It seems altogether clear that death of both plants and animals occurred
long before any humans were on the scene. In deed, it would be hard to
imagine any kind of life existing without (the seeming co-requisite) of
death. So how should we understand the "death" passages in Genesis? It
likely does not refer to bodily death. Instead, perhaps we should
understand this "death" as the separation of humanity from perfect
fellowship with God the Creator - a fellowship which humans themselves
were absolutely powerless to restore. So it is a spiritual death - left
to ourselves we are "dead in our sins". Having lost our ability to
understand ourselves, our neighbor, and our place in creation, humanity
has ever since tried to find its point of reference somewhere within the
creation itself - always with unsatisfactory consequences. These
consequences express themselves in every avenue of life - in our
inability to love God above all, to love ourselves as we ought, to love
our neighbor rightly, and to care for the physical and biotic creation
properly.
By the gift of God's own Son we are restored (in principle) to perfect
fellowship with our Creator through the gift of faith by the testimony
of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. In this way we are restored to life -
and ultimately will gain eternal life.
kp
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 19 2001 - 07:45:31 EST