Death before Sin?…1 Corinthians 15:21-22

“So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life.

Modern evangelicals have found it fashionable to accommodate Scripture to the concept of a very old earth. These views all do serious harm to Scripture, including the current compromise of choice, the “framework hypothesis,” which holds that the passages which seem to deal with science and early history contain only “spiritual” truth, but not factual content. Each such attempt to accept vast ages before the appearance of man has many flaws, but perhaps the most damaging to the Christian faith is the problem of death before sin.

The Bible plainly teaches that “the wages of sin is death”

Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Before Adam and Eve rebelled, animals ate only plants (Genesis 1:30).

Genesis 1:30

And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.

Death came as a result of sin and the curse:

Genesis 2:17

except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”

The first death in all of creation occurred when God provided Adam and Eve animal skins for clothing.

Sin always brings death.

Romans 5:12

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

Romans 8:22

For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

That this is not referring to spiritual death only is clear from 1 Cor.15:21-22, which deals with physical resurrection from the dead. Just as Adam’s sin brought death on all creation, so Christ’s resurrection brings victory over death.

But here is the problem. If death existed before Adam, then death is not the penalty for sin. How, then, did Christ’s death pay the penalty for our sin? If death is not tied to Adam’s sin, then life is not tied to Christ’s death and resurrection, and the Christian faith is all in vain.