When we look at the world around us, we find that we live in a brutal world of bloodshed, disease and death. We may wonder why? One may begin to question the existence of God by all the violence and pain that is allowed to continue. However, Genesis answers why there is death and bloodshed - sin.

Genesis shows us two kinds of worlds. We read of one world that is without the scarring effects of sin (Gen. 1, 2; cf. Rev. 22:15). It is a world where God and man walk together (see 3:8; cf. Rev. 21:3). It is a "very good" place (Gen. 1:31). The Lord God also prepared and planted a paradisiacal garden for man to keep and reside in (Gen. 2:8, 15; cf. Jn. 14:1-3). This place had wonderful rivers and a unique hydrological system of mist coming up from the ground to water it (2:6, 10-14; Rev. 22:1, 2). It was a land with "good gold" along with bdellium and onyx stone (Gen. 2:11, 12; cf. Rev. 21:18, 21). It was truly a land before our time, because it was a land before sin and its consequences. It was a place where the tree of life was (Gen. 2:9; cf. Rev. 22:2). Today we see no comparable place with such brilliant grandeur.

In contrast, Genesis shows a different world after Adam and Eve sinned - a world where God's person is not present, yet sorrow, pain and enmity exist (Gen. 3:15, 16). The war against the seed of woman with the serpent's as spoken of in Genesis 3:15 began immediately with Cain slaughtering his righteous brother (note: 1 Jn. 3:10-12). It continued perhaps with an angelic rebellion (cf. Gen. 6:1, 2, 4; cf. "sons of God," Job 1:6; Jude 6, 7), and finally culminated with the Seed of woman on the cross (Gal. 3:16, 4:4; Rev. 12:1ff). The world became great in violence, wickedness, evil thinking and corruption (Gen. 4:1ff; 6:5, 11-12). Indeed, polygamy and sexual immorality ran wild and replaced the family unit as God originally created it (Gen. 4:23; 6:1-2; Jude 6, 7). Last but not least, it was a world of death. God chose death as the punishment for sin. The genealogy of Genesis 5 is not only the first one recorded in the Bible, but is uniquely different from any other in that it burdens the reader with the problem of death. Death was something new and disturbing to Adam's race. Again, God would ultimately use death to destroy the whole wicked world with water. Sin is the reason for death! Sin sets man at odds with his brother, his environment and his God. When people teach that death foreruns man and sin historically, they are in effect, turning the gospel upside down. The Bible declares that death exists because of man's sin, "For since by man came death. . ." (1 Cor. 15:21). "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin. . ." (Rom. 5:12). We may find it hard to understand how early man could live so long, how Adam's sin could affect not only him but the whole world of animate and inanimate objects, yet that is exactly what the Genesis record tells us. We may find it hard to comprehend a sinless world where Adam could not die nor experience pain, disease, suffering or "wearing out." However, this is exactly the kind of world that we hope to attain at the resurrection (Rev. 21:4). Consider also how Nehemiah describes the Israelites in their wilderness wandering, "Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing,; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell" (Neh. 9:21). Today our clothes wear out and our feet swell, but when God sustains, wearing out is not an option! Simply because we cannot comprehend something, it doesn't nullify the historicity of what is written. It is disturbing to see men reinterpret and mythologize scripture to mold with their ignorance.