Genesis 2:16-17

"And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but 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."

Every line of this chapter moved straight to the climactic revelation here, this divine commandment being the emphatic pivot upon which turned the temptation and Fall of mankind, their rebellion against their Creator, their expulsion from Eden, the curse of the earth for Adam's sake, and the ultimate execution of the penalty of death upon the whole of Adam's race, only the redeemed in Christ being promised the remission of the penalty! The big thing here is not the question of what, exactly, the tree was, for we have no way of finding out. Whatever it was, it was forbidden to our great progenitors; but they violated the divine law that forbade their eating of it; and the manifold sorrows of our race inexorably ensued. We shall return to this subject in Genesis 3, where the event of the Fall is recorded.

Skinner's comment on the penalty of disobedience in these verses includes practically all of the errors that men have imported into the passage, as follows:

"The threat was not fulfilled; but its force is not to be weakened by such considerations as that the man from that time became mortal, or that he entered upon the experience of miseries and hardships which are the prelude of dissolution (Calvin). The simple explanation is that God, having regard to the circumstances of the temptation, changed His purpose and modified the penalty.[24]

No such views may be considered accurate. "I, Jehovah, change not!" (Malachi 3:6). The true solution of the questions raised on this is that the penalty incurred by Adam will be fully, completely, and irrevocably executed upon him in the person of his total posterity in exactly the "same day" of Adam's rebellion. And what day is that? It is the day of the creation sabbath, the present day (or dispensation). The prognosis for the Adamic race is destruction. As a recent famous philosopher expressed it, "There is no more future for the human race than there was for ichthyosaurus, pterodactyl, or brontosaurus!" Of course, such a pessimistic view leaves totally out of consideration the redemption available to all men in Jesus Christ; but apart from the proffered salvation, the future of mankind is indeed black and hopeless. Space here will not allow a full discussion of the projected execution of the penalty of death upon the Adamic race; but a complete and repeated revelation concerning it occurs in the prophecy of Revelation. That the event of the death penalty did not indeed find instantaneous fulfillment is not an occasion for surprise. In the very creation of Adam, there was the revealed purpose of redeeming man unto eternal life with the Father in heaven; and any instantaneous execution of humanity would have frustrated such a purpose. What seems to men like change of purpose or plans on the part of God was no such thing. Therefore, God, forseeing man's rebellion, and taking account of the long ages required for the accomplishment of His purpose, did not announce an immediate penalty of death, but a death penalty "in that day," the day which is still with us and shall yet find the Father's sentence summarily executed. Commentators, of course, mistakenly interpret "day" mentioned in the sentence as a twenty-four hour period. (See under Genesis 1:5 above for notes on the length of the seventh day.)