Sin death and beyond

SIN, DEATH AND BEYOND: M.M.NINAN
.. When we look more closely at Genesis 2, we see that God said "in the day you eat from it
you shall surely die." But Adam didn't die physically in the very same day that he ate from the
tree. In fact, he fathered Cain, Abel, Seth and other children and lived a total of 930 years!
Now it may be true that the natural aging process we experience began in Adam on that day
(to some extent at least), but in order for God's word to be accurate, the idea of death has to
mean something other than cessation of biological life.
One point I always make in speaking of passages such as these is that it's important to
remember that in the Bible death always speaks of separation, not annihilation. Sometimes
this can mean separating the soul from the body as in physical death. But it can also mean
separating the soul from God, which is defined as spiritual death or "dead in our sins" (Col
2:13, Eph 2:5).
It is this spiritual death that Paul is speaking of in Romans 5 and indeed throughout the entire
book of Romans. The whole purpose of Romans is to show that the Jews are dead in their sins
because they have the Law and the gentiles are dead in their sins because God gave them a
law unto themselves. In Romans 8 he continues this analogy, writing "the mind set on the flesh
is death... Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God." (Rom 8:6,7).
Even if we were to grant that Romans 5 was speaking of physical death, Paul makes it clear
that the "death through sin" applies to mankind. The verse says "death spread to all men
because all sinned", not death spread to everything. Paul's comments about death entering the
world are directed toward men only.
2. "God Saw That it Was Good"
Another objection people have with the idea of death before the fall comes from the idea of
God creating imperfection. They reason that when God created the heavens and the earth, He
saw all that He made and said it was very good (Gen. 1:31). So, how could there be death in
God's perfect creation?
This objection stems from a misunderstanding of the role of death. Since God is the Creator,
He has the prerogative of creating certain things for limited use. Just because something dies
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