1950 This Means Everlasting Life - A2Z.org

THE ENEMY OF LIFE APPEARS 33
tunity. Neither would the human soul survive a
mere death of the body and be able to migrate
to an invisible place of conscious torment . Death
meant ceasing to exist as a soul, destruction .
-Psalm 90 :3.
s By making full provision for man's eternal life
in the Edenic paradise and by warning him of the
penalty for disobedience Jehovah God proved himself
a friend of life to mankind . What, then, induced
the perfect man and woman in Eden to rebel
against their heavenly Life-giver and Friend
and to provoke his sentence of death? An enemy
of life turned up in Eden . This was not the serpent
in Eden, the lowly creature that tempted Adam's
wife Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil . It was the invisible
spirit creature behind the serpent and that
made the serpent speak enticingly. Presenting
himself as an angel of light, he promised Adam
and Eve wisdom and immortal life as gods, if they
followed the course he suggested. Actually he
worked for their death by leading them into being
sentenced by God . "And the serpent said unto the
woman, Ye shall not surely die : for God doth
know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,
knowing good and evil ." Genesis 3 :4,5 So he
denied that they were mortal souls and he held
out to them divine life . By turning Eve and Adam
into the course of rebellion against their God and
Lawgiver, for which the penalty was death, he in
8 . What induced man and woman in Eden to provoke
the death sentence?