But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’”—Genesis 2:16, 17.

32. Was eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad indispensable in order for Adam to enjoy eternal life?

³² Here the great Life-Giver set before his son Adam the prospect of either eternal life or eternal death. Disobedience to his divine heavenly Father would lead to positive death for Adam for time eternal.

33. How, evidently, did God mean the expression “in the day you eat,” and why?

³³ How, though, was Adam to understand that expression “in the day you eat from it”? He had no reason or basis for thinking in terms of a thousand-year day, according to the much-later statement of the prophet Moses addressed to Jehovah God: “A thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday.” (Psalm 90:4 and superscription) He surely did not think: ‘Well, if I disobey and have to die, I may have much or most of the thousand-year day during which to live; and that will not be so bad.’ Adam had no grounds for reasoning in such a way. He must have understood God’s use of the word “day” to mean a twenty-four-hour day. Since God evidently spoke according to the ability of his earthly son to understand, then, consistently, God must have meant a twenty-four-hour day. He did not mean, ‘In the thousand-year-long day that you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you will die.’ Such a meaning would take away from the forcefulness of God’s warning.