The Death Caused by the Human Fall

We have learned that there are two different biblical concepts of death. Which of the two refers to the death brought about by the Fall of the first human ancestors?

God created human beings to grow old and return to dust; physical death was allotted to human beings regardless of whether or not they fell. Adam died at the biblical age of 930 years, and his flesh returned to dust; but this was not the death caused by the Fall.

According to the Principle of Creation, the flesh is the clothing of the spirit. Just as one discards worn-out clothes, the flesh is to be discarded when it has grown old and weak. Only the unclothed spirit self then enters the spirit world and lives there eternally.

Nothing material can live forever. Human beings are no exception; our bodies cannot live eternally. If human beings were to live on earth forever in the flesh, why did God create the spirit world as our final destination?

The spirit world was not created after the Fall as a place for fallen spirits to abide. Rather, it is part of the original creation, created as the place where individuals who fulfill the purpose of creation will enjoy eternal life as spirits after their life on earth has come to an end.

Most people are attached to their earthly life. They regret its passing because, due to the Fall, they are ignorant of the fact that after they discard their clothes of flesh, they are meant to live forever in the beautiful and eternal spirit world. The transition from physical life to life in the spirit world may be compared to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.

If the caterpillar had self-awareness, it might feel the same attachment to its limited existence climbing about the leaves of a plant as people do to their earthly life. It, too, would probably be reluctant to end its existence as a caterpillar, unaware that it is destined to enter a new phase of life as a butterfly, when it will enjoy fragrant flowers and sweet nectar to its heart’s content. The relationship between earthly existence and the life of a spirit is akin to the relationship of caterpillar and butterfly.

Moreover, if there had been no Fall, earthly people would be able to relate with spirits just as naturally as they relate among themselves. They would know that death is not the final departure from their loved ones on earth. If people knew what a beautiful and happy world they will enter after they attain perfection on earth and die a natural death, they would look forward eagerly to the day they enter that world.

Since the Fall did not cause death in the sense of the expiration of physical life, we can surmise that what it brought was the other type of death. Let us examine this further.

God told Adam and Eve that on the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would surely die (Gen. 2:17). Since God so warned them, it must be that when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, they did in fact die.

Yet Adam and Eve after the Fall continued their earthly life and bore children, who multiplied to form today’s corrupt human society. We can conclude that the death caused by the Fall does not mean the end of physical life, but rather the descent from the good dominion of God into the evil dominion of Satan.

Let us draw additional support from the Bible. It is written, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death” (I John 3:14).

Love here means the love of God. A person who does not love his neighbors with God’s love is dead, even though he remains active and alive on earth. This is also the sense of the verses “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Rom. 6:23)and “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace” (Rom. 8:6).