What Did It Mean When God Said to Adam: The Day You Eat From It You Will Surely Die?
Copyright © Brad M. Baker
October 3rd, 2025
This article responds to Don K. Preston’s 40-year collective body atonement framework.
Genesis 2:16The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.
Vs.
Genesis 3:17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;
Cursed is the ground because of you;
In toil you will eat of it
All the days of your life.
18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;
And you will eat the plants of the field;
19 By the sweat of your face
You will eat bread,
Till you return to the ground,
Because from it you were taken;
For you are dust,
And to dust you shall return.
The curse that fell upon Adam was that the ground was cursed with thorns and thistles. Adam would also return to the cursed ground when he died. His soul would have been in Hades and not been saved until he was resurrected into Heaven.
Don K. Preston “Quote”: Hey, Brad, should Adam have died physically the day that he sinned?
Yes or No?
If he SHOULD have died physically the day that he sinned, why didn’t he die physically that very day?
Was it because of the substitutionary physical sacrifice of the animals?
Yes or No?
Sure, if Adam had NEVER SINNED, the likelihood– best we can know– he would have been taken, like Enoch.
But, HE DID SIN, AND ACCORDING TO EDWARD AND Tom Riggle, AND OTHERS IN THIS DISCUSSION, HE SHOULD HAVE DIED PHYSICALLY BUT THE SUBSTITUTIONARY DEATH OF THE ANIMAL PREVENTED HIS PHYSICAL DEATH.
And then, we have Edward E. Stevens, who told us that we should die physically the very day that we sin, but the death of Jesus prevents that!!
Well, for anyone that knows even a smattering of logic, that means that Jesus’ physical death was / is substitutionary and prevents our physical death!
Garden– physical death of the animal prevented the physical death of Adam.
Today– we should die physically the day we sin, but the death of Christ prevents us from dying physically.
So, Mr. Baker, which “death” of Jesus prevents us from dying physically the day that we sin?
I am betting that, like usual, you won’t touch a thing I have said but instead just cast more insults my way.
Prove me wrong.
And it is more than amazing and revealing that you did not touch what I said! You just went down the rabbit hole of– Adam could have been taken…” What does that have to do with the perversion of the definition of substitutionary?
“End Quote”
Don K.Preston has not considered that Edward E. Stevens was correct on: who told us that we should die physically the very day that we sin, but the death of Jesus prevents that!!
Add to that, Adam could have been appointed to physically die at the end of his days, regardless of whether God provided a substitute death the day he sinned.
Hebrews 9:27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
Regardless of what most believe, that Adam would have lived physically forever if he had not sinned, I see a missing link to this mystery, but the only view that makes sense to me.
The Tree of Life had been moved from the Garden of Eden into Heaven, where flesh and blood can not enter. God knew beforehand that all of His creation of mankind would sin, so He provided a substitute animal to die in man’s place, but they could only receive immortality in a place where they would not sin, so he removed the Tree of Life to a safe place so mankind could not live an immortal life as sinners. God knew beforehand that he gave mankind a soul to have that would choose to sin. The soul is free to think, emotionally feel and have free will to do things that conflict with the will of God. Being made in God’s image provided those three things and a Spirit to have fellowship with Him.
Tim Martin asked: Revelation 22:2 declares that the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations. How does that work if the tree of life is in a “safe place” in heaven? Is there sickness “in heaven”? Are there nations that need healing “in heaven”?
Here is how “I believe” the Tree of Life works in Heaven and Earth. We have a body, soul and Spirit. The Tree of Life works within our Spirit if we are alive in Christ while alive on Earth. In Heaven, the Tree of Life works for an immortal life for our Spiritual body that we will receive when we physically die.
When God provided a substitute for Adam’s sin, the day he sinned, He saved all of humanity from sin as well, because no one would have been born. But because mankind was able to carry on, we should die physically the very day that we sin as well, but the death of Jesus provides a way for us to be forgiven so that the wrath of God does not come upon us every time we sin.
Revelation 13:8All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Adam would have eventually sinned, and God would have provided a substitute to take the place of what would have been the day he died, but he would have lived until the end of his days beyond that because of the substitution for him.
Don K. Preston is missing something in his perpetual assumption that if Christ’s substitutional death was only a Spiritual death, because we still physically die. Most of Christendom is also missing something here because if all of creation never physically dies, then God would have created an impossibility for all of creation to live on an overly populated planet. God would not have done it that way, and then to say on the seventh day He rested, that it was good.
God would have had a few options for Adam regarding Adam’s physical death.
1. God could have killed him the day he sinned.
2. God could have taken Adam without tasting physical death
3. God could have provided a substitute death for him, and then at the end of his days, Adam could have been appointed to die like most men.
What God did not do was provide a Spiritual blood sacrifice, especially when Jesus physically died and shed literal blood for the forgiveness of sins. The Spiritual blood sacrifice is Don K. Preston’s view, and no one was forgiven until AD 70.
I understand what Don was saying: because people still die physically, that must mean that Jesus’ physical death and shedding of His literal blood had nothing to do with the sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. This is a statement of faith to tread on the blood that Jesus shed. Without the shedding of literal blood, there was no forgiveness of sins. It’s just that plain and simple. I don’t need to copy and paste a long article to prove this point, yet the CBV leads people into this rabbit hole that takes them into the Lake of Fire.
