And you, I venture to say, also misunderstand the basic nature of God's warning.
Almost everyone who reads this story considers the warning against eating the fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil to be a matter of obedience. God would punish
them with death if they disobeyed Him. But it is hard to understand how such a small
act of disobedience deserves a punishment of death.
What people don't realize is that the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
brought death because it was poisonous. It was not an ordinary tree. By eating that
fruit Adam and Eve took in the poison of the evil nature of Satan. This was much more
serious than an act of disobedience.
Eating the poison did not bring physical death immediately but it did bring spiritual
death. You should be able to use your spirit to know and fellowship with God just as you
can relate to the physical world through your five senses. But you can't sense God
directly because your spirit is dead.
You need your spirit to be made alive again, to be born again in spirit. Don't be
like Adam who tried to hide from God. Open up to Jesus and let Him into your heart.
He will both give you life and gradually save you from all the effects of the
poison which you inherited from Adam.