Death in Relation to the Creation and Fall

This is an answer to Devil's Advocate's Message 396 from the Arizona thread where we had gone off topic. Since it looks like it may continue for a while it seemed best to move it to a new thread. As I also said, plants are not regarded as living OR dying in scripture as animals and humanity are, so you are imposing a contemporary definition on scripture. Plants are food in scripture, period. You specifically and rather emphatically interpreted that scripture as "spiritual death" which is consistent with your claim that Adam only died a spiritual death as a result of the Fall, while his physical death was normal and inevitable and unrelated to the Fall, as if God had created us all with physical death as part of our life. Although you are not keeping this as clear as it should be, sometimes leaving it vague enough for me to keep stumbling over your terminology, this as I understand it is the crux of our disagreement.This is not the same thing as saying that "spiritual death is much more eternally consequential than physical death" with which I could agree, but I don't agree that physical death was in any way a natural part of God's creation, but that it entered as a result of the Fall, as did spiritual death, in fact the death of the whole being, and of the whole Creation. Your exception of plants is not scriptural. For starters everyone is BORN into spiritual death because of the Fall, and only if redeemed by Christ do we begin to regain the spiritual life which Adam lost, which also eventuated in his physical death, which he also bequeathed to us as a result of his sin. You are making the usual unnecessary and misleading distinction. Sin is spiritual death but it's artificial to limit its effects to the spirit. Disease of the body is a process of death, there is no other way to describe it in the context of scripture and the Fall. One reason diseases such as leprosy set people apart from the people of God as "unclean" and that physical deformity even in an animal made that animal unusable for sacrifice, is that disease represents the bodily consequences of sin. We are not spiritually astute enough to see the cause and effect in most cases but there is no way that disease or physical death is a natural process that was built into the Creation. Physical infirmities and death are all the consequence of the Fall. Yes it starts with spiritual death, but physical death is a major consequence of sin. And we fallen human beings hardly even feel our spiritual condition anyway, but we DO feel disease and death and that's why scripture speaks of always living under the fear of death, and it certainly doesn't mean fear of *spiritual* death because due to the Fall we don't have the faculties to fear that. But it is our lot as fallen sinful creatures to fear physical death. Only Christ can free us from that fear. O death where is your sting? We don't experience the sting of spiritual death. Yes, our bodies having become thoroughly corrupted by sin. The wages of sin can include disease which is part of physical death. Physical death is ALWAYS implied even where spiritual death is the main subject and the most important. But the problem in all this is that it is basically a straw man argument -- IF you are claiming that I've said ONLY physical death is the result of the Fall. I have not denied spiritual death at all ever anywhere in this discussion, but you have denied that physical death is the result of sin and the Fall. THAT is what this discussion is about. There is no need to convince me of the importance of spiritual death, but physical death is always the end result of this physical life for all humanity due to sin, and that is implied in all the discussions of death even where spiritual death is the focus. The point of most interest in relation to this discussion appears to be this: If sin brings both physical and spiritual death, then the Fall brought both physical and spiritual death, as I've been saying. Since you posted this link maybe you are no longer claiming that the Fall did NOT bring physical death? Or what? But you equated putting to death the deeds of the body with Christ's salvation, so I am answering you here. The reference is not to His salvation but to our obligation through the Spirit. OK. We probably don't need to discuss this and I don't know how much information we could glean from scripture about it anyway, but I think our condition as human beings, including our physical bodies in their transformed condition, is unique in God's Creation. Well I never meant to say "per se," only that He DID redeem our physical bodies. Why else did He need to become "incarnate" which means embodied, in human form? So He could redeem our entire being both spiritual and physical which was ALL corrupted at the Fall, and die the death both physical [rather brutally in His case] and spiritual ["My God My God why have You forsaken Me?] The whole point of His physical death was to redeem our sin-corrupted BODIES, which isn't to say that was ALL He died to redeem of our human nature. See above. When you use terms like "entirely the redemption being talked about" you distort the point I'm trying to make. I'm not limiting the Fall to our physical death nor the redemption to the salvation of the body, nowhere near such an idea; He died to redeem our whole fallen human nature. However, about the physical body, there would have been no need to redeem our bodies if they had not died as a result of sin. This story is all about SIN AND REDEMPTION, which includes body, soul and spirit all in one. He is resurrecting our soul and spirit as soon as we believe and trust in Him, our bodies will be resurrected at the very end, even rise from the grave which scripture describes of the first of those to be raptured. Yes, and as disembodied spirits in this interim phase before the complete resurrection I believe. Again, you seem to be imputing to me a straw man notion that says ONLY physical death was the result of the Fall and ONLY physical life the result of Christ's salvation. Not true.But it does seem that YOUR argument is that ONLY spiritual death was the result of the Fall and ONLY spiritual life the result of Christ's salvation, with the resurrection of the body just a sort of meaningless bonus gift from God or something like that. Done. Edited by Faith, : to add links and comment to link.

