Why Did God Institute the Death Penalty?

Dave picking up where we left off last week, we’re in the book of Genesis searching out the reason why Jesus Christ the eternal God became a man through the virgin birth and died upon a cross in order to pay the infinite penalty for the sins of mankind.One of the reasons we are addressing this question is because too often in presenting the gospel believers fail to explain this important point and most non-Christians and nominal Christians don’t really understand why Jesus had to die.Without truly understanding the necessity of His death the door it seems to me is left wide open for any and all ways of salvation which are patently false.Some are found within professing Christianity and the rest in the religions of the world.Now to the problem:In Genesis:2:16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
See All... & 17 God sets are rule for His created beings.Verse 16:“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden though mayest freely eat: 17) But of the tree of the knowledge of good an devil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Dave, two questions hit me about this verse in regard to some beliefs which are being popularized in Christianity today.1) What does this say about God’s unconditional love?Isn’t God setting a condition here to remain in His love?2) Isn’t God instituting the death penalty in this verse and couldn’t it be viewed as a deterrent?Well let’s go for #1 first.

Dave:

Well to abide in God’s love, I think has a couple of meanings.Christ talked about that in John 15.I believe that God’s love is unconditional to this extent.He loves the sinner. Jesus said Father forgive them, they know not what they do.Now that doesn’t mean that they were forgiven, because you have to accept the forgiveness that God offers.You must believe in Him.But it shows the desire.As you said, God sent His Son.Christ came, He died.God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.He loved us while we were enemies. So you don’t do anything to abide in that love.But there is also judgment.Is a child that is being disciplined by its father abiding in his love?Well in one sense it still is, but in another sense it is not, because judgment is coming upon him.Now I believe that God gave this command out of love because He made us for himself.He wants us to have a right relationship with us.He has blessings he wants to bestow upon us, but He’s not a sugar daddy.No matter what you do, He just blesses your evil and you know you can just run wild and—

Tom:

See Dave that’s my concern, because more and more today I am hearing about God’s unconditional love and it ends up just as you’ve described.A God who is willing to put up with anything and everything and just don’t worry about it, it’s all going to work out in the end.That’s not what this verse is—you know for Adam and Eve, at that point for our sinless parents as it were.That’s not why He said that to them.

Dave:

Yes, so why did God say this?That they are not to eat of this tree?

Tom:

In saying to Adam and Eve thou shalt surely die—on the one hand we talk about unconditional love, but there is a condition, there is a requirement for them that if they break God’s command, dire circumstances are going to take place which we know.

Dave:

Well life comes from God.And man’s life comes in a relationship with God and you can’t just take the life that God has given me and now I can use it for anything that I want to?I can use this for evil?No!You do that, God says, and you have broken the relationship with me and I can no longer bless you and I’m not going to prolong your life.So although man didn’t instantly die physically that day, he died spiritually and because the spirit of God left him now he begins to die physically.And scientists as far as I know, can’t even explain why we die.You know why we should die.

Tom:

Dave the second question and maybe this is a little bit off the mark here, but is God instituting the death penalty here?

Dave:

Well of course He is.Yes.

Tom:

Well was it a deterrent?

Dave:

No, well but I don’t know that you could argue that therefore—

Tom:

No but they didn’t know what death was so I don’t think they walked in fear of it. But in a sense, what I want to underscore here is that there is a penalty and God lays it out in verse 17—Genesis:2:17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
See All....“…The day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”There is a penalty that has to be paid.It is a death penalty.

Dave:

Yes, absolutely and the fact that God metes that penalty out is to His credit.Otherwise He would be going back on what He said.And if God went back on what He said in this instance, why would I believe Him in anything else that He said?

Tom:

Right, He wouldn’t this just, fair God that we referred to earlier.

Dave:

Right.So life that God gave man wasn’t just some kind of a bug or some kind of an animal just to swing through trees and so forth.It was to be in a love relationship with God.It was to be intimately involved with God in fellowship with Him and God cannot have fellowship with evil—with sin.And therefore if man is to remain in this relationship with God from which His life comes— A man’s life, Jesus said, consists not in the abundance of things that he possesses.Life for a human being is not just physical, but it involves much more than that.And that life comes from God.That’s why when a person becomes absorbed in themselves—this is not really living—this is not what God intended.And that’s why God will not perpetuate man in that condition.That’s why the teaching of the people who say well we should be healed of every disease.Whatever we ask for God will give it to us.There should be no death.If you are a real Christian—no God is not perpetuating man in his sinful condition.There has to be a new race.There has to be a new creation in Christ Jesus and death says this is the end of this creation.You have rebelled against me.I’m going to have to start again and that can only be through Christ who will come.He will pay the penalty.He will die in your place and if you trust Him, you can be brought into a new life and a new relationship with God.And by the way, Christ’s death upon the cross, His redemption of man through His blood shed upon the cross and His payment of the penalty that God required does not restore what Adam lost.Some people talk about that.Oh well He restored what Adam lost—no, no God only came once in a while—I mean He came in the cool of the evening and talked with Adam.We will be in the presence of God forever.We will never be able to fall away from God again.Christ himself, who is God, lives within us.Adam never had that.So there is a new race—something totally new that can never be broken, it can’t be destroyed by sin ever again and that’s the new creation.The whole new universe that God will make!But man had to be given the opportunity and he had to be put on his—you could say on his own. What is he going to do now?And God gives him the opportunity—now here’s the Garden, but don’t eat of this tree.If you do you will die.And tragically—

Tom:

Yes, well we are getting to that.Sometime following God’s command in Genesis:2:16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
See All... & 17, Satan in the form of a serpent appeared to Eve in order to tempt her to break fellowship with God.She bought the lies the adversary offered her and induced Adam to do likewise.Now we are about out of time today Dave, but I do want to go slowly over these verses because again what we are trying to communicate here is we are trying to explain the gospel.The gospel is the solution to man’s problem and we’re trying to get at what the problem is and what took place in history.

Dave:

And I have to take the whole Bible.Genesis is the foundation for everything else and we need to understand that this is God’s Word.

Gary:

We hope you have enjoyed this special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.  And now to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director Tom McMahon:

Tom:

The name, The Berean Call, is taken from the book of Acts, chapter 17: 10 & 11, where we find the apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek City of Berea after he had just come from Thessalonica.  To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God.  They were commended for being noble or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically because they searched the scriptures daily to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word.  That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry.  Our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.