Genesis 2:7
From time to time, we read in the newspaper or hear a report on television that some person died of “natural causes.” For no observable disease or injury this individual stopped breathing. Sometimes we hear this referred to as “dying of old age.” But is death ever “natural?”
In our text, God breathed into the newly formed but lifeless body of Adam, and “man became a living being.” Human beings were made to live. God gave us His breath of life. We were not designed to be dead. Death is unnatural! Witness the decay of the body in the grave contrasted with the promised resurrection of that same body in a living, immortal state. Jesus was resurrected in such a body having overcome death, and He now has power over the realm of the dead - Hades.
When the Lord God placed the pair in the garden of Eden, He gave them commandment concerning the two trees He had planted in the garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told them not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that on the day when they ate of it they would certainly die (Genesis 2:9, 16-17). But they were free to eat of the tree of life.
Adam and Eve’s choice was to have either the knowledge of good and evil along with death or to have life. And we understand that eating of the tree of life meant living forever as indicated in Genesis 3:22! Human life on this planet was never meant by God to be limited to only a certain number of years. Life meant life. But the first couple chose death - a contrary and unnatural condition.
We thank God that He sent His Son Jesus to rescue us from our dead condition (Ephesians 2:1-5) and provide us once more with the opportunity for life (2 Timothy 1:9-10) which our heavenly Father desires for all people. We praise our God and thank Him that He is a God of life!