Death before the fall

[PaulSacramento]

http://biologos.org/blog/the-questions- ... e-the-fall

Introduction

When scientists investigate God’s creation, they find that humans appear very late in the history of life. The fossil record shows that many creatures died long before humans appeared. In fact, many entire species went extinct millions of years ago (the dinosaurs are the most famous example), long before humans lived or sinned.

Yet God’s revelation in scripture paints a different picture. Several key scripture passages teach that death is a consequence of sin, including Genesis 2:16-17, Genesis 3:19,22, Romans 5:12-21, and 1 Corinthians 15. How should we think about these passages in light of the scientific evidence? Could animals have died before human sin? Does “death” in these passages refer to physical death, or spiritual death, or sometimes one and sometimes the other? To ponder these questions, we need to consider God’s revelation in scripture and God’s revelation in nature. The scientific evidence is discussed in other Questions, as are the topics of the fall and sin (see sidebars). Here we consider what scripture says about death and how the two revelations might be reconciled.

Animal Death

The Bible passages that teach about sin and death are clearly referring to the death of humans. Do these passages also refer to animals? Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) didn’t think so. He believed that God’s original creation included animals that killed each other, writing that “the nature of animals was not changed by man’s sin.”1 Pastor Daniel Harrell makes a logical argument for animal death, writing that “there had to be death in the Garden, otherwise Adam would have been overrun by bugs and bacteria long before he took that forbidden bite of fruit.”2 Animal death is also necessary to maintain population levels in a balanced ecosystem (see below for more). Some Bible passages portray predatory animals as part of God’s original plan for creation (Job 38:39-41, 39:29-30, Psalm 104:21,29). Other passages speak of the “lion laying down with the lamb” instead of killing the lamb (Isaiah 11:6-7, Isaiah 65:25), but these verses refer to the future kingdom of God, not the original creation. While animal death and suffering raises other theological questions (see Sidebar), it does not contradict Biblical teaching about death as a consequence of sin.

Human death: physical or spiritual?

One traditional interpretation of Genesis 2-3 is that sin results in physical death. Humans would have been immortal without sin. In Genesis 2:17, God warns Adam and Eve, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat you shall die.” In Genesis 3:19, God carries out this punishment, cursing Adam with labor and death, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul contrasts and compares Christ and Adam, highlighting Adam’s fall as the cause of physical death for the whole human race.

John Calvin, however, suggested that Adam’s sin caused the abrupt painful death that we experience today, a wrenching apart of the physical and spiritual aspects of humans. Calvin seems to have thought that if Adam had not sinned, a more gentle kind of physical death or “passing” from life into life would have occurred: “Truly the first man would have passed to a better life, had he remained upright; but there would have been no separation of the soul from the body, no corruption, no kind of destruction, and, in short, no violent change.”3 In this view, humans were created mortal, but intended for long healthy lives and graceful deaths, such as described in Isaiah 65:20-25. The Old Testament speaks of death at the end of a long life in purely positive terms, such as 1 Chronicles 29:28 where King David “died at a god old age, having enjoyed long life, wealth, and honor.”

Another interpretation of these passages is that the consequence of sin is spiritual death, not physical death. If Adam had not sinned, humans would still have died like we do today, but without “the sense of loss, uncertainty about an afterlife, … and regret for unfinished work” that comes with spiritual death.4 Agemir de Carvalho Dias, Presbyterian pastor and teacher of the Evangelical College of Parana, Brazil, writes that “the death that entered the world with Adam is understood as something that takes man apart from God, a spiritual death, in the sense that the access to God is now closed and can be restored only through faith.”5 Of course some sins still bring about physical death, such as Abel’s death at Cain’s hand, and the death of King David’s infant son after the king’s adultery (2 Samuel 12:13-14).

The text of Genesis 2-3 can support an interpretation of the curse as spiritual death. In the curse of Genesis 3:19, God tells Adam “for dust you are and to dust you will return,” implying that Adam was created mortal from the dust. God warned Adam and Eve that they would die in the day they ate from the tree, and yet Adam lived to the age of 930 (Genesis 5:5). What did happen on the day they ate from the tree? Adam and Eve felt shame and were expelled from the Garden, breaking their fellowship with God – spiritual death.

