Revelation 19:10 tells us that “…the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” The truthfulness that the Messiah, the Saviour of the world came, lies not primarily with those who testify to those truths as believers, for they can be viewed as deluded fanatics, but rather, that it is based upon a lengthy series of prophecies made over centuries of time; but more importantly not merely that they were prophesied, but that later historical records, writers, and believers assert that those prophecies came true; were fulfilled. God began building a case for the veracity of His Word, either oral or written, when He warned Adam about the consequences of disobeying the one simple commandment, “…thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Some might claim Adam did not die for he lived on to father children and the Bible records that he lived to the ripe old age of 930. Yet, what needs to be understood is that there were two meanings in God’s pronouncement: (1) in fact, Adam DID die the day that he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; he died spiritually, he lost His intimate, daily, personal communion with God, and was forced to leave the garden, to leave God’s physical presence, never to return to His physical presence again until after the second meaning of the pronouncement: (2) that death would be his lot within the prescribed “day”, and immediately some will point out that did not happen either, yet the Apostle Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:8 “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” Some will say this means that God’s measure of time is different from man’s, and that is certainly true in some respects and definitely one possible meaning for this verse. But it is also possible that Peter through the influence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God was telling us much more: that the term “day” could also be understood to mean one thousand years, figuratively speaking; and if such were the case, then Adam in fact did die within the prescribed day. Such language is used in other ancient writings and those seem to also intimate such a meaning; indeed, some scholars, who would otherwise scoff at such an idea, have used this very fact to substantiate this idea by using those other references in their expositions and exegesis in precisely this manner. Isn’t it interesting to note that of all the genealogical records in the Bible there aren’t any records of any man living beyond Methuselah’s age of 969.
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