies”.
Now Gen. 3:21 becomes more clear: “Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” Apart from the fact that Man and Woman now become Adam and Eve (thus, their identities change), their physical state also changes. The greatest change that takes place, apart from their spirits dying and them being driven from the Garden of Eden, is that God covers them in skin. They are thus clothed with physical, VISIBLE, temporal, mortal bodies! Verse 22 spells out the implications of their fallen human state very beautifully: “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever‘”! “Man” no longer lives in eternity/invisibility! God sends them away from the Garden of Eden, as verses 23 and 24 state: “therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
In the teaching of Day 1155-1156 the term “East” (qedem /qêdmâh) was discussed in detail. We explained that it can be read as “before time”, or even: “a different reality”. In this instance East thus does not point to a direction or geographical position, but is rather a reference to the garden’s position before time, or rather, in eternity.
Man and Woman (now Adam and Even) thus fell from East/eternity/before time. They fell from their eternal home, namely the Garden of Eden. Deut. 33:27: “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms …” This Scripture could also be translated in similar terms:
- “the God of the East, is a refuge”
- “the God Before Time, is a refuge”
From this eternal God of eternity/the east/before time, who is in Himself a space of a different inhabitable reality, man fell.
- Selah: Explain to someone this understanding of the fall of man from eternal to temporal
- Read: 5-8; Eph. 3-4
- Memorise: 4:4-13 (Try!)
