Almost two weeks ago, I posted “Where’d That Come From?” in which I wondered about the immune system in Adam and how – and when – it came to be. Looking at the perfect creation in which Adam and Eve lived, I didn’t see any need for an immune system.

I meant to follow up on the post but forgot. Fortunately, Martin LaBar at Sun and Shield did not forget: he posted a response to my question. I owe him thanks for several things: first, he corrected me (I called it our “autoimmune system;” he pointed out that it was actually our “immune system”); then, a couple of days ago, he posted “The Fall and the immune system,” which contains a lot of information and has triggered some thoughts; finally, he indirectly reminded me that I needed to follow up my original post.

In his post, LaBar mentions a couple of things that I’ll comment on here. The first is the possibility that there was death prior to the Fall; the second is the gap theory which sees (usually) a vast span of time between Gen 1.1 and 1.2.

I, too, believe there was death before Adam’s Fall, but not the same way that LaBar proposes. He sees it as a necessary adjunct to life in a pre-Fall world. My hypothesis is different:


I think there was death in a pre-Gen 1.1 creation.

The problem with most proponents of the gap theory is that they put the gap in the wrong place. The sequence for them is Original Creation-Gap-Adam. Some put the gap in a different place but – and this is where I part company with them – all understand Gen 1.1 to refer to original creation. I don’t, and I take my cue from a lot of Old Testament scholars (e.g., Waltke) and more than a few Jewish rabbis.

The original creation, I believe, occurred before Gen 1.1; the gap occurs before the record of the Bible begins. As I understand it, the sequence is this: Original Creation-Judgment-Gen 1.1. In this view, 1.1 is a title for what follows.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (NASB)

This is not the original creation, but the creation of the order or cosmos in which we now live. Original creation had already been subjected to judgment and now God is going to begin to redeem that which was His. The description of that process begins with 1.2 and the condition of the creation at the time God began His redemptive work.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,
and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

The Hebrew phrase “formless and void” in 1.2 needs to be unpacked a bit. The words are tohuw bohuw: tohuw means a place of chaos, formless, confused, empty; bohuw means a waste place. The two words occur together in the same verse just two other times, in Is 34.11 and Jer 4.23. In Isaiah the words are translated as “desolation” and “emptiness” by the NASB, “confusion” and “emptiness” by the KJV, and “chaos” and “desolation” by the NIV.

One of the problems ancient rabbis had with Gen 1.2 was this: why did God create chaos before He created a perfect world? Why the words of judgment for an unfinished creation? As Sir Robert Anderson suggested over a century ago, a key to the answer may be found in a statement of Jesus Christ. In His typical, politically incorrect way, He says to the Pharisees,

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8.44).

Jesus says Satan was “a murderer from the beginning.” Murderer? That implies death of some kind. The beginning? Beginning of what? Not original creation, since Satan was created by God and was perfect and glorious. So Jesus may be a referring to the beginning of this order as we now know it, saying that Satan was a murderer even then. The adversary had already fallen by the time of Gen 1.1.

It is speculation, but I think the earth was judged when Satan fell. It is now his domain; it is not unreasonable to think it was his domain then, too. When he was judged, his domain was judged along with him. Thus the cataclysmic events that resulted in the state of the earth as depicted in Gen 1.2: “formless and void,” the phrase used elsewhere to describe the aftermath of God’s judgment.

Putting the gap prior to 1.1 also allows for a period prior to this present ordering of creation, a time when Satan fell, dinosaurs roamed, tectonic plates shifted, etc. This is not determinative for me, however: the consistency of the earlier gap hypothesis and its explanatory power is what is convincing for me.

This view also makes the presence of an immune system in Adam before the Fall more understandable, too. Certainly the garden was ideal, but was all of creation so benign? If so, then why was Adam told to subdue the earth? The Hebrew radah in the Qal form (as is the case in Gen 1.28) means “to have dominion, rule, subjugate.” Subjugate what? Perhaps not everything was under control; perhaps some things still needed to be redeemed. Perhaps part of Adam’s task as God’s representative on the earth was to be the instruments in God’s ongoing plan to redeem and reclaim the earth.

Much, if not all, of this is speculation and inductive; as such, it’s not worth going to the wall for. Wherever the gap is placed, however, and whether this hypothesis has any merit or not, one thing remains certain: Adam and Eve were special creations of God, not the result of so-called theistic evolution.

To summarize:

  • Original creation (ex nihilo) occurred prior to Gen 1.1.
  • Satan fell and the earth (being his domain) was under judgment prior to 1.1.
  • 1.1 is a thesis statement.
  • 1.2 describes the condition of the earth when God began to reclaim the earth.
  • Adam and Eve were charged with subduing the earth and being God’s instrument of redemption.


2 Cor 1:13