No. 191 

DEATH BEFORE SIN?

By James S. Stambaugh*

Most people are familiar with the creation/evolution issue, yet not

many people realize the importance of death to each view. The fact is

that, for evolution, death is a sort of creative force. Those who

believe in evolution must believe that death has always existed. This

is exemplified by theistic evolutionist Dr. Howard Van Till, who says:

"It is an incontrovertible scientific fact that there is a long

history of life and death for a period of billions of years before

people like you and I appeared on earth. So physical death before the

fall must be accepted as a fact of science."(1)

Those who accept the Bible believe that death is a punishment for sin;

death must have come into existence after Adam fell. This article is

designed to provoke the thinking of God's people about the

significance of death and will examine various aspects of the creation

as recorded in Scripture, both before and after the fall. We will

explore the state of God's original creation and the effects of God's

cursing the creation, and consider the eternal state when death will

be abolished.

MEANING OF "GOOD"

How are we to understand the original state of God's creation? Here

we must explore what God meant when He declared His creation to be

"very good," in Genesis 1:31. The Hebrew word for "good," like the

English word, has many meanings. In fact, the Hebrew word has ten

meanings.(2) The majority of the occurrences can mean "beautiful" or

"expensive." When it is used of men, it often has moral implications.

The word "good" is here modified by the word "very." "Very occurs in

the Old Testament 300 times, and carries with it the idea of a

superlative.(3,4)

Elsewhere, the phrase "very good" is used by menÄmen who have I been

affected by the fall of Adam. But in Genesis 1:31, the statement is

made by GodÄthe One who is perfect in all that He does. The very least

one can note about God saying this of His creation is that He has I

given it His approval. Dr. John Davis says that the statement is

according to the purpose of God,(5) denoting that the original

creation was suitable according to God's purposes. This is also noted

by Nigel Cameron: "The world which God made for man to inhabit was

'very good.' It had been prepared to receive him as its crown, and the

setting was constructed so as to be ideal for the probation to which

Adam and Eve were called. The world was not created with the Fall in

prospect, still less with the curse already let loose."(6)

There is not much said about the diet of man and the animals in the

Garden of Eden. An integral part of the evolutionary scenario is that

both men and many of their animal ancestors have always been

carnivorous. Yet God said very clearly that both man and animals were

only to eat plants, in Genesis 1:29. This we can see as part of being

"very good," and is God's best for His creation. We are not told when

animals became carnivorous, yet we do know that man was not to eat

meat until after the Flood (Genesis 9:3).

This raises an interesting problem for the evolutionist. He must

believe that God intended man and animals to be carnivorous, even

though God's words are very clear (Genesis 1:29). He must, in all

reality, call God a liar, he must say that God did not mean what He

said. If men and animals were vegetarian, then the possibility of

death in the original creation becomes remote.

PLANTS NOT ALIVE

The above statements do not rule out death of plants. Some see this as

a major stumbling block. Dr. Hugh Ross observes that plants die. He

says: "Some have interpreted this verse (Romans 5:12) as implying that

there was no death of any kind before the sin of Adam, and, therefore,

only a few days could possibly have transpired between the creation of

the first life and the sin of Adam. However, the absence of death

would pose just as much a problem for three 24-hour days as it would

for three billion years. Many species of life cannot survive for even

three hours without food, and the ingestion of food requires at least

the death of plants."(7) This is, of course, true, except that the

Bible never ascribes to plants the status of "life" (nor to the

"lower" animals, for that matter).

The Bible is very clear about the nature of life. Life, according to

the Bible, resides in the "soul," or the Hebrew word "nephesh." This

might be equated roughly with the concept of consciousness. This

quality is ascribed only to man and some animals, but never plants.

The Bible is also very clear as to what happens to plantsÄ"they wither

and fade" (Isaiah 40:6-8; James 1:10) but plants never die. They have

biological life, but not Biblical life. Men and animals could eat

plant life without death, in Biblical terms, taking place.

ADAM'S SIN BROUGHT DEATH

Let us consider death in God's original plan. The passages most often

referred to on this topic, Romans 5:12-21 and I Corinthians 15:20-26,

clearly illustrate the fact that our death resulted from Adam's sin.

Yet the Bible has more to say which helps us bring this issue into

focus.

The wording of Genesis 2:17 is very clearÄ"but of the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day

that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." What did God mean by

"die?" If we examine the events of the fall, we will find that Adam

did not physically die when he first ate the fruit, tempting many to

say that Adam fell only in a spiritual sense. But we must note two

things that differentiate Adam from ourselves. First, Adam was created

perfect and sinless. Second, because he was created sinless, he was

not originally condemned to physical death. When Adam ate from that

tree, he truly died, just as God promised he would. He died

spiritually at that moment, but he was also cursed with the ultimate

reality of physical death. Physical death is the result of spiritual

death, so that 930 years later, Adam's body finally caught up to his

spirit.