Plants are not depicted as living and dying in the same sense as animals and people. If you want one indication of that, Noah was not commanded to preserve them on the ark.So scripture says they had uses other than food, I stand corrected, but the point is trivial. Both sin and death "entered into the world" by Adam. Sounds like death coming to earth for the first time to me. And that's how it is always treated by orthodox theologians.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Most commentators I've read agree that it was for a reminder and sustainer of immortality, as long as they remained in a state of innocence. After the Fall it became a dangerous temptation as a route to an eternal state of evil comparable to Satan's condition; but Christ is now the Tree of Life to all who belong to Him. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It doesn't say. Genesis 2:9 merely says it was in the midst of the garden, no reason given.

Oh for crying out loud, you are making the usual EVC mountain out of a molehill. Plants are NOT treated as living or dying IN THE SAME SENSE as human beings and animals. I DID NOT SAY PLANTS DON'T DIE," I said they are treated differently than animals and human beings. And yes they were on the ark as FOOD. Another nitpicking timewasting irivial piece of information. Plants do not breathe air as animals and humans do and they do not have blood in their veins as animals and humans do. Scripture says "the life is in the blood." It doesn't matter what YOU think, that's what scripture says.

Of course what is meant by that passage is that death entered BY ADAM's SIN. Death entered BY SIN, which was committed by Adam.

I gave you what the commentators say, I don't know otherwise. If you have a theory why don't you give it?

I've given you reasoning based on scripture, you are answering with reasoning based on your own notion of science. The scriptural phrase is "whose breath is in their nostrilsx. Again, what I said is simple truth according to scripture: plants do not breathe air as plants and animals do, and let's for the moment define those according to the commandment to preserve them on the ark. Fish, amphibians, insets and earthworms were not among that company. Stop trying to make the Bible bow to science. That is the great error of "liberal Christianity." You can't do it without perverting the meaning of the scripture anyway. It says that life is in the blood, so I would conclude that for whatever reason God does not put them on the same level as the animals preserved on the ark.IT COUDL ALSO BE THAT THEY DID NOT DIE UNTIL THE FALL EITHER. Who knows. No, the problem here is that YOU are imposing some anemic idea of science of your own on the scripture. Scripture defines its meanings as I have tried to lay them out. It has nothing to do with science, but it also DOES NOT CONTRADICT science. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So VERY sorry but that is not how that passage reads, nor iis it how the greatest and truest theological minds have read it.I suppose it's what your liberal theologians say, who are all, like you, simply trying to justify the false science of evolution by the Bible, which means of course by twisting its meanings. I don't know. But if it did it would be because scripture doesn't treat them as living in the sense of Adam or the other animals, as it doesn't treat plants as living in the same sense. Oh stuff and nonsense. All word games. See above. I try not to draw that line. Scripture, however, seems to confine the meaning of life and death to humanity and the higher animals, whose "life is in their blood" and whose "breath is in their nostrils" and which God commanded Noah to preserve on the ark. As I've already said. This seems to be how SCRIPTURE defines life as it is relevant to its purposes. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Good grief. DA answered the scripture-based definition of life as breath in the nostrils and blood in the veins with creatures that have no breath in the nostrils and blood in the veins, managing to be wrong by the standard of either science or scripture and you think my using scripture as the standard makes me "terrified" of all the weird and twisted ideas I'm answering? This is a thread about scripture, of course what scripture says is the point and his "scientific" definition of life does not apply to the subject. However, he's wrong from both a scientific and a scriptural point of view.AND YOU ARE OUT OF LINE TO COMMENT PERSONALLY ON ME. STICK TO THE TOPIC.AGAIN, THIS IS A DISCUSSION ABOUT THE MEANING OF SCRIPTURE. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not only we but the whole creation, all creatures, wait for the redemption of the BODY. For they too were subjected to death and corruption because of the Fall of humanity by sin.There is probably to be some kind of redemption or transformation of ALL the creatures including the plants and worms. What the Fall did to them is not clear, nor what redemption might mean to them, but they did not die before the Fall in any sense that people here are trying to claim, because there was no death before the Fall. Plants very probably did not wither in the ground and die then. I've conjectured, based on various phrases in scripture, that what is being called death of plants and insects etc is not considered in scripture to be death because they are not considered to be alive in the same sense that humanity and the higher animals are, whose "life is in the blood." It is simply a conceit of modern man to call it life and death and impose it on the scripture.But those who have life according to the scripture also died by the Fall according to the scripture.Matthew Henry Commentary: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Obviously, plants would not have been among those that "went in unto Noah into the ark" among all those creatures that had "the breath of life" in them. And in the second verse quoted the "breath of life" is said to be in the "nostrils."Whatever modern science says is irrelevant if we want to understand what the scripture says about life and death. Whether the above definition is comprehensive of scripture's definition or not isn't clear of course.

