Genesis 3:4-5

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil."

"Ye shall not surely die ..." This was a bold and cunning falsehood; and one is a little distressed by the scholars who are still treating this narrative as if the Devil told the truth. Their error is the same as that of Eve, in that they alter what God said and then claim that what God allegedly said failed to come true. For example, it is affirmed that God meant that they would, "immediately be struck dead,"[8] or that, "he did not die (physically) immediately as God said,"[9] and that, "It is also true that death does not immediately follow the act of eating,"[10] etc., etc. It seems to be ignored by everyone that God said NONE of those things. He did not say that death would follow INSTANTANEOUSLY upon their eating the forbidden fruit, nor that they would die immediately. All such thoughts are interpretive errors. What God said was that, "In the day that thou eatest, thou shalt surely die," the day here having no reference whatever to days of the week but to the seventh day of Creation, a day that is still in progress. See a full comment on the length of this day under Genesis 1:5 above.

Furthermore, the penalty of death here incurred by the human race was never commuted, repealed, or altered in any manner whatsoever. It still stands; and in the fullness of time, during that very day when the penalty was incurred, namely during the present dispensation of God's grace, the death penalty will be executed upon Adam in the person of his total posterity, the redeemed ones in Christ Jesus being the sole survivors of it. The judgment of the Great Day, which shall terminate the current dispensation, will be the occasion when this penalty will be executed.

"Ye shall be as God, knowing good from evil ..." This also was a lie, skillfully interwoven with a half-truth. "Ye shall be as God," was a vicious falsehood. Eating the forbidden fruit did not make them "like God" at all, but sent them full of shame, fear, and apprehension into hiding from the loving face of the Creator, whose word they had violated. And as for their "knowing good and evil," that also was a half-lie. They already knew what was right and wrong. They knew it was wrong to eat of that certain tree. The additional knowledge they received was nothing beautiful and desirable at all. It was only that wretched, soul-killing knowledge that comes experientially to every sinner who violates God's Word. What an unprincipled and malignant falsehood was Satan's alluring promise!

It is significant that Satan in this passage used the word [~'Elohiym] for God, presenting a problem that casts doubt upon the various documentary theories regarding the alleged sources of Moses, making those theories "doubtful."[11] The plurality of the word [~'Elohiym] caused some translators to render this passage, "ye shall be as gods," but the reference is clearly to the [~'Elohiym] of the first chapter.

The dimensions of Satan's lying contradiction of God in this passage are truly fantastic. As Kline put it, "With one stroke, Satan re-interpreted God as a devil, a liar possessed by jealous pride, and the way of the curse as the way of blessing!"[12] It is simply an astounding mystery to us that Simpson, writing in The Interpreter's Bible could have designated the tempter in this passage as a "benefactor of the human race!"[13]