Adam's sin had a tremendous effect on the entire world. We can see

this clearly stated in Genesis 3:17,18 and Romans 8:19-21. The Genesis

passage states that all creation was cursed by God for man's sake. It

seems that God wanted to give the human race an object lesson. The

lesson, it would appear, is to make the outer world of man like the

inner world of man. Man is now a fallen sinner, and so God shows him

what his spiritual state is like when he looks at nature. So when man

looks at nature, he can see the glory of God, although it is veiled by

the curse of sin. Such a demonstration of the results of sin should

drive men back to God for His solution to sin and death.

The passage in Romans 8:19-21 confirms the thought of Genesis. In

fact, these verses are Paul's commentary on Genesis 3:17,18. Here Paul

tells us that the whole of creation has been subjected to "vanity" by

God because of man's sin. The word "vanity" refers to that which fails

to attain its basic goal. This means "that the non-human creation has

been subjected to the frustration of not being able to properly

fulfill the purpose of its existence."(8) The entire creation

experienced the same fate that man did when he fell. Now, since man is

the initiator of the curse on the earth, he must also somehow be the

initiator of the restoration of the creation, and this is exactly what

Paul is trying to tell us. God was to be glorified by the smooth

running of nature. When man fell, his act brought sin and death.

Therefore, if death prohibits the smooth running of nature, then death

must not have been a part of God's original plan.

THE EFFECTS OF SIN REMOVED

Scripture plainly tells us that God will remove the effects of man's

sin. This is the conclusion of Romans 8:19-21, yet we can see other

passages which picture the results of God's intervention, such as

Isaiah 11:6-9 and Revelation 21, 22.

The Isaiah passage clearly depicts a totally different picture of

nature than we presently experience. Animals are eating only plants.

Once again, there is no more carnivorous activity. Animals, even

poisonous snakes, can play with infants. This is a totally different

future for the world than is predicted by evolution.

The two chapters in Revelation show that after sin is vanquished,

death, pain, and sorrow will also be vanquished. If this is the

restoration of the creation, we are left with a plaguing question

about death if we believe in evolution. Why is death being done away

with? If God originally intended death to be an integral part of His

creation, then God should allow death to continue into eternity. So we

are left with the conclusion that death is an abberation caused by

man, in God's plan.

CONCLUSION

There is a very practical side to the above discussion that affects

every believer in Jesus Christ. This study has suggested a causal

relationship between sin and death. Yet because of God's grace and

mercy there is another aspect to that relationship, for the Bible also

presents a relationship between sin, death, and atonement.

When man fell, God cursed him with both physical and spiritual death.

God took it upon Himself to provide an atonement for the original

couple; He took two animals and made clothing. In order to get animal

skins, the animals must have been killed. Sin always brings with it

death, and this is the first recorded death. These two animals

provided a blood sacrifice atoning for Adam's and Eve's sin. We are

told in Hebrews 9:22, "without the shedding of blood there is no

remission of sin." So a blood sacrifice is only necessary if there is

sin. The rest of the Old Testament has similar treatment of sacrifice

for atonement. If there was animal death before the fall of man, then

God and all those who followed His pattern did useless acts. One must

observe that in the atonement the animal loses its life in the place

of the human. If animal death existed before the fall, then the object

lesson represented by the atoning sacrifice is in reality a cruel

joke.

The New Testament has one sacrifice for atonement, for Jesus Christ is

called the "Lamb of God." If we believe that death has always existed,

then we make a mockery of the death of Christ. This is exactly what

evolution means. The atheist is at least honest about his position. We

can observe this by the statement of G. Bozarth. He says:

"Christianity has fought, still fights, and will continue to fight

science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution

destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus' earthly life was

supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin,

and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the Son of God.

If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what

evolution means, then Christianity is nothing."(9) If death is not the

penalty for sin, then Christianity is meaningless. The death of Christ

was made necessary because of man's sin. Man's sin brought death,

which in turn brought God's Son to pay the penalty in our place.

* Mr. Stambaugh is the Librarian for ICR.

REFERENCES

1. Van Till, Howard. Audio taped debate held on October 27 1988.

2. Brown, Driver, Briggs. Hebrew Lexicon. Oxford Press, 1915. pp. 373-

375.

3. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Moody Press, 1980. p.

346.

4. See for example: Genesis 24:16; Numbers 14:7; Judges 18:9; 1 Samuel

25:15; II Samuel 11:2; Jeremiah 24:2, 3.

5. Davis, John. Paradise to Prison. Baker Book House, 1975. p. 62.

6. Cameron, Nigel. Evolution and the Authority of the Bible.

Paternoster, 1983, p. 66.

7. Ross, Hugh. Biblical Evidence for Long Creation Days. Unpublished

paper, n.d., p. 7.

8. Cranfield, C.E.B. Romans. 2 vols. T & T Clark, 1975.1:413.

9 Bozarth, G. Richard. "The Meaning of Evolution" American Atheist 20

(Sept. 1979), p. 30.