A Plan of Recovery for Humanity

The life of toil and care now given to humanity was appointed in love, as a discipline made needful by sin, to place a check upon the indulgence of appetite and passion, and to develop habits of self-control. It was a part of God’s great plan for the recovery of the human race.BOE 20.5

The warning given to our first parents—“In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”—did not mean that they were to die on the very day they ate the forbidden fruit. But on that day the irreversible sentence would be pronounced, and on that very day they would be doomed to death.BOE 20.6

In order to have endless existence, a person must continue to eat from the tree of life. Deprived of this, the vitality would gradually diminish until life would become extinct. It was Satan’s plan that Adam and Eve would eat of the tree of life and thus prolong an existence of sin and misery. But holy angels were commissioned to guard the tree of life. Around these angels flashed the appearance of a glittering sword. No one from the family of Adam was permitted to pass that barrier; this is why there are no immortal sinners.BOE 20.7