What the Whole World is Waiting For

Ok... I've been wrestling with this chapter for a while now, and allow me to take you on my journey with me.

First of all, let me make a confession that may alienate me or make you reconsider any validity of my posts (if you ever did in the first place): At this point in my life, I am not a young earth creationist. That is to say, I do not believe that the creation narrative in Genesis to be interpreted as a exact, blow by blow account of how God actually created the earth in 6 separate, 24-hour days. I do this because of several reasons which I do not have space here to enumerate. The reason I have made such a dangerous confession is because I must "come clean" if what I have been wrestling with is to have any validity.

One of the many difficulties in accepting a non-young earth position is the forced acceptance of pre-fall death. Wright even does so on page 95 when he declares that death "was always a part of the natural transience of the good creation." Unless one is a YEC, one must accept that death was a part of the creation that God called "very good." Does anyone else have a knee-jerk reaction to this? How can death, which along with Sin comprises the 2 great enemies, be considered "very good?" Let that sink in a little.

Then I got to wondering... maybe that spiritual dimension that death gained in the Fall, that exile from God, a separation like which we can physically feel in our souls when a loved one dies and that separation hits us, maybe it is that which is the enemy of Death. Not just the cessation of bodily functions or of breathing, but exile and separation. As Wright puts it, "death as we now know it." I'm not sure I buy it totally, just because it feels too "spiritual" and not "physical" enough for my taste. But it's the best I have for now. I would welcome thoughts.