John Calvin Commentary Genesis 2:16

"And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:" — Genesis 2:16 (ASV)

And the Lord God commanded Moses now teaches that man was the governor of the world, with this exception: that he should, nevertheless, be subject to God. A law is imposed upon him as a sign of his subjection, for it would have made no difference to God if he had eaten indiscriminately of any fruit he pleased.

Therefore, the prohibition of one tree was a test of obedience. And in this way, God designed that the whole human race should be accustomed from the beginning to reverence His deity; as, undoubtedly, it was necessary that man, adorned and enriched with so many excellent gifts, should be held under restraint, lest he break forth into licentiousness.

There was, indeed, another special reason, to which we have previously alluded, lest Adam should desire to be wise beyond measure; but this is to be kept in mind as God’s general design, that He would have men subject to His authority. Therefore, abstinence from the fruit of one tree was a kind of first lesson in obedience, that man might know he had a Director and Lord of his life, on whose will he ought to depend, and in whose commands he ought to acquiesce.

And this, truly, is the only rule of living well and rationally: that men should exercise themselves in obeying God. It seems, however, to some as if this did not agree with the judgment of Paul, when he teaches that the law was not made for the righteous (1 Timothy 1:9). For if this is so, then, when Adam was still innocent and upright, he had no need of a law.

But the solution is ready. For Paul is not writing controversially there; but from the common practice of life, he declares that those who freely run do not require to be compelled by the necessity of law; as it is said in the common proverb, that ‘Good laws spring from bad manners.’ In the meantime, he does not deny that God, from the beginning, imposed a law upon man for the purpose of maintaining the right due to Himself.

Should anyone bring as an objection another statement of Paul, where he asserts that the law is the minister of death (2 Corinthians 3:7), I answer, it is so accidentally, and from the corruption of our nature. But at the time of which we speak, a precept was given to man, from which he might know that God ruled over him.

These minute things, however, I lightly pass over. What I have previously said, since it is of far greater importance, is to be frequently recalled to mind: namely, that our life will then be rightly ordered if we obey God, and if His will is the regulator of all our affections.

Of every tree So that Adam might more willingly comply, God commends His own liberality. ‘Behold,’ He says, ‘I deliver into your hand whatever fruits the earth may produce, whatever fruits every kind of tree may yield: from this immense profusion and variety I except only one tree.’ Then, by announcing punishment, He strikes terror for the purpose of confirming the authority of the law. So much the greater, then, is the wickedness of man, whom neither that kind commemoration of the gifts of God, nor the dread of punishment, was able to retain in his duty.

But it is asked, what kind of death God means in this place? It appears to me that the definition of this death is to be sought from its opposite; we must, I say, remember from what kind of life man fell.

He was, in every respect, happy. His life, therefore, related equally to his body and his soul. Since in his soul right judgment and proper government of the affections prevailed, life also reigned there; in his body there was no defect, therefore he was wholly free from death.

His earthly life, truly, would have been temporal; yet he would have passed into heaven without death and without injury. Death, therefore, is now a terror to us; first, because there is a kind of annihilation as it respects the body; then, because the soul feels the curse of God.

We must also see what is the cause of death, namely, alienation from God. From this it follows that under the name of death are comprehended all those miseries in which Adam involved himself by his defection; for as soon as he revolted from God, the fountain of life, he was cast down from his former state, so that he might perceive the life of man without God to be wretched and lost, and therefore differing in nothing from death.

Hence, the condition of man after his sin is not improperly called both the privation of life and death. The miseries and evils both of soul and body with which man is beset as long as he is on earth are a kind of entrance into death, until death itself entirely absorbs him; for Scripture everywhere calls those dead who, being oppressed by the tyranny of sin and Satan, breathe nothing but their own destruction.

Therefore, the question is superfluous, how it was that God threatened death to Adam on the day in which he should touch the fruit, when He long deferred the punishment? For then Adam was consigned to death, and death began its reign in him, until supervening grace should bring a remedy.