So much the more precise, therefore, is the limitation of this freedom. Man was not to eat from the one tree bearing the name “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (see on v. 9). It is futile to speculate what kind of fruit it may have borne, inasmuch as this has not been revealed. The very presence of this tree in the garden revealed that man was a free moral agent. Man’s service was not forced; he might either obey or disobey. The decision was his.

The fruit itself was harmless (Ed 25). But God’s explicit commandment to refrain from eating it set this tree apart as the testing ground of man’s loyalty and obedience. As a moral being, man had God’s law written upon his conscience. But, as if to clarify the principles of that law by applying it to a specific situation, and thus to make a fair test of man’s allegiance to his Maker, an injunction was laid upon him. God was the real owner of all things, even of those that Adam held in trust, and this gave Him the right to reserve any part of the creation for Himself. It would not have been unreasonable for Him to reserve a great share of this earth for Himself and to allow Adam the use of only a small portion of it. But no, man could use freely of everything that was in the garden—except one tree. No other purpose, evidently, was to be served by refraining from eating the fruit of this tree than to give clear proof of allegiance to God.

The prohibition was accompanied by a severe penalty for transgression, namely, death. Some have thought that the wording of the penalty required its execution upon the very day when the command was violated. They see a serious discrepancy between the announcement and its fulfillment. However, the divine pronouncement, “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,” literally, “dying thou shalt die,” means that upon the day of transgression sentence would be pronounced. Man would pass from the status of conditional immortality to that of unconditional mortality. Just as prior to his fall Adam could be certain of immortality, vouchsafed to him by the tree of life, so now, subsequent to that catastrophe, his mortality was just as certain. This, more than immediacy of physical death, is what the language implies. God required of man that he make a choice of principles. He was to accept the will of God and subject himself to it, confident that he would fare well as a result, or he would by his own choice sever connection with God and become, presumably, independent of Him. But separation from the Source of life could inevitably bring only death. The same principles are still valid. Punishment and death are the certain results of man’s free choice to indulge in rebellion against God.