I like the line on p. 140 from Durham’s own Venerable Bede— “Adam had the burden of embarrassment, but not the humility of confession.” Scot’s next comment is near the mark on the same page— “Every conceivable relationship is affected by their choice, and this infection begins to spread until in 8.21 God can say this of human “every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood”.
I agree with the view that the banishment from the garden is to prevent Adam and Eve from eating from the tree of life and becoming everlasting fallen creatures on earth. In other words, I think Adam and Eve were created mortal, just as Jesus himself. Physical Mortality is a natural trait of all creatures before the Fall. Were death simply a product of sin, including the original sins, it would be rather difficult to explain how ‘death on a cross’ didn’t entail Jesus being a sinner. No, the natural limitations of all humans are limitations of time, space, knowledge, power and mortality, none of which are inherently a result of sin. Jesus was like us in all respects, including mortality, save without sin. He had no fallen human nature, and yet he was mortal.
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