The subject is what the Fall did to the Creation, and the introduction of death and decay is the traditional understanding. Some here said some things died before the Fall, such as plants and insects. Since I believe scripture clearly says that the entire Creation was affected by the Fall I figure these creatures had to be affected by the Fall in some way too, and I conjecture that IF they died, which I don't know and neither do you, the death they may have died previous to the Fall was not death in the same sense it occurred to animals and humanity due to the Fall. Some of them may not even have existed before the Fall.I quoted scripture that seems to make a distinction between classes of living things in terms of breath and blood. There definitely does seem to be such a distinction in the scripture, but again this is all conjecture. However, it was clearly LAND animals that went onto the ark, not sea creatures.For sure plants are not treated as dying by being eaten, whether they are treated as having life in some sense or not. Plants were surely affected by the Fall too, however. Perhaps they ONLY "died" by being eaten before the Fall, but then also withered and died for the first time afterward. God said thorns would be a problem for Adam after the Fall, implying they didn't even exist before. All this is conjecture with a scripture verse here or there for support.There is no doubt, however, that both humanity and the higher animals were subject to death after the Fall and not before, as "the lion will lie down with the lamb" is the result we expect from the final redeemed Creation, "nature red in tooth and claw" being the result of the Fall.Plants and the other creatures mentioned as supposedly dying before the Fall must have been affected in some way, however, which is not specified in the Bible, and will no doubt be transformed in ways we can't even guess about, when the Creation is finally fully redeemed. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

The task is always to reconcile scripture with scripture. Paul says sin and death ENTERED THE WORLD by Adam: "The world" is not just the human race but you all try to make it mean that. This reading is confirmed by the passage I also quoted about how ALL CREATION is suffering until the manifestation of the Sons of God: "THE CREATURE" obviously means ALL CREATURES. ALL CREATURES "shall be DELIVERED FROM THE BONDAGE OF CORRUPTION" -- which is death and disease and decay. ALL CREATURES it says. And what does such deliverance amount to? THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY.This is also partly an answer to DevilsAdvocate's overemphasis on spiritual death as the result of the Fall, and his insistence that death of the body was already part of the Creation rather than the result of the Fall. But it also implies that all creatures suffer IN THEIR BODIES as a result of the Fall. So one way or another DEATH happened to them as a result whether we are able to sort all this out or not.SO: We're talking about death and decay that entered into the world and affected ALL CREATION as a result of the Fall. I have been trying to think about how scripture presents life and death so as to answer your "science" complaints that mangle the meaning of these obvious scriptures. Again, However these are to be understood scripturally it is clear that THE ENTIRE CREATION, ALL CREATURES, have been made subject to decay and death as a result of man's sin. The rest is all details and sophistic nitpicking.The traditional theological understanding has a lot of scripture to stand on. It is you who are taking things out of context.------ABE: There is really nothing more to say. You are all going to interpret these scriptures against the traditional interpretation in order to allow for your belief in evolution and I'm just going to insist on the interpretation I've given here. There is nothing more to say. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

For reference: Yes, it goes on to emphasize that all humanity dies as a result, but for the purpose of my argument I'm emphasizing that sin entered into the world AND DEATH BY SIN, because the point is that there was no sin or death BEFORE the Fall, both ENTERED when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and I consider that further confirmed by the other scripture I quoted, Romans 8:21: Are you going to argue that all creatures were CREATED in "the bondage of corruption?" That would make God's Creation much less than "good," wouldn't it? But put it together with Romans 5:12, which says that sin entered the world and death by sin (entered at the same time as a result), and the obvious conclusion is that all Creation was subject to corruption (death and decay and disease) as a result of the Fall. It still says that sin entered into the world by Adam's sin, and the rest is just the attempt of somebody who doesn't know Greek to make it mean something other than the English translators who DID know Greek said it means, and again I point you to Romans 8:21 about how all Creation is going to be released from "the bondage of corruption" which is death, when this world comes to its end.Besides, why are you making such a big deal out of this? If you are willing to say that there was no death for humanity before the Fall but there was death for all other creatures, you've eliminated human beings from evolution at least. Do you want to do that? (Let me guess, you've got Adam and Eve suddenly appearing as human beings after millions of years of evolution up to that point?)And that passage in Romans 8 goes on: Surely this says that both "they," that is all the other creatures, and ourselves also, are waiting for the redemption of our body. Ours was corrupted by the Fall, you want to claim that all the other creatures were created corrupted? All very clever, as good liberal Christians tend to be with their manipulation of the Greek, but I don't see why anyone should trust your translation over that of Tyndale and the King James translators who were steeped in Greek. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.