These words comprehend the whole of humanity in their application; every man and woman that ever has existed or shall exist on the face of the earth. This was not a positive law, but a negative one; the law of which Adam and Eve were transgressors was a prohibition, and to that prohibition was attached a penalty.
I. Look first at the prohibition: "Thou shalt not eat of it." It is perfectly obvious, from God's character and conduct with man up to this time, that the intention of this prohibition was somehow to confer a great benefit on man himself; otherwise, why should God have given the prohibition? In the case of all perfect beings a test is necessary if they are to attain the highest possible state of perfection. This test was put before Adam and Eve, and the prohibition was enforced and was in order to that result.
II. Look next at the penalty: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (1) We must determine death by the nature of the subject to which it is applicable. Death is not necessarily the mere cessation of existence. Man's life is physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual; death is the converse of life in regard to each of these particulars. Life implies the giving up of the whole man to God; death is exactly the reverse, it is the man losing all this becoming dead, as we read, "in trespasses and sins." (2) It is said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Adam and Eve died by becoming subject unto death. The elements of mortality were introduced, and they died spiritually by being estranged from God. In view of the redemption, in view of that Lamb who should come to die for man's sins, the curse was thrown into abeyance, the execution was necessarily deferred. It was deferred in order that an opportunity might be given to man to become acquainted with Christ, and that Christ might accomplish the work of redemption.
C. Molyneux, Christian World Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 136.
These words were fulfilled at the time they were spoken; they have been fulfilled ceaselessly thereafter. We live in a universe of death. The phenomenon is common to us, but no familiarity can rob it of its dreadfulness; for the dead, who are the more in number, have kept their awful secret unrevealed, and the child who died yesterday knows more than can be guessed at by the thousand millions of living men. Yet this death is the least and the least dreaded part of that other, that second, that spiritual death which God meant in the warning of the text.
I. Notice first the certainty of that death. Let us learn to be early undeceived about the tempter's falsehood, "Ye shall not surely die." If a man will serve his sin, let him at least reckon upon this, that in one way or other it will be ill with him; his sin will find him out; his path will be hard; there will be to him no peace. The night of concealment may be long, but dawn comes like the Erinnys to reveal and avenge its crimes.
II. Not only is this punishment inevitable, but it is natural; not miraculous, but ordinary; not sudden, but gradual; not accidental, but necessary; not exceptional, but invariable. Retribution is the impersonal evolution of an established law.
III. Retribution takes the form which of all others the sinner would passionately deprecate, for it is homogeneous with the sins on whose practice it ensues. In lieu of death God offers us His gift of eternal life. While yet we live, while yet we hear the words of invitation, the door is not shut, and we may pass to it by the narrow way. To Eve was given the dim promise that her seed should bruise the serpent's head; for us Christ has trampled sin and Satan under His feet.
F. W. Farrar, The Fall of Man and other Sermons,p. 27.
References: Genesis 2:17. Bishop Woodford, Sermons preached in Various Churches,p. 50; Parker, The Fountain(May 9th and May 23rd, 1878), Hidden Springs,p. 275; H. J. Stephens, Literary Churchman Sermons,p. 621.Genesis 2:18. A. Monod, Select Discourses from the French and German,pp. 17, 47; B. Waugh, Sunday Magazine(1887), p. 421; G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to my Friends,p. 163.Genesis 2:23; Genesis 2:24. J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes,2nd series, p. 84.