The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

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God warned Adam that if he disobeyed, he would die “on the day” he ate from the forbidden tree (Gen. 2:17). Yet Adam lived at least another eight hundred years, breathing his last at the age of 930 (Gen. 5:5). So, in what sense did Adam die on the day he sinned? A little background may prove helpful.

When the Bible says we are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27), it means, at least in some respects, we are a trinity – not that we exist as three co-equal divine persons, but that we each possess a body, soul, and spirit. This means we also die in three stages as a consequence of sin.

The Fall affects each part of human beings’ threefold nature. As James Boice explains, “Specifically, his [man’s] spirit died, for the fellowship that he had with God was broken; his soul began to die, for he began to lie and cheat and kill; his body died eventually, for as God said, ‘Dust you are and to dust you will return’” (Gen. 3:19).

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