Alma 12:21 - 12:25

Alma 12:21 What does the scripture mean, which saith that God placed cherubim and a flaming sword on the east of the garden of Eden, lest our first parents should enter and partake of the fruit of the tree of life, and live forever? And thus we see that there was no possible chance that they should live forever.

He wants to know what was meant by the part of the scriptures that say a flaming sword was placed between Adam and Eve and the tree of life in the garden of Eden. This was to prevent them from eating of the tree and thus live forever in their present condition..

I think Alma was going to talk about this next as it appears that if the Lord was going to prevent them from living forever, why would the Lord go to all the effort to help people live forever now? Why now and not then?

Alma 12:22 Now Alma said unto him: This is the thing which I was about to explain. Now we see that Adam did fall by the partaking of the forbidden fruit, according to the word of God; and thus we see, that by his fall, all mankind became a lost and fallen people.

Alma says that is what he going to cover next in his discourse. Yes Adam and Eve did fall because they did partake of the forbidden fruit and we are all affected by what they did.

Alma 12:23 And now behold, I say unto you that if it had been possible for Adam to have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life at that time, there would have been no death, and the word would have been void, making God a liar, for he said: If thou eat thou shalt surely die.

Now it would be true that if Adam and Eve were able to eat of the tree of Life, they would live forever as mortals. There would be no death for either of them. And since God said that if they eat of the tree of knowledge that they would die, he had to prevent them from eating of the tree of Life to keep his word that they would die if they did eat of the tree of knowledge.

I wonder if they could eat of the tree of Life without affect before they eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? I assume they could as the Lord said they could eat of “every” tree in garden but not the tree of knowledge because it would kill them.

Alma 12:24 And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead.

Well, God knew what was going to happen and made an allowance for what He knew Adam and Eve would do. There would be a period of time for us to repent of our sins before each of us would die a physical death. It would be a time to prepare to meet God after we are resurrected.

Alma 12:25 Now, if it had not been for the plan of redemption, which was laid from the foundation of the world, there could have been no resurrection of the dead; but there was a plan of redemption laid, which shall bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, of which has been spoken.

Since God again knew what was going to happen, a plan of redemption was devised and set up even before the world was even created. If it had not been planned, there would be no resurrection. But it was planned and we will all be resurrected and that has been discussed in the scriptures.