Weren’t Adam and Eve immortal, created as perfect ideal human beings? This is a popular idea, but not clear in the Biblical text. The first humans are described as “very good” and pleasing to God (Genesis 1:30-31), but not as perfect or with superhuman abilities. Also, consider the Tree of Life. God planted this tree in the garden before the fall (Genesis 2:9) and it gives immortality to the one who eats it (Genesis 3:22). If God created humans as immortal, what was the purpose of the Tree of Life? It would only be needed if humans were mortal to begin with.6
Pastor Stephen Rodeheaver reflects on the two trees of Genesis 2-3 and the implications for us today (blog series)

In the New Testament, Paul writes much on the relationship between sin and death. Sometimes Paul was clearly referring to spiritual death (Romans 6:1-14, 7:11), and other times clearly to physical death (1 Corinthians 15:35-42). Yet even in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes of the eternal life in Christ as something much more than the mere earthly life we experience now, implying that “death” also refers to much more than mere physical death. This is more explicit in Romans 5:12-21 where death is contrasted with the gifts of grace, justification, and righteousness, i.e. the new spiritual life provided by Jesus’ victory.

[RickD]

Paul, FYI, I just emailed Ken Ham at AnswersinGenesis, and he's going to put you at the top of his "naughty" list.

[PaulSacramento]

Paul, FYI, I just emailed Ken Ham at AnswersinGenesis, and he's going to put you at the top of his "naughty" list.

Things are looking up already !!
LOL !

See, I have no problem what people stating " This is what I believes based on MY interpretation of the Bible".
I may disagree with them, but have no issues on this at all.
I do however have problems when a person or group STATE that THEIR INTERPRETATION is correct and all others that are counter to it, are wrong.
Humans are NOT perfect NOR error-free and to make ANY blankets statement like that is the pinnacle of pride and ego.

[twinc]

Death and God are incompatible and this can be found in Catholic Bibles at Wisdom 1:13-14 and 2:23-24 - twinc

[RickD]

Welcome back, Twinc.

Death and God are incompatible

Are you sure, twinc?

1 Corinthians 15:35-44 35But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

[twinc]

of course I am sure - Our God is the God of the living and not the dead and Jesus[as God]stated "I am the resurrection and the life" and even if someone dies I will raise him up on the last day" - btw do have a look at Wisdom as stated to get the full message - twinc

[RickD]

of course I am sure - Our God is the God of the living and not the dead and Jesus[as God]stated "I am the resurrection and the life" and even if someone dies I will raise him up on the last day" - twinc

OK, as long as you're sure. There's my wink for twinc.

Twinc, doesn't God use a perishable body that dies and is buried, to become imperishable? If He does, then isn't God using physical death, and burial, to make us believers imperishable? That would seem to me that as much as "compatible" can be used here, physical death is in harmony with God's plan of everlasting life for believers. Therefore, death is compatible, or in harmony with God.

- btw do have a look at Wisdom as stated to get the full message

I'll have to take you word that it's in the book of Wisdom. I don't have a Catholic bible handy for reference.

With all that being said, what does this have to do with human or animal death before Adam's sin? Keep in mind, while through Adam's sin, death entered the "world" of humanity, Satan was already on the earth, and he sinned before Adam. So, if one wants to say Adam's sin corrupted the earth(which some claim), then one must take into account that sin already existed before Adam sinned.

[twinc]

the devil's sin did not warrant death - he did not die and is very much alive and active - btw it seems Kundalini is not a holy spirit but an unholy one - unlike the holy spirit it seems its origin is not in the head and/or heart as I read it - twinc

[RickD]

the devil's sin did not warrant death

Au contraire, mon frère. The devils sin caused his spiritual death. The devil is eternally separated from God.


And, you were the first one to notice my signature about the kundalini spirit. This counterfeit to the Holy Spirit is infiltrating the church.

[twinc]

yes but not total annihilation or do you think Adam is still around in any way,shape or form - twinc

[RickD]

yes but not total annihilation or do you think Adam is still around in any way,shape or form - twinc

I believe I saw him on a nude beach in Provincetown the last time I was there. I think I heard him muttering under his breath, "but the woman You gave me, really did make me do it".

[twinc]

turning over a new leaf presumably ready for the autumn - twinc