There are other ways to look at why people still die physically, without using Don’s statement of faith, which denies that Jesus had to shed His blood and die literally. This is a damnable heresy that I want no part of, and neither should you. If there was just one thing that stands out among all of the CBV, CE and CC doctrines, this one stinks beyond measure. We should back away from those who preach it because it is worse than what atheists would say, because they are not professing to believe in God.
Edward E. Stevens has many excellent views on this, which I agree with, so let’s wait for him to say what he has to say. I really liked what he has to say about Adam. If he had never sinned, God could have just taken him after his time of testing, like He did with Enoch, Jesus at His Ascension, and those who were alive at His Parousia in AD66.
This makes way more sense than the nonsense coming from Don K. Preston. I used to respect Don, but that was when I followed his teachings. After speaking up about the things that did not sit right with me, I discovered how obnoxious and deceitful he can be. Otherwise, you would get the impression that he is a kind gentleman. The proof is how he responds to me and other views that do not tread on the blood of Jesus Christ, which are more in line with Christendom throughout the centuries, aside from the Full Preterist view.
Though Don and I both agree that all things were fulfilled by the time AD70, it seems to end there because of the Collective Body View and Covenant Eschatology, which are Hyper Preterism on steroids. To believe that Jesus only shed Spiritual Blood and no one was forgiven until AD70 is just a small portion of serious mistakes to cover up the rest of the Collective Body View. The other thing about the CBV is that they use what happened on the Day of Pentecost for AD70, as the resurrection that was not fully realized until then.
No one says it better than this, by Edward E. Stevens’s comment: “Don K. Preston, Your long two-part complicated and confusing comments above “looks and feels” like you are trying to compete with Richard Eckhart to see who can produce the most verbose and mind-numbing rant. I would vote for you! 😂 To borrow a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet – “Thou doth protest too much.” Your excessively strong comments make you look suspiciously like “the guilty dog who barks first.” It is just rationalization, red-herring, strawman, and blame-shifting on steroids. Your hasty knee-jerk reactions appear to be nothing more than desperate attempts to explain-away your error and cover it up under a mountain of rhetoric and semantics so that no one can see what you actually believe. You know that it would frighten your followers if they knew what you believe about the “spiritual-only” substitutionary death of Christ, the 40-year atonement process, and “no forgiveness until AD 70.” Not only do you spiritualize the substitutionary death of Christ into an alienation-death or separation-death, but you don’t even believe that the spiritual death of Christ in AD 30 accomplished forgiveness. You instead believe that the atonement did not occur, nor did forgiveness arrive, until AD 70. So, this forces you to re-define “substitutionary” and “for our sins” and “forgiveness” and “atonement” in order to fit your 40-year collective body atonement framework. In short, you have to rewrite the story of redemption and distort the gospel of the Cross to make your system work. And that is heresy! Shame on you, Preston!
The Three Different Kinds of Death:
1 Early Death, can be defined as any death that takes someone early in their life, whereas they could have lived longer if something did not happen to them that ended their life before they would have died a natural death of old age. This could happen through being martyred for a righteous cause, death through an accident or sickness, or being executed for breaking the law, etc.
2 Natural Death would be defined by dying from old age. Another reason why a person’s physical life could be taken is by being raptured out to be taken without tasting physical death. Such was the case as with Enoch, Jesus at His Ascension, and the first-century saints who were alive at the “Parousia” Coming of the Lord in AD66 to AD70. Notice how Jesus rightly divides the word of truth here:
John 11:25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
3 Eternal “Second” Death, is defined in the afterlife of the physical body. When a person physically died during the Old Testament times, their body decayed, but the soul went to Hades, waiting to be resurrected to either eternal life or eternal death. Post AD70, when the Heaven and Earth began, when a person physically dies, they receive their Spiritual body and go to Heaven to the judgment seat of Christ. From there, they either go into eternal Judgment and condemnation, where their Spiritual body is destroyed in the Lake of Fire, their conscience or Spirit remain in the presence of the Lamb in torment forever. Or a person receives immortality and remains in Heaven with Christ forever, where they will enjoy an incorruptible Spiritual body and soul that will be in fellowship with God and all the saints who will be there.
The substitute death for Adam the day he sinned was God killing an animal for him was an act of mercy for Adam and all of mankind. This took the place of death Adam was to receive the day he sinned, which would have been an early death for disobeying God’s command not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. It was a typology that pointed to the sacrifice that Jesus paid for humanity if they believed in Him, so that we do not die an early death for breaking God’s laws and from the eternal death in the afterlife.
Don K. Preston runs with the false narrative that because people believe Jesus died a physical death, we should never die a physical death. This is obviously not true because people still physically die no matter what. That we should live physically forever is a straw man for the Spiritual death of Jesus for sins.
Don K. Preston is only offering a word salad with alphabet soup for what proves what “substitutionary” means “for” and not “in the place of, instead of”. He offers a word salad with alphabet soup, red herrings, and straw men on the side. How can an honest person be expected to answer his question? Do they need to put those words and letters under a Greek concordance microscope and dissect them apart to understand a difference?
Manifested Sons of God AD70 