Pre-Fall Death

Some speculations on death in the original creation, inspired by Jim Jordan’s lecture on Daniel 4 and by discussion with a colleague at NSA. As usual, anytime I write about the Trinity, Jeff Meyers is also lurking in the background. This is not all set in stone, only musings and ponderings.

Death-resurrection patterns are so written into the fabric of creation, and seem to be part of the original creation (darkness-light-darkness, the day dying every evening). And, I think this pattern is revealing something about the inner life of the Trinity: Each person of the Trinity “gives Himself” to the others, “dies” to Himself, in order to bring glory to the other. At least, the greatest revelation of the glory of God (according to John especially) comes in the death of the Son and His resurrection. That means that the cross and resurrection, given the way John emphasizes “knowing the Father through the Son,” must say something about the inner life of God.

If that’s right, it raises some basic questions: Is the death-resurrection pattern in the creation MERELY a result of the fall? Does that mean the fall was necessary to manifest the whole life of God? I don’t want to say that. Or, did the death-resurrection pattern come into being only with the fall? Or did it apply at first only to plants and seasonal cycles? If the latter, it seems odd that the greatest revelation of God’s character would, apart from sin, have existed only in plants and seasonal cycles — was this pattern supposed to be manifest in man at all before the fall? How?

Another thing to consider: Just after God has said that man would die if he ate the tree, He puts Adam into deep sleep, a state that in other parts of the Bible is a near-death experience. When Adam gets up (resurrection) from his deep sleep, there’s this great new animal around, one that isn’t hairy all over, one that he’s finds strangely attractive. That is, he goes near death, and then things get better. This isn’t entirely speculative, since the NT (at least as interpreted by the church fathers) says that Jesus on the cross gave birth to the church through the water and blood that came from his side, just as Adam gave birth to Eve through his rib.

Another point: The Reformed view has usually been that Adam in the garden was in a probationary situation, and that it would not have been permanent. Paul says that “if there is a natural man, there is a spiritual man,” and that means the first Adam is already set on a trajectory toward a glorified last Adam, and this apart from the issue of sin. Thus, Adam was destined to grow from one state of glory to another, and that would mean “leaving behind” or “dying to” the previous state. Without sin, “death” would have been transition, but not a tragedy, not awful and painful, but a glorification that would still mean losing something that one had previously, to gain something better.

I agree that death as we know it is a curse, and that death as we know it will be finally destroyed. But death as the liminus of a transition from one state of life to another seems to be built into creation.

A final thought: Death is the great moment where faith is tested. We need to trust God and entrust ourselves to Him precisely when we come to a doorway and have no idea what’s on the other side. This doorway/death can take any number of forms: I change jobs and have no idea how the new one is going to work out; I get married when I don’t REALLY know who I’m marrying; my wife and I have a child when we don’t know how we’re going to afford it. These transition points of life are all deaths, and all require us to trust God wholly, since we have no idea what the next moment is going to bring. Now, had Adam never sinned, would he EVER have been faced with that moment of utter dependence? Or, would he have lived forever in the land of Cockaigne, where the hens lay soft-boiled eggs and there’s alcohol tricklin’ down the rocks? One could say that even in the midst of his abundance, Adam would have been dependent upon God’s provision, and that’s true. But if the sun rises every morning, and the fruit is on the tree every harvest, and the next day is always the same as the last, would Adam have experienced the reality of utter dependence on God? I think he would have experienced this dependence and exercised “Abrahamic” faith ?Efaith in a God who raises the dead. But that means he would have to be faced with that doorway. He already had experienced that utter dependence, as mentioned above, when he went into “deep sleep” and received Eve on the other side. Turns out there was a princess on the other side of the door.