When Eve repeated God’s command, Satan said to her: “You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.”

Genesis 3:1-

Do you see the seriousness of what transpired? The Devil contradicted what God had said to Adam. Satan’s words implied that Adam and Eve would not need Jehovah in order to decide what was good and what was bad for them. Satan’s challenge therefore brought into question the right and validity of Jehovah’s rulership over man. The all-important issue that Satan raised, then, was that of the rightfulness of Jehovah’s sovereignty.

Satan boldly told Eve: “You positively will not die.” (Genesis 3:4) By saying that Adam and Eve would not die if they partook of the forbidden fruit, Satan was in effect calling Jehovah a liar. A serious charge indeed! If God were not truthful in this matter, how could he be trusted in anything else? However, what has the elapsed time shown?

Adam and Eve became subject to sickness, pain, aging and, finally, death. “All the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died,” states the Bible. (Genesis 3:19; 5:5) And from Adam, this sad legacy has been transmitted to all mankind. (Romans 5:12) The passing of time has proved Satan to be “a liar and the father of the lie” and has shown that Jehovah is “the God of truth.”​—John 8:44; Psalm 31:5.