A SATISFYING LIFE How to Attain It

7.  Conclusion of  A Satisfying Life-Why So Elusive?

  Satan the Devil went on to say to Eve:  "You positively will not die.  For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad." (Genesis 3:4, 5) Satan made eating from the tree  of knowledge of good and bad seem appealing.  In essence, he argued:  'God is withholding something good from you. Just eat from the tree, and you will be like God and will be able to decide for yourself what is good and what is bad.'  Today Satan is still using this line of reasoning to keep many from serving God.  'Do your thing,' he says. 'Just ignore what you owe to the One who gave you life.' -Revelation 4:11. 

The fruit of the tree suddenly became something to be longed for, something irresistible!  Eve took the fruit, ate it, and then offered some to her husband.   Though being fully aware of the consequences, Adam listened to his wife's voice and ate the fruit.  What was the result?  To the woman, Jehovah handed down the following sentence:  "I shall greatly increase the pain of your pregnancy; in birth pangs you will bring forth children, and your craving will be for your husband, and he will dominate you."  And to the man? "Cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. And thorns and thistles it will grow for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field.  In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return."   Now Adam and Eve were left to seek happiness and satisfaction in their own way.  Would the efforts of humans to live satisfying lives apart from the divine purpose succeed?  The enjoyable work of tending the garden-like Paradise and extending  it to the extremities of the earth was replaced with the drudgery of working hard just to stay alive, doing nothing for the glory of their Creator. -Genesis 3:6-19. 

On the day of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, the first human couple died in God's eyes and headed downward toward their physical death.  What happened to them when they finally died?  The Bible gives insight to the condition of the dead.  "The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten."  (Ecclesiastes 9:5; Psalm 146:4)   There is no such thing as a "soul" that survives death. The punishment for sin is death, not everlasting torment in a burning hell.  Further, death does not lead to eternal bliss in the heavens.

Just as a cake pan with a dent in it can produce only a cake with a mark or impression, the now-imperfect man and woman could produce only imperfect offspring.  The Bible explains this process:  "Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had sinned." (Romans 5:12)  Thus, we  are born in sin, subjected to futility. Life for Adam's descendants became frustrating drudgery. But is there a way out?

Next time: A SATISFYING LIFE How to Attain It - 8.The Way Back to a Satisfying Life

From The Watchtower magazine