St. Peter gives us the key to this question in his declaration, "One day with the Lord is as a thousand years" (2 Peter 3:8). Father Adam began to die as soon as he was cut off from the privileges of the garden of Eden. While he was living there, he had the Divine permission to freely eat of the trees of the garden--with the exception of the Tree of Life. He was sustained by that life-giving fruit, but after his disobedience he was thrust out into the unprepared earth. A Cherubim with a flaming sword protected the pathway to Eden that Adam might not eat from the Tree of Life. God had said, "In the day that you eat thereof, you shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). The dying began then, and continued gradually for nine hundred and thirty years. Genesis 5:5 (NKJV), "So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died." This all took place within a thousand year day.