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Sin death and beyond

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SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN<br />

<strong>and</strong> <strong>death</strong> – an indispensable component of the created world as we know it – were likely<br />

present from the very beginning. To be sure, as Rom 5:12, for instance, makes clear, Adam<br />

introduced "<strong>death</strong>" into the world. But the "world" Paul has in view here is almost certainly the<br />

world of human beings (compare the roughly parallel vv. 18a <strong>and</strong> 19a), <strong>and</strong> the "<strong>death</strong>" to<br />

which Paul refers here is mainly (though not exclusively) spiritual <strong>death</strong> (compare again v. 12<br />

with vv. 18 <strong>and</strong> 19, where "condemnation" occurs). What was Adam's relation to <strong>death</strong> before<br />

the Fall, then? Some think, as Gerald Bray puts it, that Adam was "a mortal being who was<br />

protected from <strong>death</strong> as long as he was obedient to the comm<strong>and</strong>s of God: disobedience<br />

removed the protection, <strong>and</strong> Adam was allowed to complete the life cycle which was normal to<br />

his physical being" (Gerald L. Bray, "The Significance of God's Image in Man." TynBul 42<br />

[1991] 216). But it is preferable to think of Adam as possessing conditional immortality, with<br />

physical <strong>death</strong> as "a possibility arising from his constitution" (Blocher, In the Beginning, 184-87<br />

[187]).<br />

The problem here seems to be total disregard of presence of all the dimensions of cosmos in<br />

existence. <strong>Sin</strong> was not introduced into this world by man. Bible clearly indicate the presence<br />

of sin long before the creation of man. That is exactly why the Serpent was in Eden. Who was<br />

the first sinner? Adam or the Serpent? The identity of the Serpent as the Devil is clearly made<br />

in the Bible. Devil was sometimes associated with the name Lucifer. Though we do not have<br />

details of the fall of Lucifer, there is references to it <strong>and</strong> church doctrine clearly refers to it.<br />

What was the result of that fall in the cosmos?<br />

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