Paul told the church at Rome "just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and in this way death came to all men because all sinned." First of all we know sin entered the world through the serpent then Eve not Adam. By the time Adam sinned two of God's creation had sinned. Second sin was not a direct cause of death but the reason God used to take away Adam and Eve's contact with the tree of life. Allowing for free will, if Adam and Eve had chosen to not take advantage of the tree of life they would have died without sin. In a manner of speaking the Serpent was right but failed to take into account God's taking the tree of life away.
Some folks have decided that Paul's statement in Romans means there was no death at any level prior to the entrance of sin. But the verse does not say that. Paul is talking about how death came to people and why all humanity is subject to death. Just because death came to us as a result of Eve's sin does not mean death did not exist at any level prior to that point.
On the third day we have the description of the process by which plants grow. The cycle of sprouting leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds involves death at every stage. The system functions with death as part of it.
Likewise with animals: it is obvious when we look at predatory meat eaters to see that the food chain involves death. A caterpillar eating a leaf brings death. A bird eating the caterpillar brings death. Fish eating insects brings death. If animals and insects did not die they would overwhelm their environment and the ecology would suffer. Our skin has an outer layer of dead cells and we know Adam had skin. Consider the manner in which predators kill. Unless God punished the animals for Eve's sin pain would have been experienced by the prey prior to the serpent.
All this indicates that death did exist in the garden before sin. Resistance to death was not due to Adam and Eve having immoral bodies but was due to having access to the tree of life.
Some folks explain all that away by saying God limited the reproduction of the insects and all animals were vegetarian. The great thing about religion is everyone is comfortable with what they want to believe.
We talk about a car flying down the road. Our meaning is the car is moving quickly. If we found that in the bible we would be taught that car's fly. We talk about the day of the lord. We are told day means twenty-four hours so apparently the lord only had twenty four hours? We have to look beyond the words and find the meaning.
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
http://alumcave.blogspot.com/
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