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6 GOD'S JUSTICE DEMANDS LIFE AS PAYMENT Judicial Death > There are prices to be paid when we break the judicial laws of any country. For example, when we are caught speeding, we may be required to pay a fine as res- titution. If we murder someone, we may be required to spend life in prison or may even be executed. These are penalties imposed by a judicial system; they are the judicial price for the breaking of a judicial law. Likewise, there is a price that God requires as a judicial penalty for the breaking of His laws (sin). The price God requires for sin is as serious as its consequences. The first command of God issued in the Garden of Eden clearly elaborated the judicial price for sin, "From the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat ,for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Gen 2.16-17). Put in the plainest of words, God pronounces the payment of death as the price for sin. This is the judicial price for breaking God's law. Life is the price! God pronounced death as the price for sin and His justice must be served. Adam and Eve surely suffered the consequences of sin-they died spiritually the instant they sinned, and they were destined to eventually die a natural, mortal death many years later (see Gen 5.1-5), but that did nothing to remove their sin, or pay the price for their sin-death. The New Testament clearly states the fundamental principle that "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb 9.22). God presented Adam and Eve with the choice to sin or not sin. It was a choice they had control over. When tempted by Satan, they succumbed. Genesis 3.6 describes it this way, "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate." We all sin in this way at some point. James described it this way: "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death" (Jas 1.14-15). God demonstrated repeatedly throughout the Old Testament the penalty for sin-the death of the sinner (Ezek 18.20: "The person who sins will die"). Other examples include the Genesis flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as described in 2 Peter 2.4-11. Death was a result of their ungodliness. God's mercy is already demonstrated, to some extent, in that we are not all immediately struck dead (what we deserve) the instant we sin. God takes no pleasure in the death of sinners; He does not have a blood lust, nor is His justice administered capriciously (Ezek 33.11: 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live"). Continued by book author Kenneth W. Craig