Creation: Death Was Not Natural

There is no mention of death in Genesis 1 because the world God created did not contain it. The creation, the creatures, and God’s image bearers were not made to die but to live forever under the ever-expanding glory of God.

There is some debate over whether Adam and Eve were truly immortal at creation or if they simply had the potential to become immortal because of their access to the tree of life in the garden. Saint Augustine used the following categories to describe the possibilities: Before the fall, it was possible not to die. After the fall it was not possible not to die. After consummation, it will be not possible to die.

If death is simply to be expected, merely an ecological recycling of carbon, why does everything in us rage at it and run from it? Because we know on some deep, cellular level that it is not what we were made for. We were made not by some accidental phenomenon but by an intimate, eternal God— and in His image, no less.

Therefore, our sense of dignity in life and of deep loss in death can both be traced back to our origins in a death-free garden. Eternity is set into human hearts, says the writer of Ecclesiastes (3:11). We were made, first and foremost, not for this sin-soaked world but for God, to live forever with Him and for His glory.

Death feels like an affront to our original makeup because it is.