Christians have different viewpoints when it comes to the entrance of sin and death into the world. Some believe that the Fall was cosmic in nature, and that the sin of Adam and Eve affected the entire cosmos, including plants and animals. Thus, animal death, plant death, human death, and natural disasters were all a result of the first sin.
Others, however, believe that animal and plant death, natural disasters, and possibly human death occurred before the Fall. This means that death was in the world before the sin of Adam and Eve. I tend to believe that this is the most accurate position. Here is why:
The fossil record indicates that there was death before humans came on the scene. In fact, many species went entirely extinct long before humans sinned. What are we to make of this, especially since there are passages in scripture that talk about death being a consequence of sin (Gen. 2:16-17, 3:19,22; Romans 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15). Could animals have died before human sin? Does “death” in these passages refer to physical death or spiritual death? Human death, or death to all creation?
Plant and Animal Death- The passages about death listed above, when examined closely, refer only to human death. Other theologians in church history, such as Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), believed that God’s original creation included animal death, and that “that nature of animals was not changed by man’s sin." Furthermore, there had to be death in the Garden, otherwise Adam would have been overtaken by bugs and bacteria well before he took a bite from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. A balanced ecosystem is also dependent on the necessity of plant and animal death. Some Bible passages seem to 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” rather than 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 raise other theological questions (which have been addressed in other post), it does not contradict the Biblical teaching about death as a consequence of sin.
Human Death- One interpretation of Genesis 2-3 is that sin results in physical death. This view states that 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, emphasizing Adam’s fall as the cause of physical death for the entire human race.
This does not seem to be how some of the Reformers interpreted these passages. Long before the rise of modern science, John Calvin believed that Adam’s sin caused the abrupt painful death that we experience today, a ripping apart of the physical and spiritual aspects of humanity. 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.” According to Calvin, 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.”
It could be 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, regret, and separation from God. The death that entered the world with Adam is a spiritual death, in the sense that there is a separation from God that can be restored only through faith. Of course some sins still bring about physical death, such as Cain killing Abel, and the death of King David’s infant son after his adultery (2 Samuel 12:13-14).
Genesis 2-3 could be seen to support an interpretation of the curse as spiritual death. In Genesis 3:19, God tells Adam “for dust you are and to dust you will return,” implying that Adam was created mortal. 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 kicked out of the Garden, thus experiencing a break their fellowship with God – spiritual death.
Thus, the popular idea that Adam and Eve were created immortal is 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. It also bears mentioning that in Genesis, declaring something “good” is not referring to its morality, but to its function. Furthermore, consider the Tree of Life. God put this tree in the garden before the fall (Genesis 2:9) and it is meant to give immortality to the one who eats it (Genesis 3:22). If God created humans as immortal, why is there a need for the Tree of Life? It is because the first humans were created mortal.
The apostle Paul also has much to say on the relationship between sin and death. In some places, Paul was clearly talking about spiritual death (Romans 6:1-14, 7:11), while at other times, he is referring to physical death (1 Corinthians 15:35-42). It is interesting to note that in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul emphasizes that the eternal life in Christ as something much more than the mere earthly life that 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, righteousness, and justification.
Therefore, it seems as though a mixture of Calvin’s view and the “spiritual death” view rightly portray the teaching of the entirety of scripture on the subject of human death.
Physical Death and God’s Original Plan- Creation is not safe. It never has been. There has always been the law of cause and effect. It is inherent in the created order. The original creation was not some bubble wrapped environment where if a squirrel fell out of a tree, some magic force bounced it back up to its nest. Again, the law of cause and effect is not a result of the fall.
Some verses in Genesis 1-2 suggest that God’s creation was not safe or pain-free. The word “subdue” is a word that implies danger. In Genesis 2, God places Adam and Eve in a garden. In the ancient near east, this was understood as a walled enclosure which protected the inhabitants from the wilderness and dangerous animals beyond. Indeed, the Bible is clear that the culmination of God’s plan in the new creation is a place without tears, pain, or death (Revelation 21:4), but it is not clear whether this is so with the first creation.
So, what are we to think of death? We all have to admit that it is hard to see human death in a positive light. For those who have had death snatch away a loved one, it can feel like the ultimate evil. Paul says that death comes from sin (Romans 6:23) and that it is the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). The New Testament therefore seems to emphasize death as an evil because it is incompatible with the kind of life promised in the future kingdom of God.
It is true that Jesus’ earthly ministry inaugurated the arrival of the future kingdom, but we still live in a world in which the kingdom has not been fully realized. Thus there is the continuing reality of physical death. Only when Christians are clothed with their new resurrection bodies will death be finally conquered.
Yet ironically, death also appears in the Bible as an expression of God’s love. Jesus said that the greatest love one can have is to lay down one’s life for others (John 15:13). He then proceeded to lay down his own life for us while we were still sinners (Romans 5:6-8). The cross of Christ is the ultimate demonstration of sacrificial love. Jesus also said, “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:23-25). Here, Jesus pointed to the role of death in a healthy ecosystem as a parable for the importance of His own death. The idea here is that just as the death of an organism allows for the rebirth of new life, so the death of Jesus leads to rebirth and new life for God’s people.
In closing, it seems that physical death was a part of the original creation, but was made evil through sin and separation from God. The role of death now, though evil, has been redeemed through Christ, and was his way of bringing about salvation. Thus, death was put into the created order for God to fulfill his purpose and plan. So, death is not a purposeless waste, but a glimpse into the way God redeems the negativity of death for the sake of new life.