Garden Vocation and Command — Work, Freedom, and Death

Genesis 2:15–17 places the man in the garden to dress and keep it and then gives a command marked by extraordinary generosity and one prohibition. He may freely eat from the garden’s trees except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; disobedience carries the warning of death. The passage therefore joins human vocation with accountable freedom before God.

Genesis 3 will show the command broken, and the consequences will include alienation, curse, exile, and eventual return to dust. Romans 5:12–19 later gives the clearest inspired theological interpretation: through one man sin entered the world and death through sin, and Adam’s disobedience is contrasted with Christ’s obedience and the gift of life. First Corinthians 15 develops the same Adam–Christ framework through mortality and resurrection.