The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

I. A Second Chance Provided for the Sinner

1. A REPRIEVE GRANTED ADAM AND EVE

God has just cursed the serpent, and in doing so He has intimated to Adam and Eve that a reprieve has been granted—in fact, that a second chance is being offered them. This is no disavowal of God’s original intention to punish disobedience with death. As we have already seen, this death penalty deserved by them had already been accepted by His Son, the second person of the Godhead. In this sense Christ was “slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Provision for paying the debt of sin was already made before God faced His erring creatures with their guilt. CFF1 69.3

Picture 1: Expelled from the Garden:
Expelled From the Garden, Adam and Eve Were Cut Off From Access to the Tree of Life, and Faced the Terrifying Prospect of Death, as Forewarned by the Almighty.
Page 69

And now God turns to man on probation, with his second chance before him, and sets forth the changed conditions of his life: CFF1 70.1

“Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return .... CFF1 70.2

“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:16-24). CFF1 70.3

2. SIGNIFICANCE OF PROBATION FOR RACE

“Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Thus God passed sentence on the sinners before Him. After a life of toil, sorrow, and care, dissolution back into dust would be the fate of every man on earth. Children would be born, generation would follow generation, but death would close the history of each life. The immediate cause for this changed condition of affairs was separation from the tree of life. God did not intend to have a race of immortal sinners on His newly created earth. So He withdrew the tree of life from man’s access. And man became mortal—subject to death. The potential immortality with which man was endowed at creation was withdrawn, and man looked forward to the end of life. CFF1 71.1

The entire human race, and each person born therein, was thus assured of a period of probation for testing, just as Adam had in the beginning. Salvation from sin is offered to all, and each may accept or reject it. This racial probation gave time for Satan to fully develop his plans and demonstrate his principles before the universe. And it also provided time for God to demonstrate, through the gift of His Son, how salvation may be attained and immortality received through the provisions of the gospel. CFF1 71.2