At Phil's on the Hill (St Philip's York St, Sydney) recent lunch time Bible discussion, we touched on Romans 5:18: condemnation via one man.
Thinking about my earlier posts on death, I couldn't help but wonder at a connection at this point. If condemnation came to Adam by his sin in a world that already bore marks of condemnation (Paul tells us that the creation: an entirety, a unity in its suffering,'groans' in Roms 8:22); I wonder how Adam could have felt his state of non-condemnation if he was surrounded by the marks of a creation that we see today as having resulted from a rupture between maker and creature? He would have been in a state of condemnation, in effect, but prior to his sin, again, given the unity of creation and the necessary ontological connection between a being in the creation upon which it depends for its life, and that life sustaining creation itself.
That would not, of course, make sense. If condemnation came by Adam to all (men), then it is surely this condemnation that also brought the effects in Roms 8:22. It would seem hard to understand, otherwise, how a discontinuity could exist between a creation from God's hand, reflecting God's authorship and therefore his love and it showing signs of the absence of or denial of God, which would be consistent with the rejection that resulted in condemnation and its alienation from life.
Just as an addendum, Mark Thompson in his post (see my link above) on the last enemy, claimed the Bible had no interest in animal death. Sparrows sprang to mind.
